Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future.
In They Are Billions, time is measured by days and hours.
1 hour is roughly 3.75 real life seconds. The relation between in-game and real world time is somewhat fungible, as game speed adjusts to the capability of the user's PC. This was confirmed by the developer Gomez in a steam forum post in 2019:
| TAB time ⇅ | Real time ⇅ | Notes ⇅ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 hour | 0:00:03:750 | |
| 1 day | 0:01:30:000 | |
| 8 hours | 0:00:30:000 | One tick |
| 72 days | 1:48:00:000 | Time until final wave in survival on brutal difficulty |
Tick
Unlike most other games, a Tick in They are Billions is not the smallest measurement of in-game time used in the game's runtime. Instead, a Tick references the 8 in-game hour interval at which produced resources are added to the player's resource stockpile, and recurring maintenance costs are deducted from the player's resource stockpile.
Fast Timers Optimization
Fast Timers Optimization is an option that forces game to preserve tab time to real time ratio. The option may cause path finding issues, make units sometimes ignore orders, and cause other weird behavior on slower computers, but it will reduce lag. Without it, units will move normally and follow all orders, but the game will run slower.