Reminders

A reminder is a standing instruction to tell you when something is about to happen in the world, said in the game while you are playing and by your phone while you are not.

Why they exist

The world runs on one clock nobody can push forward, so the things worth being awake for arrive on their own schedule. An apoapsis four hours out, a capture burn tomorrow morning, a crossing into another world's pull next week: all of them happen whether the game is open or shut. A reminder is how you stop having to remember them yourself.

The game offers one at the moment it matters most: fly a transfer burn whose crossing into another world's pull is hours away, and a toast reading REAL TIME · TAP TO SET A REMINDER names the world and the wait. Tap it and the lead picker opens over the map; ignore it and nothing is set.

What a reminder is made of

Each one is a moment, a few words, and how far ahead of the moment to speak. There are three kinds, and the list marks each with its own glyph: a point on your trajectory, a maneuver burn, and a time you picked for yourself. Set a reminder is the how-to for all three.

The Reminders list: an Apoapsis reminder for Your ship at EARTH 100.0 km, in 17 min and 15 min early, above a plain reminder called Check the transfer window set 2 h ahead. — A trajectory reminder and a plain one. The amber line is the countdown, then how early it speaks.

The moment belongs to the world clock, not to your phone's, because the world clock is what your trajectory is worked out against. When the game is in the shared world it can turn that into a time of day, so every choice you are offered says what time it lands on.

How far ahead it speaks

The lead is the gap between the reminder speaking and the thing itself happening. For something on your trajectory you are offered as it happens, then 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours and 1 day before it. A lead longer than the wait is not offered, so a burn eight minutes away never invites you to be told an hour early. A reminder about nothing in particular is set as a delay from now instead: 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, 12 hours, 1 day or 3 days.

Note

A reminder is a snapshot of the moment it was made for, the way a calendar entry is. Burn after setting one and the apoapsis it was about moves, but the reminder stays where you put it. The row still says what it was for, so you can drop it and set another.

What your phone does with it

Setting your first reminder is when the game asks the phone for permission to notify you. From then on, every reminder waiting is an alarm on the phone as well as a row in the list, so it speaks with the game closed, killed, or the phone rebooted since.

It is said three times over, the same words each time, because one chime through a pocket is how a burn gets missed. There is no dismiss button. Opening the game is what ends the nag: a reminder that has spoken is off the list, and the follow-ups leave your phone within a second. While the game is on screen the phone stays quiet and the game says it instead, in a toast.

The Reminders screen with its explanation at the top, one reminder waiting, and the + Remind me later button along the bottom. — The list, reached from Settings or from the flight menu. The same list either way.

A reminder that has spoken is struck off the list, there and then — and so is one whose moment went by while the game was shut. The list is only ever what is still coming, so there is nothing to tidy up and no button to do it with. You may keep 21 waiting at once, which is as many as a phone will hold once each has its repeats.

A reminder takes you to its ship

A reminder set on the map is about the ship you were flying when you set it, and it remembers which. When it comes due, tap it and you are at that ship's controls:

In the game, the toast reads Reminder · tap to open the ship and stays up a little longer than other toasts so there is time to reach it; swipe it away instead and it simply goes, without opening anything. From the hangar it takes the controls of the ship; from another flight it hops across the way the map's Control button does — which means the ship you are flying has to be somewhere it can be left first, in a stable orbit or on the ground.
On your phone, tapping the notification opens the game straight onto that ship, whether the game was running in the background or shut.

A reminder about the ship already in front of you is just a toast. If the ship has gone since — recovered, lost, or docked into a station, in which case the reminder follows it to the station — the game says it is no longer in the world. A reminder you set in sandbox only opens a sandbox ship, and one from the shared world only a shared-world ship, since a ship in one is nothing in the other. A plain reminder at a time you picked is about no ship, so tapping it does nothing more than open the game.

A warning you never set

One alarm is set for you. Send the game to the background with a ship in the air, or coasting down into it, and your phone is told to speak a minute before the ship would be lost: after 4 min, the most common case. It is said once, never shows in your list, and is taken off your phone unsaid if you open the game first. The shared world and its clock says which ships it is for and why.

News from the world

A reminder is something you asked for. Some things you would not have known to ask for: the world keeps turning while your game is shut, and now and then it does something to your programme that you would want to hear about straight away.

These reach your phone on their own, with nothing to set up:

A ship is lost. A vessel you left on an orbit that dips into an atmosphere is gone when it gets there, whether or not you were watching.
A contract ran out of time. The deadline is real time, it passes while you are away, and the advance comes back with its penalty on top.
A player contract moves. One you posted is taken, delivered to you, or closes without a ship; one you hold is close to its deadline, runs out, or is cancelled by whoever posted it. See Player contracts.
An achievement is earned while you are away. A ship you left coasting reaches another world's sphere of influence, or settles into an orbit, and the world pays the feat without waiting for you. See Achievements.
A programme step is done. A step whose goals are standing ones — keep three relays powered, get the Administration to level 2 — is judged by the world itself, so it completes and pays while you are elsewhere.

These come from the world server rather than from your phone's own clock, which is why they only exist while you are signed in: a sandbox world is your device's alone and there is nobody to send them. Your phone asks for permission once, the first time you sign in on it, and the same answer covers reminders.

If several things happen at once — a stage and a capsule both meeting the air on the same pass — you get one line saying so rather than a run of buzzes.

Unlike a reminder, news from the world shows on your phone even while the game is on screen: a banner at the top, with its sound, so it is never missed just because you happened to be playing.

Sandbox has none

A sandbox world has a clock of its own that only moves while you are playing, so a time in it means nothing to your phone. Reminders set there speak in the game and nowhere else, and the lead choices show no time of day. In the shared world, where the clock keeps running without you, they do the job they were built for.