Have kids, need a damn pause button for AI games!

So you know more about game development than a game developer ?

And while I miss the pause button, too, many of the things they are currently working on, are of higher importance to me.

PS: A "pause button" is not hard to implement. Making everything actually pause, survive the pausation the way the users expect it to and then resume as if nothing happened, can be a whole different challange

I meant they underestimate the importance of the feature "pause" for many players.
I am pretty sure I read Uber internally already HAS a pause functionallity as well as a function to control simspeed. Implementing a pause function is a very fundamental and simple thing at it's core. I am not a professional game dev, but I have written some games of my own in the past. The pause function usually boils down to very few lines of very basic code, especially for a server client game. The client side probably would need no changes at all, apart from the UI. Why would the client care about how fast the server simulates the game? It does not! And looking at what the client does when it lags or the server sim crashed (everything freezes... pauses) it can handle pauses already quite well.
If the way Uber build PA makes that more complex than that I want them to write a long blog post about it to justify their decision
The only thing that may create issues is how to implement the UI ("who can pause the game at what moment?"). But other games have solved that problem already. Just copy that.

As I understand it even AI games take server resources so if they allow pause it will mean a bunch of games running in the server just taking up space (ie memory).

Maybe a pause with a 5 minute limit?

We're not gonna have a pause button until the game is released because we can't have a pause button until they release the server side stuff. Which they're keeping private until the game release.

I agree that it would be nice to have, but that's simply what Uber has stated.

I'd encourage you to do a search before posting. This information is available in quite a few places.

I agree with this, but I've also learned to bolster my production and defenses. I've trimmed my vs AI to 10-30 minutes max...and if I get pulled away, I try to keep it quick. If not...one can always restart. I know it's annoying, but I understand what Uber is doing and have come to enjoy the game regardless.

It's probably helped me become more efficient as a player...this title has me more aggressive than most RTS's do, because it doesn't allow for turtling as much...at least and be fun. I want to have battles, zoom in, enjoy the lights and sound, the music etc.

Pause and save will be very much appreciated when the title is released though. Cheers.

For kids?? what about partners??.. that's when i want a pause button !

Pause your kids instead.

I've asked for this feature again and again and nobody ever posted this kind of information as far as I know. Even if they did I do not believe it. It is simply not true. Even if we never were to get the server a pause function would be simple to implement. If we had the server we may be able to mod it in, but that's a different story.

PA games are currently hosted entirely on servers owned by the devs. When you pause it means that their servers just kinda sit there. Doing nothing. Instead of gamma testing.

This kind of feature is something an admin should decide. Wait for release, when you can host your own games.

Yup.

On the other hand, how many singleplayers WOULD play if they could pause the game, or even save it and load it?

Sure the servers are sitting there idle. But they are sitting there idle if people are not playing, too.

That's a horrible argument that I simply don't accept at all.
I can easily host a sandbox game and let it idle for like 2 hours until the client ends the game to prevent idle games. Or I can move the mouse once every hour and block the server for as long as I want.
If Uber really is bothered by that they should just make the server force unpause after some time. 15 min or so. Not hard to add such a force unpause server side. In most cases that would already be more than enough to make our live so much easier.

EDIT:
Also I am assuming that ladder games most likely will use Uber servers as well. A ladder without a pause function? Really? Madness!

Well if idle game detection was super high on the priority list, maybe you wouldn't be able to do that either?

Pausing is a really important feature. I just don't think that not playing is the point of testing right now.

It's probably a value in seconds they can edit whenever they want. It would take more time to find that value in their code than the edit itself.

Not if you're using Find and Replace XD

It's funny how people expect playability these days before the game actually releases. Turning alpha and beta in some sort of glorified demo. I wouldn't mind a pause button, but at the same time there are plenty of other things this game needs more.

In other words, it's fine to request the feature, but you can't really demand it right now.

PA really is no longer just a beta test. Balancing has started. There was an official tournament (that heavily suffered from the missing pause function). The game usually is quite playable.
Where is the difference between a request and a demand?

120 minutes took me maybe 1min to find.
At least a few month ago this was the only check. No server side validation whatsoever, I know that because some people created funny 1200 minute games on PA Stats by simply putting their laptop with pa running into standby.

So basically this code tells us: Uber is okay with people who idle for up to 119 minutes. Why not allow people to pause the game during that time as well?

Which is kind of a nonsense. The game is actually still in alpha, since it is still lacking some key features. In software development is usually said that a product reaches the beta stage when stability and other minimal fixes come into play. PA is far from there.

But I agree that Gamma sounds nice, even if a mere marketing label.

Anyway, a game that awesome as PA definitely needs the pause option.

The reason they changed to gamma was this right here. Since everyone expected a finished game they changed it.

I bet that there are few things the Devs justify with a technical obstacle, when instead it's a political choice. But I also bet that they do so for good reasons.

About the pause button.

It's just a matter of logic. The game has to run at a specific speed. So that units moves accordingly, as well as bullets and productions time. Uber can surely internally modify that speed, and if it can be modified, it can be paused. Or taken so low that equals to a stop.

So the pause feature likely already exists. We do not have it for a political choice, as well as other stuffs that will be missing at release. I frankly do not panic about. I just expect those things to be implemented at some point.

Perhaps. But to be frank, the game wasn't even close to Beta, when they said it was. PA is technically still in Alpha.

Again, just to be clear, I have no problem with that. Neither with the Gamma labeling. I'm just pointing out what is what.