On this page
Unfamiliar word? Select a dotted-underlined term for its meaning.
Read the right clock
| Display | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Session timer, such as 03:20 | Time since entering the session, initially in minutes and seconds. After an hour it uses hours, minutes and seconds. It can continue while the simulation is paused. |
| Game Time, followed by a date and time | The date and time inside the scenario. It advances at the simulation rate and stops advancing during simulation pause. |
| FPS | How often the game draws a new picture. It measures display performance, not the rate at which scenario time passes. |
What are the city clocks?
The separate row labelled Alaska, Washington DC, Zulu, Moscow and Canberra shows clock times, not how long your session has lasted. When the scenario timeline is available, this row reads that timeline. The displayed city times are offsets from the same underlying time. In v0.8.16.0 those offsets are fixed; this display does not automatically apply seasonal clock changes. Do not use it as a current-world travel clock.
Read the city times
| Clock label | Offset from Zulu in the released default configuration |
|---|---|
| Alaska | 9 hours earlier |
| Washington DC | 5 hours earlier |
| Zulu | Reference time for this row |
| Moscow | 3 hours later |
| Canberra | 11 hours later |
For example, when Zulu reads 12:00, these defaults give Alaska 03:00, Washington DC 07:00, Moscow 15:00 and Canberra 23:00. The city labels are the game’s fixed-offset display; they are not a promise of seasonal local-time accuracy. The row shows time of day, so use Game Time in the banner when you also need the scenario date.
Show or hide the clock row
- Open Escape → SETTINGS → INTERFACE.
- Select CLOCKS to switch the city-clock row on or off.
- Close the menu to see the result. The row is hidden while the Escape menu is open, so remaining in settings is not a useful visibility check.
- For pause checks, read Game Time in the status banner. Hiding the city clocks does not stop the scenario timeline.
Outside training, the game remembers your CLOCKS choice. Training starts with the city clocks hidden; changing CLOCKS during a lesson is temporary, and your saved choice returns afterwards. To keep a different choice for ordinary play, change CLOCKS outside training.
Check pause without guessing
- Show the game-status banner if it is hidden.
- Find Game Time rather than the shorter session timer. Compare the seconds before and after using the pause control.
- Read the time-control bar’s state too. An open Escape menu, a counting session timer or an animated message is not enough to tell you whether simulation time is moving.
- Use normal 1× speed when learning a new procedure. If the controls are missing in an ordinary Hard session, read the difficulty rules instead of trying to repair the keyboard binding.
What happens at a faster speed?
At 2×, two seconds of game time pass for each real second. At 5×, five pass. For example, ten real seconds at 2× advance the game clock by about twenty seconds. The session timer still measures those ten real seconds. The banner’s measured Sim x… value can take a sample to settle after a speed change.
Why is the date not today?
This is the scenario’s date, not a wall clock for your computer. A saved game can also restore its own timeline. Use the displayed Game Time when describing an event in that session; keep the date you recorded a bug separately.
Check the clock when reading reports
Read Game Time and the time controls to check whether the simulation is paused. Use ASMA intelligence reports for bulletin reading; a message appearing on screen does not by itself prove that simulation time is advancing.
If time looks wrong
Capture the whole status banner, time-control bar and game version. Include whether you loaded a save, changed speed, paused or entered training. For a date jumping after a load, preserve the original save and use the save/load guide before overwriting it.