Factorio Forums

What are the devs opinion on Steams Dynamic Cloud Sync?

Has it been considered and if so, will it be supported?

People leave cloud sync turned on?

I find it just breaks my saves directory.

Illiander42 wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 31, 2023 2:16 am

People leave cloud sync turned on?

I find it just breaks my saves directory.

Ditto.

But yes, some people leave it on. Then post in here on how to recover lost saves or blueprints when it loses them. I haven't even checked the Steam forums to see how often people post about that there....

As for the actual topic of the thread, I'd say anything related to Steam sync that's going to cost Wube more money (whether as purchase or subscription, or even implementation time) isn't worth it. Not unless Steam fixes their sync to where it's not so easy to overwrite the wrong set.

It specifically says that the feature is free.
Also, cloud sync has been working flawlessly since day 1, unless you insist on manually changing stuff, and ignore the limitations. Happened to me once.
Cloud Sync was definitely the one and only reason switching to steam release for me, when it got introduced.

I did not read more than a couple lines of the article, so did not get to the point where it said it was at no cost.

But the current system does not work flawlessly. I used to use it - and did not manually mess around with the files - for several games, but I kept having issues where the saves would not sync correctly, would give you no indication that this had happened (nowadays I think they have an itty bitty icon that displays, which is still easy as heck to miss, especially if you don't launch the game from the Steam UI), and then once it resolved itself, the wrong save set would be used to overwrite the rest.

Nothing is going to be flawless, but two things that would help immensely: better warning/notification that there's a sync issue before it starts the game (a pop-up that you have to confirm/gives you choices), and a means to manually manage and resolve errors and conflicts yourself.

Personally I did not have any problems with Steam syncing my saves. I still have my old saves from my previous PC thanks to it.

But it looks like, in some cases, there is a miscommunication between Factorio and Steam. I'm only speculating and haven't touched any Steamworks APIs, but if the game would communicate better with Steam (one example is the Dynamic Cloud Sync APIs), maybe it would eliminate or minimize the possibility of Steam doing the wrong thing in the wrong time?

mhanuszh wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 31, 2023 5:29 pm

Personally I did not have any problems with Steam syncing my saves. I still have my old saves from my previous PC thanks to it.

But it looks like, in some cases, there is a miscommunication between Factorio and Steam. I'm only speculating and haven't touched any Steamworks APIs, but if the game would communicate better with Steam (one example is the Dynamic Cloud Sync APIs), maybe it would eliminate or minimize the possibility of Steam doing the wrong thing in the wrong time?

Steam Sync does not communicate with the game itself. The issue is not on Factorio's end, and the issue is not specific with Factorio.

At its core, Steam Sync is a simple cloud replication process. The game dev provides to the Steam config where their default saves are, and Steam monitors these locations for changed data, then does its stuff to replicate.

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 31, 2023 8:30 pm

mhanuszh wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 31, 2023 5:29 pm

Personally I did not have any problems with Steam syncing my saves. I still have my old saves from my previous PC thanks to it.

But it looks like, in some cases, there is a miscommunication between Factorio and Steam. I'm only speculating and haven't touched any Steamworks APIs, but if the game would communicate better with Steam (one example is the Dynamic Cloud Sync APIs), maybe it would eliminate or minimize the possibility of Steam doing the wrong thing in the wrong time?

Steam Sync does not communicate with the game itself. The issue is not on Factorio's end, and the issue is not specific with Factorio.

At its core, Steam Sync is a simple cloud replication process. The game dev provides to the Steam config where their default saves are, and Steam monitors these locations for changed data, then does its stuff to replicate.

I believe you are right and Factorio uses Steam Auto-Cloud which is the most basic kind of integration. But Steam provides multiple levels of integration with its services.

One of the other methods is to ask the Steam Cloud API to do the writes, so it has a complete understanding of the files and their state. With this, Steam doesn't have to monitor files and guess state.

And of course the cherry on top would be to handle system suspension and awakening, then reloading saves when necessary.