Autosave?

[lonetrav]

What triggers an autosave? Time? Event? Progress? ...?

[Trese Brothers]

Autosave is constant throughout the game.

[CoryTrese]

The game should be saving on almost any event that changes the state, however it does take little shortcuts here and there.

Are you having a performance issue triggered by the autosave?

[stretch]

Every single thing is saved straight away. There is no backup autosave for you to go back to if you err. There is a thread here about how you can manually make yourself a backup save if you wish.

[[OO] coldsteel]

I have a question about the design philosophy. The game is basically classic roguelike iron-man. You play until you die and then it's over. No do-overs.

In most roguelikes when you die you get a score screen or accomplishments screen that shows you either your score or what your best accomplishments in the game were (your highest level, how many kills, what types, best equipment owned, etc.). The point being bragging rights and/or incentive to start again and do better next time. A score allows folks to to set up a community seed and have 'challange of the week' play-throughs or hi-score contests for the community.

Do we get something at all like that when we die in STF? If not, what's the point of designing it as iron-man play? Do we just get to say we finished the story and that's it?

I haven't died yet so I'm not sure what the ending is like.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by OO coldsteel:

I have a question about the design philosophy. The game is basically classic roguelike iron-man. You play until you die and then it's over. No do-overs.

Not true, if your captain dies someone else of the crew gets appointed captain.
The game has no end in its current state as far as i experienced.
Also on the first few difficulty settings your captain cant even die at all.
Of course you can maneuver yourself into a situation where starting new is the best option.

[bookworm2156]

@coldsteel there is a 'game over' screen when you die on the captain permadeath difficulties (hard+). This shows all of your achievements like planets visited, ship combats won etc etc

[Trese Brothers]

Whether or not you end up at a permadeath screen depends on your difficulty's permadeath setting.

[[OO] coldsteel]

Oh, I see, thanks.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by OO coldsteel:

Oh, I see, thanks.

Custom difficulty is on our to-add feature list which will let you ironman any time you want.

[Vitowns]

Originally posted by Trese Brothers:

Originally posted by OO coldsteel:

Oh, I see, thanks.

Custom difficulty is on our to-add feature list which will let you ironman any time you want.

I'd love beginner or normal with permadeath good idea!

[lonetrav]

@CoryTrese: "Are you having a performance issue triggered by the autosave?"

No performance issues. I started my first game, delivered the Arbiter, talked to the princess, decided to take a break, exited the game, went back in - and noticed my progress hadn't been saved.
Tried to understand the saving logic: autosaves, no manual saves, but I couldn't find out WHEN exactly the game is autosaved.
My personal view on this is that I (being a casual player, who never spends hours playing) would like to determine myself how long I play per session, at least the game should save when I exit (which is the case for most rogue-likes, one of my favourite game genres). There is also the point that it gets probably boring to repeat the same steps whenever I have to start a new game (in a classic roguelike, I can do things differenty, or move through the boring area quickly, or the dungeon is not persistent).
Issue is your game appears to be designed differently, looks like there are certain criteria which trigger autosaving. I understand that it is no small task to change this design feature, I may like it or not. But it should be able for me to know what I have to do to get to the next save point, possibly the game should tell me when it has created an autosave. If that was the case (and it doesn't take too long to get from one autosave point to the next), I could live with the autosave system, as I can always exit the game, backup the save files, and restore them later, should I want to do this.
An example for a game I can play in this way is Eador Genesis, where I can't save manually, too, but which saves whenever I exit the game.

PS: My impression of your game so far is very positive, although I've barely scratched the surface: my decisions have consequences, the faction system seems to contain a lot of room for creative gameplay. Fighting, trading, spying, etc I haven't had an opportunity to try out myself, yet.

[lonetrav]

Originally posted by stretch:

Every single thing is saved straight away.

Then please explain to me how I can get back into my old game when I quit the game, and then launch it again (see my previous post). All I want to understand is the logic the game uses for autosaving.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by lonetrav:

Issue is your game appears to be designed differently, looks like there are certain criteria which trigger autosaving. I understand that it is no small task to change this design feature, I may like it or not. But it should be able for me to know what I have to do to get to the next save point, and the game should tell me when it has created an autosave. If that was the case (and it doesn't take too long to get from one autosave point to the next), I could live with the autosave system, as I can always exit the game, backup the save files, and restore them later, should I want to do this.
An example for a game I can play in this way is Eador Genesis, where I can't save manually, too, but which saves whenever I exit the game.

PS: My impression of your game so far is very positive, although I've barely scratched the surface: my decisions have consequences, the faction system seems to contain a lot of room for creative gameplay. Fighting, trading, spying, etc I haven't had an opportunity to try out myself, yet.

Really glad that you are enjoying your first time with it. We are definitely here to improve the autosave system. As Cory mentioned, it takes a few shortcuts which basically means it isn't saving constantly, but just at things its considers meaningful events (anything in combat, asking for, accepting or completing a mission, exiting the game to the main menu).

If you are seeing an area where you are saying, "wow, this should have been saved" please point it out to us and we will be fast and merciless in fixing it.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by lonetrav:

Originally posted by stretch:

Every single thing is saved straight away.

Then please explain to me how I can get back into my old game when I quit the game, and then launch it again (see my previous post). All I want to understand is the logic the game uses for autosaving.

If you quit to the menu, the game saves. If you come back in, you should be at the same place. If you are not having this experience, we need to start asking questions about your OS, OS version, graphics card etc as there is clearly a bug.

Also, if you are having a bad experience, please tell us exactly what is not saving.

[[OO] coldsteel]

One thing that bugs me is that I can't save and exit the game when I'm landed on a planet. You have to go back up into orbit to reach that menu. Then when you return to the game you have to land on the planet again to continue what you were doing there. Landing again costs fuel and then you have to pay to refuel again. It's a small thing but it certainly bugs me.

Is there any reason why you can't get to the exit game menu from a planet?