I have never really opened up to the idea of time traveling and I’ve always played one day at a time but now that I want to make more of a “dream” town I’m wondering if time traveling would be easier.
It would.
I’m still kinda skeptical about how this would effect my game, if I do it improperly could it cause one of my villagers to move out or mess up the town?
If you do it improperly, yeah, but that's why you should take it slow at first to get accustomed to how to do it safely. It's really easy and safe once you're used to it.
If I have two game cartridges could it mess up one if I time travel on the other?
It doesn't have to, no. If you use the in-game calendar when talking to Isabelle when loading up your town for the day, it will have no affect whatsoever on any other towns.
The only way I think it would affect other towns if they're both on the same 3DS, if they're both real-time towns, and if you were changing the time with the 3DS clock itself because then they would both switch to the time you set the 3DS to. So, avoid changing the 3DS clock.
I mostly know that time traveling is only safe if it’s less than 2 days apart.
Depends on what you want to get out of time traveling.
For instance, I've taken long breaks from the game, ranging from weeks to months sometimes. As long as I write down the last in-game date and time that I played, I can time travel back to that and the game will regard it as the exact same in-game day, with any items you bought at the shop still being sold out, errands you need to run still available, and so on. No dead flowers, no weeds, no one moving out.
Another exception is that when someone pings to move, you can either confirm or deny their request. Once you've done that and finish everything else you want to for the day, you can save and quit and then jump ahead as much as you want without having to worry about anyone unplanned moving out. I've done this myself to fix grass deterioration in my town by jumping ahead a year. In case you don't know what pinging is, it's when the villagers get wide-eyed and lines appear in the air above their head and they approach you and stand around looking excited wanting for you to engage them in conversation.
To get back to more of what you're probably getting at though, I tend only to time travel from one day to the next instead of jumping two or more just to be on the safer side of things. If you take it slow, it greatly diminishes the risk of anything unfortunate happening and makes everything very manageable.
Some questions I have are:
How many spread out “days” could I time travel throughout each real day?
As many as you want and feel like. Depending on what I'm trying to do in a play session, I could go through a week's worth of days or even more. The only thing I'd say is that you should talk to all of your villagers each time you load up a new day to make sure no one mentions that anyone's planning to move and that no one pings you to tell you that they themself plan to move. If someone that you want to keep is planning to move, be sure to talk to them (which might require them to ping you first) and convince them not to move away.
What are most of the benefits from time traveling?
The previously mentioned freedom to quit playing for a while if you have more important things going on in life, return to the last date you played, and have nothing whatsoever change. This makes the game feel less like a chore or obligation that you have to attend to daily and lets you take things at your own pace.
Repairing grass deterioration through the method previously mentioned.
Being able to unlock things faster (Nook shop upgrades, Club Tortimer, Kicks' shoe store, etc.) when starting a new game.
Having new items appear at the shops, new fossils to dig up, etc. instead of having to wait for the next real world day.
Being able to play in any part of the year that you want. Is it a hot, scorching Summer in real life and you want to play in Winter in game to take your mind off of the heat, or vice versa? Maybe you're close to competing your bug or fish collections at the museum but need something that only shows up in specific months? You can handle that instead of having to wait months and months.
Having the ability to earn more CAT Tokens and order more than 3 items from RVs per real world day.
Would this make it easier to move out villagers?
Absolutely. If you're playing more days with time travel, then it of course speeds up the process when compared to standard play. If you have 9 or 10 villagers living in the town, after a number of days someone will be planning to move out.
Note that it's more likely that a villager will want to move if their happiness is high, so be sure to socialize with them, do errands for them, write letters and send gifts, and so on. Also, as Nougat said, it's down to chance. Sometimes it takes a while for a specific villager to want to move out, sometimes certain ones are really insistent on it or whatever else. Just have to keep moving forward and eventually it'll happen.
Does this effect the time on the DS or any other AC game?
It doesn't have to, no. You can talk to Isabelle and manage the in-game calendar's time and date for the specific town. Messing with the 2DS/3DS clock ought to be avoided as much as is possible, because it can affect daily events in other games like in Pok?mon and keep you from doing them for 24 hours, like the lottery. I time travel a
lot, but the only time I touch the 3DS clock is when it's Daylight Savings Time.
So yeah, stick with Isabelle and the in-game calendar and you're golden.
What are the repercussions of doing this?
If you don't have the Beautiful Town ordinance and aren't actively watering all of your flowers, they'll die, which is a pain if you're growing hybrid flowers. You'd also get weeds.
I've also seen people talking about it affecting the Stalk Market over the years, but I've never bothered with buying and selling turnips in this game so I can't speak to it.
