EPTAchron. Indie RTS with TIME manipulation - Page 5
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poor newb
United States1879 Posts
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datscilly
United States529 Posts
Bill307-- This concerns me. For example, suppose your opponent travels back in time and destroys your factories, but before the time waves reach the present, you counter-attack by travelling back in time to destroy your opponent's factories. What is going to happen when those time waves reach the present? The factories that created the units used in both attacks have been destroyed, but if those units disappear, then the factories would never have been destroyed in the first place. I assume you want to destroy the opponent's factory before yours is destroyed, if so, the order of events is a) your units arrive in the past b) you destroy the opponent's factory c) the opponent's units arrive in the past d) the opponent destroys your factory e) both your and the opponent's units are created from the factories f) both you and the opponent send the units back in time For c and d the orders are irrelevant so they might as well be simultaneous. Assume for simplicity that the events happen in a short enough time that one time wave will past through all the events before the next one does. As the first time wave passes through the events become a) your units arrive in the past b) you destroy the opponent's factory c) the opponent's units arrive in the past d) the opponent destroys your factory e) both your and the opponent's units are not created from the non-existant factories f) both you and the opponent (*1)Which immediately becomes (by the travel back in time rule) (the rule was discovered by analyzing the simple situation in the faq, the grandfather paradox, and finding something that would be consistent with their answer) a) your units do not arrive in the past b) you destroy the opponent's factory c) the opponent's units do not arrive in the past d) the opponent destroys your factory e) both your and the opponent's units are not created from the non-existant factories f) both you and the opponent As the second time wave passes through the event evolve further a) your units do not arrive in the past b) you don't destroy the opponent's factory c) the opponent's units do not arrive in the past d) the opponent doesn't destroys your factory e) both your and the opponent's units are f) both you and the opponent send the units back in time after all (*2)Which becomes a) your units arrive in the past b) you don't destroy the opponent's factory c) the opponent's units arrive in the past d) the opponent doesn't destroys your factory e) both your and the opponent's units are f) both you and the opponent send the units back in time after all Now, from here it repeats itself. The final state all depends on the phase the events are with respect to the time waves and the left cutoff. If odd waves pass through, then we have situation (*1), and there are no unit for either player, nor factories. If an even whole number of waves pass though, the we have (*2), and both player have units and factories. It could also happen that the last time wave passes through only the tail of the events, due to some of the earlier events falling off the left bound of the time window before the last wave arrives. Now situation (*1) sounds odd, and in actual gameplay it would in fact be unusual, because the game is designed so that waves past through frequently with respect to the time scale of most battles. So most of the time it will be the fractional case rather than (*1) or (*2). In the fractional case, the following could happen: -- you have both units and factories, but your opponent has neither (start last wave at 1c) -- you have nothing, but your opponent has both units and factories (2c) Strategically, a good opponent will plan so that an odd number of waves will past through his units' arrival in the past just before the arrival falls off the window. This will ensure that the last word is that his units do arrive and it's registered by a time wave before forever being untouchable. Since you cannot prevent such an opponent from destroying your factory and units by destroying his factory, to gain an advantage you will need to meet his units head on, in the past. | ||
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TaP.Nuada
United States428 Posts
On March 28 2009 14:03 feathers wrote: I don't think its multi player there is no way this would work with 2 people. I don't even know how many times I saw people saying to watch the videos before posting in this thread, and you go off and say something like that. It's an interesting concept, but I agree with Bill, it just won't work at a competitive level. I only see this being successful as a single player/coop game. There are a lot of things that really don't make sense in this game already... In the video about sending units back in time, they mention that the original unit must be at the teleporter thing when the time you sent it back to reaches the present, otherwise it won't be teleported back, but... what if it dies while I'm fighting in the past? When that scenario hits the present, that means I'm instantly ousted 2 units (at least) in the battle in the past. Even though I've technically only lost one unit, but the clone not being in the past battle could change the course of the fight. I actually LOL'ed when they said some paradox situations were solved by a 50/50 chance. How can you call something a strategy game when the ideas it's based on will often times be resolved by luck? | ||
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niteReloaded
Croatia5281 Posts
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pandabearguy
United States252 Posts
man this is exciting | ||
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datscilly
United States529 Posts
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lololol
5198 Posts
On March 28 2009 09:44 Bill307 wrote: LOL, I didn't think of that. And people complain about having to manually send each worker to mine. Imagine having to send each new worker back to the past, then whenever a worker clone appears in the present (with the time wave from when you sent it back to the past) you send it back again. =D I bet they implemented resources so that you can only gain resources from mining in the present. At least, that's how I'd do it. Otherwise you'd get silly strats like the above.  Sending workers to mine back in time would require unreal macro and sick timing senses, so it should be implemented. | ||
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
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drug_vict1m
844 Posts
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
On March 28 2009 09:54 Railxp wrote: But then that means if i kill one of your miners in the past/beginning of time, you would suddenly have zero economy in the present when the time wave hits. and if you built units with your now nonexistent minerals, do THEY disappear too? which then means you now have nothing to send back in time to prevent my ninja drone rape strategy. @_@ ... .. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://msti.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/scanners-headexplode.jpg) Actions in the past don't propagate to the present immediately. There are moving "time waves", and so if you I send units into the past when the game spawns to wipe you out, it won't affect the present until the time wave reaches the present. So you can jump back to the present before this happens and macro up and army, send it back, and defend your base when the game spawns. Then you would be able to rewrite the past. | ||
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Phrogs!
Japan521 Posts
"we allow the player to focus on the time travel gameplay rather than unit micromanagement by giving the units intelligence. " (from site) sounds scary but I can imagine it's still very APM intensive to multitask not only multiple fronts but multiple time zones. I never imagined something like this, thank you for thread~ | ||
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Diomedes
464 Posts
Then one player changes the past. Then there are time waves. Say your opponent did something that will leave you with almost no units/buildings/resources. Until the time waves reach the present you still have all your stuff. So you can also change the past. Say you undo his whole attack in the past. Then what will happen is that the present is first normal since all time waves are catching up with the present. Then his time waves arrive from the past and you have nothing. Then new time waves arrive and cancel what your opponent did to you and the present switches back to how it was. If their time waves already arrived the present then you are too late to sent back units. But you can still go back in time yourself and adjust orders, trying to undo your destruction. If you always keep changing the past the game will never end and eventually you are both trying to change stuff in the initial moments of the game. Like your opponent time travels to the first second and kills your starting unit. Only way to counter that is to have your army arrive from the future at the exact same moment and either kill his starting unit or save yours. But if you kill his time travelling army before it leaves, but time waves are already travelling because in the present your opponent already did his time travelling, you will create a paradox and then it's 50/50 if your army was never created or his units remain alive in the past without coming from anywhere since their future origin is no longer in any time. But they still exist without ever being created. Saves resources I guess. I wonder if you can use that to your advantage, trying to remove the origin of your own units. If you fail to safe your initial starting unit and time waves affect the present then everything becomes undone. You are eliminated. Replay of the game shows you having your peon and it getting killed and losing in the first second. If both workers die those time waves arrive in the present everything is undone and you are both eliminated. Or you have the 50/50 paradox odds and you win or lose because of that. Since if your opponent kills your starting unit, your units killing his no longer have an origin. So either they exist without an origin or your starting unit was never killed. | ||
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SoulMarine
United States586 Posts
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On March 29 2009 01:08 RaptuhJeezus wrote: Im understanding the concept, but it would be almost unplayable without more limitation We have just seen a demo video, for all we know the regen rate could have been enhanced and in a normal game it takes a minute to fully regenerate the bar. | ||
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Neak
United Kingdom124 Posts
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Ozarugold
2716 Posts
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[GiTM]-Ace
United States4935 Posts
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antiq
Slovakia191 Posts
.. and some others practice a novel martial art called temporal fugue. A fighter, seeing that his enemy is ready to attack, projects himself behind his enemy — in space and in time — so as to strike him from behind. Of course, the enemy does the same thing. When both warriors use the technique, recursively, things get complicated. Each character is replicated over a hundredfold, at various times in the past and future, thus putting a considerable strain on the space-time continuum. | ||
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niteReloaded
Croatia5281 Posts
On March 29 2009 00:01 drug_vict1m wrote: i want to play it! | ||
TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On March 29 2009 00:59 Diomedes wrote: If you always keep changing the past the game will never end and eventually you are both trying to change stuff in the initial moments of the game. Like your opponent time travels to the first second and kills your starting unit. Only way to counter that is to have your army arrive from the future at the exact same moment and either kill his starting unit or save yours. I would assume that the game ends when one player is defeated in the present. This means that as the game progresses, it becomes less and less likely that time waves from the past will reach the present. Yes, you can go back to the beginning to try and undo your destruction, but your opponent might end the game before those time waves can reach the present. Of course, it adds a new dimension to the "hide a pylon and make your opponent hunt for it" idea. The more time you stall in the present, the more time you have to go back into the past and change things. I can see this getting really hard to manage though. Suppose you have 4 bases. What if your opponent goes back in time, and builds pylons to block the construction of your 3 command centers before they ever went up? In order to prevent this small investment from ravaging your economy, you'd have to go back and forth through time to destroy the pylons. Since the amount of time energy spent is related to how many orders you give, you expend much more energy ordering a bunch of units to destroy the building than he used to create it. | ||
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