Game Speed and Time Warp Factor

[KingOfZeal]

While I appreciate the time warp factor that was put into Alpha 2, there is one complaint I have, especially when dealing with large prisons: the wait.

Once you have prisoners and things are moving along its not nearly as noticeable, but at the very least the first 2 days (when you play with continuous stream off), it's an incredibly long wait. Generally speaking it doesn't take long to build up the initial prison, and once that's done either due to no money or simply nothing left to build... well, there's nothing to do. Often I can be done building my base prison by nightfall of the first day, which means waiting a day and a half before there is anything more to do.

To help combat this, would it be possible either to increase how fast the max speed is, or make a speed that will run very fast (say, 50x) until the next arrival of prisoners? Or, allow for prisoners to arrive the first day when continuous stream is turned off -- looking at the max population 2-3 times a day instead of once a day would probably be enough, even if the prisoners only arrive once a day.

[Azarath]

+1.

I'd love to see an even faster setting, as well as checking prisoner capacity either more, or 8pm, instead of am.

[Frede1012]

Maybe with a slow-down if something happens? Like a fight or something?

[KingOfZeal]

The "super fast" speed I was thinking of is something like what's seen in SimTower: while nothing is going on (for example on the weekend if you have no restaurants or at night when nothing is open), the clock time goes super fast. But, as soon as something happens, like a bomb threat, fire, or something opens, the clock goes to its normal speed. Ideally it would be something similar to that model, and slow down automatically if something major happens like a fight or incoming prisoners.

[ronanc]

I'd love a super fast mode. More so than that though, I'd like if we could get rid of the times where nothing is happening. Buy hey, that will come, it's very early days yet.

Patience is a virtue I say

[Hessen]

She canny take any more captain!

[ElectricGlow]

BLAST PROCESSING

[smccuan]

I agree with the OP.

[Azarath]

There is *one* way to achieve this...

Start with a jump to the left...

[theamarant]

[nycerine]

The "super fast" speed I was thinking of is something like what's seen in SimTower: while nothing is going on (for example on the weekend if you have no restaurants or at night when nothing is open), the clock time goes super fast. But, as soon as something happens, like a bomb threat, fire, or something opens, the clock goes to its normal speed. Ideally it would be something similar to that model, and slow down automatically if something major happens like a fight or incoming prisoners.

That'd be pretty good, a feature you see in most of the Sim(s) games.

Personally I also like to just really speed the time up, so the whole game just progresses faster at times.

[ronanc]

In before someone suggests a Football Manager style Go On Holiday option

[TampaPowers]

The way the game runs right now, a faster fast-forward option would just cause massive stuttering. I mean, I have a 5000$ Computer and the game uses close to nothing of the power and thus runs horribly slow.

[twistie]

I can't agree with the concept of a Simtower-like super-speed enough. The game progression is extremely slow in places, and while introducing other activities that are free can help counter this, there are still parts of the game where it feels like I'm doing a prison sentence of my own while waiting for the game to progress to a point that requires my interaction again. I think the game should jump back to normal speed as soon as any event that requires, or can be intervened with arises, such as fights. But, as much as I love the game, there are parts of the game where you are just waiting, with nothing else to do, and it takes away from the overall experience. The game speed/progression/dead time issue needs to be addressed as a priority.

[koshensky]

In terms of HOW this would work, without Chris having to redesign the entire interface to accommodate an extra speed button, I would suggest having the ability to press the fast-forward button multiple times and have it increase each time (much like a DVD remote), with an overlay in the corner of the clock that says "x2 / x4 / x10"