destroying orbital units in galactic war

[GIJeff]

I am playing a galactic war and am having a ♥♥♥♥♥ of a time with the ai building tons of orbital units. The problem is there is nothing I can do about them besides build umbrellas. I have no orbital tech available besides the transport unit.

This is really getting annoying and makes the game feel really cheap. Am I missing something?

[slaideri]

I don't know other response to it than lots of nukes. Put each of the nuke lauchers to quick slot, then launch 1, launch 2, launch 3, ..until the enemy commander goes boom.

But locating him without scouts is going to be hard.

Best way is to avoid the situation by building orbital launcher + gates asap, move engineer over to build the other gate and rush the other planet with a t1 zerg.

[Nebhead]

Is it just destroying the Orbital Units that is giving you trouble or invading other planets without the Orbital Techs?

A good tactic that you can use regardless of your Orbital Tech is the mass Astrayus (The Orbital Transport) - build at least 50 of them, and 50 Land Attack units, preferably T2 such as the Slammer (T2 Assault Bot), the Vanguard (T2 Heavy Close Assault Tank), the Leveller (T2 Assault Tank), and some T1 AA Tanks (Spinners).

Loading them up is quite easy to with area commands - move your invasion force somewhere unoccupied on your own planet (so other units you don't wish to transport don't get mixed up in the invasion force), click "Load Up" and drag select over your invasion force.
With one click you'll instruct your 50 Orbital Transports to pickup your whole invasion force, and then you can unload them on the enemy planet.

Radar Satellites aren't really necessary, but they are very useful - get Orbital and Deepspace Radar to see where the enemy Orbital Launcher is (which will be where their main base is), and drop your forces in a good position not too far away.

As long as your forces can repel the initial response from enemy bomber planes, you should be able to steamroll the enemy Commander.


However, as for destroying the Orbital Units, without Basic Orbital Tech, or Advanced Orbital tech, the only option for destroying these units is the Umbrella defense turret.

Originally posted by slaideri:

But locating him without scouts is going to be hard

This can be done quite easily with the Orbital and Deepspace Radar device, which can be built by any basic Fabricator regardless of Orbtial tech status - it reveals any Orbital unit or structure on any planet within the whole solar system.

The Commander will often be in the main base, which often contains the Basic Orbital Launcher - look for units being launched into Orbital from this factory.

Originally posted by slaideri:

I don't know other response to it than lots of nukes. Put each of the nuke lauchers to quick slot, then launch 1, launch 2, launch 3, ..until the enemy commander goes boom.

With that you can actually launch all your Nukes at the same time over a large area - simply drag select the attack command. I prefer to do these multi launches not planet wide, but just one side of the planet at a time for optimal coverage. Preferably where I know the Orbital Launcher is, for the reasons above.

Without several dozen Nuke silos, planet wide nuking doesn't really cover a large area, as there are significant gaps between where each missile will land on larger planets.

[slaideri]

I timed my attempt to make gates active between 2 planets and it takes about 6-8 minutes. That's with the highly variable time of transport ETA. In that time the enemy commander has not made much progression yet and is easy prey for a rush.

[GIJeff]

I have no nukes and tier 1 units and the enemy is building high level units and nukes and orbitals. i have none of these techs. I tried getting a gate down with a few builder units and got a few hundred units through but was STILL overwhelmed.

[slaideri]

I don't know, every GW I played started off easy. Even if there were multiple planets, somehow luckily in the first fights the enemy commander was always located on the same one I picked.

One thing is for sure: this game must be played seriously and quickly, not waiting for all upgrades to finish. You have to search and destroy from the first minutes on. I believe most RTS games are more competitive these days. The old days of Red Alert are gone, where you had all the time in the world to research and develop everything you wanted.

Search and try to attack the enemy in the first 10 minutes however you can. No matter if he is on another planet. If you take too much time, his defenses might get too tough to handle.

[GIJeff]

it is not strategy im having trouble with. How am I supposed to defend myself without any orbital tech?! I have no air tech either. Ive already taken 8 or 9 systems and I STILL dont have any.

[Amalgamachinist]

Originally posted by GIJeff:

it is not strategy im having trouble with. How am I supposed to defend myself without any orbital tech?! I have no air tech either. Ive already taken 8 or 9 systems and I STILL dont have any.

Well the easiest way to defend yourself from those kind of situations is to strike preventively. Don't let them have orbital tech build.
Another way of defence is building Umbrellas - STO Ion Cannon. Although it has two major flaws: a, it's stationary, and b, it takes time and resources to build one. So, preventive rush is prefered.
As for tech - well, random number god jsut hated you i guess.

[Nebhead]

What Techs do you have, and what Commander loadout did you use? Just the default "Vehicle Commander" loadout?