Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Add additional check(s) before overwriting a save file. A good candidate is the map exchange string.

What ?

Pretty much what the TL;DR says.

Why ?

It is currently too easy to overwrite a different game file when saving and it can cost a lot of time and be really frustrating.
Especially when one has saving more or less in muscle memory.
The check for the playtime already exists and helps a great deal, but it isn't enough when playing a save with a long playtime where one can easily overwrite a save with a slightly shorter play time.
An additional check (such as the map exchange string) would be even more safe and can probably be implemented at the same place where the playtime is checked.
It also might not be that much effort to implement.

For the records, here is an answer from a dev a few years ago on that subject :
viewtopic.php?p=475982#p475982
The devs do change their minds sometimes, so it's just for the records.

The current UI is just bad: it tries to combine two actions in a way likely to lead to mistakes and data loss. Prompting for confirmation based on rules determining "this looks like a different save" misses a simpler solution of separating "save" (overwrite current file without confirmation, or show save window for an unsaved game) and "save as" (show save window and always prompt before overwriting a file). Like countless applications have done for decades.

Great idea. Or maybe based on a GUID or other unique identifier, generated at the start of a game (or first time it is saved) and stored into the save file?
I can imagine map exchange strings being reused...

I will shamelessly self advertise my suggestion on this other thread : viewtopic.php?p=169112#p169112.
I think this would be optimal as a design, and would check all the needs.

I ran across this idea on Reddit and it was too good not to suggest it here properly: https://www.reddit.com/r/Factoriohno/co ... are_button

Problem: A user accidentally overwrote their save file with an unrelated playthrough.

Potential Solution: The new feature would check that if I save a map over another map, and it is not the same play-through, do an extra loud warning prompt.
- Detecting it being a different playthrough could use the map seed or some random internal ID chosen when the playthrough begins
- The prompt could be made “loud” with a count down to enable overwriting, or asking the user to type “delete” or the filename to confirm

Why: while this is clearly user error and probably doesn’t happen that often, it would be extremely painful for the user to have this happen.

Yet another reason to keep different games separated into different Factorio folders (complete also with different mods and (eventually) different base game versions).

But I guess that the multiple sub-folders in the saves folder would be another alternative, and especially helpful for vanilla MP and speedrunning ?