3+ Years of Terrain Edits Wiped (multiplayer bug?)

[EvilPolygons]

I just recently lost every single terrain edit I've ever made, all at once in under an hour, from ALL of my bases -- even the basic terrain-clearing edits from placing floors/prefabs.

I've always been very careful about managing the terrain edit budget, which is why I've never had terrain regen issues in over 3 years of base building. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that merely visiting heavily-edited bases built by other players could completely overrun the terrain edit buffers in *my* savefile, causing even my supposedly "protected" base edit buffers to be wiped.

Digging through the JSON data with NMSSaveEditor confirmed that nearly all of the 255 edit buffers in my save file were now full of terrain edits from OTHER players' bases. I had no idea that could even happen, otherwise I wouldn't have saved my game after the base tour.

Very, very frustrating. I don't know if this is considered a bug, but it should be.

This won't keep me from using terrain edits in my base designs (I managed to go several years without an issue until now), but I'll definitely be more careful visiting other players' bases from now on.

UPDATE:
I've discovered that merely being present on a mission or hub planet with lots of player bases will cause your own terrain edits to be wiped. You DO NOT need to actually visit anyone's base for the damage to be done, because HG apparently streams uploaded terrain edits to you in the background even if you never set foot outside your own base.

This is the case even when multiplayer is disabled in the Options menu, as it is all part of the passive multiplayer system in NMS. The only way to avoid it is to either 1) never set foot on a planet where another player has had a base, or 2) play with your internet connection disabled when visiting such a planet.

UPDATE:
Patch 3.73 seems to have finally fixed this issue. Normally the bug can be forced to wipe all your terrain data in a matter of minutes on a hub planet, but after an hour of testing, my protected base buffers have not had even a single edit overwritten.

[FoolishOwl]

That explains a lot. A year or two ago, I started a new save, and moved to the Galactic Hub as soon as I could; on this save, I've never had a terrain edit persist for more than a few minutes. It would make sense if my edits are pre-empted by the large number of terrain edits in existing bases.

[Errazor D'Jinn]

That sucks bro, would you like to come build in a city some friends and I built in Odyalutai with a new civilization? Seeing progress wiped sucks, you can join us if you would like to start fresh.

[aggressor27]

I'm amazed you went three years without an issue. I can't even go three days without my bases filling in so I just gave up. It's good to know visiting other bases adds to your terrain edit. Hopefully it's something they can address in the future one of my favorite builds was underground and it was creepy as hell when the storms raged topside.

[EvilPolygons]

It's just mind boggling that terrain edits from bases you don't even own get saved into YOUR save file, overwriting the *very limited* number of buffers available for base building.

Hello Games really dropped the ball when they opted to do it this way instead of simply loading other players' edits into a separate (preferably temporary) set of buffers.

[Dirak2012]

Build above the ground. You never know what update or bug might mess with terrain edits. 🤷‍♂️

[aggressor27]

I even went to the trouble of filling holes back in whenever I dug something out, thinking it would make a difference. What a waste of time that was.

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

you could restore your terrain edits from an older savegame
but i think you restored the old savefile huh? ;) - less work *g*

[-🗲 Archie 🗲-]

Terrain reset is the worst, I learned a while ago that the best solution is to build raised structures that don't clip into or morph the terrain.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1625195069393583829/19F780A298D5D4767F43B189C4CC0A1C09D80A65/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[EvilPolygons]

Originally posted by Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ:

you could restore your terrain edits from an older savegame
but i think you restored the old savefile huh? ;) - less work *g*

No, unfortunately I didn't know about that and my last backup was so old that I would have lost several newer bases anyway.

But last night I learned how to manually backup the TerrainEdits portion of the JSON and reapply your saved edits to ANY existing save file. Wish I'd known about that before all this happened.

At least now if anything like this ever happens again, I'll know what to do.

For those who don't know, using the NMSSaveEditor, you can open up the JSON portion of your save file, open PlayerStateData, scroll down to the TerrainEditData section, and then Ctrl-A/Ctrl-C copy the *entire* JSON array (all 15,000 entries!) containing your terrain edits. Save that chunk of JSON code into a backup text file and then you basically have a permanent backup of your custom terrain edits in case anything ever goes wrong.

I'd always thought of the save editor as just a cheat tool, so I never bothered with it (because I don't cheat). But the fact that it can create permanent terrain edit backups AND delete individual "parasitic" edits from your buffers is pretty awesome.

[aggressor27]

Awesome. Thanks for the JSON tip. Question though, since edits are on some weird global buffer will that affect other player's ability to see your edits (such as an underground base) without you having to login and upload it all the time just to refresh it?

[zaphodikus]

Originally posted by aggressor27:

I'm amazed you went three years without an issue. I can't even go three days without my bases filling in so I just gave up. It's good to know visiting other bases adds to your terrain edit. Hopefully it's something they can address in the future one of my favorite builds was underground and it was creepy as hell when the storms raged topside.

Likewize, every day a base gets filled in with soil every day, i have about 7 small bases, they all backfill . I assumed it was just bug number 101 in a long list of things that never get fixed. hmm will look at this JSON thing, sounds liek a job for a bit of script automation.

[EvilPolygons]

Originally posted by aggressor27:

Awesome. Thanks for the JSON tip. Question though, since edits are on some weird global buffer will that affect other player's ability to see your edits (such as an underground base) without you having to login and upload it all the time just to refresh it?

How other players see your base mostly depends on what your base looked like when it was last uploaded. Once you get a base how you want it, you don't ever have to "refresh" it via re-uploading unless you actually make additional changes later on. That's not to say that other players will *always* see you base exactly the same -- it's possible for the edit buffers in anyone's save file to go all wonky from being exposed to too many edits too quickly, causing rendering issues as buffers are dynamically recycled to make room for new data.

There isn't really a global edit buffer per se. It's more precise to say that everyone has their own individual edit buffers in their save files that *can* be affected by being exposed to terrain edits made by other players. If you upload a base with customized terrain to HG's servers, then even if your own save file's terrain data gets wiped, your base would theoretically still look okay to everyone else but you, because HG is streaming your uploaded base data to other players via their servers. In other words, your own bases don't get streamed to you from HG's servers -- they are loaded directly from your save file. So if your save file's terrain data gets wiped and you don't have your own personal backups then you're pretty much screwed.

Basically, after a wipe, if you need to use the Save Editor to restore any lost terrain edits to your save file, then re-uploading *may* help lock in and protect your restored edits in YOUR save file, but otherwise HG's servers will continue to send other players your base in whatever state it was in when you last uploaded it.

Again, the important thing to remember is that any parasitic terrain data from other players that clogs up the buffers in YOUR save file won't actually become permanent unless you actually save your game! If you mostly play solo then quitting without saving can avoid terrain regen after visiting someone else's base!

However, if you play a lot of multiplayer or have a base in a hub around a lot of other players, then as others have said your only real option is to totally avoid relying on terrain edits.

(Sorry about the long winded explanation.)

[zaphodikus]

How do you play "solo"?

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

playing solo? switch off Multiplayer in NMS network-settings

Originally posted by EvilPolygons:

--cut--

But last night I learned how to manually backup the TerrainEdits portion of the JSON and reapply your saved edits to ANY existing save file. Wish I'd known about that before all this happened.

At least now if anything like this ever happens again, I'll know what to do.
---cut---
I'd always thought of the save editor as just a cheat tool, so I never bothered with it (because I don't cheat). But the fact that it can create permanent terrain edit backups AND delete individual "parasitic" edits from your buffers is pretty awesome.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant :)
Sure you can cheat with the SE but in the first place it's a tool to fix small and big problems in the game ;)

[EvilPolygons]

You don't really have to keep multiplayer switched off to play solo in this game. NMS is big enough that you'll rarely (if ever) run into another player except for when you go to the Nexus. I haven't run into another player in the wild (not counting weekend missions) since I left Euclid years ago.