Loading worlds from before 0.18?

[zOldBulldog]

I came back after quite a few years and I have several 0.16 and 0.17 worlds, and Factorio says that it can't read stuff older than 0.18.

It would be great to upgrade them to the current version even if they broke, but I'd love to at least be able to view them.

Is there any way to do it? Maybe through a mod?

[DaleStan]

Load and re-save them in 0.18 to upgrade them. If you have any really old games, you may have to do this more than once (0.14 to 0.16 to 0.18, for example), but I'd expect 0.18 to read at least back to 0.16, and probably 0.15 as well.

[FuryoftheStars]

You need to use either the old zip versions of the game or use the beta feature of Steam to install older versions of the game. Then you can do as DaleStan says.

[zOldBulldog]

Load and re-save them in 0.18 to upgrade them. If you have any really old games, you may have to do this more than once (0.14 to 0.16 to 0.18, for example), but I'd expect 0.18 to read at least back to 0.16, and probably 0.15 as well.

I have no problem with the concept of doing in steps (0.16 to 0.18, 0.18 to present).

The question is HOW?

How do I load it in 0.18 since the game updated itself to the latest via Steam without my intervention?

You can install an old version with Steam? But wouldn't that break the newer saves I already have?

[FuryoftheStars]

You can install an old version with Steam? But wouldn't that break the newer saves I already have?

No. First, because it won't let you load a newer save with an older client, and second because you'd actually have to load and then save the game in order to break them.

That said, if you've been using it as the newer version and have blueprints you want to keep, you may need to backup the blueprints file.

[DaleStan]

I don't think it's a good idea to downgrade with Steam, even though you can. It will likely break your blueprint library and may mess with other things too. Download old versions from the website instead. (But not 0.18, so hopefully 1.0.0 can read 0.17 saves.)

[FuryoftheStars]

I don't think it's a good idea to downgrade with Steam, even though you can. It will likely break your blueprint library and may mess with other things too. Download old versions from the website instead. (But not 0.18, so hopefully 1.0.0 can read 0.17 saves.)

While the zip file does have it's own separate game data directory, it still defaults to the same user data location, so that won't help, either, unless you edit the config-path.cfg file in the game data directory first to point to a different location before even firing it up.

The older game versions can't read the newer version's blueprint files, so it'll automatically back it up and create a new file, but this is why I said if they have blueprints in the new version they want to keep, then they should consider backing up the file. At the very least, the game will not automatically pull the backed up blueprints in. As for anything else, the most it may really do is reset some settings that don't exist in the older version or were of a different type (bool vs int, for example). I had to go through all of this late 2021 after taking a hiatus between 0.17 and 1.1. In order to carry my blueprints forward to 1.1, I used the Steam betas to downgrade to 0.18 (or maybe it was 1.0.0? They're supposed to be functionally the same), start a new game to make a quick edit to one blueprint, then exited and upgraded to 1.1. Course, I had a lot of blueprints tied to mods, so I had to create a new mod directory and then download a lot of older mods so that all of them were valid, and I wasn't as concerned about the settings (or saves themselves), but nothing got messed up or broke otherwise.

In my case I didn't have any new blueprints I wanted to keep, but if the OP does (and they don't have any old ones they want to keep), then a simple backup and overwrite of the blueprints file will suffice. Otherwise, which ever has the least number of blueprints I recommend loading that game version and stuffing all of the blueprints into a single book and then export as a string. Once done with all the downgrading and upgrading, you can then just import the string.

And if there's really a huge concern over messing up settings or wanting to keep all new settings, then I suggest just renaming the user data folder, downgrade Factorio, start the game so it creates a new user data folder, close the game and then copy the relevant saves and blueprint file across. Do all of the upgrading to 1.1, then rename that user data folder, undo the renaming of the original user data folder, then copy over the new saves and blueprints.

[Nidan]

1.0 is essentially a continuation of the 0.18 branch, that's why there's no 0.18 version archived.

During the beta, I recall factorio being able to load games up to two versions older that itself, but that being cut to one version for 1.0. My current 1.1.76 claims to be able to load games with version 0.18.0-0 and newer.

Thus, to migrate an old save you'll probably need to grab 1.0, 0.17, 0.15, 0.13 and so on until you get to the version that can handle the save.

I don't think it's a good idea to downgrade with Steam, even though you can. It will likely break your blueprint library and may mess with other things too. Download old versions from the website instead. (But not 0.18, so hopefully 1.0.0 can read 0.17 saves.)

In case you decide to downgrade, blueprint-storage*.dat, achievements*.dat, player-data.json are the files I'd recommend backing up. When using steam, achievements.dat (but not achievements-modded.dat) will probably be recreated from steam data, so you could omit that one, but I'd go for "better safe than sorry".

[Silari]

While the zip file does have it's own separate game data directory, it still defaults to the same user data location, so that won't help, either, unless you edit the config-path.cfg file in the game data directory first to point to a different location before even firing it up.

Windows version stand alone zip uses it's own folder for ALL files, including user data. use-system-read-write-data-directories=false is the default option.

Been that way for as long as I've been using them.

[MEOWMI]

I just want to add that if you're even remotely worrying about losing your blueprint library, then now is a perfect time to back it up.

If you have a big library, you don't wanna lose it, and sometimes even just loading a mod can break your library (off the top of my head, I know the overhaul mod Nullius regularly breaks mine so I have to reload it from a backup afterwards.)

All that being said, you can download old game versions from the website too and run them separate from any other installations of the game, that's probably the least risky method.

[FuryoftheStars]

While the zip file does have it's own separate game data directory, it still defaults to the same user data location, so that won't help, either, unless you edit the config-path.cfg file in the game data directory first to point to a different location before even firing it up.

Windows version stand alone zip uses it's own folder for ALL files, including user data. use-system-read-write-data-directories=false is the default option.

Been that way for as long as I've been using them.

Never used the zip version, so I had to go by the wiki. Reading the wiki, it made no mention of the zip version being different in either the locations or changing the locations sections. Now that you've mentioned this, I went back and scrolled all the way to the bottom and see there is a section on the zip version, but the language used does not make this clear that the user data directory used will be self contained to it. It also includes a "list of all things found here" that does not include the blueprints file. Not sure what to make of that. Is that just that there is no default empty blueprint file included with the zip, or will the zip store the blueprint file off to the standard location? That whole page probably needs a rewrite.