Save file is 216KB!

[UK_Eliter]

I have posted the file here.

The main contributors to the size seem to be these keys:

mission_EmailSystem_Emails, which owes, I suppose, to oolite.oxp.phkb.EmailSystem;
mission_Smuggling_IllegalGoods, and some other 'Smuggling' keys - all of which, I suppose, owe to 'phkb.Smugglers_TGU';
mission_randomshipnames_rockhermits - which owes to 'randomshipnames', by Commander McLane.

Removing keys 1 and 2 (I kept 3, because I want those random names) - and I removed the OXZs too - nearly halved the size of the save file, though it still weighs in at a chunky 113KB.

So: phkb and (though the board reports that he has not been around for a year) Commander McLane, might you put your expansion packs on a diet?

[MrFlibble]

Sleek... Mine are about 3 megs now!

[Cholmondely]

Ditto with mine (3 Megs - Diplomancy stores a welter of information about every system).

Deleting your e-mails will help slim it down if that matters. I prefer to keep mine as some sort of record of my Jameson.

Random shipnames hermits might be rejiggable in the same way that The Galactic Almanac (originally "Random Station Names") is - a pool of names assigned according to "pseudo random numbers" which stay the same for each solar system (and are thus "remembered"). But Littlebear put a lot of work into doing so.

[UK_Eliter]

Cholmondely: that's good to know; thanks. Weren't Elite's planet names derived in a similar, pseudo-random fashion? Perhaps I misremember,

[MrFlibble]

Perhaps we should have optional "save file compression", complete with suitable filename suffix for clues. Even the venerable gzip can squish these down to <10% original size, though it is my understanding that zstd is the current weapon of choice for both speed and compaction.

That'd save me having to compress my save files every now and then for archival.

[Cholmondely]

Cholmondely: that's good to know; thanks. Weren't Elite's planet names derived in a similar, pseudo-random fashion? Perhaps I misremember,

Spot on!

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolit ... _recipe.29

[phkb]

So: phkb {...snip...} might you put your expansion packs on a diet?

I've tweaked the data Smugglers stores, tokenising the descriptions so less data is needed to be saved. I guess it would be possible to save more, but without any core compression routines I don't think I'll be worth doing any more.
For the email system, given the nature of it (very text-heavy), there's even less I can do.

[Cholmondely]

The uncompressed save-file is vaguely comprehensible by dumb pilots, such as yours truly. Reducing the size might not be the best idea!