v2.6 - Hell... it's about time!

Heya people!

Time. Eclipse Phase is full of it. Drugs that last ten minutes, sleights that hold for a few rounds, a recharge that takes an hour, an Integration Test that leaves you off-balance for days. And until today this system had no idea what time it was. Neither does Foundry, by the way - it keeps a world clock under the hood, starts it at zero and then just... never moves it.

This started out as the drug release. I wanted doses that kick in, run their course and wear off again on their own, without anyone sitting there counting minutes. And about five minutes into planning that, I realised every single one of those ideas needs a clock first. Recharges need one. Healing needs one. Chi pushes need one. So the drugs got bumped to 2.7 (they're well underway, promise) and the clock became a release of its own.

And no, I didn't build you a calendar. Nobody wants to argue about which month it is on Mars. What you get is a Time Panel: how many years and days your campaign has been running, the time of day (in hours and minutes - or Swatch beats, because it's the future and I can), a row of buttons to move time forward, and a list of everything that's currently ticking away on your characters. Time only moves when the GM says so - And combat rounds, to be fair... well.

No migration this time, but a few things behave differently from now on, so read this before your next session:

• "Rest" is now called "Recharge" everywhere, because that's what the book calls it.
• Recharges no longer reset by hand only. When the clock rolls over into a new day, every character's recharge allowances reset on their own. Don't like that? There's a checkbox for it in the Time Panel.
• A failed Integration Test now wears off on its own after the 1, 2 or 3 days RAW gives it - the Delete button for it is gone. If someone is in the middle of one when you update, keep an eye on it.
• Your clock starts at Year 1, Day 1 in every world, existing ones included. Just click into the fields and set it to wherever your campaign actually is.
• Players don't see the panel by default. If you want them to, switch it on in the system settings.

So without further ado, the patch notes:

Added features

• A Time Panel pinned beside the sidebar, showing days played as years and days, the time of day, and buttons to advance the clock by 10 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days or any amount you like
• The year, the day and the time of day are editable right in the panel, so you can put the clock wherever your campaign is
• Time of day in hours and minutes or in Swatch beats (1 day = 1000 beats), chosen per player, with each format's tooltip showing the other one
• Every running effect listed in the panel, grouped by actor for the GM, with its description behind an info icon and a button to end it early
• Players get their own slimmer panel: no controls, only their own character's effects - switchable per world
• Recharge allowances reset automatically when the clock passes into a new day, for characters, NPCs and goons alike, with a manual "Reset recharges" button next to it
• A recharge's chat card now tells you how long it took: 10 minutes or 1 hour for a short one, 4 or 8 hours for a long one, depending on whether you have biomods
• A pushed chi sleight now actually lasts the time it announces, and ends on its own when the clock runs past it
• Ignoring a wound or a trauma now ends after the 24 hours RAW gives it, or at your next recharge, whichever comes first
• A failed Integration Test's -10 now runs for the 1, 2 or 3 days RAW gives it, instead of sitting there until someone deletes it
• A combat round now counts as three seconds of world time, as it should

Bug Fixes & Code Quality

• "Shop" no longer shows up twice when creating an actor with the shop module enabled
• An effect whose time has run out is now suppressed immediately, instead of lingering until something cleaned it up
• A new effectDurations hook fires whenever a tracked effect's remaining time changes, for anyone building a module on top of the clock
• 120-odd new tests covering the clock's arithmetic, the panel's actions and the day-change reset - 512 tests across 47 suites now

UX Improvements

• The panel steps aside whenever the sidebar changes width, until you drag it somewhere else
• The panel uses the system's own buttons, inputs and labels, so it doesn't look like it wandered in from another module
• Temporary effects no longer slap an icon on your tokens

Next stop: drugs. Pharmaceuticals, narcotics, toxins, the works - and now they have a clock to run on.

See you in the next one!