Rift in Time in Other Environments

Has anyone else tried opening a time rift in the middle of the game? 

The way I do it is take Rift in Time from Time Cataclysm (or a portal card from Silver Gulch) and put shuffle it face up into another environment deck (say Megalopolis). When it is revealed all the current environment cards are removed from play (rather than letting Dominion or Akash'bhuta feed of them) and the new environment deck (Time Cataclysm or Silver Gulch) is put into play. Basically the heroes and the villian get pulled randomly through time. 

I haven't thought up any other decks to do this with, but it provides a nice versatility to the environments (which I wish there was more of. How about a mini-expansion with 4 environments?). You never know when you'll suddenly be dealing with a sudden triceretops instead of falling gargoyles.

This.

One idea for a variant I had was to play Time Catcylsm, and when you get an extra play from A Rift In Time, rather than playing from the Time Catacylsm environment, you played it from whatever deck the card that got 'normally' played would come from: so if you played a triceratops that turn, the rift in time would play a card from Insula Primalis. If you played the mutant cockroach, the rift in time would play from Pike Industrial, etc. Just play from the TC deck if the card normally played isn't one of the 'from another environment' cards (like Rift In Time itself, or Typhoon)

Final Wasteland feels left out.  Not to mention Freedom Tower.

I’m not sure about Final Wasteland, but Freedom tower is well represented in Time Cataclysm. Maybe you were referring to Mobile Defense Platform?

No, he meant Freedom Tower. The Mobile Defence Platform (Main Computer Room) is in there, but the Tower isn't.

One of the first things that Tachyon did when designing Freedom tower was to ensure chronal and dimensional stability, so that the team would have a reliable base of operations.  Temporal/Spatial Stability was attained by doping the construction materials with nanocamera protointelligences, ensuring that the entire building is always observed on a Quantum level, locking it into the moment and location.  Magical/Dimensional stability is maintained through Tillinghast resonators in key locations and a greater Elder Sign inscribed around the periphery of the building.  While none of this is perfect, they combine quite effectively and give the team a place to plan (or regroup, if necessary).

The final wasteland is not represented because it represents a future that is so far along the causality gradient that small temporal events don't have the necessary energy to punch through the likeliness barrier.  Most of the events in the Time cataclysm are clustered around events the Freedom 5 have personally observed, which substantially lowers the chronal energy necessary to get to them.  1883 requires an even higher energy cost, given that it is farther back, thus the efforts to sustain the portal and get back before it collapses.  Getting to the final wasteland is even more difficult, and requires special equipment (such as Jim's badge), a highly energetic time rift, or taking the long road (Haka).

That's an interesting idea.  I've changed up games a little by giving heroes a "home court advantage" when fighting in their respective environments.  For instance, Ra can heal 1 HP/turn (as well as Anubis/Ennead) if we're fighting in the Tomb of Anubis.  Chrono Ranger deals an extra damage to the outlaws in Silver Gulch.  La Capitan and Omnitron-X deal an extra damage when fighting in Time Cataclysm.  The Wraith deals an extra damage to thugs in Rook City.  And so on.  It adds a little thematic fun to the matches.

And I agree, I'd love to get an expansion of just environments.  I was a little disappointed that there will only be 2 environments in Vengeance (as cool as they'll likely be)

One option is to use / create custom environments. There are some available on Board Game Geek in the forums.