TiDi

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Time Dilation (TiDi - pronounced 'tye-die') is a mechanic CCP introduced with the Crucible Expansion in 2011 to ensure a smooth playing experience during large fleet fights. In the era before TiDi, players would often have their clients lock up or crash because the servers would get overwhelmed by the sheer number of actions (module activations, damage notifications, etc.) being taken by the players. TiDi helps mitigate this by slowing down time in-game, giving the servers the time they need to keep up with the action.

How does it work?

EVE is run on a collection of servers (often referred to as nodes), with each node typically handling approximately a dozen or so systems in-game (Note that these systems are often spread across the entire galaxy, and are not adjacent systems). Some busy systems such as Jita will often have their own dedicated node, and alliances can request a system be given its own dedicated node if they know a large fight may occur. The node responsible for a system continuously regulates the game speed within that system to the fastest rate it can handle without response lag or packet loss. If the node notices an uptick in lag or packet loss, the node automatically slows the game within the affected node until it reaches a point where the server can handle all incoming requests.

When TiDi activates, a circular icon appears in the top left of the screen next to the system name. As the game runs slower, this circular icon will fill with colour and will change from green to yellow to red depending on the current level of TiDi. Mousing over it will display the current TiDi rate. A TiDi rate of 20% means that the game is running at 20% normal speed, and affected actions will take five times as long. TiDi has a hard-coded floor of 10% beyond which the server will not slow any further.

You can think of TiDi and its effects as EVE's form of Bullet Time; everything in game happens slower, resulting in longer fights but giving you as the player more time to react to what is happening and plan your next move.

What will be affected by it?

In short, every action taken by your ship will occur in slow motion. The server will respond to all player commands and perform them in the correct order given. Additionally, multi-ship fitting is disabled when TiDi is active (manually fitting a ship still functions normally).

Time Dilation affects the speed of:

All module cycle duration
Shield and capacitor recharge
Ship movement (both sub-light and in warp)
Time to lock a target
Duration of dictor bubbles and burst projection effects
Cyno field duration
GCC and other aggression countdowns

Time Dilation does NOT affect the speed of:

The in-game clock
Structure reinforcement timers
Skill training
Drug duration
Structure anchoring or onlining timers (POS, Mobile Depots, etc.)
Information being sent to your game client (in-game chat, loading a grid, etc.)

10% and more TiDi….

As time dilation is capped at 10%, if 10% TiDi is not enough to keep the servers running smoothly then the server will start queuing actions within the client, the proxy servers in front of the nodes, and on the nodes themselves. This produces the phenomena known as soul crushing lag, exactly as happened in the past before the implementation of TiDi.

Patience is critical in soul crushing lag, as a command intended to activate a module may instead deactivate it if repeated before the activation fully completes. You should act slowly, deliberately, and definitively in 10% TiDi to make sure your commands have the best possible chance of being accurately executed. Hold the mouse button down a fraction of a second longer when clicking modules to be sure the click registers. Keep track of the state mentally, or on paper if need be.

If you are interested to know more about what will help to survive TiDi, please check out our “How to survive big fleet fights”