Please make BluePrints safer

[Ashrak]

I love this game but I stopped playing like a year ago because I lost all my blueprints. I installed the game on a second computer and after a cloud sync I had no blueprints. I came back to my other computer and it seems the sync whiped out all my blueprints.

Now I have decided to come back to the game and I'm starting to rebuild my blueprint library, but I'm always in panic that they get deleted again.

Athough not very frequent, this issue has happened to a lot of people and its super frutrating.

Now that the game will get an update I think it would be a good idea for the developers to implement a safer and easy way to backup blueprints without having to resort to making a manual backup on dropbox or creating a creative mode game to physically backup blueprints.

Thanks!

[Maltsi]

You need to manually enable cloud save for blueprints from settings, in "other" tab. I have never lost any blueprints even after full PC wipes

[Chindraba]

Blueprints in the game are very safe. It's even possible to retrieve seemingly lost prints from older saves.

Blueprints are not safe in the hands of Steam and their cloud save. I've never seen a report of lost prints because of something wrong with the game.

The cloud sync might be the easiest way to play on multiple devices, yet it comes with no guarantees. I might have seen a report of two where the used did something to wipe out the prints in error, and I know I've seen one where they accidentally deleted them. Other than that every report I've seen has been related in some fashion to the use, or reliance upon, Steam's cloud sync function. To the best of my knowledge, even in those cases, disconnecting from Steam and using a well known process most, if not all, users have been able to "recover" what Steam had lost or wiped.

It is also the case that of the thousands who are likely using Steam's cloud sync, even with blueprints, there have been a very small number who've been hit with Steam's bugs.

Should you, or anyone, find their prints have "gone missing," for whatever reason, STOP. Do nothing else with loading and saving any games until you post here and someone points you to the process for getting them back.

For future reference it is in the official Factorio forum (on their website not Steam's).
Last hope: blueprint library recovery from save file. (v1.1.9+)[forums.factorio.com] [/quote]

[knighttemplar1960]

Like most of my other important data I keep a copy of my blue print library on a flash drive where its safe from both steam and system accidents.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Like most of my other important data I keep a copy of my blue print library on a flash drive where its safe from both steam and system accidents.

That's a good practice, for any form of data. It is also, however, the OP's desire not to have to do that.

I have each print individually saved as it's own text file, as well as most of the books in the same format. Some books are too large for convenience, which is why I started with the individual prints to begin with. I also have my system to save a new backup copy of the entire library on any exit from the game which not a complete power loss. A game crash, should it ever happen, won't interrupt the process, only a full system critical failure, such as sudden loss of electric power. I've not had to use the backups for their intended purpose, yet, but I have them as insurance anyway.

[kremlin]

Originally posted by Chindraba:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Like most of my other important data I keep a copy of my blue print library on a flash drive where its safe from both steam and system accidents.

That's a good practice, for any form of data. It is also, however, the OP's desire not to have to do that.

Lots of people want things without putting effort in. We want to help OP get over the hump by showing him what efforts he can make that are worth it, not discourage him from making effort.

If you *won't* do backups, then you *won't* have backups.

[Morsk]

I don't consider the blueprint library safe. If I made the blueprint myself, there has to be a creative world where it's on the ground. If I downloaded it, I am going to save the text file.

[Ashrak]

Originally posted by Chindraba:

Blueprints in the game are very safe. It's even possible to retrieve seemingly lost prints from older saves.

Blueprints are not safe in the hands of Steam and their cloud save. I've never seen a report of lost prints because of something wrong with the game.

The cloud sync might be the easiest way to play on multiple devices, yet it comes with no guarantees. I might have seen a report of two where the used did something to wipe out the prints in error, and I know I've seen one where they accidentally deleted them. Other than that every report I've seen has been related in some fashion to the use, or reliance upon, Steam's cloud sync function. To the best of my knowledge, even in those cases, disconnecting from Steam and using a well known process most, if not all, users have been able to "recover" what Steam had lost or wiped.

It is also the case that of the thousands who are likely using Steam's cloud sync, even with blueprints, there have been a very small number who've been hit with Steam's bugs.

Should you, or anyone, find their prints have "gone missing," for whatever reason, STOP. Do nothing else with loading and saving any games until you post here and someone points you to the process for getting them back.

For future reference it is in the official Factorio forum (on their website not Steam's).
Last hope: blueprint library recovery from save file. (v1.1.9+)[forums.factorio.com]

[/quote]

I guess you are right. My problem originated because of steam cloud save. So, maybe if they add an in-game tip or intructions on how to backup blueprints would be a good thing to do.

[Morsk]

There is sometimes a way to recover blueprints from a save file that used them:

Last hope: blueprint library recovery from save file. (v1.1.9+)[forums.factorio.com]

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by Ashrak:

So, maybe if they add an in-game tip or intructions on how to backup blueprints would be a good thing to do.

Now that you mention it, I think there should be something in tips and tricks section which describes how to import/export blueprints. I'm not saying there is, or isn't, just that there should be. I don't recall how I learned about it, nor if there is anything in the tips and tricks which covers it. That's the place to put it for sure, and the trigger to show it would be unlocking construction bots.

I think the import/export of prints might even be in the same group as the import/export of map exchange strings. Something left to the tooltips to explain, if the player gets curious enough to look, but otherwise unknown.

[jamiechi]

One could periodically back up the AppData\Roaming\Factorio folder which contains the blueprint-storage.dat file and the save files.

[Zaflis]

Originally posted by Maltsi:

You need to manually enable cloud save for blueprints from settings, in "other" tab. I have never lost any blueprints even after full PC wipes

Considering that number 1 reason for losing all blueprints is because Steam cloud was Enabled, i wouldn't easily risk turning it on :p Factorio is not the only game affected by it.

But other reason can be to set Factorio game version to experimental and then back to stable. If the version difference was too great, the old Factorio may not know how to handle that "futuristic" blueprint library.

That is why i recommend downloading the game from website if you want to try different version. Keep Steam at stable.

[Chindraba]

The version bump issue is not just for stable vs experimental. Once a library has been saved in the latest version, 1.1.92 for now, it cannot be loaded by the previous version, stable previous being 1.1.87. And it isn't because something has changed between any two versions, it is just because something could change. By setting the system to always load forward and disallow loading backwards the devs are able to avoid the issues of having to make or keep changes backwards compatible. Backwards compatible can be nice for users, in everything not just games. It is also a major PITA for development and really slows down progress. USB speeds could have been at the current level of USB 3.2 Gen 2 years ago, except they had to engineer into the specs backwards compatibility for USB 1.2, 2.0, and 3.2 Gen 1. When the expansion is released, and the base game gets a bump to version 2.0 there will be changes, including new rail pieces that we know of so far, which version 1.1.x won't understand at all.

However, even with a version bump locking a library for the current version, with a save file not yet loaded in the new version, the recovery process already given will work with a save file loaded into the older version.

Steam might limit you to one install at a time, and even then from a limited selection of past versions. Wube enforces no such limit. From their download page you can access nearly every version they've made. The list goes as far back as 0.6.4. Windows users have to download the ".zip" file instead of the installer, but they can then install as many versions on their computer as the disk drive's capacity will allow. And you can do it without admin privileges. You can even run it off of a USB stick - though the speed will make you wish you hadn't. Unless you've got a GodBox, the system won't like it if run too many of them at the same time though.