Lost Progress and Corrupted Savegame in A21 After Laptop Shutdown

[Ov3rrid3]

I had been playing the new A21 for almost a year without any breaks, thoroughly enjoying the new alpha 21 features. However, my laptop suddenly shut down. When I reloaded the savegame, I found myself at level 1 with 0 XP in the same location, as if I were in the new map called PREGEN8K. Unfortunately, all my progressions and buildings were gone. The only thing that remained from the previous savegame before the crash was the already explored area on the map, visible through the fog of war.

Losing approximately 22 hours of in-game playing time just as the excitement was building was an extremely disappointing experience. It's particularly frustrating because this isn't the first time a savegame has been corrupted after a game crash in previous alphas.

I understand that I could cheat my way back to a similar level as before and manually back up the savegame from time to time, but that's not what I should be expected to do. It would require spending even more time to fix a problem that doesn't seem to affect other games I know of. It's also surprising because most other competitors in the industry have implemented in-game automatic savegame file backups, which seems like a simple and effective solution.

Isn't it reasonable to request or fix the most critical aspect of the gameplay experience? The core elements of hoarding, grinding, leveling up, building, and fortifying, all of which require a significant investment of time to progress. How is it that a simple crash or reboot can result in such a catastrophic loss with no warning or way to recover?

I genuinely enjoy this game and A21 in general, but this incident has been a major setback. I kindly request that you add a backup feature to the savegames or implement a safeguard to prevent a simple crash from resetting all player progress.

Thank you

 

[Riamus]

A21 hasn't been out for a year but that's probably a typo.  They are working on a backup system for saves to help prevent this.  However, a crash may still cause problems depending how the crash happens.  In the meantime, it is always a good idea to keep backups of your own.  There is a mod that will do that for you.

 

[SylenThunder]

How is it that a simple crash or reboot can result in such a catastrophic loss with no warning or way to recover?

This is a fully 3D Voxel game. The world and player data is constantly being loaded and saved as you are playing. If you improperly shut down or exit the client while this is happening, that data will get corrupted. Just like core operating system files on your PC will get corrupted when you shut down improperly.

There is no automatic save because of this, and no incremental save because unline 99% of the games in the industry, your save isn't a small 256kb file. Even games that have larger saves up to 150MB cannot compare. Just a single region file where you have your base could be over 1GB in size. As you move around chunks are being loaded and saved constantly.

And honestly, knowing this, you can prepare for when you have that kind of issue. Don't try to start the game up after you exit incorrectly. Back up your save files and follow the recovery steps that are outlined in the Pinned Support FAQ.

 

[Ov3rrid3]

A21 hasn't been out for a year but that's probably a typo.  They are working on a backup system for saves to help prevent this.  However, a crash may still cause problems depending how the crash happens.  In the meantime, it is always a good idea to keep backups of your own.  There is a mod that will do that for you.

That sounds like good news to hear: having a last resort savegame backup could save hundreds of hours. I mean, for someone who is not accustomed to it or is a console user, manually backing up savegame files can be practically impossible.
 

Thank you for the update.

 

[Ov3rrid3]

This is a fully 3D Voxel game. The world and player data is constantly being loaded and saved as you are playing. If you improperly shut down or exit the client while this is happening, that data will get corrupted. Just like core operating system files on your PC will get corrupted when you shut down improperly.

There is no automatic save because of this, and no incremental save because unline 99% of the games in the industry, your save isn't a small 256kb file. Even games that have larger saves up to 150MB cannot compare. Just a single region file where you have your base could be over 1GB in size. As you move around chunks are being loaded and saved constantly.

And honestly, knowing this, you can prepare for when you have that kind of issue. Don't try to start the game up after you exit incorrectly. Back up your save files and follow the recovery steps that are outlined in the Pinned Support FAQ.

That's not a dismissive argument: just look at "Space Engineers." It's a full 3D voxel game with more or less the same features and savegame file size. There are no technical reasons to hinder the implementation of a savegame file backup. Personally, I have previously manually backed up my savegame files by scripting a small batch script that I run every time I exit the game (A18/19), ensuring their physical backup. Nowadays, savegame file sizes rarely exceed gigabytes, so I would gladly set aside tens of gigs to keep my savegames safe.

Considering that this is an alpha version and I have previously encountered the same glitch, I cannot anticipate when an unexpected reboot or crash may occur, and neither can the developers. All I am asking for is some kind of disaster recovery option for the savegame files. Losing all progression in a game due to an unexpected crash/reboot is a situation I have never personally encountered in my 30 years of gaming and very frustrating indeed.
 

I believe that for the average user's convenience, and to saving time and hassle, it should not be necessary to know all the procedures for manually backing up savegame files. Meeting the game's requirements shouldn't demand IT savvy skills just to prevent unexpected and unrecoverable wiping of game progression in an FPS video game.

I don't think it's a strange or unreasonable request I'm making; it's just a matter of common sense when it comes to a critical software feature like saving progression, especially when comparing it to every other game on the market.

 

[SylenThunder]

SE isn't fully 3D Voxel though. Only the structures are voxel. The landscape is a moldable mesh with no SI calculation data. 

There are backup files in the save that you can use to recover. You just have to utilize them after the crash, and before you load the corrupted save. Again, instructions on this are in the Pinned FAQ thread. As is a workaround that may work if you loaded the corrupted save and broke all the backup files.

If they were to progressively save your game, you would end up using several gigabytes of disk space for each save. For an older computer, this would essentially pause game progress for a minute or two while the save occurred. It doesn't come down to a matter of common sense. It comes down to how the data is managed, and the limitations of supporting older hardware. In your 30 years of gaming, you haven't come across a game yet that handles as much raw data live as this one does.

 

[Ov3rrid3]

SE isn't fully 3D Voxel though. Only the structures are voxel. The landscape is a moldable mesh with no SI calculation data. 

There are backup files in the save that you can use to recover. You just have to utilize them after the crash, and before you load the corrupted save. Again, instructions on this are in the Pinned FAQ thread. As is a workaround that may work if you loaded the corrupted save and broke all the backup files.

If they were to progressively save your game, you would end up using several gigabytes of disk space for each save. For an older computer, this would essentially pause game progress for a minute or two while the save occurred. It doesn't come down to a matter of common sense. It comes down to how the data is managed, and the limitations of supporting older hardware. In your 30 years of gaming, you haven't come across a game yet that handles as much raw data live as this one does.

I can give you credit for the complex and voluminous savegame data structure and how it is operated on by the software, as only the authors know the intricacies involved. I also understand the issues with low-spec systems causing delays.

I'm not suggesting a real-time, in-game, full on-the-fly savegame backup. I'm simply proposing a classic option in the pause menu to manually save the game's progress. It would be entirely optional and, in my opinion, not too difficult to implement. From now on, I will be more cautious and back up every session.

This is just my two cents, based on a disappointing personal inconvenience, to improve the QOL of the game.