BulletTime

Bullet Time - Game Speed Control Mod

Take full control of time in Dyson Sphere Program\! This mod allows you to speed up, slow down, or completely pause the game to fit your playstyle.

This is quality of life mod. It doesn't affect achievements or metadata.

Key Features

By decoupling the mecha (player actions) from the world simulation, Bullet Time offers three main ways to control the flow of time:

1\. Overall Game Speed (Speed Buttons)

• What it does: Use the buttons at the bottom-right of your screen to change the entire game's speed, from 0x (pause) up to a 10x multiplier. This affects you, your factories, and everything in the universe.
• Best for: Speeding up long interstellar flights, waiting for resources to accumulate, or fast-forwarding through early-game tasks.
• Note: The speed adjustment is done by setting the target UPS (Updates Per Second, the game's simulation speed). The default 1x speed is 60 UPS. Your actual maximum speed is still limited by your PC's hardware performance.

2\. Tactical Pause Mode (Hotkey)

• What it does: Press the Pause key to "hard freeze" the game. In this mode, the world and your mecha stop completely, but you can still freely move the camera, queue up construction, place blueprints, and change building settings.
• Best for: View and plan your factory without time pressure. Or observe frame-by-frame.
• By default: Your mecha actions are disabled in this mode. You can change this in the configuration (EnableMechaFunc).

You can also advance the game by a single frame using the KeyStepOneFrame hotkey. It is recommended to use the step function when the mecha has stopped moving.

3\. Bullet-Time Mode (World Speed Slider)

• What it does: In the in-game Performance Statistics Panel, you'll find a "World Speed" slider. Lowering this slows down everything except your mecha. You continue to move, build, and interact at normal speed while the world operates in slow motion.
• Best for: Improving FPS in massive late-game factories by reducing the CPU's calculation load. It's also great for enjoying a "Sandevistan"-like experience where you have more time to react.
• If set to 0%: This creates a unique time-stop where your factories halt, but you can still move around freely.

Other Utility Features

• Background Autosave: Runs the autosave process on a background thread to prevent the game from freezing. The game will briefly enter the bullet-time pause mode (mecha can still move) to ensure data consistency during the save.

Note: This function has risk potential, so it's better to test it first.

• Fast Main Menu Loading: Speeds up loading into the main menu by skipping the 3D planet model rendering on the title screen.
• Reduce Stuttering: Includes an option to remove the game's forced garbage collection (GC) when using build tools, which can help reduce stuttering when placing many buildings.
• Save Hotkey: You can bind hotkeys for immediate save (KeyImmediateSave). The immediate-save hotkey writes a save instantly and reports the result in the log.
• Customizable Pause Status Text: The status label shown while in Tactical Pause mode can be changed via StatusTextPause, and its vertical position relative to the autosave text can be adjusted with StatusTextHeightOffset.

How to Use

It is recommended to install it through r2modman or GaleModManager.

• Speed Controls: Use the buttons in the bottom-right corner to Pause, Resume (or reset to 1x), and Speed Up. You can also assign hotkeys (KeySpeedUp / KeySpeedDown) for the same actions.
• Tactical Pause: Press the Pause / Break key to toggle.
• Bullet-Time Slider: Open the Performance Statistics panel to find and adjust the World Speed slider.
• Background Autosave Toggle: Open the Performance Statistics panel to enable background autosave on the top-right checkbox.
• View Performance: Press Shift + F12 to see the real-time FPS and UPS in the top-left corner.

Configuration

After running the game once with the mod installed, a conf