Time Barrier?

I created one!

Simple really...and a fully customisable timer set to the time you want to allow your empire.

How to make:

Basically what you want to do is use repair droids and change the hull regen to -1/sec and make it target the caster!

And voila!

Then the amount of hull your structure has will determine the timer!

(PS: add a grav well wide effect disabling all phase jump and Voila)!

For more effect...add a particle effect (I love the nova cannon explosion effect) and set it to trigger 10 secs before desctruction of your timer to warn players of iminent start!

Voila dear boy!

Your very own anti-rush device!

Tie the ability to a structure..and add that structure to the map as a starter structure and voila!

yeah, there is a mod, called DOME something, it has something similar, a phase jump inhibitor that prevents you jumping outside your few planets or whatever but it loses 1 health per second whatever, and once it is destroyed all teams get to go at it with whatever they have built up as of yet

but thats a mod, idn, in Sins, if you want to stop rushing you play on a slightly larger map...

ive got nothing against the idea, but i dont see too many uses... as smaller maps are designed for quick games anyway so spamming/rushing is a very valid tactic...

just an alternative to this would be to set all empires to be neutral at the beginning of a game, though in terms of lore it wouldnt make sense for TEC and Advent for example to be neutral... then again... it doesnt make sense that any of them can have alliance anyway so...

I think what he is looking for here though is something that could be edited in teh "Options" tab before going into battle...  You could have it set to:

No Delay: you can attack out of the starting gate

Slight Delay: no attacking for the first five minutes

Medium-low Delay: Now attacking for the first 10 minutes

Medium-high Delay: No attacking for the first 20 minutes

High Delay: No attacking for the first 40 minutes...

(The no attacking is referring to actual opponents, not militia...)

That would make it possible to actually have an economy in a MP game

As far as actual coding goes, make actual warships (everything except scouts) unable to enter enemy controlled gravity wells and have scouts unable to attack at all for that time duration.

yeah, but Sins already has this dynamic built into the game. the sheer distance between players acts as a time barrier.

but yes, medium-large maps that give a bit of breathing room but can still be rushed could use this option... idn, im not a big MP player, so i cant tell you how they think. some may like the idea, but i have a feeling the majority may feel it useless as they usually only play hour-or-two-long matches anyway...

but yeah, why not

this however is a bad idea, because you could simply rush a coloniser and a few frigs right out to some chokepoint or 2 that will keep the other player bottled up with only a few planets to expand to, while you have the rest of the map. so for those 15 or however many minutes, the other player cant expand, cant upgrade and research even attack your world (that you dont even have to fortify till the last minute) to get more resources.

its not a perfect cheat, but it would work enough times to be annoying and unfair

Hrm...  I don't know then...

well, you could always let ships pass though, but not able to attack each other. like a forced peace treaty.

actually, i just thought of something:

atm, when you have a peace treaty, you have to officially break it and tell the guy you intend to stab him in the back etc etc

so what happens, is you break the treaty, but you cant attack for i think its 2 minutes or 1:30, then when times up its fair game.

so, in a game with a forced non-hostility timer, IC could just use that existing function, except set the time to be whatever the player chose before starting and set it so the peace treaty ends (i.e. the countdown timer starts) as soon as the game does.

if that doesnt work (i was just thinking for that split second at the beginning of the game where the players are allied. it could show everyone where everyone elses homeworld is...) so if that doesnt work, the Akkan has an ability to force all ships within the ability radius to cease firing, but become invulnerable. so, if the same effect could be applied to each teams ships but without the invulnerability bit, then it could achieve the same affect

in terms of the ships thing, well, like i said, you can let them in your systems but they (nor you) will be able to fire. until the time is up and you can always put a scout in all your border worlds to give advanced warning of a player trying to sneak up on you

Yes something like this would be good. Especially for noobs who want to try MP without getting whupped by rushing. I know in DEFCON they have a game mode like Rezonator was saying, where all teams start on the same side. You see select units and structures etc. Once the countdown has finished it's a free for all or make teams etc. If there were maps that were roughly the same for all players and had nuetral dead planets seperating races then these dead planets/roids could be the barrier in effect. No phase jumping to this roid for 15 mins etc. Yes you could amass a fleet there and jump straight away as soon as allowed but then will the guy on the other side of you're empire do it to you?. What should you do? Defend you're choke points? or go for a mass fleet? mixture of both? Who knows. This isn't an ultimate fix for rushing, and on large maps distance kinda does this already. But on medium/small maps this could help and be a new game mode too. These are just ideas that i'm stealing from other games already out there really but i think it could work. If any of the DEVS have an opinion feel free to give us you're side.

The problem with just having everyone roam free is that people will still "rush."  A strategy that would arise would be manufacturing a fleet and just having it wait on their home world... Just waiting for the timer to run out...

Perhaps a better thing would be not allowing anyone to go more than five or so spaces from their homeworld.  The Longer timers give you more room (up to seven worlds) while the small ones are just like two...  That would help.. After all, you won't be going more than two worlds away in a 5 minute delay...

Yeah thats what i meant. You can move say five planets away in all directions till you hit a barrier roid/planet. you can't jump there till the timer runs out. So you could have two or more (if other empires link to it) fleets all meeting at a nuetral roid as soon as the barrier drops. The roaming free option would definitley just get 2 players teaming up and ammassing a fleet at someones home planet. You could also make the nuetral roids rich in crystal/metal or make them high income planets. so they are worth fighting for. You could even put a limit on the options menu pre game to allow exploration to 5/6/7 etc planets only for a limited time. Once the timer runs out..the other 50 planets are open to anyone. This would allow players to establish a reasonable empire to play with and be more of a challange to defeat.

Perhaps you could have something on your home planet that pulls a Kostura on your ships if you stray too far...  You could leave, but you would get shot.  At the end of the timer, the cannon blows up, leaving you free to roam the galaxy...

Actually, just make something that has an engagement range of 1,000,000,000 or so and is like Cleansing Brilliance.  It has a cooldown of five seconds and deals 2000 damage per second for three seconds and ignores shields/mitigation...  (Just for the record... That would be the most awesome gun the world has ever known... )

LOL I like you're thinking.

But i do think this could be a viable option to enhance online/single player gameplay. It would add a couple of new strategys to sins that experienced or beginner players could enjoy. Anyways i hope someone is watching and reading

  As always.

You could also try playing custom maps where teams of players start near one another on other sides of the maps so that no one gets a bad starting spot and no one starts inbetween or right next to their opponents.  However, to make this work in online multiplayer everyone needs to actively download and add the maps to their game since the game does not have an auto-download feature.  I've released a bunch of competition-grade maps which you can find here:  http://tinyurl.com/sins3

Yeah... Problem was, I was trying to avoid this...

bump

why?

I have no idea...

And Rezo, where did you get that pic?  That is so ironically funny.

i first saw it in an email years ago, i couldnt think of anything really good-yet somewhat original so i went with that

if you want it, go google image search "Peace Explosion" you should come up with it

there is another one with the explosion giving you 'The Finger' =P