Archiving saved games

[Ispex]

I absolutley love OOlite having been a player of this type of game since 13 ( iam now 35, but don't tell the whole world). The only problem I have encounted with this version of Elite is archiving saved files.

I seem to be able to get to Dangerous/Deadly then some change happens in my system, and I have to rebuild. Thank God I get windows 7 tomorrow.

Anyway I would like to know how to copy a saved game into a new version of oolite? Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ispex.

[another_commander]

You can copy your saved games to any folder or USB stick or whatever and then, after the major upgrade or change in your system, re-install Oolite and copy them back to <OoliteInstallDir>\oolite.app\oolite-saves. You can then continue using them.

[Commander McLane]

First of all: Welcome, Ispex, to the boards, and of course to this great game!

Just put the folder with your save games at any location on your HD which is convenient for you.

All save-games work with all versions of Oolite. Building Oolite anew or upgrading to a new release, or even going back to a previous release has no impact whatsoever on save games. They are pure text files, compatible to all versions on Oolite.

The only thing is that you shouldn't delete them. If you keep them, you can use them forever.

[Ispex]

There is supposed to be a directory called "oolite-saves" but I can't find it in the oolite directory. What's going on here?

Thanks,
Ispex.

[Thargoid]

As A_C says above, it's under the oolite.app folder in your oolite install directory, not directly under the install directory.

Also I think it's only created when you first save a game, although that may have changed.

The other thing to check is when you go to save a game (under the F2 screen in-game when docked or when in-flight but paused) what folder does the game offer as a save location?

If all else fails, try searching your hard disk for files ending .oolite-save .

[another_commander]

The oolite-saves directory is created when you save for the first time and it is created under <OoliteInstallDir>\oolite.app. Note though that Oolite remembers the last location where games where saved and uses that until you decide to change it again. To find out where your saved games are, open the file <OoliteInstallDir>\oolite.app\GNUstep\Defaults\.GNUstepDefaults in a text editor and look for the line that starts with
"save-directory" = <A path on your hard disk>
You should be able to see your saves there. If this line does not exist, then the game should be using the standard oolite-saves location under oolite.app.

[lfnfan]

I'm having trouble specifying a folder on my d:\ drive as the savegame directory.

Oolite is installed on the c:\ drive with the OS and all programmes.

have tried editing .GNUstepDefaults and just navigating up with Save Commander / Load Commander but can never get above c:\

Is this possible?

Thanks

[Diziet Sma]

You could always try installing Oolite to the D: drive..

[lfnfan]

I'm sure that would work, but my setup is to have the OS and all apps on the c:\ drive, and all personal data on d:\

I realised after a recent c:\ restore that my oolite saves are not backed up anywhere because they reside on c:\ not d:\.

If I could have the app installed on c:\ and savegames on d:\ that would be ideal.

Otherwise, I will just set up a sync to copy the savegame folder from c:\ to d:\ on a regular basis. Everything on d:\ is backed up regularly. I only have an image of c:\ which is now getting on for 6 months old.

[another_commander]

I don't think you can go past the root of the drive Oolite is installed on. It could be that you could do something like what you want with the subst command, but I would not recommend toying with it unless you are very sure what you are doing.

[lfnfan]

ok no worries. I will set up a simple back-uup routine to copy saves from c to d.

Thanks for clarifying

[snork]

You can create a junction point (MS-term for symbolic link) to the folder on D:

Vista and win7 can do so by default (I hear), for winXP it can be upgraded.
And it works, programs never realise they are actually reading from / writing to a different drive. The target could even be on a different computer.
Oolite-tested (Oolite on D:, savegame archive on N: )

See about it here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link
For some reason the English WP article does not contain these external links (with downloads) as in German WP :

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshel ... llext.html
http://www.elsdoerfer.info/=ntfslink
http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

I use the shell extension thingy, so I do not have to fiddle on command line, but can use it from windows explorer.
Please respect the warning on how to delete symlinks / target files or folders, it can get really messy otherwise.
(ALL actions on the link work on the target, so "delete" too!)
It is not really difficult to handle.

If you want to have your files in specific places, this is most useful. It was one of the things I heavily missed in windows, compared with Linux.

I think you could even put the windows folder somewhere else.

[lfnfan]

thanks for the info, but I will stick with a simple periodic copy from c:\ to d:\ using my regular backup software. a bit luddite, but I'm less likely to mess it up!