Profiles and saved games

wolis · Post by **wolis** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:36 pm

Some questions and request re profiles.

I noticed my are ending up in C:\\sw3dg\\EvochronLegends

I dont recall telling them to go there.. I have my game installed in D:\\games\\...

I understand I can specify where saved games go with the savegame.txt file (or similar name I wont go looking it up now).

But that folder has more than just profiles, it has a whole bunch of *.sw files and strange things like news8.txt and shipyardold.txt etc..

I assume all of this is stuff I have modified in the game so I need all of them not just my pilotX.ws files when backing up and/or moving to a nother location?

Request:
Is the a chance we can provide some additional text when saving in a different profile? I know I can check each to see which has the most money and is in what sector, but Id appreciate the option of jotting down a note like 'just before trying ...' or 'just got an ...'

Also can we have an 'Exit' button on the 'Choose your profile' screen. Savs having to load up a profile then get to the main menu then exit.

And on the profile selections screen, how about showing a useful stat like the date/time it was saved - or the number of play hours:mins?

Then I can easily tell which one I was playing lasy having 8 profiles all called the same thing and all saved in the same location with similr rank and cach as I like having to option of going back one or 2 saves in case something dire happeend and I didnt notice it first off

Personally Id have it save with a new number each time eg 'wam_001' and it just keeps on going until it hist 999 then goes back to 001. Or something like that.

Thanks.. Im really enjoying Legends.. its a tremendous game!

Post by **Vice** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:59 pm

If you want to move the folder location, you'll want to move all of the files. For backing up, you can selectively save the ones you want, profiles being the most important.

Maybe for some of them, although they would require altering the profile template, which can be tricky to do without removing legacy compatibility (players would have to start over in order to use the new template unless a legacy compatibility conversion system is built into it... the tricky part

For the exit option in the profile manager, would an escape key option work for that? Do you want it to exit the game from there? If so, that's possible. If not and you want to enter the game, that's not really an option since the game depends on profile data from the main menu on for a variety of things.

wolis · Post by **wolis** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:15 am

Thanks for that info re profiles.

Yes.. allowing ESC to close with some text "Press Esc to exit" directly under all of those "DELETE PILOT" would be a good start.

Taking this further, a new button ('Exit' or maybe just an 'X' top right) would be even clearer and help new-comers not feel threatened by an application they don't know how to close.

Any thoughts on the 'time player' or a date/time shown for each profile?

I just noticed the profile shows the ship design.. this is great as I can tell 'oh.. thats when I tried thos gigantic wings'.

I'm still keen on a more endless list of saved games not a limit of 8. but then again there many other things for you to concentrate on.. I can just grab copies of my *.ws files and keep an endless catalogue of my own.

Thanks

Post by **Vice** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:14 pm

Storing additional data in pilot profiles involves the template legacy issue I referred to above. So I may look into that later on. The exit option should be in the next build though.

wolis · Post by **wolis** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 7:28 am

ah.. I see what you mean about storing additional info in the profile files.

How about reading the file datetime stamp and just showing that as an indicator of last activity (assuming its updated each time a save happens)?

PS I had a sneek peek into a profile and it has a rather intruiging structure/content. Sort of looks like its serialised, and encoded but using printable ascii - its rather pretty to look at.

With the conversion from old games to new. could this be an external tool that you run your profiles through to upgrade them?

Id happily help (I use Delphi 5 as my exe builder of choice) and I do love messing with files.

Post by **Vice** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 7:30 pm

The more simple, generally the better. A lot of players simply expect to install something and have it work without any other requirements, so any legacy paths would likely need to be coded into the game itself. Analyzing the date stamp would be the preferred direction, but I may need to find a DLL call or something I can use as the development languages uses a flawed 'find first/next' system for checking file dates that breaks down if there are too many files in a folder (due to a flaw in a checklist system). For whatever reason, it won't let you just check the date of a file by name, an annoying limitation if you ask me

But check a time stamp is a more feasible way to obtain the information, I just have to find an alternative way to do it within the game.

wolis · Post by **wolis** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 11:30 pm

Interesting limitation.

I know very little about DarkBasic. Maybe extend one of your other files in the save game folder, or make a new file profile_index.txt.

This way you can store additional info about the profiles without having to modify them.

This too can get around limitations in files and we can have lots of saved games with additional info. Im still keen on having the wonderfully simple and useful ALT-Q save with an incrementing number so I get wam_001, wam_002 etc.. each time I save. But then again thats just me.

I know some purists and NetHack fans frown on reloading an old saved game.