How to share your saves between PC and Android without root

I figured out how to transfer saves between PC and Android version without rooting your device. Some devices cannot be rooted and even if they can, it's a fuss, so here's a workaround.

What is needed

1. Rooted Android emulator - I use NOX
2. Helium backup app and Helium Desktop supplementary tool
3. USB cable for your Android device

Transfer route

Android version <-> Helium backup/restore on Android device <-> copying Helium files between Android device and PC <-> copying Helium files between PC and emulator <-> Helium backup/restore on emulator <-> copying save folder between emulator and PC <-> PC version

Expanded explanation - step by step

Here I will explain how to transfer saves from Android version to PC version in detail.

The transfer will work the other way exactly the same. That said, it is preferred to at least get to the point where we transfer our app from our device to the emulator, as I for one had issue installing the game on emulator without paying for it again.

Once we have the game installed on our Android device, we install "Helium - App Sync and Backup" app from Play Store. Since our device isn't rooted, we will need to enable the app through our PC using a supplementary tool called Helium Desktop:

https://github.com/koush/support-wiki/wiki/Helium-Desktop-Installer-and-Android-App

The app will tell us exactly what to do to enable it.

After we enable Helium, we backup the game. This is an important bit - we need to select to backup the entire app for the reasons I mentioned earlier - you may not be able to install the game and then just restore the data, so it's better to backup the entire app.

Once the backup finishes, it will appear in "Carbon" folder in our main directory. This folder contains all our Helium backups. We copy that folder on our PC.

Next step is installing our emulator. NOX is a good choice since it allows rooting the Android as well as sharing the files with your computer easily. On our emulated device we need to enable root in settings and install Helium just like we did on our physical device. Once the device is rooted, we can enable Helium on it, without needing to connect it to PC like we had to on our physical device.

Once we have Helium installed, we copy the Carbon folder from our PC to our emulated device's
internal memory main directory. Once we do that, we run Helium and restore the game from memory.

Now we have the exact carbon copy of game from our physical device on our emulated device. The difference is that our emulated device is rooted so we can access game's files.

The files are in /data/data/com.tresebrothers.games.startraders2/files/ directory. Mind you, you need to copy the entire "files" folder to your AppData/Local/ in Windows and rename it to "StarTradersFrontiers" in order for saves to work. If you just copy the save files, the game won't detect them. If you rename them to an existing save game, the game will crash upon loading.

Ending note

And voila, you just copied your saves from Android to PC. Move the files in reverse order and you can move your PC saves on your Android device.

You can use a rooted android device instead of an emulator as well, as the principle is the same - we copy our game from unrooted device to a rooted one in order to access the game files.

Forgive me for not formatting this guide in a more accessible way. I'm not into writing guides, I just wanted to share this method to those that are inclined to move their saves between their devices and haven't figured out how to do so. Enjoy!

[ImJustJoshin]

This method can be used to transfer between Android to Android or Android to PC. Now we just gotta find a way for our fellow spacers who use apple.

[ImJustJoshin]

This does actually work. However, there are a few issues that have arisen since this guide was made.

1. Helium - App Sync and Backup doesn't exist in the Google Play Store anymore. You have to download this app through a third party website. I used the website Uptodown to download Helium.

2. If you are using an emulator like NOX to get back the files on a rooted device (or emulator) you must use the Android 5 version of NOX as all other versions make Helium unusable as @Ygdrad found out.

If you are willing to do this then best of luck to you. Obviously, downloading third-party has it's own risks and always make sure to perform backups because if you brick/corrupt your save files there is no way to restore them as ST:F only saves internally and no where else (No cloud saves).

P.S: I did try looking at other apps with a similar function to Helium but none went into the app itself to pull ALL of its data (AKA your save files) into a backup. Hope this helps.

[Ygdrad]

Unfortunately not working for me, nox is just stuck on "checking superuser" despite a popup saying it was granted.