Re-installed this game and now my saves are gone?

[clay gamer]

How do i get that ♥♥♥♥ back? Don't feel like replaying 30 hours of content

[CarDr]

You may want to read this post;

https://steamcommunity.com/app/242050/discussions/0/1735466157768376397/#c1735466157774510785

Keep in mind that a few have had saves corrupted or gone missing and could not determine what was the cause. Sorry for the long post, but there is no documented info from Ubisoft on their save system, you will only find what players have experienced or observed. I took the time to say / explain how I came to the conclusions I’ve listed.

These files are encrypted but you can open them with note pad, word pad and explorer- and you should find a reference to the game name near the top - A C 4 B F followed with date and time stamp. On a chance that your old save files may still be on your PC, try searching your PC for; save.1, save.1 upload, save.2, save.2 upload (note that any ubi game saves you have should show in the results- check the date created or the headings at the top when you open them). I think the upload ones may be for Kenway’s fleet, ships you saved and sent to your fleet - playing the game in off line mode, the upload files will be empty.

Save 1 and 2 can vary greatly in size, over 95% game complete, one save has over 82KB, 3KB in the other. Do not know if both saves are required to continue from your last play. I had finished the campaign and side missions a long time ago and would return to the game for open world play. Only save.1 was updating and it was the smaller in size. Another time I replayed a mission to pick up an objective I missed, I found save.1 was now the larger file and it’s time stamp was updated. With that I would guess the larger file contains the mission saves, the smaller on has your last location and ship cargo and coin inventory.

Anyhow, I would first backup any saves you find. You could try to insert any older (and larger) saves you find into the larger existing ‘game save in #437’ and make it ‘save.1’ and see what happens.

From what I remember, the encrypted saves are tied to your game key and can not be shared between other players.

[clay gamer]

Originally posted by CarDr:

You may want to read this post;

https://steamcommunity.com/app/242050/discussions/0/1735466157768376397/#c1735466157774510785

Keep in mind that a few have had saves corrupted or gone missing and could not determine what was the cause. Sorry for the long post, but there is no documented info from Ubisoft on their save system, you will only find what players have experienced or observed. I took the time to say explain how I came to the conclusions I’ve listed.

These files are encrypted but you can open them with note pad, word pad and explorer- and you should find a reference to the game name near the top - A C 4 B F followed with date and time stamp. On a chance that your old save files may still be on your PC, try searching your PC for; save.1, save.1 upload, save.2, save.2 upload (note that any ubi game saves you have should show in the results- check the date created or the headings at the top when you open them). I think the upload ones may be for Kenway’s fleet, ships you saved and sent to your fleet - playing the game in off line mode, the upload files will be empty.

Save 1 and 2 can vary greatly in size, over 95% game complete, one save has over 82KB, 3KB in the other. Do not know if both saves are required to continue from your last play. I had finished the campaign and side missions a long time ago and would return to the game for open world play. Only save.1 was updating and it was the smaller in size. Another time I replayed a mission to pick up an objective I missed, I found save.1 was now the larger file and it’s time stamp was updated. With that I would guess the larger file contains the mission saves, the smaller on has your last location and ship cargo and coin inventory.

Anyhow, I would first backup any saves you find. You could try to insert any older (and larger) saves you find into the larger existing ‘game save in #437’ and make it ‘save.1’ and see what happens.

From what I remember, the encrypted saves are tied to your game key and can not be shared between other players.

Thanks for the help and the post. Yet i was unable to find the reference. If i open the .save files in notepad++ they're all messed up (makes sense, they're supposed to opened in hexa editors i believe) and can't find the reference to the game.

[CarDr]

Try using note pad. Finding my Black Flag saves in the # ‘437’ folder - at the top line after a couple of symbles I see
A C 4 B F [ 0 ] –tm followed with date and time, on the larger file save (currently save.1 for me), the rest of the data was encrypted. On the smaller save file (currently save.2 for me) I see A C 4 B F [ -1 ] –tm followed with date and time.

I also have AC2 on steam, when I open the save in the # ‘40’ folder save.1 (currently the smaller save for me) the top line has a large list of numbers/letters followed with ‘ AC 2 [ -1 ] –tm and date/time stamp. Similar for the save.2 (the larger file at this time) numbers/letters AC 2 [ 0 ] tm………

So [ 0 ] for the larger campaign progression save. ATM I don’t want to test further with my saves and create any problems for myself.

Save folder numbers are for the different ubi games you have, and the game numbers can be different if the game was bought from Steam or directly from Ubisoft. I know the steam version for Black Flag is 437, I’ve read that the Ubi/Uplay download of the game is a different 3 digit number. Hope that helps.