Fast Forward Mode

[mandoman]

OK, first I want to say that I know this has been discussed. I know, because I was in on the discussion, but that was months ago, and now I can't find the topic. I really hate this when it happens. I suddenly find myself playing in another dimension, where everything is moving ten times faster, and controlling my own ship becomes a matter of frustration. It happened to me again today when I took the game off of "Pause". As soon as I hit the P key, all hool broke loose. I was suddenly getting attacked by a million ships, when there were only seven fugitives on my scanner, because the game speed quadrupled in an instant, and I was dead meat. How do I prevent this, or get out of it when it starts without loosing everything I had just done in that mission? Advice is always welcome.

[Ironfist]

Shift-F is your friend. Then use arrow keys to change the last line to 1.0.

Ironfist

[Smivs]

Mandoman, have you tried this BB search plug-in?
It's really useful.

[mandoman]

Shift-F is your friend. Then use arrow keys to change the last line to 1.0.

Ironfist

Thank you, I'll give it a shot next time it goes haywire on me. Do you know what causes it?

Mandoman, have you tried this BB search plug-in?
It's really useful.

Yeah, I have had that installed in Firefox for some time now, but I couldn't find anything with it either. Probably wasn't using the right search words. Sorry for the hassle.

[Gimi]

Mandoman, you have probably occidentally hit the arrow keys while the game is paused. That adjusts TAF (Time Acceleration Factor Feature).

[Thargoid]

It's called TAF - time acceleration factor.

As alluded to above, when paused press the left and right arrow key to double or halve the rate, from x1/16 to x16. The current rate is shown on the shift-F screen, as Smivs mentioned.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Do you know what causes it?

Yep! It's a feature called TAF, or Time Acceleration Factor. Using your <- -> arrow keys while the game is paused speeds or slows the game when you unpause. FYI, TAF 1.0 is normal speed.
Thargoid ninja'd me!

Protip: Reducing TAF one notch below 1.0 before you engage a target can really improve your aim!

[mandoman]

LOL!!! Now I just have to remember. I think I will this time. That's an....erm...interesting feature for the game.

[Bugbear]

It is a useful feature, even if its original intent was to be a debugging tool.

Handy to use when you're out of witch fuel or if you want to run escort for a convoy without the drudge of a 15min masslocked flight to the destination.

Bear in mind, though, that it can screw with the AI for convoys - for example, an escort may drift off in a random direction for no apparent reason.

In addition, your inputs are multiplied by the acceleration factor, making your ship quite difficult to control especially if you're on keyboard control.

But yes, all this has been discussed before...

[Thargoid]

At the risk of perhaps re-opening a debate, I believe it is due to be removed from the next stable release (1.76), or at least that was the last plan I heard. As mentioned above, it's designed as a debug and testing tool rather than a game-play one.

[another_commander]

The discussion about future planning for Oolite 1.x has been split to here.

[mandoman]

It is a useful feature, even if its original intent was to be a debugging tool.

Handy to use when you're out of witch fuel or if you want to run escort for a convoy without the drudge of a 15min masslocked flight to the destination.

Bear in mind, though, that it can screw with the AI for convoys - for example, an escort may drift off in a random direction for no apparent reason.

In addition, your inputs are multiplied by the acceleration factor, making your ship quite difficult to control especially if you're on keyboard control.

But yes, all this has been discussed before...

Believe me, I didn't choose to use it, and I don't think I would ever want to use it on purpose. Going slower than normal play speed is unattractive at best, and like you just said, the fast motion speed is just a wild, crazy ride, with nearly complete loss of control. Thanks for helping me with this, all of you.

[DaddyHoggy]

Slow is good for beautiful screen shots, and Ahruman's plans for Faster than "real time" was to take the controls out of that loop so that your ship would still manoeuvre as normal irrespective of the TAF speed, just your ship and the rest of the NPCs in your Ooniverse were going much faster.

[mandoman]

Slow is good for beautiful screen shots, and Ahruman's plans for Faster than "real time" was to take the controls out of that loop so that your ship would still manoeuvre as normal irrespective of the TAF speed, just your ship and the rest of the NPCs in your Ooniverse were going much faster.

I'm not sure I understand that, but what else is new, LOL!!!

[Yodeebe]

Extremely complex battles can also be quite fun in slo-mo mode. a bit film like. You get to see more of the action, & explosions too.
It's quite easily explained with the old Handwavium, and a massive dose of some highly experimental psyco-active brain enhancers that are injected direct into the pilots spinal cord, doubling the speed of his brain activity, resulting in the strange experience of everything appearing to move in slow motion.