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[Gothars]

If you pilot a phase ship, phasing at the start of a battle to get in front of your fleet is often the tactically Right Thing to do. Since phasing slows down the flow of time, it is also very boring, as it prolongs the deployment phase were nothing happens.
I therefore propose that as long as no enemy is near, phasing should work as it does in not player-piloted ships - the phase ship moves much faster, other ships move at normal speed.

[TaLaR]

+1
As long as transition is not too abrupt. To that end:
- Begin time slow-down somewhat farther than CR degradation radius.
- Linger for some seconds in slow-down mode after exiting normal slow-down range.
- Teleporting ships like Hyperion trigger slow-down once either themselves or their inn-progress teleportation target is within slow-down range.
- And whole feature is optional (can enable old always-slow-down mode)

[Megas]

I would like it if phase ships simply went triple speed instead of the world going at third speed.  Normal speed is too slow.  (Even 2f speed is slightly on the slow side.  2.5f to 3f speed is ideal, but the game does not handle that very well.)

[TaLaR]

@Megas

No, slow-down is instrumental to properly exploiting speed advantage of phase. I wouldn't hope to bypass omni-shields in Afflictor (not using ship system due to damage halving) without it.
It is what promotes Afflictor from minor gimmick ship to top assassin.

Same goes for piloting anything at 3x subjective speed - I'd lose ability to do almost any finer piloting. What's the fun of that?...
For example, dodging Sabot 2nd stage (in Medusa or similar) already requires near-perfect reaction (and not having a sound cue doesn't help at all). Can you do it semi-reliably at 2x?

[HELMUT]

It's one of the reasons i don't pilot that often phase ships, i love the feeling of speed, but they sadly don't provide it. I'm not sure if Gothar's solution is technically possible though.

An alternative would be to overall reduce the time dilatation effect, and compensate by giving a speed boost while phased, a 50/50 solution. This would help solving the long deployment phase, without making the actual combat too twitchy.

[Megas]

I get you.  Same thing with Scarab, slow-mo lets player dodge missiles that are too fast.  Still, I would prefer speed-up than slow-mo because it feels better, even if it is harder to exploit.  Hyperion vs Hyperion or Hyperion vs. AI Afflictor is a bit too twitchy at 2f (but I train myself to fight at that speed because everything else is a bit too slow at 2f.)

In case of Afflictor, if I was forced to play at 1f (i.e., too slow), speed-up probably would not bother me at all.  (I probably would play at 3f if the game could handle it as well as 1f or 2f.)  Though 2f combined with 3x speed might be a bit too fast.

[Toxcity]

I personally am fine with the current slow-mo. It's pretty unique, and is useful for making decisions or precision positioning. Plus it allows you to hit ships when their shields are unfurling which is pretty cool.

3x speed on the other hand sounds uncontrollable, not to mention with the flux bar going up 3x as fast as well.

[CrashToDesktop]

+1
As long as transition is not too abrupt. To that end:
- Begin time slow-down somewhat farther than CR degradation radius.
- Linger for some seconds in slow-down mode after exiting normal slow-down range.
- Teleporting ships like Hyperion trigger slow-down once either themselves or their on-progress teleportation target is within slow-down range.

This is a nice way to do it - I'd love this.

[King Alfonzo]

Amusing thought - how about the longer you're in phase, the faster you end up moving? Like, the time dilution effect begins to go away the longer your phased, until you're at times 3 speed after fifteen seconds.

[nomadic_leader]

Sure, boring things are unfun.

But it's also unfun when the game has like a billion random features and inconsistent behaviors implemented just to deal with every situation where a player might be slightly bored.

"phase ships go fast here, but over here, other ships go slow instead, etc etc." It just seems convoluted  and unexpected. Does the game have to be even more obtuse and non intuitive? Maybe people should just stiff upper lip it and be a little bored in deployments.

[Drokkath]

-snip-

I agree with you. I'm perfectly fine with how phasing works currently. My reflexes are still too slow and I'd be furiously frustrated if I had to put up with fast moving things in the battle-map. I have literally wasted over several shots of torpedos, missiles and other weapon fire in a way that it either drains the ammo counters and/or drains flux capacity that gets my non-super-ships killed faster just because I am literally and physically too frustrated to do anything logically or calmly anymore after trying to play the game legit with no cheats, point being that its fun for everyone else but for me it's unfun exercise in frustration and futile anger management that self-destructs my sanity and brain cells to something along the lines of this:

Spoiler

TEAR THEM APART!!!  MAIM! KILL! BURN!  MAIM!! KILL!! BURN!!  MAIM!!! KILL!!! BURN!!!

[close]

And I know that I've said previously in the past that I haven't tried phase ships, up until now though as in recent month or two where I've been flying my take on the Event Horizon-esque movie ship which in my version of the game is in a form of heavily altered standalone version of a Hermit-class made into a bleak bulky monstrosity of doom, chaos and desolation for my leisure. For that super-ship I've removed the forcefield shields and replaced it with a powerful phase cloak to not only surprise launch a super typhoon reaper at the right angle and at the right moment but also because out of strong need to slow down on-screen mess and see what is going on and what is moving where, very slowed time gives me better visual info sometimes than the stand-still pause function.


Then again I'm not the usual player and so what majority considers boring or unfun or both, I call it either fun or necessary like cheating to give myself high-end stuff at the beginning of the game right away and casually wipe the floor with one of my super-ships from the collection to just relax and make things go boom into shreds and pieces.

EDIT: To put it shortly, I value my real life sanity, physical health and especially my mental health 10 times over more than giving a crud anymore about not cheating in a singleplayer game. Cheating and modding is a mandatory beginning for my unusual playstyle and sense of gameplay.

[Schwartz]

Agree with nomadic_leader, it seems like an odd fringe case for the convenience of a few less seconds wasted before a battle. While it's a perfectly valid proposal, just having several modes of operation like this would be confusing. You know how fast a tuned Afflictor moves and turns when you watch it from regular space? That's how you're supposed to handle it. I wouldn't want to.

Now if we talked about something like a general and more subtle time speed-up for the first X seconds of a combat encounter, where everyone is just getting into position anyways.... that I could agree with. Like the game runs at 2x until you hear the first map ping.

[Megas]

Sure, boring things are unfun.

But it's also unfun when the game has like a billion random features and inconsistent behaviors implemented just to deal with every situation where a player might be slightly bored.

"phase ships go fast here, but over here, other ships go slow instead, etc etc." It just seems convoluted  and unexpected. Does the game have to be even more obtuse and non intuitive? Maybe people should just stiff upper lip it and be a little bored in deployments.

Fast here, slow there, sure, inconsistency is not good.

But if things get too boring, people do not play for long.  (I may put up with boring things for a while if they are optimal, but only until I get what I want, then I stop.)

I wish game speed could be set in the in-game settings menu than some config file buried in the file directory.  Since 0.8 and the effective removal of speed bonuses, if not for the game speed settings, I would probably quit the game for being agonizingly slow.  (EDIT:  Frame rate is fine; the game is just simply too slow paced at normal speed and slightly slow at double speed.)

Now if we talked about something like a general and more subtle time speed-up for the first X seconds of a combat encounter, where everyone is just getting into position anyways.... that I could agree with. Like the game runs at 2x until you hear the first map ping.

Enable campaign speed up in combat too.  Enable Cap Locks for speed toggle to avoid constantly held Shift button as in '90s FPS games.