Why is my save incompatible?

[tilarium]

I haven't played in a while but was in the mood so I reinstalled and my old save was listed in incompatible. I tried searching here but everything is talking about experimental branches and what have you. Never played on experimental so that's not it. Guessing because there has been an update or 2 since then. Is there any way to make the save work again or is it lost?

[Lindy Bomber]

How old is your save?

What exactly happened when you tried to load it? Screen shots would be useful.

[bobhome2]

I don't snoop often, but I do see some achievements on OP's profile from 2016. So potentially pretty old.

The game has had a lot of changes, and some of those changes were to the save file itself. Your old saves just might be so old that they couldn't be switched to the "new" savefile versions.

[tilarium]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3465454127

No, those achievements were from when the game launched. This save is a bit over a year old I think, the Omega update. Like I said, pretty sure that's why it's incompatible, but wondering if there is a way to restore it. I find it hard to believe that they would have dropped an update that would break all saved games and forcing everyone to restart from scratch again.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

If the save is very old you may be able to find a download of maybe the 2017 - 2018? Atlas Rises version of the game or maybe NEXT version? Those versions of the game were quite major updates adding many changes to the game at the time of release. They may be able to open and play your save and importantly update it to a format that can then be opened and updated to the current game.

No idea where you might find those versions of the game and also if you do find them (maybe Steam data base?) the game MUST be played offline with no connection to the internet. Then your saves should update accordingly.

If it were me and I desperately wished to play my old saves for any reason, I might try first to contact Hello Games and send them my save files and politely ask if they can update them. They may be willing to do that if it is at all possible. If they can't help then maybe other players on Steam who may still have those early update versions of the game may be able to help but that's unlikely.

If you can open your game save cache folder, inside that there may be old files or DDS images files. The names of the files look like weird numbers and letters but are in fact portal address codes and perhaps instead of trying to play very old saves you might prefer to start a new current game and just re-visit old locations using the addresses logged which can be a fun thing to do, like a mission of your own to see how your old discoveries have changed. They will have changed a lot.

Keep your old files and saves just in case later you discover a way to re-open them. At least the cache folder if it does contain old images, you will have some record of your original game journey.

[Geldric™]

From my experience, NMS has NEVER blocked an older save format(1). I have only experienced or have seen a version issue when the game version is NEWER than the current, which can happen when using the Experimental build and then reverting back.

If you can zip up the four save files and share them through google drive, I'd be happy to take a look at them.

(1) I just copied over a folder from when I was playing v2.42. The current version (v5.64) opened up the save just fine. In the past I have taken saves from v1.38 and opened them up in v4.05, again without issue.

[bobhome2]

If it's only a year old, and not some long-continued save, then that is weird (to me, anyway). Perhaps it became corrupted or something. I'd check out what Johnny in the Clouds has written, but, yeah - I'd likely reach out to Hello Games via Zendesk.

[Foxglovez]

Were you at some point in 3xperimental mode and are now trying to take that save back to normal mode? That trips folks up occasionally.

[Lindy Bomber]

Originally posted by tilarium:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3465454127

No, those achievements were from when the game launched. This save is a bit over a year old I think, the Omega update. Like I said, pretty sure that's why it's incompatible, but wondering if there is a way to restore it. I find it hard to believe that they would have dropped an update that would break all saved games and forcing everyone to restart from scratch again.

A year old save should load. The file might be corrupted. You can try to send the file to the Zen desk with a bug report.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by tilarium:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3465454127This save is a bit over a year old I think, the Omega update.

Should load. It's something else - not older-save-file-incompatibility.

I regularly start new games using my older GOG version 3.53 (released 06/16/2021); and then move them to my Steam copy (running the current version). They work fine and I've done it many times now.

If that works (3-year-old saves from a 3.5-year-old GOG version - work on the current Steam version); then that points to something else in your situation.

If it's corrupted (seems like it); I'd just start a new game.

[+VLFBERHT+]

Are you using a "NMS save folder" from a backup you made, from back then, to run the game?... or are you trying to run the game from a "Steam Cloud Save"... if it's from Steam Cloud, it may have become corrupted.

If you are using [or have access to] an backup NMS save folder, simply run the game, create new game, play until you get to the point where you are running to find your first spaceship... once that is done, exit and go-to...
C:\Users\your_PC's_name\AppData\Roaming\HelloGames ... delete the NMS folder and replace it with backup NMS folder.

If that does not work...

If you are currently trying to run game using "Published or Public Mode", if you can't remember if you had switched to 3xperimental mode back then, simply enable "3xperimental" mode now and try to run the game that way.

If you still can't recover...

If you had hundreds of hours on the old save, you might reach out to Hello Games through their zendesk system to see if there's a remedy...

https://hellogames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

P.s. And of course, if you cannot recover at all, i guarantee you will have GREAT FUN simply starting a New Game, since there have been MASSIVE upgrades from when Omega was out.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Unless that is part of the corruption, the screenshot you posted is showing like 46 minutes on the save? Or is that seconds? In any case, have you tried just running a new save? 46 minutes is like nothing in this game. Not sure if it is still available, but I would try creating a new save with the current expedition.

[NashEquil]

Another issue may be something I ran into. I played a past expedition, and never finished it, and when I came back many months after the expedition had ended my save was "Normal" but wouldnt load either. Maybe that save was from a past expedition?