A real save feature!!!!!!!!!!!

[vexx32]

Thanks! Helpful...

Do developers check this forum?

Some of them do, yes. Whether or not they'll be interested enough in what's been posted to fig through a long discussion for inspiration and/or good ideas is another thing entirely. It's one of the reasons I think a properly thought out thread title can be pretty darn important

[KerbMav]

Agreed. Since most of us aren't rocket scientists, we do things wrong. Fixing that problem generally involves either a new rocket design or different maneuvers while in space. Having to launch an entirely new rocket just because some tiny thing went wrong seems more tedious than useful.

KSP being a single player game and not a subscription MMO, there is no reason to punish players in such a way to keep them paying more/longer.

Edit: Meaning, Squad would have no reason to deny us, so we just will have to wait.

Edited October 29, 2013 by KerbMav

[DChurchill]

Wrong thread.

Edited October 28, 2013 by DChurchill

[Bobhendly]

The moral of the story: Putting 11 Exclamation marks does not help further a complaint.

[allmappedout]

I can never make up my mind about this.

Part of me likes the challenge, the reward of success and the experience of failure.

Part of me likes posterity and building things and having something to be proud of.

Part of me is aware that the physics engine isn't perfect and things happen that probably shouldn't sometimes.

Part of me is aware that the GUI isn't completely there to enable you to know certain things you need to calculate to perform specific things (planetary rotation, landing, atmospheric drag, etc)

Overall I think that having quicksave is a good thing as it enables you to try things that you mightn't risk, without having to repeat tasks. Obviously it's wildly unrealistic, but it's a game, so as long as it has good gameplay merit, and you use it the way you want to, then it doesn't really matter.

[JumpsterG]

The existance of the Multiple Saves mod shows there is interest in a fully featured save system and that it's implementation is possible (even easy, though I can't quantify that for the devs). It really is just up to the devs whether the feature is worth their time and fits with their idea of how KSP will/should be played for maximum fun.

Personally, I will live happily with the autosave + quicksave system if the devs never change it. Especially if mods and manual file manipulation is always an option for players interested in having more control.

[Stranded]

The game can of course have multiple saves, and any claims to the contrary are simply incorrect.

You can even have multiple saves in the current version of KSP, but it's a kludge.

Hit F5 to quicksasve. Now pause the game and alt-tab. Go you your KSP saves directory. Find your current game folder. Find the file called "quicksave.sfs". Rename it to something meaningful, eg, "Pre_landing_burn.sfs".

Return to the game. Do your landing burn. Land. If everything seems ok, make another quicksave. Go back to the folder and find the new quicksave.sfs. Rename it to "woohoosafelanding.sfs".

If you ever want to return to a previous save, go in and rename that particular save file to quicksave.sfs, then load it up with F9.

This functionality should absolutely be in the game though. Having to alt tab out to explorer, rename files, etc, is just silly. Ubiozur's linked mod does exactly what needs to be done, except that:

1) As with most mods, the constant UI intrusion is an unnecessary oversight. Why more people don't hide their UIs until a hotkey is pressed or appropriate context is entered, I don't know. Perhaps it's a limitation of the game.

2) It can be buggy.

If you are on a linux system, you could make a crontab entry to make a copy of this file to another subdir, and then time stamp it on a regular basis. Then mark the time of a quicksave you want to go back to, copy it back in and quickload it.

[Vector]

I agree this should be built into the game. I've had problems with Krakens and glitches killing hours and hours of work. Definitely NOT FUN. (And fun is the reason we're here, right?)

I wrote this script which takes the manual labor out of backing up the save files, and it's an external program, not a mod, so it won't affect the game's stability (or lack thereof).

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56437-Unlimited-quicksaves-with-screenshots-using-AHK

[sal_vager]

I have mixed feelings about something like this, but only because I played KSP before there were any saves or even persistence, and when the only destination was the Mun.

Getting to the Mun and back was hard, because you could not make mistakes, you could not misstep, it was all or nothing and it was tremendous fun, as well as nerve wracking.

It's different now we have more planets of course, but still, a Mun flight can be done without saves, and it's a lot of fun doing it that way when there's the risk that it can all go wrong.

[vexx32]

For sure, there's something about doing it all at once and not stopping for a break or reloading an earlier save... but if you want to, you can do that anyway. Saves are always optional, which is the best part. Me, I'm often too forgetful to even quicksave often enough to save my skin... Flights to Duna are a nightmare

[Deadweasel]

Quicksaving (F5) does not work in all situations. It won't work if your ship accelerates or is flying in atmosphere, for instance. You always need to watch for message in the upper right corner if it says "Quicksaving" or something else.

Very much THIS. I have been burned so many times by what feels like arbitrary restrictions on when the game can actually commit a quicksave.

"Cannot save while ship is throttled up"

"Cannot save while in atmosphere"

"Cannot save while Kerbal is on a ladder"

"Cannot save while vehicle is in motion" (somehow there's a difference between moving OVER land, or ON it???)

Basically, you need to commit your quicksave with F5 ONLY when in orbit (before a major maneuver), or when standing completely still on the ground. Watch that message line at top right. If it completes okay, THEN go for the burn. If it faults because of yet another ridiculous condition, fix whatever it's griping about then save again.

Annoying, very much yes, but once you get in the habit of watching that message, you run into headaches like the OP's situation MUCH less.

[vexx32]

1. If you attempt to save whilst under thrust, the actual point at which it saves your trajectory is weird and arbitrary, and should it then save your throttle state, too, or not?

2.If you attempt to save whilst in atmosphere, again, your trajectory is constantly changing and the craft cannot be put on rails, so yes, it cannot properly save the vessel. Only vessels which can be put on rails can be saved, otherwise what happens when someone quits to the tracking station after saving a vessel in-atmosphere? In order to simulate physics, the game needs to have that craft in focus.

3. Most likely a rails thing with Kerbals on ladders, too, although as far as I recall there were some weird occurrences before that condition was applied.

4. The game saves position and whether it's landed or not, not its velocity along the surface. Saving whilst moving over land could easily cause something extremely weird.

They've tried to make the saving code as robust and break as little as possible as they've been able to manage. I mean, even if you could save semi-reliably under those conditions, it's not worth it if your ship doesn't survive​ more than 50% of the time, is it?

[Deadweasel]

1. If you attempt to save whilst under thrust, the actual point at which it saves your trajectory is weird and arbitrary, and should it then save your throttle state, too, or not?

2.If you attempt to save whilst in atmosphere, again, your trajectory is constantly changing and the craft cannot be put on rails, so yes, it cannot properly save the vessel. Only vessels which can be put on rails can be saved, otherwise what happens when someone quits to the tracking station after saving a vessel in-atmosphere? In order to simulate physics, the game needs to have that craft in focus.

3. Most likely a rails thing with Kerbals on ladders, too, although as far as I recall there were some weird occurrences before that condition was applied.

4. The game saves position and whether it's landed or not, not its velocity along the surface. Saving whilst moving over land could easily cause something extremely weird.

They've tried to make the saving code as robust and break as little as possible as they've been able to manage. I mean, even if you could save semi-reliably under those conditions, it's not worth it if your ship doesn't survive​ more than 50% of the time, is it?

That clarifies a LOT, thank you!

You make a very good point, but I have to say, I'm still a bit annoyed about the fact that the game seems to be loading the ship THEN applying whatever physics properties are in-play. Of course, not being familiar with the code (or even how to code at that level in the first place), I can't really presume to recommend changes to it, but it's still quite annoying when I switch to a ship and find that the panels I'd deployed to keep it alive at night have been simply ripped off by sheer stresses applied to them during the process of loading the ship.

That, and of course the random "shattering into a billion pieces when switching to the ship" bug.

Anyway, that's all pretty much off-topic, so getting back to that: it would be nice if, when about to load a quicksave, instead of holding F9, a popup came up when hitting it to advise of the timestamp you're about to load. It wouldn't do much to alleviate the frustration of a save point you wanted farther back, BUT, it would at least remind you where you're about to jump back to instead of blindly lobbing you back there.

[^^artin]

I do like to support this proposal !

Add a simple and straight forward save/load system to KSP. It's annoying to have to leave the game, to save the "not so save games" manually.

[Kasuha]

Named quicksaves were already implemented in previous release.

[Tex_NL]

ALL HAIL THE NECROMANCER

I didn't expect you to fall for a necro-post Kasuha. But ... you are correct: [Alt]+[F5] to save, [Alt]+[F9] to load.

[Kasuha]

I did notice it's a necro but IMO it was so obvious I did not feel need to mention it.

[Vanamonde]

Indeed, this is no longer an issue, so the thread will be closed to avoid confusion.