PC Chunk persistence and chunk reset time

Okay, kind of curious about these two settings. Chunk persistence defaults to unlimited. I think the reset defaults to 30 days. That said, how do they work? What do they do? I read that one only affects consoles but they're both available on my PC copy. It sounds like they do the same thing. Chunk persistence can reset chunks after some undefined time or never (unlimited, default). Chunk reset time seems to do the same thing after a specific number of days. Do these two settings work together? Do they conflict?
 
I read the tooltips but I also read that persistence was supposedly only for consoles. I am on a PC. Looking for something that can explain what it does and how it interacts with the other one. If I set persistence to high and the other to 10 days, do they conflict?
 
If I set persistence to high and the other to 10 days, do they conflict?
No. Everything older than 10 days is deleted. If the save files still get too large to fit in "high", some of the 9 day stuff will be deleted. Then eight day, etc.

Somethings will be spared, like land claims; and the system may have all kinds of priorities beyond that - so it's hard to predict what it will delete for the file size.
 
They are very similar, which can be a bit confusing. You are correct that chunk persistence is mainly for console to keep the save file size smaller, though you can use it for the same thing on PC. In most cases, it can probably just be left at unlimited on PC, though. Chunk reset time is only for PC (I believe) and its purpose is mainly to reset areas to the original state so that you can loot stuff again and fill in terrain and fix broken things and so on. It's mostly valuable for servers so areas that aren't visited can get reset back to the original state so people can loot the areas again instead of everything already being looted by the time a new player joins the server.

These two settings do have a similar effect... they both decrease save file sizes if setting the values lower, and they both "clean up" the chunks when resetting them. Also, they can interact with one another... if you set persistence low and chunk reset high, the chunks can end up resetting before the chunk reset timer's time gets triggered.

Now, this next part is a guess on my part and I don't know if it's accurate. I *believe* that chunk persistence will reset any chunks that are older, even if they have been visited recently, while I know for sure that the chunk reset timer only resets chunks that haven't been visited within that timer's amount of time (if it's set to 10 days and you visit in on day 9, the timer resets and it'll be another 10 days before it could get reset based on the timer). So if the first part is correct, it means that if you want chunks to reset even in regularly visited areas, you may want to set chunk persistence lower because the chunk reset timer may never reset those chunks that are visited regularly.

In both cases, chunks won't reset within land claim areas or near bedrolls. I think chunks with vehicles also don't reset, but don't quote me on that. ;)
 
Thank you, Riamus, that makes sense. Now I get it. Never had a "big" save by PC standards so it makes sense to limit save size on a console where it may be more difficult to increase storage capacity.
 
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