Confused about saved games

[KrisKelvin]

I am very confused about what a saved game is. It seems to mean different things in different parts of the game. When you're flying your ship and try to save where you are you see different saved games than when you are on the launch pad. And what is the one called "persistent" and "quick save"?

I want to be able to save a game when I have gotten into orbit so I can keep reloading it and then practice my maneuver nodes without having to take off and get into orbit each time. But if I then load that game again it takes me all the way back to the space centre instead of being in space (which is where I was when I saved)

Edited June 1, 2020 by KrisKelvin

[Rhomphaia]

Persistant is your main auto save, it updates every 5m or whenever you change scenes

Quicksave is the default quicksave created by F5. 

If you hold F9 it will quick load your last quicksave and should put you back into the same scene

Edited June 1, 2020 by Rhomphaia

[Geonovast]

If you hit ESC and then click on "Save Game", you can create a save point named whatever you want.  The game will not touch it.  The only save file that the game will automatically overwrite is your persistent game save file.

[Snark]

On 6/1/2020 at 2:18 PM, KrisKelvin said:

When you're flying your ship and try to save where you are you see different saved games than when you are on the launch pad.

Not sure what you mean by this?

On 6/1/2020 at 2:18 PM, KrisKelvin said:

And what is the one called "persistent" and "quick save"?

The one called "persistent" is the default one-- this is the one that the game automatically saves to every once in a while and on each scene change (so you don't lose everything if the game crashes).  The "persistent" one is also the one that gets loaded when you start up the game.

The one called "quick save" is the one that gets saved when you just hit F5, and loaded when you just hit F9.

All the other ones are the saves that happen when you make a specific named save via Alt+F5.

On 6/1/2020 at 2:18 PM, KrisKelvin said:

I want to be able to save a game when I have gotten into orbit so I can keep reloading it and then practice my maneuver nodes without having to take off and get into orbit each time.

Yup, they're great for that! 

On 6/1/2020 at 2:18 PM, KrisKelvin said:

But if I then load that game again it takes me all the way back to the space centre instead of being in space (which is where I was when I saved)

It's doing most of what you want-- it's just that your mental model of what "saving" means doesn't quite match what's actually going on.

When you save a game, it saves the complete state of the world, not the state of the UI.

What this means:

• It does save everything about the state of the world:  what ships have been launched, where they are, how much money you have, where all your kerbals are, etc.
• It doesn't save the state of the UI-- for example, it doesn't save the fact that "I was flying this ship when I saved".

Every time you load a game, it always takes you to the KSC scene, regardless of where you were and what you were doing when you saved.

So, let's say you've flown your ship to orbit, and then you save the game.  When you do that, the game takes a "snapshot" of everything in the world-- including where that ship is and what it's doing-- and saves that.

If you then load the game... it puts you in the KSC view, but the ship is right there where it was when you saved it.  So all you have to do is switch to that ship (for example, via the tracking station), and there you go.

So, basically, it does exactly what you want... it's just that there's an extra step involved (you have to switch to the ship after loading).

[KrisKelvin]

ok, thanks guys. I think I get what it's doing. I'll try some of these out.

I think i assumed that if I saved while flying, I would load straight back in there.

So I just resumed a saved game (I was in orbit with some fuel left). I tried a maneuver and used up all my fuel, but wasn't happy with it, so I wanted to reload the game and try again. But this time I had no fuel! It seems to have auto-saved after I had used the fuel without me wanting it to! How can i stop it from doing that so i can just go back to where I was (i.e. with a bit of fuel left)?

Either I am very dumb, or this game is very confusing!

Edited June 3, 2020 by KrisKelvin

[Snark]

2 hours ago, KrisKelvin said:

How can i stop it from doing that

You can't.  Auto-saving is automatic, and that's a good thing, because it's for your own good.  It's what protects you from losing all your progress if the game crashes or something.

You can have exactly what you want-- just, loading the auto-save is not the way to do that.

What you do is to make your own save and load that.

The simple way, using a quicksave:

1. Hit F5 first, before you do the thing you're worried you might mess up (like doing a burn or whatever).
2. Do the thing.
3. "Oh noes, I messed it up!"
4. Press and hold F9.
5. It loads the game at the point where you pressed F5.

This is nice and  simple.  It has the disadvantage that there's only one "save" slot, and each time you press F5, it overwrites the last quicksave you did.

 

The slightly more flexible way, using a named save instead of a quicksave:

1. Hit Alt+F5 before you do the burn or whatever.
2. It'll prompt you to type in a name for this save.  Call it whatever you want.  For example, if you type "here goes", it would make a named save file called "here goes.sfs".
3. Do the thing.
4. "Oh noes, I messed it up!"
5. Press Alt+F9.
6. It shows you the list of saves available that you could load.
7. Pick the one that you just saved in step 2 (e.g. "here goes" or whatever you called it).
8. It loads the game at the point where you pressed Alt+F5.

You can have as many different named saves as you want, and none of them will ever get overwritten unless you explicitly save a second time with the same name.  (And even if you do, in that case it'll prompt you to ask if you want to overwrite it.)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

10 hours ago, KrisKelvin said:

ok, thanks guys. I think I get what it's doing. I'll try some of these out.

I think i assumed that if I saved while flying, I would load straight back in there.

So I just resumed a saved game (I was in orbit with some fuel left). I tried a maneuver and used up all my fuel, but wasn't happy with it, so I wanted to reload the game and try again. But this time I had no fuel! It seems to have auto-saved after I had used the fuel without me wanting it to! How can i stop it from doing that so i can just go back to where I was (i.e. with a bit of fuel left)?

Either I am very dumb, or this game is very confusing!

The game is constantly doing autosaves.

So... If you're like me and doing manual saves before doing something stupid... it can be hard to remember / find the save you need to go back to.  (I've had to revert to a waaaay back save after building a particularly offensive to the Kraken ship).  Dumping to the game menu and then loading a saved game will load the most recent autosave... so you then have to hid load game, and then you can select a manual save.  Presuming you remember the name of the save you want to revert to.

What I do, is open my save file folder on the desktop, and then sort them by date / time.  That tells me what my saves were in order - which allows you to go into the game and find the particular named save you want.

 

Hope that helps

[KrisKelvin]

On 6/3/2020 at 9:19 PM, Snark said:

You can't.  Auto-saving is automatic, and that's a good thing, because it's for your own good.  It's what protects you from losing all your progress if the game crashes or something.

You can have exactly what you want-- just, loading the auto-save is not the way to do that.

What you do is to make your own save and load that.

The simple way, using a quicksave:

1. Hit F5 first, before you do the thing you're worried you might mess up (like doing a burn or whatever).
2. Do the thing.
3. "Oh noes, I messed it up!"
4. Press and hold F9.
5. It loads the game at the point where you pressed F5.

This is nice and  simple.  It has the disadvantage that there's only one "save" slot, and each time you press F5, it overwrites the last quicksave you did.

 

The slightly more flexible way, using a named save instead of a quicksave:

1. Hit Alt+F5 before you do the burn or whatever.
2. It'll prompt you to type in a name for this save.  Call it whatever you want.  For example, if you type "here goes", it would make a named save file called "here goes.sfs".
3. Do the thing.
4. "Oh noes, I messed it up!"
5. Press Alt+F9.
6. It shows you the list of saves available that you could load.
7. Pick the one that you just saved in step 2 (e.g. "here goes" or whatever you called it).
8. It loads the game at the point where you pressed Alt+F5.

You can have as many different named saves as you want, and none of them will ever get overwritten unless you explicitly save a second time with the same name.  (And even if you do, in that case it'll prompt you to ask if you want to overwrite it.)

Many many thanks. I'm going to try this out.

One further question. Is the named save different from what I originally called the game? or is it a 'sub-game' within it? Here's what I mean. When I start KSP I select "start game" then in the next menu I select "start new" and I select "sandbox" and enter the name of my game (say, "orbit attempt"). So now my game is called "orbit attempt" My question is, using the named save option you describe above, does that make a set of 'sub-games' within "orbit attempt" or does it create a completely new game (one I could load from the opening menu)?

Edited June 6, 2020 by KrisKelvin

[AHHans]

42 minutes ago, KrisKelvin said:

One further question. Is the named save different from what I originally called the game? or is it a 'sub-game' within it? Here's what I mean. When I start KSP I select "start game" then in the next menu I select "start new" and I select "sandbox" and enter the name of my game (say, "orbit attempt"). So now my game is called "orbit attempt" My question is, using the named save option you describe above, does that make a set of 'sub-games' within "orbit attempt" or does it create a completely new game (one I could load from the opening menu)?

It is a 'sub-game' as you call it.

Maybe it is easier to understand when you have a look at the directory structure in the "save" folder of your KSP install. If you look in '.../Kerbal Space Program/saves/' you'll find sub-directories for all the games / playthroughs that you started from the main menu (plus some for the scenarios and training etc.). If you look into one of these sub-directories (e.g. your '.../Kerbal Space Program/saves/orbit attempt/' then you'll find the sub-directories "Backup", "Ships", and "Subassemblies" (which contain some backups of the autosaves, the *.caft files of the ships you created in this playthrough, and the subassemblies of this playthrough respectively) and you find a number of *.sfs files with their accompanying *.loadmeta files. The *.sfs files are the actual save-files and the *.loadmeta files contain the "thumbnail" and will be (re-)created by KSP automatically if needed. Each *.sfs file is completely self-contained and contains everything that is needed to start the game at the point it was saved. And as @Snark wrote two of the *.sfs files are special: "persistent.sfs" is the file where KSP writes the autosave to and it is the file that is loaded when you start a game from the main-menu, "quicksave.sfs" is the file that KSP writes to when you press <F5> and which KSP loads when you press <F9> for several seconds. When you write a save from the <ESC> menu or via <ALT> - <F5> then it will get the name that you enter there. But all *.sfs files are the same, you can copy and rename them around as you like. You can also copy a career-mode *.sfs file into a sandbox-mode directory and once you load it there it will be a career mode game (or any other way around).

[KrisKelvin]

5 hours ago, AHHans said:

It is a 'sub-game' as you call it.

Maybe it is easier to understand when you have a look at the directory structure in the "save" folder of your KSP install. If you look in '.../Kerbal Space Program/saves/' you'll find sub-directories for all the games / playthroughs that you started from the main menu (plus some for the scenarios and training etc.). If you look into one of these sub-directories (e.g. your '.../Kerbal Space Program/saves/orbit attempt/' then you'll find the sub-directories "Backup", "Ships", and "Subassemblies" (which contain some backups of the autosaves, the *.caft files of the ships you created in this playthrough, and the subassemblies of this playthrough respectively) and you find a number of *.sfs files with their accompanying *.loadmeta files. The *.sfs files are the actual save-files and the *.loadmeta files contain the "thumbnail" and will be (re-)created by KSP automatically if needed. Each *.sfs file is completely self-contained and contains everything that is needed to start the game at the point it was saved. And as @Snark wrote two of the *.sfs files are special: "persistent.sfs" is the file where KSP writes the autosave to and it is the file that is loaded when you start a game from the main-menu, "quicksave.sfs" is the file that KSP writes to when you press <F5> and which KSP loads when you press <F9> for several seconds. When you write a save from the <ESC> menu or via <ALT> - <F5> then it will get the name that you enter there. But all *.sfs files are the same, you can copy and rename them around as you like. You can also copy a career-mode *.sfs file into a sandbox-mode directory and once you load it there it will be a career mode game (or any other way around).

Excellent! Many thanks. I think I get it now. I don't know why I didn't just look in the Saves directory first! I can see the logic more clearly doing that. :-)