How to retrieve a lost station ? (AKA Save files, how do they work?)

[Mokmo]

I've had this happen to me twice this week, a station i build in 2-3 flights gets deleted because i hit end flight instead of all the other options.

Now i tried copying the "quicksave" file over the "persistent" one, it didn,t work. Now i'm wondering how the save files work in the game.

I have a backup dating from two days ago, the directory is named after my game. Did i need to copy other files for my backup ?

Will putting the old persistent and quicksave files back on there be enough?

[Tristavius]

Yes, restoring an old folder's persistent and quicksave will restore your old game.

After a very similar experience throwing away 3-4 days work with a mistaken click, I now backup my save games daily before I begin playing. I will also sometimes backup the 2 files mid-game after an important event, which is perfectly possible.

In short, backing up saves is very quick, very easy and takes very little space, so do it as often as possible!

a friend of mine also made a batch file to do all this automatically, I will upload that later.

[Jason Patterson]

Your persistence file is updated periodically as you play and also every time you change the scene (go to and from the space center, for instance.) The quicksave file is updated every time you launch a ship and whenever you press F5. If you want to return to an earlier save, all you need is the .sfs file from the desired time. Copy it into your game folder and change the name to persistent.sfs and you're good to go.

Always always always be sure to back up your current persistence file before you do anything like this though (or at least change the name until you've had time to confirm that the backed up save is functioning as intended.) If for some reason the older file was corrupted, you can lose your entire save.

[Mokmo]

Thanks for both your replies, it makes total sense now that i know how this works

(The old backed up save didn't have the station, so i guess i'm bringing back the normal one)

Edited May 7, 2013 by Mokmo
station status after restore

[HoY]

One more trick: if you accidentally end a flight and realize it right away quickly alt+f4 out of the game. It won't update the persistence file then. I've had to do that a couple times while docking large structures together then having them crazily explode and then realizing I didn't press f5 :s

[CalculusWarrior]

I do this all the time. What I do is either load a quicksave or use Hyperedit to move the space station back into orbit.