Time Warp

[Sardinia 10]

Is there any way to do this while stationary? Cause right now theirs alottttt of sitting around doing nothing waiting for stuff to build.

[Tontow 1]

At the moment, the only way to time warp is to go afk and go to sleep and then come back in a week.

It has been brought up several times, but it seems the Devs like to have a game that makes you wait around with something suck up somewhere......

Even in the campain (with in the first few hours) , I find myself taking naps while at the islands.....

IE: So you managed to clear the island of any and all threaths? Too bad, you have to go to the other side of the island to get fuel and then recall the unit back acrost the same muddy terrain (takes the ai about 10 to 15 min to complete the move orders).

Not only do we need a Manual time warp, we need to be able to do up to a 10x time warp (or more). There was a very good reason why the original had a Manual time warp that you could trigger when you wanted.

[anton-korduan 10]

There was a very good reason why the original had a Manual time warp that you could trigger when you wanted.

Yes - total agree.

[tortuosit 486]

At the moment, the only way to time warp is to go afk and go to sleep and then come back in a week.

ROTFL. True.

[DarkMellie 10]

I came here to find out if there was a way around this, sad to see there isn't!

Also, I thought there was a point when you left an island and would warp to the next one? I've just started an SP game and it's a long slow haul all the way across. Kinda kills off the action and momentum that the fun FPS-opening created.

[Xiathorn 10]

What I end up doing is travelling between my own islands on a patrol. It costs fuel, but seeing as fuel packs are not exactly too difficult to build, I tend to have enough to replenish my carrier's fuel reserves in addition to whatever it was I was building.

In the event that you're waiting for fuel packs and other stuff, then you're likely to be low on fuel already. Begin your trip to wherever you want to go next, and you'll run out of fuel half-way there. You're now stationary, in timewarp, using no resources. As close as you can get, really.

[neojd[ny] 10]

I agree, it kills the dynamic gaming cause you have to wait soo long for so many things.

I mean even in ArmA you can "timewarp" since OPF, strange.

In the first beta you could buguse to "set sail" to a different islaind and while in timewarp you just pressed V so the carrier stoped but the TW was still on. I used that alot of times and it was totall rising the fun + dynamic / action.

[Thygrrr 1]

Manual Time Warp is the first thing I will try to mod in tonight or tomorrow.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Thygrrr

[Ofuscor 1]

I've read somewhere around the forum that you could you cheatengine to accelerate the game. I download it and did it myself. But I heard it makes the game unstable so try saving before you try to use it.

I've used it myself and it works ok if you don't mind cheatengine wanting to install some random crap with their program. I think it was a Drive Scaner or something.

[Xiathorn 10]

@Thygrrr

I think that might just make you a hero.

[deanolium 1]

Already modded it - though there are issues. If the Moderators are ok with me doing so, I'll provide a link to my drop box with it in.

The issue with TimeWarp are the following:

1 - The Manta/Walruses don't move any faster during time warp, and

2 - The AI pathing for Manta/Walruses turns off - so it won't follow any route. Instead it just moves blindly in a straight line.

The first issue might be solvable, but I don't think the second one is. However, it is useful to be able to accelerate production/barque/building command centers.

Edited October 4, 2012 by deanolium

[Thygrrr 1]

Arrrgh, so time warp isn't really an engine warp. It's a hack. Why do people hack in core mechanics like that. :(

Why not change the timestep of the simulation, or execute 5 ticks for every 1 gui tick? So sad...

[deanolium 1]

It doesn't look that way, which is strange. I wonder if it could be that the manta/walrus speeds are tied to some of global clock outside of the engine, whilst the time warp increases the engine clock speed - which therefore affects the carrier, barque, production, resources, etc. From the scripts, the time warp being active turns off aspects of the advisors but nothing else. So it looks like we're limited until either more code is opened up (it could happen but I doubt it) or the devs change the code themselves.

[lordbane 1]

Am I the only person that wants a way to turn the time warp off?

[Mortem86 10]

Bah...yeah have a big "Play&Contribute" for the game to get feedback from the player....and just completly ignore it.

Every problems right now are mentioned sinced beta1.... great job in ignoring for what was that "Play&Contribute"? The more i think about it the more i realise it was a desprate move to get money into it,the rest was pure PR.

I really start HATING publishers in general...

Well why creating a "waiting" game when you could have done it right from the beginning.

With those complications thanks to shortsight it would be a tradeoff if you dont have to waste FUEL just to speed thinks up and blockade your whole production to get more fuel you just wasted to speed up the production its self....

[Guest]

@Mortem86

What does your lovely little rant have to do with the subject of this thread? Right, nothing. Please do not derail a thread, I am sure you can find an appropriate thread to post your feedback in where it actually fits.

[jedra 11]

They did say during the P&C that adding timewarp to the game overall wasn't possible due to limitations with the physics engine.

Out of interest, why do people want timewarp? If it is to get the supply ship there more quickly why not mod in a speed change the barque itself. You could turn it into a gameplay mechanic by limiting it to one or two uses during the game? I have found that I rarely miss not having timewarp as I have my barque constantly moving between the supply island and the carrier - so it's never that far away. On those occasions where I run out of fuel, I just head for a distant island and then timewarp kicks in.

[deanolium 1]

Ah, that does make sense that the physics engine can't handle it, and explains why it applies to the barque/carrier.

Personally I like the idea of TimeWarp if I'm at a point of waiting for production to happen, or resources to build up. Or if I just want to see what the AI does if I leave him alone. It should be possible to mod in a timewarp key which only happens when you have all the vehicles docked (and thus don't need to worry about the physics engine). I might try and improve my timewarp mod later to do that, then distribute if anyone wants it.

To be fair, for me right now, I'm mainly trying things out to see what can be done and to challenge myself - as well as make the game a little closer to what I'd want from it.

[garyw 1]

Well, there is a sort of work around but it needs some planning.

If you are heading towards an Island and need to stock up just hit 'v' whilst in timewarp. The ship will stop but timewarp will stay active. I found that handy for resupply before carrying on to the island :)

[Thygrrr 1]

That's so weird, a physics engine is the last thing that should mind 5 timesteps being resolved at once (all it does is resolve steps anyway).

In fact, if you have a GameWorld.update() method, simply call that 5 times for 5x game speed. I really wonder where the issues are, unless of course the whole architecture is not very robust (which admittedly is typical for Xbox games and actually games in general).

[Unc 1]

As someone mentioned earlier, there is a thread explaining how to use cheatengine to make time go super fast anywhere you want. It's very simple to use. Feel free to bump the thread back if you want :) http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?140778-How-to-Time-Warp-anywhere-anytime

[deanolium 1]

It could be the physics AI is tied to the real-time clock. Which is a bit weird in some ways, but ensures that no matter the cpu-speed (and thus the number of times update is called per second) the physics work predictably (look at games like Interstate '76 where this doesn't happen and the game is mostly unplayable on modern computers).

The solution to this would be for the time elapsed (which is probably measured in real time right now) to be multiplied by a time-multiplier. At 'normal speed' this multiplier would be 1x, at warp it would be 12x. The only issue is if between physics updates there has been some of that duration at normal speed and some of it at warp speed - at which case the multiplier would be harder to figure out. The solution to that however is simple; just force a physics update when warp speed is entered or exited.