Time Travel

[yandonman]

posted on January 6th, 2011, 7:49 am

Last edited by yandonman on January 7th, 2011, 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Here is an idea for Time Travel as a game mechanic. It is basically a way to incorporate the lore of time travel into FO using a 'get it now, pay it later' mechanism. You 'get' a free awesome ship, cheap research, previously unavailable tech...  Oh, but if you don't pay the piper (or in this case, Father Time), things get real nasty. Nature abhors a paradox. 



Temporal Research Station (di 1000, tri 500, 25 supply)

• (Button) Install Chroniton Sensors - Refit the selected ship with chroniton sensors. Chroniton sensors will allow the ship to scan temporal anomalies. [cost: 400 di, 200 tri, 10 supply, 50% of the energy of the station]
• (Button) Scan for Chroniton Particals - Locate temporal anomalies in this timeline, if they exist. (33% chance) Makes them visible and marks them on the map for the duration of the ability for any player with ships with Chroniton Sensors. [costs 10% of the energy of the station to initiate and cost 1% of enegry every 4 seconds to continue to operate, with a 6 minute cool down)
  [/list]
  
  
  Ships with Chroniton Sensors have a "Scan Temporal Anomaly" ability.
  
  • "Scan Temporal Anomaly" - Ship maintains a fixed relative position to the temporal anomaly (ship stops) and scans within the temporal anomaly. Ship may interact with that timeline. [cost 10% of ship energy to initiate.]
  • If the temporal anomaly is past tense, ship randomly saves a previously destroyed vessel (right before it was destroyed so as to not mess up this timeline).
  • If the temporal anomaly is future tense, ship randomly pulls in a ship from the future.
  • If the temporal anomaly is future tense, a 30 minute "temporal paradox" timer will start
  • The "tense" of the temporal anomaly is random. 
  • Once scanned, the temporal anomaly will collapse after 10 seconds.
  • There is a chance that no ship will come through
  
  
  A ship from the future comes with several advantages and costs
  
  • The future ship comes in for free
  • The future ship is basically a dreadnaught level ship.
  • The future ship comes with advanced technology,
    -- 1 weapon or shield upgrade that is two levels above the current weapon/shield upgrade level
    -- 1 chassi or tech requirement upgrade that is two levels above the current chassi/tech requirement level
  • The future ship must be built in the future (in game).
    -- Advanced yards will now have the option of making this class of ship.
    -- The ship will have as requirements, the shield/weapon/chassi/tech levels it came with.
  
  The built version of the future ship  must travel to location of the temporal anomaly and travel back in time (disappear) through the anomaly, 30 minutes from the future ship appearing.
  
  • At 30 seconds left on the countdown, a temporal anomaly will (re)appear at the same location, visible to everybody.
  • The built version version of the future ship will have a "Travel back in time" button that will be enabled near the temporal anomaly.
    --- the button will also help to differentiate from the "original" future ship.
  • If the game ends prior to the countdown completing, no effect.
  • If the count down ends without the built version of the future ship traveling back in time, all of the player's ships and stations outside a small radius of the temporal anomaly will disappear.
  
  
  
  The ship that scanned the temporal anomaly gains three buttons
  
  • (Button: Disabled - Replaces 'Scan Temporal Anomaly') "Chroniton scan of " - Allows the advanced yard to construct type vessels.
  • (Button: Enabled) "Future Weapon/shield" upgrade. [cost: 50% of what this upgrade would normally cost
  • (Button: Enabled) "Future Chassi/Tech" upgrade. [cost: 50% of what this upgrade would normally cost]
  
  Other
  
  • Ships with Chroniton Sensors may be captured and the Scan Temporal Anomaly may be used. Each faction would have their own version of future ships.
  • The future tech button (what would have been the chassi button) is disabled. The tool tip will explain that the building cost of the tech building needed to build later game ships is reduced by 50%.
  • Ships with Future Research may be captured, but the research options may not be used if captured by a different faction. Similar to captured constructors.
  • If normal max weapons/shields are already researched, add a "Prerequisite to Future Weapons/Shields" option at the relevant research station.
  • If (for example) the Future Research equaled to Level 2 upgrades, this still has a prerequisite for the Level 1 upgrade. The Level 1 upgrade would get no cost reduction
  • In the case of Romulans/Dominion/Klingon that manage to get Future Tech cost reduction, and they have all of their tech buildings already, give the constructor two new building options, a "Prerequisite Future Tech Building" and a "Future Tech Building"

Attached are my original notes (unedited). There's a lot more to be worked out. Each individual future ship (USS Pasteur?) with stats. Instead, why not make the Iconians' play style like this?

Attachments

FO_TimeTravel.txt

(7.28 KiB) Downloaded 172 times

posted on January 6th, 2011, 8:32 am

Sounds interesting. Do you know about Achron? It's an RTS built around time travel that has similar ideas.

[Ruanek]

posted on January 6th, 2011, 10:04 am

Last edited by Ruanek on January 6th, 2011, 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

If the count down ends without the built version of the future ship traveling back in time, all of the player's ships and stations outside a small radius of the temporal anomaly will disappear.

So all your opponent would have to do is stop this one ship from getting to that point, and you'd lose almost everything?  That seems too serious a penalty, especially since it seems to happen 30 minutes after seeing the anomaly.  The player could easily forget until they see the warning and not have enough time to get the ship there.

Other than that, it's an interesting mechanic.  I'm not a big fan of one faction randomly getting a free ship (or more free ships than the other side), though, so I'd prefer for it to be a game option that could be turned off.  (Yeah, warp-ins are free, but the Feds control it.  This is random, which could give one player a distinct advantage.)

Sounds interesting. Do you know about Achron? It's an RTS built around time travel that has similar ideas.

But the entire Achron game relies around time travel, paradoxes, and such.

posted on January 6th, 2011, 12:00 pm

the idea is nice, the attachment is empty.

the penalty does seem too strong if u dont get the ship back in time.

posted on January 6th, 2011, 1:53 pm

Why not have the entire game go back in time a set number of seconds or minutes?  Everything would be exactly the way they were in that period of time except the ship(s) that went through.  The Federation wouldn't use it though (temporal prime directive).  I'm sure that the Borg and Romulans would use it.  Send a Tavara or a Sphere to  an earlier point in the game, but not allow it to go to the beginning of the game.

[Ruanek]

posted on January 6th, 2011, 4:56 pm

Last edited by Ruanek on January 6th, 2011, 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why not have the entire game go back in time a set number of seconds or minutes?  Everything would be exactly the way they were in that period of time except the ship(s) that went through.  The Federation wouldn't use it though (temporal prime directive).  I'm sure that the Borg and Romulans would use it.  Send a Tavara or a Sphere to  an earlier point in the game, but not allow it to go to the beginning of the game.

If the Federation didn't use it, they would lose automatically as soon as someone got to that point.

The game can't actually go back in time, though (not even counting engine issues).  It would change the game too much and make it too complex.  The way Achron handles it is each player can be at a different point of in-game time (and see where the other players are) silmultaneously.  That would be too much for A2/FO.  If the players can't be at different points of in-game time silmultaneously then whoever goes back in time first would win, because all the other players will have wasted their time doing stuff that didn't send them back in time first (and thus those actions are erased).

posted on January 6th, 2011, 5:41 pm

I think the penalty would simply be that you lose all built versions of that ship, and any other improvements you gained by getting that ship.

It would be an awesome idea though.  Maybe not for multiplayer, but for IA and a singleplayer mission.

I do think we need some kind of temporal research though. It was in stock a2, and in every trek series ever.

posted on January 6th, 2011, 5:45 pm

Why not have the entire game go back in time a set number of seconds or minutes?  Everything would be exactly the way they were in that period of time except the ship(s) that went through.  The Federation wouldn't use it though (temporal prime directive).  I'm sure that the Borg and Romulans would use it.  Send a Tavara or a Sphere to  an earlier point in the game, but not allow it to go to the beginning of the game.

Because it would annoy everyone you are playing with.

posted on January 7th, 2011, 3:05 am

>Do you know about Achron?
Wow, no. (damn, it's hard to come up with original ideas!)

>So all your opponent would have to do is stop this one ship from getting to that point, and you'd lose almost everything?  That seems too serious a penalty...

Granted, I struggled with what an appropriate penalty would be. There's plenty of lore to support the 'lose everything outside the range of the anomaly' ('Guardian at the Edge of Forever', 'Past Tense', 'First Contact') penalty, but there's also lore to support other variations ('Year of Hell', 'Parallels') of penalty, including a) loose half of your fleet, b) half of your stations belong to your opponent, c) all of your weapons/shields are seriously degraded.  Perhaps make the penalty random?

There's also room in the lore for if you hit the penalty, you can fix it ('All Good Things...'). Perhaps some additional research one of the surviving ships, then loose all of the remaining ships to get them back...


>'m not a big fan of one faction randomly getting a free ship
It's not "free" (you don't own a credit card, do you?). The one faction part is so that it adds to their distinctiveness (a stated goal of FO). The trick is to make it useful as a strategic choice, without changing the balance.

posted on January 7th, 2011, 10:02 am

I can't put my finger on it, but it i find myself having doubts about the whole time travel idea.

posted on January 7th, 2011, 10:05 am

It's not "free" (you don't own a credit card, do you?). The one faction part is so that it adds to their distinctiveness (a stated goal of FO). The trick is to make it useful as a strategic choice, without changing the balance.

From your description, the ship doesn't initially cost anything.  Yeah, it will within 30 minutes, but depending on where in the game the ship is found that may never come into effect.  That's free.  (You even said "The future ship comes in for free".)  And making it so different players in a game can randomly get free ships adds a large degree of luck to the game (if you happen to see and scan more anomalies, you'll get more ships).

Granted, I struggled with what an appropriate penalty would be. There's plenty of lore to support the 'lose everything outside the range of the anomaly' ('Guardian at the Edge of Forever', 'Past Tense', 'First Contact') penalty, but there's also lore to support other variations ('Year of Hell', 'Parallels') of penalty, including a) loose half of your fleet, b) half of your stations belong to your opponent, c) all of your weapons/shields are seriously degraded.  Perhaps make the penalty random?

There's also room in the lore for if you hit the penalty, you can fix it ('All Good Things...'). Perhaps some additional research one of the surviving ships, then loose all of the remaining ships to get them back...

I think canon isn't the best place to look for time travel becoming a relatively common occurrence.  All those canon penalties are basically a guaranteed loss if the player fails to get a ship to that point in time.  It would work better if they could send the ship back in time at any point in those 30 minutes (it makes sense, too) so they don't have to have a timer going to know when to send a ship to an arbitrary point that could be near an enemy base.  Sending the same ship you got back could be a possibility, too (yeah, it's a paradox, but it's time travel), because that allows the player to still avoid the penalty if they've started to suffer major problems and can't afford to spend a lot to get that future ship.

If this was a mechanic for one faction (probably the Iconians) I wouldn't be as opposed to it, because then their strategy could revolve partially around it (like the Feds and warp-in).  I said faction in my previous post referring to multiple players.

posted on January 7th, 2011, 10:21 am

lol its kinda a neat idea but not for everyone perhaps something you could toggle on or off when you create a game .....lol the game kinda already has  "alternate reality"  with the out of sync ....and you never no when it will pop up.

posted on January 7th, 2011, 10:26 am

I would prefer for it to be toggleable, unless it was a race-specific mechanic.