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We have to role-play it. We also need to hand-wave the fact that we have no overview of the terrain from orbit, and have to walk around to open the Fog of War. Maybe it's Void interference with the mothership's sensors. If we can't even see what's on the ground from orbit, then maybe we can't spot other ships in orbit either. So no space battles.

That's my personal hand-waving of improbable parts of the game setup, and I'm sticking to it.