When do storyline or era timers start to run?

[Alan Sylver]

Tactically speaking, if I wait until the last moment to finish every mission of the Faen storyline, will the next era start later than if I did everything as fast as possible?

And similarly, will I have less time on a following mission if I drag out the mission before it until the last possible moment? Like, for example, if I drop the Arbiter off as late as possible, will Advocating Amendments timer start with less time for it?

This basically decides whether it makes tactical sense to drag the storyline missions out.

[Tomcat]

I haven't actively tested it but I would imagine an easy way to test this is to start a new file and drag out the whole picking up arbiter thing. Then see the new deadline.

In your next file, just beeline it to the arbiter and see if the deadline is the same.



Personally, dragging them out is my preference if I plan on doing combat.

[wilky]

This is something I've been curious about also. In my limited experiments with the first era so far, it feels like the first era is set to last about 14-15 years, but I think you have only about half that time to start engaging in the quests at the Faen court.

I haven't even gotten halfway into this game yet, though. The wiki outlines that there are seven eras. How many years is this game total? Is each era like 15 years? (That would be 100 total years.) Or do the eras start to condense later?


Anyway, my theory is that the game imposes a combination of constraints. Most quests probably default to a certain amount of time starting at when you turn in the prior quest/accept the new quest. But I imagine there are also hard limits that can truncate quest deadlines at the end of eras, etc.

[Trese Brothers]

The story speed condensed as the game goes. No, delaying on the early storyline does not change the Arbiters timeline.

[Spud the Spud]

I stopped running the arbiter missions a long time ago. She does her own thing regardless. Unfortunately, there's no way to monkey wrench her plans and prevent what she's doing from happening. Like shoving her out of an airlock, or blockading in wait for her and attacking her ship when she tries to move planets, or urban combat wearing masks and killing her in the streets.

So just do whatever you like. Run the missions you want to run, skip the ones you want to skip, the game will play out on it's timeline regardless of your actions. It's like the Indiana Jones movie, where the same end result occurs regardless of anything Indiana Jones actually does. You're Indiana Jones, you don't make a difference, you're just out there having fun.

[wilky]

Originally posted by Spud the Spud:

I stopped running the arbiter missions a long time ago. She does her own thing regardless. Unfortunately, there's no way to monkey wrench her plans and prevent what she's doing from happening. Like shoving her out of an airlock, or blockading in wait for her and attacking her ship when she tries to move planets, or urban combat wearing masks and killing her in the streets.

So just do whatever you like. Run the missions you want to run, skip the ones you want to skip, the game will play out on it's timeline regardless of your actions. It's like the Indiana Jones movie, where the same end result occurs regardless of anything Indiana Jones actually does. You're Indiana Jones, you don't make a difference, you're just out there having fun.

Heh that's pretty good. The point of this game is more the journey, rather than the end result, of course.

[Trese Brothers]

@spud - while that is true of the very first Arbiter mission, it isn't true of the entire story. For example, if you ignore the Buried Demons storyline / Era, then the result is based on a check of two factions in the game and their internal power values. So, the proc gen and therefore your actions, have an impact even if you don't get involved.

But yes, we did have to make some choices about where the total freedom to do anything with the story characters stops. Which helps reinforce your place as a single ship captain in a sprawling galaxy. The Arbiter has spent over 3 decades working on this treaty. You can help or stay out of the way, she's not going to be stopped.

[Alan Sylver]

Originally posted by Trese Brothers:

The story speed condensed as the game goes. No, delaying on the early storyline does not change the Arbiters timeline.

I am not sure I got that. Does that mean that, irrespective of how long I need for the individual missions, the "second founding" era for example will always end a a fixed time X?

[Trese Brothers]

No, the second founding will not always end at the same time.

If you participate in the story arc, it may change how long it takes. You can speed it up or slow it down.

I was specifically responding to the question of whether or not you delay dropping off the Arbiter changes the Era. It does not.

[Alan Sylver]

For delaying era-specific missions to be tactically useful, it would have to increase the times when the game gets harder. From what I gathered so far, this would happen if delaying would delay difficulty increases based on era (through introducing new enemies like jyeeta or upping the difficulty of existing enemies). Meaning if taking my time with storyline missions delays the begin of later eras, it is useful.

From what I heard, enemy difficulty scales with own level and time. I don't know if these use current era or current date. Since delaying has some opportunity cost (since you have to plan around it), if the effect on difficulty is negligible, it is not useful.

So I guess the questions are:

1) Does waiting until the last weeks to turn in storyline missions delay the arrival of later eras?

2) Does difficulty scale with time or era?

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Indiana saves the girl! If he didn't get involved the Nazis would have killed Marion for the medallion. She lives because of him. That's a huge difference and often over looked.

About time I recommend don't over think it. In over 500 hours played ice basically never paid attention to it.

Don't be so concerned with missions and stories every play through. Just fly off doing your own thing.

[Tuidjy]

You can speed up the Arbiter's plan, or slow it down by a factor of two or even three.

You cannot prevent her goal from being achieved, but you can arrange for someone else to end up with the reins of Humanity in that galactic region.

Basically, you can influence individuals' fate, but cannot stop the progress of socio-economic formations, to borrow Marxist terminology.

[Alan Sylver]

The idea is to influence difficulty scaling, not what happens in the story.

[Trese Brothers]

Difficulty scale is primarily driven by game turn, Era has no effect.

[Alan Sylver]

Thank you. So dragging out is useful to push back eras and thus era-introduced enemies, but not to push back difficulty increases.

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Alan Sylver:

Thank you. So dragging out is useful to push back eras and thus era-introduced enemies, but not to push back difficulty increases.

Dragging out is useful to give you time to complete every single story quest and vignette that comes your way. When an era ends, it may also put an end to some quests that you could otherwise completed and some opportunities you may have otherwise taken.

For example, you may start the 'Plague' time period with a large stash of medical equipment, but the era may end before you successfully liquidate your stock. You may have set yourself a personal challenge to see how beloved you may be by the galaxy by year X, so you may want to extend the 'Plague' as much as you can, while still gaining brownie points by assisting planets.

--------------

If you want to push back difficulty, keep your captain from out-leveling your crew. If you want to have a relatively easy time, use combat to over-level your marines and military officers, while your captain stays at relatively modest levels. It works beautifully.