A Fetid, Malodorous, and Noxiously Petulant Exploit that needs Fixing: The Astraeus Fetish

Yeah, I mean be able to intercept and attack units before they reach orbit.

While this is awful exploit, don't forget that quick reaction to planetwide threats can save your commander and win you a game, providing this planet was not your only one with economy. So setting cooldown for asterus leaving planet because of some d-bags will harm those players that a quick thinking.

On the other hand, cooldown on asterus entering orbit will significantly nerf asterus invasion tactic, which is already hard to execute (asterus are vulnerable to anti-orbit first, then anti-air while they are descending, then they don't drop all the unit at once, but rather whenever possible, so large army of turtling player can take lots of single land units that were already dropped). So I'd say no to cooldown on entering orbit as well.

However, here's a thing: you only need to evacuate your commander once, and you only need to drop your vanguards once. So cooldown could be set on any subsequent transition within set amount of time. Say, you can enter and exit orbit the way it is now, but if you instantly (few seconds) leave, you will suffer one second cooldown on exiting and entering orbit, if you do this again, three seconds, and so on. That way, you can't still put your asterus to good use no matter what, however, d-bag behavior will be punished.

I mis-read this the first time and it made me thought :
What about having some kind of energy charge (like 10k) for the Astraeus (pre-charged when built), similar to the Commander Uber Cannon ?
That would prevent too quick escape, especially if Commander has no economy to support it (3k in PTE, IIRC).

But... but... 200 asterus invasion?

I think my solution is close to perfect. Not punishing honest players and putting restriction on bad manners.

Single use astreaus really solves all of the problems we have without creating any issues.

One time use
If you have to use that method, that means the planet is under heavy lockup and most will die anyway.
To be honest, I never even considered that kind of tactic, such a hassle

It is easy to execute if you use area load command. More likely to succeed than teleporter.
I don't like the aspect of whole my economy stalling because I tired to invade enemy planet. Cost of combat unit production and asterus was high enough.

I like the idea of a one way trip, it could crash land on the surface, like that mars lander did a while back. Guaranteed to deliver its payload on to the surface. Plus (en masse) this could make for a better invasion strategy/beachhead solution. Two birds with one stone perhaps?

For the astreus to be one use only it would have to way cheaper, and it would be insane to send a commander in it cause you cant get him back unless you build a orbital launcher in the delivery planet or a teleporter back. Either can be a hassle. So if i sent my commander to a planet or a moon and someone is already there, it's an almost insta lose situation.

Why not make it just like Orbital laser, once it enters orbit it has a cooldown before it can activate again. It would solve the problem without introducing the balance issues of stranded commanders.

Sorry guys, abuse of that exploit is kind of my fault. I was the one to point that issue out first about three months ago in the hope that Uber would have fixed that any time soon. Very unfortunate to see that it became default strategy for various players.

Well, apparently it hasn't got fixed yet. Even though this issue lingered around since introduction of orbital transfers.

But it does not only affect Astreus. Other orbital units can be abused in the very same way.

There is a desperate need for some type of prelaunch/postinsert phase for ALL orbital units.

prelaunchexittimer for 7 or so seconds ...
no to oneway austreuses

In Sins of a Solar Empire ships had to charge up their phase jump engines to move between worlds, something like that would fix this problem, though I also really like Nanolathe's dock to booster idea as well.

That's literally impossible since the commander generates income.

Just make it so that if you have an economic income equal to xy for more than however many minutes you insta-lose.

X is the amount of income a commander generates, Y is the amount of commanders currently in play.

They said we didn't need deep space units...but now we do!

Seriously, a minor capital unit that can intercept in deep space could also fix this exploit.

It's a **** move. Oddly enough, this got done to me by an AI opponent in a game I played about a month ago. I was able to intercept it eventually though.

I still think it would be cool to say make an air transport pick up a unit then dock with an orbital launcher, the unit is then launched to another planet and dropped unto the surface make the transport be really fast (perhaps even an nice rocket launch look that shoots them from the planet to another) but the rocket is one way and you would need to build another orbital launcher/factory to go into orbit from the new planet.

I totally agree everything has to be simulated! No arbituary solutions I hate bullshit arbituary solutions to problems! In fact you should be able to shoot at ships in between orbits if your avengers are close enough to them when they zoom by them!

Problem solved.

You wish. Like OP said, if next transfer already had been scheduled, (or if it is set to patrol between two planets), it takes less than a single second for the Astreus to jump out again. Not even the owner can abort any more.

Even if it did land right in front of an Avenger, it still survives.

Yup I did a double check and confirmed this myself as well.

I do feel that orbital movement mechanics need a bit of shine and polish, I'm just not clever enough to know the solution.