250 -> 254 Save file compatibility

[Cassey]

Nicely, at least for the Windows version, the save files are not stored in the install directory.  At least for this upgrade, they also appear to be compatible - which is REALLY cool given that its a pre-alpha.

[Tynan]

Yes, they'll be mostly compatible, unless a warden is talking to a prisoner because I restructured the way that behavior is tracked. Dead bodies might be an issue too.

Old saves may cause some bugs, so watch out.

[Produno]

Probably a good idea to state please only report bugs in the bug section if you have started a new game. May sound obvious but yourd probably be surprised the amount of people that would forget or just do it anyway

[Cassey]

Just a comment, but combat just got a bit harder. Lost two colonist against a mod of 14ish.  At day 142.  Not a bug, just an observation. 

Going back to a bit more conservative strategy.

Oh, really wishing more ships would visit! <smile>  (old request - I just have 20K food to sell and would like to buy slaves and sell weapons)

[marek]

the new update broke my save.well I just got infinite electricity.
after I sold all my solar panels the electricity is still the same,nothing is discharging.

first post

[Produno]

Its probably more helpfull if everyone starts a new save on every release anyway, help with squashing the bugs.

[Cassey]

Agree that would be ideal, but I have 14+ hours in my current effort, and no idea how often releases will be coming.

Is there a method to the numbering?  Perhaps Xzz where X is a major release number with a required/highly recommended restart?

[Tynan]

I just pushed 254b, which includes a warning against loading saves from previous releases.

I'm planning to leave some time until the next release.

In general, never expect saves to work across releases, especially if they're more than a few days apart. The two saves are really for different games - in most cases I'll have fundamentally changed key game systems in a way that makes the old save uninterpretable.

For example, soon I'm gonna replace the SCII style resource pool with DF-style stockpiles. There is no way to translate between those two.

Another reason is just because nobody wants me stopping to spend the time to write a savegame converter. I do try to make the load system robust against corrupted or missing data, but there are limits to this.

[Nocebo]

I'm gonna replace the SCII style resource pool with DF-style stockpiles.

I love you.

[Cassey]

Presume letter releases will be compatible?  I noticed the executable version is still 254 in the "b" version.

Your 100% correct - we don't want you burdening the code with savefile conversion tools, or waste time developing them.  In fact, I'd be perfectly good with you simply rejecting the loading of anything that MIGHT cause problems.  You know best what you changed and IF it using the previous release save file might cause problems.

Thanks!

[Tynan]

Presume letter releases will be compatible?  I noticed the executable version is still 254 in the "b" version.

Your 100% correct - we don't want you burdening the code with savefile conversion tools, or waste time developing them.  In fact, I'd be perfectly good with you simply rejecting the loading of anything that MIGHT cause problems.  You know best what you changed and IF it using the previous release save file might cause problems.

Thanks!

254->254 will likely work.

Anyway, I put in a warning dialog for cross-version loading. Hopefully that'll be enough. If people keep doing it and complaining about the problems they encounter I may deny it harder. Hopefully that won't be needed.