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Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 2:13 am
by sparr
My save list is ridiculously long. I'd love it if they were automatically organized into a folder structure, with one folder per game/world. Maybe a nested structure, when I go back and reload an old save to fork a world?

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 8:14 am
by bobingabout
I definitely agree we could reduce the clutter by some sort of tree organisation.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 4:21 pm
by ssilk
Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21367 Game Save File Related Suggestions

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 6:00 am
by Rseding91
How would you propose to identify that a save file is from a given world? The map seed is the only thing unique about a save and you can have any number of saves with the same seed that aren't the same world.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:05 am
by Harkonnen604
Rseding91 wrote:How would you propose to identify that a save file is from a given world? The map seed is the only thing unique about a save and you can have any number of saves with the same seed that aren't the same world.
You may generate some GUID once a new game starts and inherit it through saves and loads.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:35 am
by Koub
I'd also +1 on this topic. Example : the way KSP works : there are "games" in which there are saves.
When you start a game, you create a new game, and after that, all the saves are within that game.
On the disk, the game is a folder, and the saves are files within.

Bonus : In KSP, there are subfolders for ships and subassemblies, I'd see "blueprints" in Factorio. Every single blueprint could be saved that way in its own file within the game it has been created in..

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:51 pm
by sparr
Rseding91 wrote:How would you propose to identify that a save file is from a given world? The map seed is the only thing unique about a save and you can have any number of saves with the same seed that aren't the same world.
A "world" might be uniquely identified by map exchange string and mods loaded during world creation. Or, as suggested in response already, it could just be a GUID produced when the map is generated, and inherited through later saves/loads.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 5:12 pm
by ssilk
I see here the usage of a repository and a version control system.

I try to explain. :)

You can diff two saves. There are programs like xdelta (see viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23014 ), that enables saving of the difference between two saves. Which is much smaller, than the full save, but depends logically on a previous full save.

The dependencies of the save look then like so:

Code: Select all

1st Full Save                                      |
   |                                               | time
   v                                               v
2nd Full Save  -
   |            |
   |            v
   |         2nd Full Save XDelta version #1
   |            |
   |            v
   |         2nd Full Save XDelta version #2
   |
   v
3rd Full Save
Now the cool thing (and side-idea): the xdeltas can be used to synchronize multiplayer games: the new player loads a full save while the others are playing. And then the xdeltas...

^-^

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 5:18 pm
by garath
While waiting for this latest update, I've been playing Minecraft. Minecraft lets you name your world and shows that in the save file. Is there a similar feature in Factorio that would let you name your generated world?

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 5:23 pm
by Harkonnen604
Koub wrote:Bonus : In KSP, there are subfolders for ships and subassemblies, I'd see "blueprints" in Factorio. Every single blueprint could be saved that way in its own file within the game it has been created in..
There is another bonus - replay data may reference an older savegame until some timestamp.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 6:21 pm
by ssilk
garath wrote:While waiting for this latest update, I've been playing Minecraft. Minecraft lets you name your world and shows that in the save file. Is there a similar feature in Factorio that would let you name your generated world?
See up, I posted a link to savegame-suggestions:
ssilk wrote:Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21367 Game Save File Related Suggestions
Which logically means: No, there is no such function.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 8:23 am
by garath
ssilk wrote:
garath wrote:While waiting for this latest update, I've been playing Minecraft. Minecraft lets you name your world and shows that in the save file. Is there a similar feature in Factorio that would let you name your generated world?
See up, I posted a link to savegame-suggestions:
ssilk wrote:Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21367 Game Save File Related Suggestions
Which logically means: No, there is no such function.
The mere existence of a thread with savegame suggestions does not in any way logically lead to 'No, there is no such function'. This use of the word 'logically' is on par with something such as:

1. Is there a flavor of ice cream called 'Mint Chocolate Chip'
2. See up where I posted the name of a grocery store that sells many flavors of ice cream.
3. Which logically means, Yes, there is a flavor called 'Mint Chocolate Chip'.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 4:37 pm
by ssilk
I'm sorry, I mixed this up, indeed.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 3:44 pm
by steinio

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:28 am
by dstar4138
I wouldn't say the feature is implemented until it has GUI support, but yeah from your link it does look like it should be relatively simple to support "Organize saves into folders by game/world".

That being said, I'm not sure if that gets to the spirit of the request, which was to have a concept of versioned saves, potentially for rollback or game-play branching? This is starting to sound like a subset of common VCS functionality... maybe just each 'save' is a git directory where 'explicit user saves' are tagged commits, each time you start the game back up at an existing save it would start a new branch.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 1:55 am
by TheDukeOfRockford
I want to jump in and say I support this idea. In Europa Universalis IV, I typically saved my games into folders like this: ~\1.19\England001\ where 1.19 is patch number and England001 basically means first England game I played under patch 1.19. Likewise, I would like to organize my savegames into folders. I'm not sure how I would organize my savegames in Factorio's case but I suppose I could always make up a planet name to use as a folder name. ;)

Group savegames

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:30 pm
by maluramichael
Would be nice if the load/save game screen would group the saves by the actual game. I attached a screenshot of the game Stellaris.

Re: Group savegames

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 2:32 pm
by Darinth
It's one of those little things that I wanted as well.

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:56 pm
by Koub
[Koub] Merged into older topic with very similar suggestion

Re: Organize saves into folders by game/world

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:04 am
by bobingabout
Doesn't necessarily have to be per game, but I still agree that we should have some sort of directory system.