Confused about saving progress

Tarl · Post by **Tarl** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:04 am

I purchased the game and just starting to learn the basics. One area that I want to make sure I have a good understanding is how and when to save.
Pretty sure I understand that you cannot save during a contract and when docked/shipyard.
But, I still don't understand how it works.

Example is, I started up the game (only have one pilot profile), practiced flying around for 15 minutes or so. Saw the message about taking a contract, ended up some distance from the area that you first appear in a new game.
Hit escape, selected save to profile, saved, went back into game.
Then after a few minutes exited the game but told it NOT to save (because I'd already made a manual save).

Started the game up again using the same pilot.

Ended up right next to the station. Is that correct? I would have thought that I would have ended up far away from the station where I did my manual save?

Also, it doesn't appear to let me "name" my saves. So, if I clicked in a free space in the "save window", it just gave me the same profile name with a different time/date stamp. May be I have to precreate my profiles?

So, here is what I want to be able to do (if I can't do this, no big deal).
1. Fly somewhere after doing some mining. So, I have minerals in my cargo and fly to a different sector. I end up in the different sector at a specific x,y,z location.
2. Hit escape and save.
3. Select in the "save list" an empty space and type "got some minerals to sell in sector blah blah".
4. The game will add that specific save to the list of other saves along with the time/date stamp.
5. One week later I decide that I want to go back to that specific save where I had a ship with x amount of cargo in a specific location in sector blah blah. So, I "somehow" bring up the list of saves, select that specific save, and launch it.

Is that possible? If so, how to do it?

Otherwise, what are my options? Do I make up a bunch of pilot profiles called Pilot 1, Pilot 2, Pilot x, etc. And then make saves to an individual pilot profile and remember what I saved for that pilot in case I want to go back to that specific saved game information?

I'm pretty confused about just what gets saved and how you can differentiate between saves and get back to them when you want to. Or, does the game not let you do that?

The big issue is I assume I will be dying a LOT : ) So, making sure I can get back to a good save is a big deal.

Thanks,

Tarl

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:14 am

Many of us use our pilot's profile name plus something to differentiate between each one. For example, Marvin Q is doing the quest, while Marvin F spends most of the time as a fighter in a war zone, and Marvin C flies a civilian ship ... outfitted for making big bucks doing trade runs. The downside is it takes a lot longer to make Legend with multiple profiles.

Post by **Vice** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:15 am

Yes, you can save to a different profile slot as you describe, so long as you aren't on a contract. Generally, it's best to use the Alt-F9 quick save option while you are in game rather than entering the exit menu, then saving there. And it's best to use the exit menu save option only when you want to save to a different slot. While in-game, Alt-F9 will report to you in the message log if there are any problems with saving. When you save to a different slot, the data is transferred to the new profile under you current callsign. You can later go into the Pilot Manager and rename it if you want to.

Tarl · Post by **Tarl** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:21 am

From post: 131231, Topic: tid=8962, author=Vice wrote: ............When you save to a different slot, the data is transferred to the new profile under you current callsign. You can later go into the Pilot Manager and rename it if you want to.

Thanks, Vice.

That sounds doable. It's different from what I am used to, but I just had to get my head wrapped around it to get it to make sense.

Lucky for myself, and others, you have a great forum with lots of helpful people (along with yourself, of course; can't remember the last time, prior to this, that a dev/owner ever answered a question I had. Ooops. Now I remember. Never : )

Thanks again,

Tarl

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:04 pm

Hi Tarl, welcome to the game and forum!.....Hope to see you out there some time!.....

Also when you click on any saved pilot profile there is a list in the top left hand corner that you can scroll through to see what you have for cargo, ship, equipment, weapons.....etc.....etc!....