Offline Progress
The game keeps some systems running while you're away, up to a cap, and shows a summary when you come back.
What advances while offline
- Research — an in-progress research item keeps counting down and can complete while you're gone.
- Server money regeneration — servers keep regenerating on their normal interval (see Hacking & Servers).
- Boss lockout / hack debuff / resource freeze timers — these countdowns keep ticking down and can clear entirely while offline.
What does NOT advance while offline
- Passive hacking XP from hackers/machines — this only accrues during real-time ticks, not during the offline catch-up burst. If you're away, your hackers and machines are essentially paused (their cost is sunk, but they don't "bank" XP for the time you were gone).
- Scripts — nothing in
ns.hack()or your running scripts executes while the tab/app isn't loaded. Offline time doesn't run your automation for you.
The offline cap
"Offline catch-up" mode only kicks in once you've been away for at least 10 minutes (600 ticks); shorter absences just replay normally, tick by tick, with full hacker/machine XP included.
Beyond that threshold, there's a maximum number of ticks (maxOfflineTicks, starting at 14,400 = 4 hours) that will be credited on your return — time beyond that cap is simply not applied to research/regen/timers. A store action to raise this cap (increaseMaxOfflineTicks) exists in the code but isn't wired up to anything purchasable yet, so 4 hours is currently a hard ceiling.
There's also a hard 1-hour-per-burst catch-up limit on the tick loop itself, separate from the offline cap — long absences are resolved analytically (e.g. server regen cycles are calculated directly rather than simulated tick-by-tick) rather than by literally replaying every second you were gone.
The "System Reconnected" summary
When you return after a long enough absence, a modal reports:
- How long you were away.
- Any research that completed while you were gone (name + level reached).
- Total money servers regenerated back.
- Which penalty timers (boss lockout, hack debuff, resource freeze) fully cleared during the gap.