I got this idea when replaying Imminent Crisis lately:

In the Imminent Crisis missions Mac often says his connection to the world you are fighting on is bad or "it feels like 50k" or so (obviously it's just an excuse to make the player take the main role in the fighting). Why not implement a technology which improves your connection to the world? It seems your connection determines how fast you can interact with your constructs. So the connection technology could increase the player's game speed or the rate at which resources and units are produced.

As an example:

• Player 1 has connection technology on level 5
• Player 2 has connection technology on level 0

The result would be that player 1 has (maybe) +5% game speed and the game speed for player 2 remains normal.

• Player 1 has connection technology on level 5
• Player 2 has connection technology on level 3

The result would be that player 1 has +2% game speed and the game speed for player 2 remains normal.

Additionally there could be an orbital ability which lowers the connection of the enemy for some time. (Something like that would also explain why Mac always instantly suffers from bad connection at some time) I don't know how that would work with quantum jammers... perhaps they could reduce the lowering effect of the orbital relative to the area of your territory they cover with their jamming.