NEVER leave your comm unattended

I just finished a game where the enemy had an intense turtle going on, and i had a great economy so i had dozens of advanced and normal fabbers working on a nuke launcher. Just when i finally launched enough to get past their defenses, they sniped my comm, who was on another planet, which an orbital laser. JUST when i had the upper hand.

TL;DR: No defenses = anticlimactic end.

When it rains should have an umbrella. Protects you from SXX-1304 Laser.
http://www.nanodesu.info/pa-db/58772/unit/ion_defense.html

I know; i just forgot to build them.

And in other news, water is wet.

queue frumpety tuba.

LOL! I had a game with a friend against 2 hard AI teams. So that is 4 enemy commanders total. The last AI had bunkered himself on a small moon. I managed to get an advanced orbital sat on the moon. Then I send 14 laser platforms to the moon right over his commander. WIN!

I've done this a few times in FFAs before. It's a very good feeling. Almost as rewarding as sending orbital fighters after a commander who's travelling to a different planetary system in an astraeus, beating it there and destroying the astraeus as soon as it gets into orbit.

Remember everyone, the astraeus is slower than all the other orbital units, so don't send your commander interplanetary unless you control where it's being sent or no one else can get orbital up in time to intercept.

It takes 6 hits with an SXX so thats how many you needed to one hit... just saying

an ammendment to the above rule, is you can sneak one by carefully if you don't send it with fabbers. The fabbers get there first, marking the commander landing.

I bombarded a base from orbit with 18 lazers recently, they had 4 unbrellas but I also had 200 avengers flying overhead tanking the shots LAWLs, that base got leveled to the ground! so its kinda possible to bombard a planet from orbit now its just not plossible

But orbital lasers take FOREVER to build.

one tip, if you can suspect that he is capable of building orbital lasers, keep your commander moving (short patrol), batteries of umbrellas and fleet of anchors doesn't help if it warps SSX's right over your commander (attack command from other planet) and one shot it before any unit will respond.

Also tip for SSX users, if you had 2-3 of them you can easily weaken any defense (especially anti-nukes) by jumping back and forth (pip on safe zone on other planet/moon) between target and safe moon.
In short you had order to attack target you want to destroy and order to jump back after first salvo ASAP... this way toy can destroy multiple umbrellas and other ground installations (nearly) without taking damage !

in same way you can pop with few anchors, destroy enemy orbital units in range and jump back, enemy will not even see it coming .

Ion cannons umbrellas save lives.

I should point out that this no longer works. An orbital laser can keep up with a Commander.

I wouldn't have a problem with this if umbrellas weren't so cheap. As it stands, someone can throw up an umbrella very quickly and take out an orbital laser in a few seconds for a tiny fraction of the cost, and sending an entourage of anchors won't help at all since the laser can be targeted manually.

Orbital lasers can shoot them before they're completed.

Umbrellas can be built near instantly if you have enough fabbers.

Didn't help me in the match I played today. Build time was less than 5 seconds.

An orbital radar costs 300 metal and uses 150 energy per second. It gives you full orbital vision. A SXX laser costs 25000 metal. That's most of a nuke's cost. It will take a long time to build, and it is impossible to hide its construction. An umbrella costs 1750 metal, and can be built by T1 units.

Unless you're completely oblivious or your eco is at a fraction of your opponent's capacity (in which case you're probably doomed anyway), you should be able to counter a SXX laser easily.