Akh! Sorry for taking so long to reply, eRe4s3r! I've finally managed to get back to Bangalore just a few hours ago...
Anyway, response time!
What is the moddability? Can we change how time is used and gained? Because first change I'd do (or want).
Yeah, it's fairly moddable. Still, the engine has various restrictions based on computational constraints... so you'd be surprised by the occasional things you
can't mod.
1) Add 2 resources that need to be harvested with harvesters and that are only spread a certain range "back" with a linear dilution value applied that means, resources that are generated EXTRA for the past. (A research thingy could be to 1) Enable this, 2) extend range and 3) reduce dilution - This obviously means that sending an building too far back will net you with a nice looking building that can't build anything. Also means that all resources used in the present are not usable in the past, this is imo the most important part because it adds an incentive to go back for more than just tricking the enemy but not go too far back with buildings, making your economy always attackable.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you explain it further? How can a resource be usable in the present and not in the past; the peresent
becomes the past doesn't it? The timeline would be unstable if mechanics at any moment were fundamentally connected to where the moment is in comparison to metatime.
2) Add Time Resource gathering building that requires one of both resources (flow based) and stores "Time" globally (Across all of time) time range accessible is only starting once this building has been build, and LOSING it removes your access to all the time. Meaning units in the past can potentially be stranded there. (Important for strategy) Obviously should be a "can be built more than once" kind of deal but each extra building has a "decaying" efficiency
This isn't possible. Quick teminology note: "global across time" is "achronal", while "local to a moment in time" is "chronal" in Achron terminology. Achronal structures will immediately destabilize the timeline, where anything you do at any timewave affects the rest of the instances of the structure across time... it'll be utter chaos.
If you want me to explain further, I'll do so.
3) Time energy use is not dependent on just unit counts but on "AOE field size" so more time energy, more units can be time transported at once. (More energy = Larger Radius can be affected) Buildings can only be transported "single file" and have a "massive" fade-in/fade-out delay.
Chronoenergy isn't used in chronoportation; it's only used for giving orders. This is fully moddable though.
4) Units moving from present to past have a fade-out and fade-in time of about 30 seconds, during which enemy can (with units in the past or present) intercept and insta kill them COMPLETELY wiping them from time. Research decreases this by 50% each level
Research? Huh. I thought AI War players would be united with SupCom players in their general distaste of research.
How will wiping them from the timeline work? Also, won't this instantly lead to a lot of bizarre paradoxes? If a unit is wiped from the timeline, they were never created in the first place, meaning they couldn't have gone back in time and been wiped from the timeline.
(Actually, from a less game-mechanical note, this makes little sense from a general "internal consistency" level. This is... Dr. Who logic. How exactly an instance of a unit at one location is supposed to be intimately connected to all other instances of the unit across time escapes me. But what the heck.)
Another terminology note: We call the fade timer "rechronoport delay" since it destroys units who try time travelling again before the effect from the previous temporal jaunt wears off. Also, the ability to modify rechronoport delay length is within the engine and a research can be modded in pretty easily.
6) Orders would not cost time energy anymore of course, that just makes you dependent on the unit AI and that is a bad thing.
This turns the game into a race for the past. The sort of thing that various other posters on these boards have brought up already as a possible flaw in the game design ("Won't everyone just rush to the past as far as they can?").
Right now, chronoenergy costs help balance out the past from the present and the future. You can mod this in though (and neutralizing chronoenergy costs for sandbox maps where we try ideas out is fairly common).
7) Location where you can send units from is "everywhere within the field of view" and exit location would be identical to where units started to fade-in.
I'll do you one better: the Grekim can chronoport from
anywhere. They don't need any chronoporters at all.
certain locations on the maps are time-unstable, trying to affect or move units in those zones can have random catastrophic results but not always (particularly this one spirals out to all kinds of fun time anomalies.
Oh man, I've had this idea myself! Maps with a central timestorm or something!
Fully moddable through level scripting, but we have to be careful not to make the timeline to chaotic. I myself prefer hypothesizing maps with capturable structures that provide time-travel based services. (Imagine Starcraft II maps where all the Xel'Naga watchtowers were replaced by time machines or something...)
x9) The time propagation would have to become instant or 1minute or so would be ok too. We'll see what the engine can cope with
Akh. Sorry, no can do. The engine won't be able to handle it; see my equation in the opening post. Timewave speed is a big factor here.
If you keep the number of timewaves down, and the number of units down (to like under 10), then yes we can make it near instant. But we can't throw around several hundred units with unique abilities and unit AIs and ask the engine to process the game at x100 speed.
10) Changing view to time requires time energy.
Heh, I think this may have actually been in the game at one point, before the devs removed it. I'm not sure what it'll do to balance exactly...
Since this is about suggestions, the suggestion is obviously that this all should be possible to do (and more) ;P
Heh, meta-suggestion noted.
Of your 9 suggestions (there's no #5), 8 are moddable. The only impossibility here is instant propagation, due to computational limits. If you have a fast enough PC, then that's practically possible too.
Some of these changes might seem very weird, but what i want to do is move the game away from starcraft gameplay and make it more a strategy time travel game than a micro management rts
Actually, the game isn't very micro-based at all. When you play a game where anyone can skip back a few seconds and change a few things, the game becomes
very micro-unfriendly.
Only overarching strategies will survive the general fluidity of time; micromanagement is simply so context-sensitive that if the enemy simply shifts her formation two steps to the right by the next timewave, your entire army will fall flat on its face.
Still,
I approve of your intent. I myself prefer strategic play over APM-based clickfests.
If what i wrote above is possible to do then Achron would have a release day buy from me If not i shall continue waiting for that certain game that can do this.
What you wrote probably isn't going to end up in Achron, but it's all moddable (even the initial ones with the achronal structures that will devolve the timeline into chaos). The engine is extremely flexible.
For reference, i am talking 100% pure mod here, not base game. The base game has its vision on how time travel should be in a game and i have mine
Oh! Uh... then yes. It's all doable. #9 is very sketchy unless you're running some sort of mainframe, but otherwise you're good to go.
Thanks for your interesting suggestions, eRe4s3r! ^_^