[0.16.51] Unable to load save migrated to 0.17

[Goodgun]

I upgraded my game to the latest experimental branch via the beta tab of steam and loaded my world. I didn't like the new update as it changed some recipes for science and decided to downgrade my world back to 0.16.51, but in that time all my autosaves saved and I made the mistake of saving my world. I expected to downgrade and then simply open up the world again with functioning normally, but instead got the following error message: Map version 0.17.23-1 can't be loaded because it's higher than the game version (0.16.51-0). I have looked around and to no avail, found nothing. I hope to recover my save through almost any means necessary, I spent 144 hours on this one save and don't want to lose it due to a mistake.

https://we.tl/t-b8FhEieRnn
mods and save

[boran_blok]

Backups, backups, backups, if it is not backed up it wasn't important.

Please learn this lesson now with a rather hard lesson in Factorio, and not with your kid's pictures in the future.

[Goodgun]

I understand that I didn't back up the file and it was a major mistake on my part, but that doesn't help me at all with knowing if its possible to restore/recover the file.

[steinio]

You can't use a save of a newer version in an older version of the game.

Either you get used to the new recipes or you need to start a new save in 0.16.51.

[posila]

Technically, the game doesn't overwrite saves, it renames the old one, saves new one and when that succeeds deletes the old one, so there is slight chance the file could be restored by some file restoration tool but I wouldn't keep my hopes up too much. Making 0.17 able to save in 0.16 file format would take more than 144 hours to do, though. You probably have to stick with 0.17 if you want to continue the save. I am sorry

[Goodgun]

Thanks for the help, but I think I might just start a new save at that rate. Fixing my factories to be able to work with the new sciences would break them completely.