Factorio Forums

If I load a save and play a bit and then save again, the game sometimes doesn't ask, if it should overwrite the save.
Recently, I wanted to reload and play a bit differently, but I accidentally chose "Save" instead of "Load" and boom, it overwrites without warning.

It seems to be a feature and not a bug, i suppose?
This seems to be connected, if you just wanted to proceed with a save and always save on the same file.

However, has somebody got screwed over with that behaviour, too?

EDIT:
Ok, i guess, this one is connected:
viewtopic.php?p=475982#p475982

I would argue, it should always ask before overwriting.

I recently noticed that it doesn't ask me, but I thought it was always that way in Factorio
The only confirmation I remember is if you want to leave without saving.

I think of it more as a feature than a bug.

Are you sure?
Are you REALLY sure?
Last chance to make sure you are sure you want to do that?

Those things remind me of cookie setting confirmation, an annoyance while browsing.

GrumpyJoe wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:08 pm

I recently noticed that it doesn't ask me, but I thought it was always that way in Factorio
The only confirmation I remember is if you want to leave without saving.

I think of it more as a feature than a bug.

Are you sure?
Are you REALLY sure?
Last chance to make sure you are sure you want to do that?

Those things remind me of cookie setting confirmation, an annoyance while browsing.

There are cases, where it does ask: if the save to overwrite has more playtime than the current game.

I can understand, that some are annoyed by confirmation dialogs, but it also annoying, if you want to reload over a screwed up game state and instead save it and throw away the previous save, too.
It happens a bit too often for my taste, esp. because Save and Load windows look very similar and the buttons are close together.

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 06, 2021 1:13 pm

It happens a bit too often for my taste, esp. because Save and Load windows look very similar and the buttons are close together.

Just happened again I don't know why I select the wrong thing...

Background: I try do minmax a certain phase in the beginning and retry it several times, before i'm satisfied... But, when i want to fast reload, I sometimes save instead...

Fortunately, its not that much of progress I lose

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:57 am

Background: I try do minmax a certain phase in the beginning and retry it several times, before i'm satisfied... But, when i want to fast reload, I sometimes save instead...

Is there a save/load shortcut key like F4/F5 in old games?
Maybe that could help in your case

GrumpyJoe wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 07, 2021 10:57 am

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:57 am

Background: I try do minmax a certain phase in the beginning and retry it several times, before i'm satisfied... But, when i want to fast reload, I sometimes save instead...

Is there a save/load shortcut key like F4/F5 in old games?
Maybe that could help in your case

I thought about this too, but I'm not sure, if it would help that much. I sometimes want to reload a save from the somewhere in the past, not necessarily the latest.

I think, it would help, if it just would ask before overwriting anything. Maybe with an option or checkbox to change it to the current behaviour.

Not saying your proposal is a bad idea, just wanted to help meanwhile

Happy min/maxing

GrumpyJoe wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 08, 2021 3:59 pm

Not saying your proposal is a bad idea, just wanted to help meanwhile

Happy min/maxing

Thanks

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 08, 2021 3:47 pm

I think, it would help, if it just would ask before overwriting anything. Maybe with an option or checkbox to change it to the current behaviour.

There's a reason why something like Office doesn't warn if you hit save, but does if you use Save As and the new name exists. If there's always a warning it stops being a warning and just becomes 'A step I need to do in order to save', and its going to get clicked through without thinking because it doesn't mean anything. The best option would be for the game to track how the current game was loaded (if it was a new game, or the save it was loaded from) and warn if they don't match (new game warns unless it's a new file, loaded save warns if the filename isn't the one that was loaded), but that's unlikely to happen as it's a bit of work.

Would be nice if in addition to playtime, the game checked the seed. It is VERY rare that someone would want to overwrite a save with a game with a different seed, and I can't imagine it's much more difficult to grab the seed out of the save than it is to grab the playtime. I think between the two you'd avoid most of the common incidents.

Silari wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 4:47 am

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 08, 2021 3:47 pm

I think, it would help, if it just would ask before overwriting anything. Maybe with an option or checkbox to change it to the current behaviour.

There's a reason why something like Office doesn't warn if you hit save, but does if you use Save As and the new name exists. If there's always a warning it stops being a warning and just becomes 'A step I need to do in order to save', and its going to get clicked through without thinking because it doesn't mean anything. ..

Save dialog in factorio is both, Save and Save as. If you open Save As in an Office application and try to save over the same file, there's still a warning.
And there's a difference between a document state and a game state:
- You open a document in office and do nothing. No matter how long you wait, there's no change
- You open a game and it changes from the next tick.
So i think, factorio and office is not very comparable in that sense.

For my case, i want this warning, because i accidentality opened Save dialog (which seems to be a weird quirk of myself).
Maybe, it would actually help, if the save and load dialog had shortcuts, which could be customized far away from each other

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:05 am

Save dialog in factorio is both, Save and Save as.

I wonder if that is where the problem stems from...

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:05 am

And there's a difference between a document state and a game state:
- You open a document in office and do nothing. No matter how long you wait, there's no change
- You open a game and it changes from the next tick.
So i think, factorio and office is not very comparable in that sense.

I agree but they share one important thing: overwriting the wrong file may cause the loss of hundreds of hours of work (or, at best, require recovery from backup). So, reading this thread, I nonetheless wonder if the Office model would work well for Factorio too, eg:
Save game (showing the current filename, like "Continue" on the main menu): replace the current file without prompt; equivalent to "Save game as" for a new game.
Save game as: like current "Save game" except always prompt before replacing an existing file. Add extra warnings (different version, less play time, ideally different map settings) to the confirmation as clues that you might be doing something you don't want to if they apply. Update the current filename if actually saved.

also annoying is that the linux server saves when you ctrl+c to quit. this can be really bad.

SoShootMe wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:04 am

I agree but they share one important thing: overwriting the wrong file may cause the loss of hundreds of hours of work (or, at best, require recovery from backup). So, reading this thread, I nonetheless wonder if the Office model would work well for Factorio too, eg:
Save game (showing the current filename, like "Continue" on the main menu): replace the current file without prompt; equivalent to "Save game as" for a new game.
Save game as: like current "Save game" except always prompt before replacing an existing file. Add extra warnings (different version, less play time, ideally different map settings) to the confirmation as clues that you might be doing something you don't want to if they apply. Update the current filename if actually saved.

Yes, I think, it would help. The downside might be, that you'd add another menu entry. BTW: Did somebody ever use restart? ... OK, I won't ask for "quit game"

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:41 am

BTW: Did somebody ever use restart? ... OK, I won't ask for "quit game"

a lot, when developing mods.

ptx0 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:29 pm

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:41 am

BTW: Did somebody ever use restart? ... OK, I won't ask for "quit game"

a lot, when developing mods.

restart or quit? (quit was more a joke, because who in the world is able to quit factorio )
I tend to quit via window-x
restart, i used rarely, because of preview.

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:25 pm

restart or quit? (quit was more a joke, because who in the world is able to quit factorio )
I tend to quit via window-x
restart, i used rarely, because of preview.

when testing what it would be like to progress tech tree and ensure certain events fire off, i'll commonly restart to the beginning of the map and run some test commands in order to clear out the global tables and tech tree, etc & avoid generating a wholly new map every time.

ptx0 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 23, 2021 7:57 pm

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:25 pm

restart or quit? (quit was more a joke, because who in the world is able to quit factorio )
I tend to quit via window-x
restart, i used rarely, because of preview.

when testing what it would be like to progress tech tree and ensure certain events fire off, i'll commonly restart to the beginning of the map and run some test commands in order to clear out the global tables and tech tree, etc & avoid generating a wholly new map every time.

restart (always?) uses a new seed, so it generates a new map. If I want to restart on the same map seed, i'd take the exchange string from savefile and start a new game with it.
of course, if the seed doesn't matter, the restart button is faster

This was one of the reasons I wrote the program linked in my signature. Along with not wanting to ruin my main save when playing on experimental builds.

So, I want to stress this topic again.

Please give me warning dialog, when I overwrite any save file. It's quite an annoyance, even when it only happens once or twice in an hour.

My use case is:
- I load a save
- Play a bit and get some progress
- Save to a continuous filename (This is for safety, to keep a complete history and because of the current behaviour)
- Then continue or load the save.
- Play a bit, screw something up
- I want to reload and accidentally hit the save button (instead of load button) and I overwrite my last good save with the screwed up state, without a warning. (A warning only happens, if the game time would be lower than the time of the savefile)
- Now I have to reload the savefile before that and some lost some progress. And beware, to hit the right button this time.

My wish is, that there is a setting, where I can enable the safety question for every overwrite. So that people, who uses the normal usecase are not bothered.

Ironically, if I save a not optimal state and replay the same segment again and get a better time, it asks me, if I really want to overwrite...

Durr wrote: ↑

Sun May 16, 2021 7:32 pm

This was one of the reasons I wrote the program linked in my signature. Along with not wanting to ruin my main save when playing on experimental builds.

I'm on linux, so I would have to check, if I could compile it with Mono... But, I would prefer a built-in solution

I agree with SoShootMe in that we should have a "Save as". The buttons would need to be reordered, though (I note that part of the complaint is accidental clicking of the wrong one, and tbh, in most cases I see them ordered save then load, not load first like in Factorio).

"Save" should be like Save from any other application lacking a "Save as"... it just saves to the original file it was loaded from. No prompts, no diags.

"Save as" would give the window to choose a save file name and should always prompt confirmation of overwriting.

"Load" would then continue to function as now.

The addition of a single button to have behavior more in line with the norm of other applications is inconsequential here.