Oolite Bulletins

I have opened an oolite save file in notepad, changed a numerical value and saved it but it won't appear in the program to load it. what do i need to save it as to make it appear in the load menu?

All save files (at least on my XP system) are on the form Commandername.oolite-save (and are located in C:\Oolite\oolite.app\oolite-saves).

Also note that Notepad is prone to do horrible things to savefiles, and can render them almost beyond repair. It is highly recommended that you either use WordPad or download the excellent (and free!) Notepad++.

Welcome to the forum!
Hopefully you still have the original save file.

Had you edited it with just about any other editor - including wordpad - you wouldn't have had any problems at all.

Do search this forum for both notepad & evil for the full explanation!


PS: I use the free notepad++ for any text editing, it's a great little program!

@CR: snap!

Hi Wildfire, and welcome.

wildfire wrote:

I have opened an oolite save file in notepad, changed a numerical value and saved it but it won't appear in the program to load it. what do i need to save it as to make it appear in the load menu?

What the other guys said...DON'T use Notepad. It adds spurious end-of-line characters that trash your save files. It's an abomination and should be sent back to Hell
As you've probably realised you can 'enhance' all sorts of aspects of the game this way...you can become 'Elite' and an overnight Millionaire with just a couple of taps on the keyboard if you're that way inclined.

Hopefully Notepad might have just appended .txt to the end of the filename, eg it's renamed your save to something like Jameson.oolite-save.txt just rename the file to remove the .txt then you should be able to see the savegame in Oolite

Hi, wildfire, and first of all welcome to the boards, and of course to this great game!

Like the other guys said, don't use Notepad anymore for anything Oolite-related. But it is certainly worthwhile to follow Griff's advice and examine the savefile for an added ".txt" behind its name. That Oolite can't find the savefile at all seems to indicate that something is wrong with its name. Deleting a closing ".txt" will make Oolite recognize it again.

Notepad++ http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Excellent, free and a no-brainer to install and use. Started using it several years ago and never went back to Notepad or Word on my MS machine ...

Cheers.

I have been known to do web coding work with Notepad++, it's very good.

A bit offtopic: couldn't we insert a beginning comment in all savefiles saying: WARNING: if you opened this file in notepad, DO NOT SAVE IT! Use notepad++ instead

Just a thought.... This problem seems to be a regularly recurring one.

I have just noticed that even though you have received a welcome you have not yet received the proper greeting...

Hi and Welcome to the Friendliest Forum this side of Riedquat

Rxke wrote:

A bit offtopic: couldn't we insert a beginning comment in all savefiles saying: WARNING: if you opened this file in notepad, DO NOT SAVE IT! Use notepad++ instead

Just a thought.... This problem seems to be a regularly recurring one.

Brilliant idea.

Zireael wrote:

Rxke wrote:

A bit offtopic: couldn't we insert a beginning comment in all savefiles saying: WARNING: if you opened this file in notepad, DO NOT SAVE IT! Use notepad++ instead

Just a thought.... This problem seems to be a regularly recurring one.

Brilliant idea.

I'm only in favor of this if you can disable that in Oolite's settings.

Could Oolite be altered to save the users current pilot and an identical (hidden from the game because of filename extension) backup - that way if somebody hacks their file in notepad (because they don't know any better), they can delete it and restore from the last duplicate backup by changing the file extension to the correct one oolite is looking for?

Or we could make the save files read only.


However, if anyone really, really wants to play around with a save file they'd likely see any precaution we'd put in place only as a bit of a challenge/misdirection, and easily undo anything we do.

I assumed DH meant to restore in case of brokenness.

But frankly, if you break your saved game without making a backup, that’s your problem. Protecting against crashes caused by bad data is our problem. Protecting against self-inflicted data loss is not.