Chasing Astralas's carrying enemy Commanders between planets after a game has been essentially won for over 20 minutes is *not fun*. I'm talking about when your team owns all of the planets in the system, has Avengers on every planet, and Umbrellas (for all the good they do). But your opponent has a single Astralas that keeps moving on long transfers between planets. So far, these games have ended by negotiation after playing "cat and mouse" for 20+ minutes. Suggestion: Players should not be able to exploit orbital transfers as a cheap way to be invincible. Give us some way to build some Planet Orbiting Super Laser/Weapon that costs some huge amount of energy but can shoot down units in transit.
Make the Astraeus unable to transfer the commander between planets, so that the only way to move the commander to another planet is with a teleport gate. Thus the only things you'd ever send to an another planet with an Astraeus would be fabbers. At least it would eliminate the invincible commander in transit effect, potentially making games end quicker.
Actually by getting rid of the Astraeus altogether and by making fabbers capable of interplanetary travel by default might speed up the game quite a bit. Multiplanet play possible right from the start, faster colonization of planets etc.
They are allredy aware of this problem (they have spooken about it quite a bit in streams and such). They are looking into possible solutions, i think one of them was letting orbital fighters hunt down commanders in transit. But we will have to see.
The transport mechanism should be changed to be more like in the Kickstarter trailer! Right now you launch the transporter with a rocket to orbit, only that it returns to planet and goes up with its own engines again that doesnt make sense. If it would be like in the trailer, you couldnt transport your commander so fast from 1 planet to another and back. you would need an orbital launcher, that would launch your commander.
I'd favor this approach, but there is some considerable value to how the Astreus works presently; for example, if you send your commander to a planet, and find a Catapult waiting for you, having no option to book it out of there is hardly fun.
you have to scout a planet you want to invade or settle on. There are radar satellites on it. And you only would need an orbital launcher if you actually land on the planet. If you stay in orbit with the commander, you still would be able to go to another planet. In this case the trolling with flying commander from planet to planet still will exist though.
The simplest fix for this is to not fix it at all. I usually can persuade my enemy that they need to just give it up and detonate the commander so we both dont waste time. This TEACHES the members of the community who feels it is necessary that it is just STUPID and UNNECESSARY. If you are using this tactic, in other words, you have already lost. All that remains is a friendly *Are you f***ing serious?* from the other team. lol EDIT: What I am saying is that only noobs and young dweebs do this at all, much less on a regular basis. Thus, a lesson is needed in how to play PA like a gentleman.
Um, I don't think you've actually tried this because Commanders-in-Astralases and all other units capable of orbital transfer are not selectable when in transit. Like I said in the post, yes, we usually end by negotiation - however we still have to (a) get to that point of boredom, and (b) in order for the opponent to give up, his comm needs to arrive somewhere (which still takes forever).
I agree it must be fixed at some point. The internet is full of trolls. You aren't going to teach them anything. With teleporters being implemented, the best fix may be to simply say that commanders cannot be picked up and moved. If you want to move your commander to another planet, you send fabricators and build teleporters and walk through.