a more serious bug

[Fidd]

Thanks for the further information. I've long been aware of the effect, but only lately had proof of it as it were; what was new to me was the observation that stop-watch use for one of the causes of it. It seems to me that it is a bug, because time is fundamental to everything we do in multi-boat games and it's very common for players to employ external clocks and timers.

If it's unavoidable or unfixable for other reasons, then we need better provision of the tools related to the dilating time data. For example count-down timers, and perhaps a wrist-watch view where the time can be read that is slaved to the ships clock, so that players no longer feel the need to use external timers etc.

Alternatively, the game needs to use system time for every player, simply correcting that system time with the nominal in game time to generate the time on clocks etc. That would make the time information visible in game on the clocks correct for all, and self-correcting all the time? If I understand this correctly.

[Flubbo]

Originally Posted by Fidd

and perhaps a wrist-watch view where the time can be read that is slaved to the ships clock

Press M, works everywhere on the boat.

Originally Posted by Fidd

Alternatively, the game needs to use system time for every player, simply correcting that system time with the nominal in game time to generate the time on clocks etc. That would make the time information visible in game on the clocks correct for all, and self-correcting all the time? If I understand this correctly.

This is not likely a time presentation problem but a time simulation problem. Stopwatches, and TTI are still following the in-game clock so, this has to do with simulation speed. Just syncing in-game time to system time will not solve this. The game might need a adaptive time dilatation system that works faster to catch up on lost time and slower to compensate for heavier load. Now this bug is something that probably only really exist in the beta due to the de-sync problems we have due to the excess data where one source of this is the enigma-form sending too much data to clients but there is still desync in the beta-beta which also could contribute to the dilated time.

[Fidd]

Originally Posted by Flubbo

Press M, works everywhere on the boat.



This is not likely a time presentation problem but a time simulation problem. Stopwatches, and TTI are still following the in-game clock so, this has to do with simulation speed. Just syncing in-game time to system time will not solve this. The game might need a adaptive time dilatation system that works faster to catch up on lost time and slower to compensate for heavier load. Now this bug is something that probably only really exist in the beta due to the de-sync problems we have due to the excess data where one source of this is the enigma-form sending too much data to clients but there is still desync in the beta-beta which also could contribute to the dilated time.

Interesting. I had not understood that time dilation was being "used" to cope with desynchs, if indeed that it the case. My point was that "time" and the rate of its' progression are so fundamental to the game, that the current variable rate is unacceptable. From what I've seen WP time is not self-correcting, but continuously divergent, so I frankly have my doubts that your interpretation is correct. That said, I've not studied the progression with that in mind. But, by resynching WP time and RL time every 25 mins or less seems to indicate that it is divergent rather than corrective. In other words, the difference between the two only increases over time.

We'll have to wait for the end of the beta to know what's what here, but my instinct is that wp time and rl time need their relative values and rates resynched at a much greater frequency than is currently the case, if it resynching at all currently, which I doubt.