Really save a savegame

[Tokay Gris]

The title says it basically.

Is there a way to "really" save a game? That is, copy some stuff and put it somewhere and later copy it back?

Because I tend to have more than one mission going and sometimes the timewarp on one mission causes another mission to utterly fail...

[PaleoGamer]

Look in your install folder. There is a saves folder in there and under it there are folders for each of your worlds. In them there is a file called "persistent.sfs". That's your save file. Copy it off somewhere and you're safe.

[EndlessWaves]

Because I tend to have more than one mission going and sometimes the timewarp on one mission causes another mission to utterly fail...

I'd recommend grabbing a mod like Kerbal Alarm Clock instead so you can be notified when you need to switch missions, that functionality is going to be added officially sooner or later anyway.

[HarvesteR]

If you press F5, you'll generate a quicksave. Quicksaves aren't overwritten like auto-saves are, unless you launch a new mission (then it generates one new quicksave state).

You can reload a quicksave by pressing F9 (and holding it a bit).

Cheers

[Tokay Gris]

Once I get home tomorrow, I will look at the files in question.

I know about the quicksave. The question was actually, if I could copy the "quicksafe"-file to another location for keeping.

[EvilotionCR2]

But it would be great if we had normal save games.

There has been for it,don't know the name,because spaceport is down.

[Ben Kerman]

I know about the quicksave. The question was actually, if I could copy the "quicksafe"-file to another location for keeping.

Yes, you can do that, so for example just copy a quicksave file of the start of your mission. If you now quicksaved at a bad time and decide to replace the bad quicksave file in your world folder with your backup and quickload, it will be at the start of your mission again.

You also can (at least) replace persistent.sfs files with quicksaves, it might be missing information the other way around.

[Scialytic]

I use some batch scripts to handle my saves. I'm not sure if they are of interest to anyone else, but I'm posting them just in case somebody finds them useful. I use winrar but they could easily be modified to use 7zip or whatever. "clear-world.bat" and "archive-saves.bat" are stored inside the KSP root directory, so I can run them just by double-clicking. "archive-ksp.bat" is stored in the same directory as the KSP root folder.

clear-world.bat ~ Restores everything in the default save (including Kethane) to the brand-new state (as if this were a new KSP install)

@ECHO OFF
pushd ".\saves\default"
del /Q *.sfs
"C:\Program Files\WinRAR\RAR.exe" e "..\..\saves [clean].rar" "saves\default\persistent.sfs"
popd
pushd ".\PluginData\mmi_kethane"
del /Q Deposits.dat
"C:\Program Files\WinRAR\RAR.exe" e "..\..\saves 2013-04-20 #01.rar" "PluginData\mmi_kethane\Deposits.dat"
popd

archive-saves.bat ~ Creates a new archive of all the saves, including plugin state files. The file name is dated and numbered automatically.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
set rarcmd="C:\Program Files\WinRAR\RAR.exe" a -rr3p -k -m5 -md4096 "-ag{ }YYYY-MM-DD{ #}NN" %*

:archive
ECHO %rarcmd%
for /D %%X in (saves) do %rarcmd% "%%X.rar" "%%X" ".\PluginData"
:end
ENDLOCAL

archive-ksp.bat ~ Creates a backup of the entire KSP directory. I use this before major upheavals, such as upgrading to a new version of the game.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
set rarcmd="C:\Program Files\WinRAR\RAR.exe" a -rr3p -k -m5 -md4096 "-ag{ }YYYY-MM-DD{ #}NN"

:archive
ECHO %rarcmd%
for /D %%X in (KSP_win) do %rarcmd% "PUT_YOUR_BACKUP_DIRECTORY_HERE\%%X.rar" "%%X"
:end
ENDLOCAL

[sanoj688]

You also can (at least) replace persistent.sfs files with quicksaves, it might be missing information the other way around.

Don't you mean it the other way around? Because my persistent.sfs is larger in size than my quicksave.sfs But replacing your quicksave.sfs with the persistent.sfs seems kind of useless to me, but it might work.

I use some batch scripts to handle my saves.

Hehe, nicely done.

Edited April 8, 2014 by sanoj688

[Starstrider42]

Don't you mean it the other way around? Because my persistent.sfs is larger in size than my quicksave.sfs But replacing your quicksave.sfs with the persistent.sfs seems kind of useless to me, but it might work.

I'm pretty sure the two formats are identical. I just took a difference of the two files and I don't see anything other than a lot of floating point numbers (part temperatures, especially) that are off in a few insignificant digits.

[Vanamonde]

There's a mod that allows multiple save points: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/72212-Jebretary-Automatic-Version-Control-%28backups%29-for-craft-and-saves

[Claw]

Kerbal Alarm Clock now makes backups as well. And it seems that it makes lots of them.

[Pecan]

KAC's settings let you adjust the number of saves/backups it keeps

[Scarecrow88]

The problem of making a duplicate save for reloading at a later date to complete a mission that you have overlooked, is that you will lose the mission that you originally completed.

For example, if you launch a mission to Duna and one to the Mun, and whilst concentrating on completing the Duna mission, you miss the Mun intercept and go sailing by, if you reload a copy gamesave that puts the Mun mission back to a point where you can manage the intercept, you will also be loading the Duna mission back to the same point.

[Pecan]

Ha! Another possible problem - make sure you remember to save the correct version of your ships too!

[Jananton]

Hmm, maybe you all should have a look at this thread here. Maybe not a complete savegame, but certainly a nice additional hidden feature since v. 0.23.5

Greets,

Jan

[Claw]

Hmm, maybe you all should have a look at this thread here. Maybe not a complete savegame, but certainly a nice additional hidden feature since v. 0.23.5

Greets,

Jan

Hah, that's really funny. I found that by mistake but always thought it was some sort of debug system. I was always too afraid to actually save/load using it.

Thanks!