Card Chains

There is no additional damage aside from the extra card. The card chains all have set bonuses, and the only one that offers extra damage is the buster chain. And yeah, the thing with Orion's quick cards sounds legit. He only has one hit on his arts and more on his quick, if you start a chain with his arts then put 2 quicks after, the 2 quicks get a 100% boost to their normal NP gen and end up generating more NP than her arts.

Also, I don't think there are many people who would be put off from asking that GSSR question with someone posting something like that, people take decisions like this way too seriously. Just prepare yourself for the "which free SR servant should I pick with my gift ticket D:" questions we will get next year ;)

If we're talking about normal chain (chain that is made by the same type of cards from several servants), then no, there's no additional damage. However it's different if the chain is a same type brave chain (arts brave chain, etc). As we all know, a brave chain would add an extra attack in the end of the selected command cards. This extra attack gives off 200% base damage normally. However with a same type brave chain, the extra attack gives off 350% base damage instead of the normal 200%. So a same type brave chain would result in more damage than a normal brave chain.

Regarding Orion, it is indeed true that it is better to make a AQQ and NP QQ chain instead of an AQA or an NP AA chain. NP AA chain would gives off more damage due to extra damage of the same type brave chain however the NP gain would be far lower instead of an NP QQ chain. Orion's damages mostly come from his NP which would mean that you'd want him to fire his NP as often as possible and the way to make that happen is through an NP QQ and AQQ chain instead of the usual NP AA and AQA chain.

Same type Brave chain (QQQ-Ex / AAA-Ex / BBB-Ex) changes the Ex damage from 200% to 350%. Doesn't change hit counts, just make the Ex hit harder. BBB-Ex specifically gain tremendous amount of damage gain because on top of the 350% Ex base, it gains from Buster lead as well as the 20% BBB bonus. But I digress.

For Orion, her A has 1 hit count while Q has 3. Quick from Orion would generate you more NP as well as stars, but doesn't hit as hard as Art because of the base mod.

Can't say for GSSR. It's your money, if it's any other banner I'd comment.