New Game Options

From

Basic Creation Settings

Maximum Families

Specifies the maximum number of people found in buildings by identifying how many families have to be generated into the world. The higher the number, the more challenging the game will be to sneak the increased number of citizens past guards. Default: 4000

The number of families will be based on the number of buildings considered "residential" (green blocks by default), and this is directly impacted by the districting map you select when creating the map.

Time of Day

Specifies what time of day the alien lockdown starts. It occurs at 8 am the following morning, so a player gets between 8 and 32 hours of lead time. Default: 12:00am (32 hours to go)

If you start the game around midnight, most of your citizens will be home. About 4 hours after midnight and about 2 hours before midnight, your citizens can be anywhere in the city based on who they are and their schedule. In the middle of the day, all the students will be in class, and parents will be at work or out shopping, and so on.

IRQ Settings

Each action you make that influence's the alien invasion has Impact. This impact accumulates throughout the time thread, producing the alien's total Rage. At any time, the number of aliens (drones) that are dispatched is:

    TotalUnits = Requested_Units ^ 1+(Rage/Quotient)

Carry Over

Between Time Loops, how much of the Alien's Rage carries through when you "Remember." The starting "Rage" is the average of the "Rolling Average" of "Remembers," up to the maximum.

Default: 90% If you set the value at more than 100%, then once the alien's rage begins, it becomes explosive. 70% is a hard game, while 90% is very challenging. These games force you to be careful in every round and carefully consider forgetting if you have a particularly disastrous time thread. Set to 0% for an easy game.

Imagine a Rage of 20 and a rolling average of 3. If you cause no additional alien rage in subsequent rounds, this is how long it takes for the rage to dissipate completely with different amounts of Carry Over.

Sample Effects of Different Carryovers
90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 25% 10% Calculation Sample
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 Starting Rage
18 16 14 12 10 5 2 Round 1 = 90% (20) = 18
17 14 11 9 7 3 1 Round 2 = 90% (20,18) = 17
15 12 8 6 4 1 Round 3 = 90% (20,18,17) = 15
14 10 6 4 2 Round 4 = 90% (18,17,15) = 14
13 8 4 3 1 Round 5 = 90% (17,15,14) = 13
12 7 3 2 Round 6 = 90% (15,14,13) = 12
11 6 2 1 Round 7 = 90% (14,13,12) = 11
10 5 1 Round 8 = 90% (13,12,11) = 10
9 4 1 Round 9 = 90% (12,11,10) = 9
8 3 Round 10 = 90% (11,10,9) = 8
7 2 Round 11 = 90% (10,9,8) = 7
6 2 Round 12 = 90% (9,8,7) = 6
5 1 Round 13 = 90% (8,7,6) = 5
4 1 Round 14 = 90% (7,6,5) = 4
4 Round 15 = 90% (6,5,4) = 4
3 Round 16 = 90% (5,4,4) = 3
3 Round 17 = 90% (4,4,3) = 3
2 Round 18 = 90% (4,3,3) = 2

Note: We're considering a change where rage dissipates over time, instead of through a time jump.

Rolling Average

Identifies how many "Remembered" time threads are averaged together to produce the alien's current rage. Default: 3

Quotient

Identifies how much the rage counts towards the alien generation. A high quotient means there is little influence. Default: 30

Real-Time Spawner

This controls the spawner whenever an alien detects you in the city.

Spawner Delay

Identifies how quickly a specific alien can request AI. This is to prevent flooding of AI into the area. Default: 50s

Alien Lifetime

Once the alien arrives at the destination, it's the number of seconds it looks before leaving to return to the portal to despawn. Default: 30s

The actual duration will be longer. It periodically decides if it's exceeded the time limit before returning to the portal to despawn.

Spawning Frequency

The speed alien AI is spawned from the portal. Default: 0.25s

Used to manage propagation rates on older hardware.