Playing offline

[Bedna]

So what happens if steam is unavailable when you start the game?

It happened to me the other day, I could still choose to play offline so I did.

Next time I loaded in steam was available.
All the saves I made offline were there, but ALL of them made me spawn in base wo any inventory (equipment I had on me was still there though) and it looked like the builds I made were still there, but where are is the inventory?

Is the inventory saved server side somehow?
And if so, is there a way to transfer that together with the save in a situation like this?

[Suzaku]

Inventory is saved to the character. If you don't log in properly (like when playing offline), the game gives you a fresh character. That character is currently sitting wherever you left them, waiting for you to find and kill them to take your inventory back.

[Fenix]

I find it unlikely you logged in with your gear intact if your inventory was empty.
Sometimes, but not always, the Game will give you a new Player ID, and since it think you are new your inventory and gear will be on the old/real you
The game starts you with the Zapper, on a "new" character... and you have to find the old you then kill it to get your stuff back.

[Bedna]

Originally posted by Fenix:

I find it unlikely you logged in with your gear intact if your inventory was empty.
Sometimes, but not always, the Game will give you a new Player ID, and since it think you are new your inventory and gear will be on the old/real you
The game starts you with the Zapper, on a "new" character... and you have to find the old you then kill it to get your stuff back.

I could be wrong here and I might have imagined that.
I just ran outside, checked if the changes were there, pressed tab.
And I removed the saves, so I cant check... I just reverted to an old save, I hadn't done that much building...
I was mostly curious as of how it works.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

Originally posted by Bedna:

Originally posted by Fenix:

I find it unlikely you logged in with your gear intact if your inventory was empty.
Sometimes, but not always, the Game will give you a new Player ID, and since it think you are new your inventory and gear will be on the old/real you
The game starts you with the Zapper, on a "new" character... and you have to find the old you then kill it to get your stuff back.

I could be wrong here and I might have imagined that.
I just ran outside, checked if the changes were there, pressed tab.
And I removed the saves, so I cant check... I just reverted to an old save, I hadn't done that much building...
I was mostly curious as of how it works.

quite simple....
if steam is configured (on by default) to do cloud save...
(setting in steam can be changed in options globally and in every game for specific games that need different than global config)

now if cloud save is enabled, steam check if there's new/changed/delete files in it's cloud storage for that game and sync them (eventually asking for confirm) locally so that the game can find the files locally.

at exit the game, same thing is done in reverse.... so changed/deleted/added files in save folder (of the game) are replicated in cloud.

for the game is't transparent as the game don't even know that there's a cloud sync. Game just read and write in it's save folder as usual.

because of this, if you open save folder and delete files, opening the game those files are taken from cloud as they are missing locally. To do the things correctly if you want to manually change such folder..... open the game and make changes while game is running in background.... so that steam will keep them and sync when you close the game (including manual changes)

[Bedna]

Originally posted by Jack-o-Lantern:

because of this, if you open save folder and delete files, opening the game those files are taken from cloud as they are missing locally. To do the things correctly if you want to manually change such folder..... open the game and make changes while game is running in background.... so that steam will keep them and sync when you close the game (including manual changes)

That is exactly what happened, and why I was surprised that I spawned wo inventory.

1. Steam was offline
   
2. Started game in offline mode through steam
   
3. Steam became available during play
   
4. Closed game
   
5. Saw steam uploading saves
   
6. Restarted game in online mode
   
7. Inventory was empty

This, according to how I interpret what you write, should have made me flawlessly continue my play.

Or what am I missing here?

Edit:
And the reason I recalled I had my gear on is because I think i used my rocket pack, but it immediately ran out of fuel. I then pressed tab to realize my inventory was gone.
But I could mix that up with some other time when I accidentally un-alived myself in game.

[Zak]

Originally posted by Bedna:

This, according to how I interpret what you write, should have made me flawlessly continue my play.

Or what am I missing here?

Once you become a new avatar due to going offline or, sometimes, due to a bug, you stay as such, you won't go back to the old one, even if you restart the game back in online mode. Once this happens, there is no going back. The only solution is to find your old avatar, kill her and reclaim your inventory.

Maybe this will be fixed in 1.0, I'm not sure.

[Bedna]

Oh, so when I started the offline play, I "stole" my player id and changed it, so next time in online mode, the character becomes "new".
That makes sense..

Yeah, lets hope the devs fixes that in 1.0.
Makes sense to have it like that if you ONLY use dedicated online servers all the time, but that seems like a very bad approach IMHO.

But now I know at least and in case, I just have to make sure to save the game in offline mode while my player is close to my hub for easy access to old inventory..

[Suzaku]

When you start in offline mode, the game doesn't know who you are. You are given a new ID, so you spawn in as a fresh character.

When you log in as normal and start the game, it knows who you are, and gives you control of the appropriate body.

The devs won't "fix" anything because there's nothing to fix. It's working as intended.

[Zak]

Originally posted by Bedna:

Oh, so when I started the offline play, I "stole" my player id and changed it, so next time in online mode, the character becomes "new".
That makes sense..

Yeah, lets hope the devs fixes that in 1.0.
Makes sense to have it like that if you ONLY use dedicated online servers all the time, but that seems like a very bad approach IMHO.

But now I know at least and in case, I just have to make sure to save the game in offline mode while my player is close to my hub for easy access to old inventory..

This is an unfortunate side effect of the game always being connected to Epic Game Services, which is the suckiest thing about this game. I wish the'd rip that crap out of the game code, but it's not gonna happen. There were few Epic outages just this year that made the game unplayable for several hours.

Alternatively, if you don't do coop multiplayer, just singleplayer, then switch to offline mode and just stay that way. The game won't talk to EGS servers and this will never happen to you again whether Epic or Steam services go down (your Steam acct is linked to Epic). You can still connect to dedicated servers even, just no coop with other peers since EGS brokers that. Oh, and your name in the game will be something weird.

To do that launch the game using a shortcut:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Satisfactory\FactoryGame.exe -NoMultiplayer

This is not the same as putting Steam in offline mode, just the game. All Steam functionality will still be there, all other games will not be affected.

[Bedna]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

When you start in offline mode, the game doesn't know who you are. You are given a new ID, so you spawn in as a fresh character.

When you log in as normal and start the game, it knows who you are, and gives you control of the appropriate body.

The devs won't "fix" anything because there's nothing to fix. It's working as intended.

That is just not true. I might in programming terms have "spawned a new character" but my inventory when I loaded in the offline mode was DEF there, no question about that.
Then going BACK to online broke my inventory.

Claiming "there is nothing to fix" is ridiculous buddy. Please don't start an argument.

Originally posted by Zak:

Alternatively, if you don't do coop multiplayer, just singleplayer, then switch to offline mode and just stay that way. The game won't talk to EGS servers and this will never happen to you again whether Epic or Steam services go down (your Steam acct is linked to Epic). You can still connect to dedicated servers even, just no coop with other peers since EGS brokers that. Oh, and your name in the game will be something weird.

To do that launch the game using a shortcut:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Satisfactory\FactoryGame.exe -NoMultiplayer

This is not the same as putting Steam in offline mode, just the game. All Steam functionality will still be there, all other games will not be affected.

Well, I game on linux so the path to the wine prefix is a bit different, but I get what you are saying and that is a valid point.
I think an easier solution would be to just add -NoMultiplayer to the steam launch options...
But I still say, as a player, I should not have to jump through hoops just to be able to play a game weather I start it in online or offline mode.

They could do the valheim approach, where you actually create a player, and then choose witch player to use on witch map. Because the server is located on the same location and gets transferred seamlessly, only the player seems to be a problem.

[Zak]

Originally posted by Bedna:

Originally posted by Zak:

Alternatively, if you don't do coop multiplayer, just singleplayer, then switch to offline mode and just stay that way. The game won't talk to EGS servers and this will never happen to you again whether Epic or Steam services go down (your Steam acct is linked to Epic). You can still connect to dedicated servers even, just no coop with other peers since EGS brokers that. Oh, and your name in the game will be something weird.

To do that launch the game using a shortcut:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Satisfactory\FactoryGame.exe -NoMultiplayer

This is not the same as putting Steam in offline mode, just the game. All Steam functionality will still be there, all other games will not be affected.

Well, I game on linux so the path to the wine prefix is a bit different, but I get what you are saying and that is a valid point.
But I still say, as a player, I should not have to jump through hoops just to be able to play a game weather I start it in online or offline mode.

They could do the valheim approach, where you actually create a player, and then choose witch player to use on witch map. Because the server is located on the same location and gets transferred seamlessly, only the player seems to be a problem.

I absolutely agree and I'm hoping they'll do something about this in 1.0. I just told you there is an option, but of course, it would be better if they fixed it.