To preface, I have a high double digit number of hours in DotE, not a huge amount, but enough to have strong familiarity with the mechanics and flow of that game. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the real time waves in ED and I've noticed other folks taking issue with the idea as well, especially fans of DotE. In general, I agree with the sentiment that real time waves throws the downtime and decision making process a bit out of whack. That said, there's something I like about the changed pace where I'm able to do a lot more things in the moment after a wave is complete, and I enjoy the tension of the countdown. So, here's my suggestion for a compromise system inbetween the real time waves of ED and door-opening based waves of DotE:

Action Points as an abstraction of how much time it takes to complete certain tasks. To illustrate my point, I'll just give a loose example (disregarding game balance):

• Once the first spawner is discovered (or just innately, if returning to dark room based waves of DotE - personally I actually like the set spawners of ED) you're given 20 action points
• Each major action that a player can make would cost a varying degree of action points, weighted by importance;
  • Opening a door costs 5
  • Science Research costs 3 (this would also address this issue of science research being too risky in the current build)
  • Setting a resource generator/major module costs 2
  • Placing/upgrading turrets costs 1
  • Committing to a purchase of any type (medkit, shop etc.) costs 1
• After 20 action points are spent, you are put into "Wave Imminent" mode. In this mode, you have a low random single digit number of action points remaining, so a wave can proc at any moment. This would be the "buffer" for overspending your 20, so you wouldn't be locked out of say, opening a door with only 1 Action Point, but if you did, you would be dipping into your Wave Imminent buffer, likely causing the next wave.
• Once a wave starts and is completed, the AP "timer" resets.

Obviously this balance is hypothetical, you might operate with say, 12 AP, 4 per door, 1 per turret, and 2 per every other choice, or game difficulty balance could be adjusted around this (24 for easy, 20 normal, 16 hard, etc.) or have a system where the lower depth you go, the less AP you have per wave. Maybe there could be some perks or characters with abilities that reduce the cost of certain actions either by -1 or a dice roll of costing 0, increase or decrease your base AP alongside other upsides/downsides etc. There's plenty of directions this system could go, but I think the core concept would assist with the pacing and give people the downtime I see other folks prefer from DotE, while giving it some strategic depth and higher variety of choices beyond a wave (very likely) starting every single door and maintaining at lease some of the tension that I do actually very much enjoy from the real time system. Just throwing this out there as a suggestion on how to address what seems to be one of the more divisive changes from DotE to ED.

EDIT: TL;DR Regardless of how this system is implemented/visualized, what I'm saying is, I like the idea presented in the current build that more actions than just opening doors apply pressure toward wave start but I want 1. some visual indicator and rebalancing for how much weight against the clock is spent per action and 2. removal of the underlying real time clock. Ideally this game would have both this mode and a doors-only classic mode at launch.

EDIT 2: With feedback in consideration, AP is a bit convoluted and a too specific with the information given to the player, eliminating a good amount of tension. It also ignores the underlying complexities and light luck factors of the existing system, so I'm proposing a less direct alternative that still weighs player actions with triggering waves while giving the player some (but not all) information. Here's a (bad) mockup of Threat Indication:

In this case, you would have some indication as to how likely the next incoming wave is, without being given perfect information as to exactly which of your next actions will cause the next wave. You have one guaranteed round of an absolutely safe move at 0, and any action after is not 100% safe. In this proposition, turret placement, turret upgrading, and shopping would be free as far as advancing the threat level, however big actions like doors, research, etc. are actions near guaranteed to bump it up by one or two.

There's something I enjoy about the pacing of the game now as far as being able to open two doors quickly relatively safely, which is a different type of strategizing that still fits in the spirit of DotE. That said, I still stand by the real timer aspect being removed from this equation.

Eulogos wrote:

I think that they actually have an algorithm like this but also you lose points over time. The result is if you play the game fast you get more waves, but it's not clear what is triggering them. If you sit around you will eventually get a wave. It's hard to predict when a wave will come.

I was just writing up an edit to say with a few more sessions I definitely feel like this is the case. I understand the intent behind obfuscating how waves function by hiding the timer and not showing how much certain actions take chunks off of it in an attempt to keep players on their toes, but I definitely agree with the sentiment that it ends up being more annoying and distracting than it is exciting. The fact it's taking people multiple sessions to figure this out and coming away from it feeling like it was miscommunicated rather than being intuitive is a bit of a issue. Regardless of its implementation, I would vastly prefer waves to be triggered exclusively by player actions, and to have at least some indication/hint as to how close the next wave is - even if not communicated directly with how many "points" you have left, then at least by some sort of prominent threat indicator to gauge approximately when the next wave is coming.