Achron Soundtrack

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[nikomas]

Doesn't matter if you played the game or not, while the game itself is interesting the soundtrack certainly still deserves a listen either way!
As I doubt more than a pair of you have heard it, I put it all on Youtube for you ----> www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hkRoc-6dro
Man, 2 minutes into PNC... melts me insides a little.

[Mister Schmidt]

wut achron

[nikomas]

wut achron

It's the most complicated RTS you'll ever play, look it up

[Mister Schmidt]

Achron is considered to be the first "meta-time strategy game" (Real-time strategy with time travel), notable for being the first game with free-form multiplayer time travel and its subtle handling of temporal paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox.

[nikomas]

For example...

I attack your base
You go back in time and move defenders to repel my attack
I go back in time and call of my attack to start with

Net result, nobody lost a unit...


And that is the simplest possible example, now how about building harass?

I pump out a super unit
You go back in time and kill super unit builder in past
Unit was never built and disappears from future

One guy can be playing 3 min in the past while the other is playing 1 min in the future, it's fucking nuts.

[Mister Schmidt]

One guy can be playing 3 min in the past while the other is playing 1 min in the future, it's fucking nuts.

[DarkSoldierX]

It's the most complicated RTS you'll ever play, look it up

Well I wouldnt call it the most complicated RTS. I think one of the paradox published games takes the cake there.

[nikomas]

Well I wouldnt call it the most complicated RTS. I think one of the paradox published games takes the cake there.

I suppose you are talking about games like Victoria or HoI. While they are real time they actully fall in the grand strategy realm and not RTS as we know it. Even then, I'd argue that Achron is a harder game to master because while games like HoI are complicated on the system level, Achron is a whole other mess. Achron required a fundamentally different way of a approaching things if you are to make full use of the mechanics.

It's really, REALLY hard to make proper use of the time mechanics in Achron, it requires another kind of thinking that I still cant properly do, the best use I can make out of the time mechanics so far in that game is to reverse mistakes.

[nikomas]

"Timeline and Timewaves

Like many other games, Achron allows the player to view an overhead map of the surrounding area. However, Achron also shows a map of the timeline. If the player is attacked at a certain point in time, the timeline will show the amount of damage received at that point by a large amount of red on that portion of the timeline. The timeline also shows information including damage dealt and chronoports. Being able to see the amount of available resources at any point in time helps the player figure out the best points in time to construct more units.

Information on the timeline can be lumped into three categories:

    A map of time - "Your opponent will attack you in 1 minute"
    Inform strategy - "You should have taken advantage of your resources and built a larger army 2 minutes ago, go change the past"
    Changes to the timeline - "Your opponent just undid an entire battle in the past"

Changes in history are not instantly propagated through the timeline, but instead are brought forward via evenly separated timewaves, giving the player opportunities to plan and react to those past changes before the next time wave sweeps by. These changes from the revised history are not reflected on the players' screens until the proper timewave passes the player."

Is your head hurting yet?

To prevent all players from always playing in the far past, their ability to change the past is limited by chronoenergy, a regenerating resource. Each command issued to every unit in the past consumes chronoenergy, limiting how much a player can change and play in the past. It is much more costly to modify a battle that occurred six minutes ago than a battle that happened only 30 seconds ago. Since each command issued in the past consumes chronoenergy, players can reduce chronoenergy usage with command hierarchies by directing units to report to another unit, and then controlling all the units in the hierarchy by issuing commands to just the top level commander.

Speed Controls

The speed controls allow the player to progress through time at different rates. Pause and slow-mo can be used by the player to issue precise orders in a hectic situation, while playing in fast-forward is useful for players replaying in the past. Playing in fast-forward allows the player to catch up to the present. Fast-forward is particularly useful because when a player spends time in the past, the present has advanced by the same amount of time.

How about now?

Chronoporting

In Achron, the players are able to send units through time, a process we call Chronoporting. If teleporting is instantly jumping through space, chronoporting is instantly jumping through time. This ability adds interesting new strategies as well as the creation of paradoxes which are automatically resolved by the game via the process discussed on the paradoxes page.

Many games utilize the concept of tele-fragging someone, where you destroy your opponent by teleporting to the same location as them. In Achron, a Chronofrag is when a unit travels through time but winds up occupying the same space as another unit. The weaker of the two units will be destroyed, while the stronger will immediately incur the appropriate amount of damage as they cannot both occupy the same space at the same time.

Basically, you should play it!

Also, the soundtrack is great

[DarkSoldierX]

The reason why its not complicated :


Peoples reactions are not properly simulated in a time jump. If one commander is 1 minute in the future, and the other is 2 minutes into the past, the game cannot and will not simulate the realistic reaction of the commander when under threat of such a attack. It also does not simulate the effects of such reaction and how it impacts the players future reactions


Thats why it is simple. All your doing is fighting against old commands and some simple AI. Its not a real time travel.

[nikomas]

The reason why its not complicated :


Peoples reactions are not properly simulated in a time jump. If one commander is 1 minute in the future, and the other is 2 minutes into the past, the game cannot and will not simulate the realistic reaction of the commander when under threat of such a attack. It also does not simulate the effects of such reaction and how it impacts the players future reactions


Thats why it is simple. All your doing is fighting against old commands and some simple AI. Its not a real time travel.

Uhm... have you played this? Go try a multiplayer game, you do realize you can do head to head multiplayer right? It's pretty hectic.

And I've played a lot of games like HoI, I would argue that once you get past the first layer of reading tutorials in those games the games themselves are normally not that hard.

[Vermillion_Hawk]

I looked into this game briefly when it was released and I can assure you that if it hurts your head you need to go to a doctor to check if you have a tumour. Or a mental deficiency. It's a half-baked RTS with a barely-innovative time-warp mechanic shoehorned in. It's just like playing a regular RTS, but you have to pay attention to a few timeframes is all.

[Hicks58]

Barely innovative?

Um... Care to show me the list of games which have already done to death an active time travel that doesn't rely on one-time gimmicks/can only be used in single player?

[Demon767]

For example...

I attack your base
You go back in time and move defenders to repel my attack
I go back in time and call of my attack to start with

Net result, nobody lost a unit...


And that is the simplest possible example, now how about building harass?

I pump out a super unit
You go back in time and kill super unit builder in past
Unit was never built and disappears from future

One guy can be playing 3 min in the past while the other is playing 1 min in the future, it's fucking nuts.

Mwahaha! I have built the Death star! Look at this magnificent... ... Wait a moment.. WHERE DID MY DEATH STAR GO!?

[Hicks58]

Mwahaha! I have built the Death star! Look at this magnificent... ... Wait a moment.. WHERE DID MY DEATH STAR GO!?

But then the guy decides fuck it, I'm going to send my death star a minute or so into the past and destroy their chronoporter... So they never went back into the past in the first time.

o.o

[Smokaz]

Reading this I am unable to think of anything else than that idiotic game where people are slapping their hands on top of each other, what happens when someone goes back to before the game started?

[Hicks58]

You can't.

There's a fixed time-frame of about 6 minutes that you can freely manipulate. You can see one minute into the future (Seeing the outcome of any currently issued commands assuming no further alterations to them - Naturally this will change like the wind but it does serve as a handy early warning for if you're about to be attacked) as well as seeing about 4-6 minutes into the past. After that point, anything further back becomes the unchangeable past and is written in stone.

As you can imagine though a hell of a lot can happen, and subsequently be changed, in the span of roughly 6 minutes.

As well as being able to send units into the past, you can change the orders of units in the past as well. For example, if a scouting run ended up with half your force wiped out you can simply go back to before you sent the units out and remove the order to move there and do something else with them - You've already acquired the intel... Assuming they haven't changed in accordance of being seen.