Accelerate time is not the least bit accurate past 4x

[Zyll]

This is not a 2.9 bug, its actually always been an issue. As a mission maker, we often test our missions by running them, accelerating time to a specific point in time, and then observe-test-rinse-repeat over and over. What would be nice is if accelerate time actually worked as advertised.

I ran some tests with a stopwatch

• 1x time - 60 seconds of in-game time takes (duh) 60 seconds of real time
• 2x time - 60 seconds -> 30 seconds
• 5x time - 60 seconds -> 18 seconds
• 7x time - 60 seconds -> 17 seconds
• 10x to 30x - 60 seconds -> 16 seconds

So you see the issue, where at 10x accelerated time a minute should pass in 6 seconds, its actually nowhere close to that. If the game engine can't keep up, then there shouldn't even be an option to accelerate time to 300x. If indeed 4x is the maximum, well that is an unfortunate hindrance to mission makers, and should really be improved upon.

[razo+r]

How many units were in the mission where you tested it? 

[Blackfyre]

I guess it depends on CPU and the mission 

[Zyll]

Ahh yes I should have been smart enough to make this correlation, you guys are correct. Testing with a completely empty mission, you do indeed get accurate time acceleration up to and possibly even exceeding 20x (ie. 3 seconds for a minute to pass). Hopefully if/when ED revamps the mission replay functionality, it will improve upon the time acceleration with a more reasonable number of units in it. 

[Rene Coulon]

I have noticed after the latest update that units even at X3 do a wierd backwards hop now every few seconds...