Time acceleration tops out at 16x — and SHIFT+Z walks you back down the ladder

2026-08-02FEATURE CONTROLS

Time acceleration tops out at 16x — and SHIFT+Z walks you back down the ladder c47cbb6

The flight manual controls screen, Z entry reading: time acceleration 2x / 4x / 8x / 16x / back to normal, SHIFT+Z steps back down 16x > 8x > 4x > 2x

A small quality-of-life tune for the fast-forward crowd. The Z key still cycles time acceleration up through 2x · 4x · 8x · 16x and back to normal — but the 32x rung is gone. Past 16x the sim was stepping the world so many times per frame that a long transit ran hot for no real gain in getting-there.

Both directions on one key. SHIFT+Z steps back down the ring — 16x > 8x > 4x > 2x — so if you overshoot the rung you wanted you no longer have to lap the whole ladder to get back to it. Same convention as the spectate key: J rides forward, SHIFT+J rides back.
No fights with the burner. SHIFT is a hold-to-burn control, not a tap, so SHIFT+Z borrows it cleanly — same as SHIFT+J and SHIFT+E already do.

16x gets you across the bay in a hurry. 32x just got you past the checkpoint you meant to watch. — HB