I'm sure nearly everyone here has experienced the difficulty of managing orbital units in the current build. It can be hard to distinguish them, hard to select them, and hard to get orbital fabbers to build stuff. So here's my idea - add a hotkey to toggle an "orbital focus mode" on and off. While on, the green sphere denoting the orbital layer would become mostly opaque, and you could not select or give orders to ground & air units. This simple change would make finding and ordering your orbital units around MUCH easier.
I absolutely agree. The solution in my own mind was to blur the planet surface below - the orbital shell isn't my favorite thing in the world. But that would totally work too. At the very least, anything on the ground/in the air shouldn't be selectable if you're in orbital focus.
While I am orbitally focused sometimes I try to select orbital units that are on the back side of the orbital shell but still way above horizon. But you can't do that. Those could also use strategic icons.
It's already in the game. You gotta change the orbital view setting. When you zoom out far enough, all of the ground units become unselectable and the ground icons go away – except the Commander and orbital launchers.