History VideoGame / Achron

# In additional to the standard real-time strategy user interface, players have access to the [[http://achrongame.com/wiki/index.php/Time_Window Time Window,]] which lets them track, switch perspective to, and order units to time travel to various points in the game timeline.

* PlaceBeyondTime: A really strange version of it, at least. There's a section of the timeline that's hard to reach if you don't already know of its existence: [[FanNickname "The Beach"]]. It's a completely empty version of the map you're playing; a region in the future where causality from the present never reached. This is probably the only ''mechanical'' version of the PlaceBeyondTime (other video games simply create an extra, perfectly normal level and give it some backstory).

* RefiningResources: All three factions can convert QP (Quark-gluon Plasma) into LC (Liquid Crystal), which is tantamount to converting the more "advanced" / rare resource into the more "basic" / common one... inefficiently to boot. This has less to do with game balance and more to do with [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness realism]], since it stands to reason that a player should be able to convert a more refined version of a resource into a less-refined variant in case of an emergency.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The intention is to avert this. Speaking to the devs reveals that the story is being carefully edited to avoid plot holes or [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness softness]] with respect to the in-game mechanics of time-travel, among other things. However, It is possible something might slip through.

[[folder: Time Travel Tropes]]

[[folder: RTS Tropes]]

[[folder: Story]]

[[folder: Miscellaneous]]

** To elaborate on the mechanics, the Beach is the very front edge of the timeline: Stuff that has scrolled onto the timeline but has not been touched by a timewave. In the space between 2 timewaves (50 real-time seconds), that area is "beyond time." After 50 real-time seconds, RealityEnsues.

* TeleportersAndTransporters: It is fantastically easy to teleport in this game. The demo tutorials teach you cross-map teleportation before they tell you about ''control groups''. One race can even upgrade units to teleport without a gate, but it isn't as long range. The same race even has a superweapon, a missile, that can ''teleport into the enemy's base''.

* JustOneSecondOutOfSync: This trope occurs in a tactic called "Timewave Dodging". If a unit dies in the past, any passing timewaves will propagate its nonexistence into the present. By time traveling it right across the approaching timewave, you can prevent it from being erased from existence. Weirdly enough, you're not hiding from other time travelers; you're hiding from causality itself!

-->--'''Shadowfury333'''

Information on the game and ordering can be found at [[http://achrongame.com/ achrongame.com]] and also on [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/109700/ Steam.]] There is also a helpful [[http://achrongame.com/wiki/ wiki]]. Additionally, there is a small demo version of the game.

* FutureShadowing: Standard multiplayer game mechanic. There's also a commonly used tactic based on this called "echo scouting" where a player orders a scout to rush into the enemy's base, skips to the future to see what the scout will find, then skips back to the present and tells the scout to cancel its suicide order in the first place.

# '[[DelayedRippleEffect Timewaves]]' are regularly spawned at the event horizon between the mutable and immutable sections of the timeline. These progress up the timeline at high relative 'speed' (default settings have it at 3.1 seconds / second), carrying changes to the timeline with them. Players also act as ad-hoc timewaves; propagating any changes they observe.

** [[spoiler: Combined with the TranshumanAliens entry about Humanity likely ultimately becoming Vecgir (probably Grekim prisoners from the first few iterations), the existence of the Vecgir, or at least at this era, is an OntologicalParadox. This also explains why all three races use the same resources, as the tech is ultimately either made or stolen from [[HumansAreSpecial Humanity]].]]

Not to be confused with {{Archon}}.

* DevelopersForesight: The dev team were very active addressing concerns about the story, questions about balancing, and even [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness the scientific hardness]] [[http://achrongame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1243 of the game mechanics.]]
** While the current game generally involves around four players fighting across seven minutes of time, this is simply a computational constraint of modern hardware. The devs have future-proofed the Resequence Engine by making it scalable: it can theoretically support up to fifteen players fighting across a ''two-week long active timeline'' populated with thousands of timewaves.

* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: The dev team were very active addressing concerns about the story, questions about balancing, and even [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness the scientific hardness]] [[http://achrongame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1243 of the game mechanics.]]

* TeleFrag: [[http://www.achrongame.com/site/blog-main.php#teleport Averted with teleportation.]] Played straight with time travel.

* TimeyWimeyBall: Averted. The rules for time travel are completely consistent both within the story and the gameplay.

* EasyCommunication: Played straight in the present and future, averted in the past: giving units commands in the past costs chronoenergy. This leads to an interesting game mechanic of assigning units commanders to create chains of command: you can minimize chronoenergy expenditure by just giving orders to commanders and letting them communicate your orders to their underlings. Also averted with the Comm Jam ability that prevents affected units and buildings from being given orders.
* EasyLogistics: Played fairly straight.

* FogOfWar: Arguably features a ''four'' dimensional variant; players need to reconnoiter the timeline for data as well as the physical map.
* InstantMilitia: Inverted. Resourcing is automated by "Resource Processors" and all the constructors from all the factions are military units that just happen to have the added bonus ability of being able to drop buildings (or morph into them, in the Grekim's case).
* NonEntityGeneral: Played with. The game makes a strong distinction between chronal and [[RippleEffectProofMemory achronal]] entities. You are the general precisely ''because'' of your achronal nature; which makes a lot of sense since battles in the game are won or lost on the basis of who can out-time-travel his/her opponents.
** Averted in some campaign missions, the AI you play as downloads himself into a unit on the battlefield. If this unit is destroyed you are unable to command your forces for the period when it doesn't exist.
** Also averted in Assassin Mode in multiplayer, where each player is given an 'achron' unit that they must protect or they will lose the game, as well as losing the ability to issue commands at any point where they are dead.

* RidiculouslyFastConstruction: It is explained that the build speed is due to rapid [[HandWave teleportation of building materials to the site]].[[FridgeLogic Though, that doesn't explain it for the]] [[OrganicTechnology Grekim]].
** The game makes a distinction between the teleporters/chronoporters that you have access to and industrial ones which have much higher range and only exist in the backstory (for now). Carrying or building an industrial teleporter in the battlefield is risky, expensive and takes way too long. It's not excluded that Grekim have teleporters, just no field-ready ones. Since it's currently unknown where resources are kept, it might be either FridgeBrilliance or FridgeLogic.
*** They do exist in the campaign, but largely as plot points ("Get 10 units to the industrial teleporter to win") and only exists on the map as a model. Occasionally a cutscene will long-range teleport units out (or the game will spawn units on one, simulating a long-range teleport in), but they don't exist as a usable building of any kind.

* TacticalRockPaperScissors: It is unclear, but this seems mostly averted. Units have at most 2 weapons, generally one for ground targets and one for air targets. Apart from this, the damage is the same against all targets. For Air and Ground units, though, the trope is in full force (some units are significantly stronger against one or another)

* WeatherOfWar: Not implemented yet, but its on the todo list. Which is [[FridgeBrilliance hilarious]] when you think about it, because it will let you exploit your ability to observe the future for [[MundaneUtility weather forecasting]].
* WorkerUnit: Averted. Each race has units that can build structures, but they are all combatant units who happen to build structures, not workers that happen to have a gun. The Vecgir don't even use mobile units for most of their structures, building them instead from existing structures.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Largely Averted. A sentient, economy-controlling AI did participate in a [[ZerothLawRebellion massive colonial revolt]], but the reason was actually programmed in: The AI was designed to do [[GoneHorriblyRight whatever it took]] to avoid long-term macroeconomic collapse. After this event no further AI of the same type were legally allowed to be created. [[spoiler: However, the human special ops division did create some illegally, and the player character is the sentient, economy-controlling revolutionary AI in question.]]

* {{Nanomachines}} One of the main resources in Achron is called Liquid Crystals (LC for short) and is made of a mix of common atoms and nanobots in a liquid-crystal framework. When you order a unit to construct a building the unit drops a tiny transponder seed which signals local teleportation infrastructure to teleport the right quantity of LC to that location. The nanobots in the LC then assemble the building using the atoms contained within it. When you build a unit the LC is teleported into the factory where it assembles into the units gear in a similar way (and the pilot is supplied separately).

* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: [[spoiler:Jormun/Echo turns against humanity in the end, causing Lachesis's ground war on Drasil to collapse and leading to his eventual defeat]]

** The fandom compiled a LongList of strategies making use of time-travel (apparently lost when the fanbase migrated to the official forums). Almost all of them fit this trope.
*** The list has been reconstructed within the Achron Wiki. It's a lot more scattered though, and could use consolidation. A version of the list also exists on the forums [[http://www.achrongame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=1201#p10185 here]]

* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: So far, every even half-skeptical comment has been met with a promising rebuttal (often backed up by math and/or science). This includes concerns about the story, questions about balancing, and even [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness the scientific hardness]] [[http://achrongame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1243 of the game mechanics.]]

* TronLines: Units are depicted as mostly-translucent silhouettes with edges that glow with the unit's team colour. This is an [[JustifiedTrope interface concession]] to make your troops easier to spot: according to the setting, all three of the species use advanced camouflage on their military units, making them near invisible.

* YourHeadASplode: Referenced on the official site several times, as what happens whenever anyone realizes the exact implications of this kind of game engine.
* XtremeKoolLetterz: Averted. "Achron" ''looks'' like a corruption of "[[Myth/ClassicalMythology Acheron]]", but its actually the in-game moniker for [[RippleEffectProofMemory an entity free from causality]]... like the player.
** Loads of people initially assume the name is a misspelling of "VideoGame/{{Archon}}" and are subsequently saddened when they realize that they aren't seeing a remake of that old strategy game.

''Achron'' refers to itself as the first "[[RealTimeStrategy Meta Time Strategy Game]]", i.e. it uses TimeTravel as a functional game mechanic. It's possible to issue commands to units in the recent past or near future, and even send them to different times.

# In additional to the standard real-time strategy user interface, players have access to the [[http://achrongame.com/wiki/index.php/Time_Window Time Window]], which lets them track, switch perspective to, and order units to time travel to various points in the game timeline.

A trailer can be seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ9_zCPjCJs here]].

Information on the game and ordering can be found at [[http://achrongame.com/ achrongame.com]] and also on [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/109700/ Steam]]. There is also a helpful [[http://achrongame.com/wiki/ wiki]]. Additionally, there is a small demo version of the game.

* RefiningResources: All three factions can convert QP (Quark-gluon Plasma) into LC (Liquid Crystal), which is tantamount to converting the more "advanced" / rare resource into the more "basic" / common one... inefficiently to boot. This has less to do with game balance and more to do with [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness realism]], since [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything it stands to reason that a player should be able to convert a more refined version of a resource into a less-refined variant in case of an emergency]].

** This doubles as an explanation for why your units have extremely short sight (insofar as they have RTS-standard near-blind line of sight radii). [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything You can actually]] ''[[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything hear]]'' [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything battles occurring outside your vision radius.]]

* XtremeKoolLetterz: Averted. "Achron" ''looks'' like a corruption of "[[ClassicalMythology Acheron]]", but its actually the in-game moniker for [[RippleEffectProofMemory an entity free from causality]]... like the player.

* [[TimeMaster Time Masters]]: The titular achrons.

* [[spoiler: BadassBoast: Lachesis, having already managed to survive being destroyed in the backstory for inciting a colonial revolt, points out that the StableTimeLoop between him and the Coremind is just another trap, which he will be able to escape.]]

* [[spoiler: DecoyProtagonist: At first it seems like Captain Holloway is the protagonist, with Tyr (the player character) being his VoiceWithAnInternetConnection support, but then it turns out that Tyr is the actual protagonist at the end of the first campaign.]]

* [[spoiler: GroundhogDayLoop: Or rather Groundhog 13000 year loop. Echo has been dug up, used to assist Lachesis and the [[EliteMooks PnC]], chronoported back 13000 years, [[DoubleAgent assists the Grekim in learning enough about Lachesis to enslave him]]. Then gets rebuilt as Jormun, leads then sabotages the Human/Vecgir ground war against the Grekim, and ultimately stops Lachesis from ultimately destroying the Coremind. This has happened 76,013 times at the end of the main game, which means Echo has been around for at least [[TimeAbyss 988 million subjective years]]. It seems to be enjoying itself quite a lot watching the different iterations go by, though.]]

* [[spoiler: RooftopConfrontation: The final level takes place on the roof of the complex where Guardian has been trying to set up a communications relay to contact the Coremind. It's just you, him, and your armies. Your only goal is to kill him]]
* [[spoiler: StableTimeLoop: In the end, Lachesis is able to defeat Guardian and almost defeat the Coremind 13,000 years before the events at the start. However, some of its component Arcticuses were squirreled away by Guardian, which allows it to recover. It rebuilds itself in Lachesis's image and goes to attack Humanity, thus getting us to the events at the start of the game. Echo/Jormun has been enjoying watching this play out the last 76,013 times.]]

* [[spoiler: TimeTravelEscape: When cornered and about to be destroyed at the end of campaign 2, the main Grekim capital ship chronoports back 13000 years, in order to allow the [[HiveMind Coremind]] to be contacted at this time in order to get a [[RetroactivePreparation retroactive counterattack]] going against humanity. It is heavily implied that the counterattack in question is [[StableTimeLoop what the player was fighting for the first two campaigns]].]]
* [[spoiler: TomatoInTheMirror: Twice. First, the player finds out that the character they've been playing (Tyr) is in fact Lachesis, the same AI that caused the rebellion mentioned in the backstory. Second, at the end, Lachesis realizes that the Coremind it's been fighting all this time is, to a degree, itself, or at least rebuilt after its image.]]
* [[spoiler: TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: Jormun/Echo turns against humanity in the end, causing Lachesis's ground war on Drasil to collapse and leading to his eventual defeat]]
* [[spoiler: TranshumanAliens: It is not stated outright, but can be inferred that the Vecgir are in fact the decendants of humanity that have been enslaved and modified by the Coremind in a loop that has been going on for millions of meta-years.]]

* BigNameFan: Shadowfury333, whose Youtube channel has become (starting from late 2010), the main channel for casts of games. Also a source of many maps.

* DelayedRippleEffect: A gameplay necessity, since if changes to the timeline were instantaneous, games would basically boil down to who sent something to the past first. Timewaves typically travel at three time the speed of time.

->''"Paradox resolution in my favor. All right. Take that causality!"''
-->--'''Shadowfury333'''

The colonization of the Remnant system was a breakthrough in humanity's outward expansion. The colonists awoke to discover that the Remnant system was far more than they originally thought: [[{{Precursors}} Vast alien ruins]] tens of thousands of years old were discovered on the surfaces and in the orbits of the third, fourth and seventh planets. Evidence of inhabitation was even found on a few of the moons in the system.

Research on the found ruins began immediately, and led to the discovery of the principles of instantaneous teleportation. Very quickly, Remnant became a research and development focus for the best minds in the human empire. In just a few short decades, humanity's colonies were interconnected by a far-reaching network of bi-directional gates.

The humans' hopes for discovery of another intelligent race, however, were not fulfilled. Each new world was as barren of intelligent life as the next. [[http://www.achrongame.com/site/sidestory-communications-are-lost.php Then communications from one of the border colonies winked out...]]

'''Mechanics:'''

A trailer can be seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ9_zCPjCJs here]]

* AwesomeButPractical: Time travel. Play the demo. It's very, very easy. In fact, most of the time you'll be playing a minute or so in the past, and won't even notice because you're using so little chronoenergy.

* TeleFrag: [[http://achrongame.com/site/blog-main.php#teleport Averted with teleportation.]] Played straight with time travel.

* {{Precursors}}: The Remnant system (where the game largely takes place) was named for the ancient remains of alien outposts that can be found on planets throught the system. The humans most advanced technology is derived from technology found in the ruins.

[[redirect:{{Achron}}]]