Why are the save files hiding?

[solomani]

Using the steam version, when I go to:

*Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\save games

my saves are not there, it has two older saves but not any of my current ones. I am playing ironman if that matters? Thanks.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Ionman saves are hidden and on top of that encrypted so even if one manages to find them, Paradox has made it basically impossible to edit them, sounds like however they were stored on the cloud, and if not then I guess the encyption is basically making them invisible to any means outside of whateve Paradox does with ironman files.

[PlutonArioch]

If I am not mistaken Stellaris requires Steam Cloud saves to play ironman normally. I don't use the Steam Cloud myself (and don't play ironman in this game), but often cloud stuff is simply saved in a different folder. In the folder Steam provides for cloud synchronization. The folder is in your Steam installation folder, and then:
"userdata\[your Steam account ID]\[the games AppID]\remote\".
Have a look in that folder. The AppID for Stellaris should be "281990".

Originally posted by Caster of Shadows:

I guess the encyption is basically making them invisible to any means outside of whateve Paradox does with ironman files.

You can not encrypt a file to hide it. You can set it to be hidden, but you can also have windows explorer show you all hidden files. If you want to hide a file, place it somewhere no one will look, best inside another file.

And no, I have opened ironman save files from myself (old ones) and other people (newer). None of them were encrypted.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

And no, I have opened ironman save files from myself (old ones) and other people (newer). None of them were encrypted.

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ironman#:~:text=Save%20files%20can%20be%20stored%20in%20the%20Steam,locations%20for%20Ironman%20mode%2C%20local%20and%20Steam%20Cloud.

Then the wikipage sure is wrong!

[PlutonArioch]

Originally posted by Caster of Shadows:

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

And no, I have opened ironman save files from myself (old ones) and other people (newer). None of them were encrypted.

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ironman#:~:text=Save%20files%20can%20be%20stored%20in%20the%20Steam,locations%20for%20Ironman%20mode%2C%20local%20and%20Steam%20Cloud.

Then the wikipage sure is wrong!

Maybe I just never got a file from someone who saved to the Steam cloud? I don't know. Those I saw were never encrypted.
As I said I don't use Steam Cloud, and I don't want to activate it to test this. Whenever I do, it inevitably overwrites some of my saves and settings for some games, and I don't want to clean up that mess ever again. So I can only activate ironman by editing a non-ironman file to become ironman, and then it would still be a non-cloud save starting out not encrypted as usual.

It seems silly to me to require Steam cloud in the first place to activate ironman, and especially if as the wiki suggests you then get the choice to save to the cloud or not. But with that being the case here as is, it does not seem that far off that they would also encrypt files if saved to the cloud but not if saved locally... which seems equally silly to me.

Maybe if the OP does save to the cloud, and finds their files, they could check whether or not they are encrypted.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

Originally posted by Caster of Shadows:

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ironman#:~:text=Save%20files%20can%20be%20stored%20in%20the%20Steam,locations%20for%20Ironman%20mode%2C%20local%20and%20Steam%20Cloud.

Then the wikipage sure is wrong!

Maybe I just never got a file from someone who saved to the Steam cloud? I don't know. Those I saw were never encrypted.
As I said I don't use Steam Cloud, and I don't want to activate it to test this. Whenever I do, it inevitably overwrites some of my saves and settings for some games, and I don't want to clean up that mess ever again. So I can only activate ironman by editing a non-ironman file to become ironman, and then it would still be a non-cloud save starting out not encrypted as usual.

It seems silly to me to require Steam cloud in the first place to activate ironman, and especially if as the wiki suggests you then get the choice to save to the cloud or not. But with that being the case here as is, it does not seem that far off that they would also encrypt files if saved to the cloud but not if saved locally... which seems equally silly to me.

Maybe if the OP does save to the cloud, and finds their files, they could check whether or not they are encrypted.

This makes sense actually, I indeed cant see how they'd encypt them if their not alucated off your PC for a moment before being returned, if they do it via the steam cloud then that actually makes sense, good point!

[solomani]

Perfect, thanks, found it here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\<YOUR STEAM ID>\281990\remote\save games