I think this problem is critical for late game, so I post here and hope for solution. When orbital units transfer their orbit from one planet to another one, they appear on orbit instantly. So here is the method to assassinate enemy commander: Spam tones of orbital units. Send orbital scout units to find where the enemy commander is. Send a lot of orbital-to-land units to him. Focus fire on enemy commander, game over Even the enemy already builds many umbrella, it still takes time to eliminate the orbital units. But the commander has no time to escape, it is too fragile in the late game. I just played a long game. To protect my commander, I build many umbrellas, few anti nukes, and a teleporter next to my commander. The commander just stays on the teleporter and is ready to escape in any time. But when I hear the alart: commander under attack, I find out there is no time for my commander to even walk though the teleporter. This critical problem has been in PA for a long time, and the SXX can do this easily. Now the new orbital unit Omega makes it even worse. Here is my suggestions: Provide an alert when the player own commander is found. When orbital units cross planets, they don't appear in target planet instantly. Orbital units should circle the target planet one or few rounds to decelerate and "land" on orbit. This also provides the time for player to react the incoming orbital units. Stealth technology. Make the commander invisible and cost metal or power. This can be temporary or permanent ability for commander like TA and Supreme Commander. Thus, the enemy must reduce the economy first to find out where the commander is. Or it can be a building which creates a fog of war like the Red Alart. Make the orbital units unable to scout and target the ground, so the enemy must send ground and air units to enter the fog and spot the commander. Decoy Commander. Make the T2 proxy commander undistinguished from main commander.
Counter to orbital snipes: keep your commander moving in an area which has at least a few umbrellas, preferably through teleporters. Still though, that idea of decoy commanders seem a) really cool and b) gives the support commander a use which it seems to lack at the present time (slammers sparks and spinners mixed with t2 fabbers seem to do any of the support commanders jobs better for less cost so far).
The gorillaz missile launchers are anti-orbital too (Are other Tac missile launchers?) so you could build a pack of them to escort the commander.
I think I didn't say it clearly. If there are only few incoming orbital units, umbrellas can deal with them. But if enemy spam tones of orbital units, and suddenly pop them up. There is nothing that players can do or react.
What do you mean by react? They have to spend some time doing the spamming. In that time you can spam umbrellas. Are they scouting your commander? If so kill the scouts and move the commander. Yes if they have an orbital titian already over your commander's head it is to late to react but why wait until then? Titians just got us out of the "orbital units need to die to umbrellas in miliseconds making orbital invasions impossible so that we can protect people who sit ther commanders in one place from getting sniped by large numbers of sxx" deal. Let's not go back.
I helped test the mod that the new orbital stuff is based off of. You should not be trying to defend your commander with ground to orbital units. That's silly. Build an orbital fleet. If you lose your orbital fleet, you are at a severe disadvantage - now you can only defend. Eventually the enemy will build a big enough fleet to just end you. Build an orbital fleet. Orbital fleets are T3, especially considering their cost.
I have my t2 bot facs when I'm not using them have them assist the com and spam bluehawks and build catapults to help they take up less space but do similar damage to orbitals. You can also patrol your com around an area to make it harder to hit and allow anti orbital more time to kill it or put your pip so that you can see the orbital units coming to the planet (2nd pip mod might help but idk if it still works).
I agree with you but i also think you miss the point here. This game is nice because it is a quik game. You have lots and lots of overpowered unfair ways to beat your opponent. Just like in real war. This game was never ment to be stuck for hours and hours with some over-turtling players. I agree that the commander can be easily sniped by this but you can also use this to snipe the enemy commander. You will see that it will not be as easy as you think it is.
Seems like the best option is to keep a PiP view of the system, and if a bunch of enemy orbital-to-ground units launch toward your planet, you need to immediately send your commander through a TP to someplace else. Result: all those orbital-to-ground units end up right on top of your anti-orbital defense while their main target is elsewhere, and you get a bunch of easy kills before they can retreat back to another planet.
You can chain move orders between multiple teleporters so your Commander is constantly transiting between locations. All it'd have to be would be small fortresses around a pair of teleporters each, one for the commander to exit, one for the commander to walk into, which is linked to the next teleporter somewhere else...
