Found an exploit in time travel system. It allows you to get units from the future at only the cost of 1 chronoport for a limited amount of time without actually producing them. The only requirements for that seems to be the control of the factory at the departure point and the resources for the chronoport at the point of arrival. Though maybe I can call it a feature, it still isn't very nice.
You should make a thread in Creative Projects where you post all the rules, because I'd totally like to see them. Then we could also help you debug your system.
A lot of ideas were tactically stolen from Achron, currently the best (and only) tactical time travel game. Unfortunately this game have some issues which severely diminish the roles of time mechanics and makes dealing with paradoxes an almost impossible task. So I've tried to think how that system can be improved. This is what I came up with.
The player is a character which exists at T+0 (explanation of wth T+0 is in the rules). The players can change the point of time which they observe at any moment. They can also propagate the events manually by observing them manually. They can change the speed of their observations, so they can fast forward through boring parts and slow down at the important points. The default rate of propagation of events through the time line is 3 seconds per second. This is basically the same as in Achron.
4 rules of time travel:
1) The changes propagate through time at a limited speed, so if you have ordered something to happen in the past you cannot immediately hop to the future, where it has already happened. You'll have to wait for some time before the future is actually changed.
2) There is the T+0 point at the time line, which moves at the speed of 1 second per second. All changes that happen at the T+0 are no longer changeable; nothing can chronoport before the T+0, and for all intents and purposes, the time before the T+0 may as well not exist.
The previous 2 rules were in Achron. The next 2 rules were not.
3) Time travel is initiated and paid for on the past end of the time travel. The future end must also pay for time travel. This is to prevent ontological paradoxes like "unit A is saved by itself suddenly teleporting from the future". Also this prevent getting free units.
4) The way time travel works is that it sticks a flag at the departure point "unit № X has departured" and at the arrival "unit № X has arrived". If there are multiple versions of unit at the departure (due to time travel), then it grab the latest one. If, however, a version of that unit exists at the arrival and it has more time-travelling in his personal history, then time travel doesn't work. This is to prevent a single version of unit from time traveling multiple times. If arrival has happened, then departure will happen no matter what.
This coupled with immutability of T+0 can lead to various seemingly paradoxical outcomes. You can grab a version of yourself from the future who has obtained a MacGuffin and then never go to get it yourself. But of course this can only happen if said version of yourself actually exists in the future. So control of the future is actually pretty important. (compared to Achron, where it is not)
How normal, unparadoxed time travel is resolved:
a) You (at T+0) summon yourself from 1 minute in the future.
b) You and your future version coexist for 60 seconds.
c) The present you disappears in the time portal to close the time loop. Any inconsistencies in your state compared to the version of you that has arrived are automatically corrected by benevolent time goblins.
How to make time loops:
a) You (at T+60) summon yourself from the T+69.
b) You (at T+60) start making a flier.
c) After 3 real time seconds, the time change propagates and the future version of yourself appears from the portal also making a flier. This happens at (T+57).
d) Each three real time seconds, the loop with iterate again. The total number of iteration will increase until the summon happens at (T+0). e) End result: 20 iteration of yourself making a flier. I'm sure you're proud of yourself.
A failed attempt at cheating the system:
a) You (at T+10) summon yourself from 1 minute in the future.
b) You (at T+9) cancel the order to summon yourself.
c) End result: no future selfs summoned.
Another attempt to cheat the system:
a) You (at T+0) summon yourself from 1 minute in the future.
b) You attempt to cancel the departure only to realize that you can't, due to rule 3.
c) If you don't kill yourself, the present version of yourself disappears in the time portal after 1 minute.
And now for paradoxes!
How grandfather paradox is resolved:
a) You (at T+0) teleport in a future version of yourself from 1 minute into the future.
b) Your future version kills you.
c) After 1 minute, your future version disappears in the time portal.
d) End result: no versions of yourself are alive.
Counter grandfather paradox:
a) You (at T+0) teleport in a future version of yourself from 1 minute into the future.
b) You (the present you) kill the arrived future version of yourself.
c) After 1 minute, the present you disappears in the time portal.
d) End result: no version of yourself are alive.
Double grandfather paradox:
a) You (at T+0) teleport in a future version of yourself from 1 minute into the future.
b) You both kill each other.
c) After one minute, nothing happens. (at this point, the benevolent time goblins stop being benevolent)
d) End result: no version of yourself are alive.
Factory paradox:
a) A factory 1 minute in the future produces unit A
b) You (at T+0) summon unit A
c) You (at T+59) cancel the production of unit A.
d) After one minute, the version of unit which is with you at T+0 disappears in the time portal.
e) End result: Unit A existed only for 1 minute. So no permanent units can be created in this manner.
Bootstraps paradox (a more advanced version of grandfather paradox)
a) You (at T+0) teleport in a future version of yourself from 1 minute into the future.
b) Your future version kills you.
c) After 5 second of real time, your future version realizes that he'll stop existing if he does nothing.
d) At T+0, he summons a future-future version of yourself from T+10. Further in time, the time line has not yet been updated with his kill and due to rule 4 he cannot summon a present version of yourself from the future.
e) The future version of yourself because he disappears in the time portal after 10 seconds.
f) The future-future version disappears anyway after 50 seconds from the previous moment.
g) End result: No matter how many times you chronoport, if some version of yourself has died at T+0, then eventually all versions of yourself will disappear. You can't even prolong your existence.
As far as I've noticed there's no way to cheat the system to get permanent benefits for no cost. However, there are ways to lose resources without gaining anything (due to incorrect chronoports).
If I've missed anything, tell me!
EDIT: Added a bit about making loops.
EDIT2: This system can also be pretty easily adapted for turn-based strategies, or role-playing games. You can even level up your ability to manipulate time. Like, one skill to control the time range which you can observe and issue command to, second skill to increase the maximum chronoport distance, third skill to control how fast can you fast-forward, and so on.
EDIT3:
Time travel: the classification:
1) Chronoport price : dependent on the time distance - paid in the past
2) Ability price : dependent on the ability used - paid in the future
3) Failure price : unable to pay the price in the future-when-it-becomes-the-past or inability to create a decent stable loop
Note: Failure price should be proportional to the time distance (? may be incorrect ?) and the ability magnitude (definitely). Also amount of previous failures.
In general, failure should not be an optimal option, so punishment should be stronger than the ability effect.
Ugh.
EDIT4: It appears that there are some problems with balancing time travel. Who would have thought.
EDIT4.5: Note:
research how to balance chrono bombs done
Note2: research how to balance abilities which do not involve direct time travel.
ex: time heal - heal anyone up to 5 turns/minutes ago.
how do i even begin to balance that shit
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Topic: Improved RTS time travel system (Read 1646 times)