Dedicated Server - How to revive Kelvin & Virginia

Are you a server admin frustrated that trolls in your server keep killing Kelvin and Virginia and you have no in-game tools to prevent or undo them? Are you still doing regular backups and frustrated that if someone kills a follower, all the progress of that day is lost? We now have a solution. While tools have been available for a while, it is usually not known or advertised very well. I’m here to change that.

Introduction

Are you a server admin frustrated that trolls in your server keep killing Kelvin and Virginia and you have no in-game tools to prevent or undo them? Are you still doing regular backups and frustrated that if someone kills a follower, all the progress of that day is lost? We now have a solution. While tools have been available for a while, it is usually not known or advertised very well. I’m here to change that.

Unfortunately, the dedicated server space isn’t given much attention to. And I am here to contribute my knowledge as I am fortunate to have been given privileges to help manage his server and learning how it works. Unfortunately, it is personally frustrating that there's not a lot of resources available, and we've been taken a backseat.

We currently have no way to revive Kelvin & Virginia officially. My prior attempts to extracting and re-zipping the SaveData.zip had been a failure. Fortunately, the creator of SOTFEdit had confirmed that they had the ability to update this zip files for a while now, and our server owner guided me on how he would usually restore a prior backup. Then I put 2 and 2 together and I now have a comprehensive guide that would cover most situations.

The server I use is from BisectHosting so what you'll need to do may be slightly different depending on your hosting provider or if you have a dedicated machine to host locally.

Also, Endnight, if you are monitoring the guides, please implement a way to prevent trolls from killing our followers at least until they are trusted. "Trusted" should not be the default permission of new players. Any killing of the follower NPC should reflect on the server logs, because the current implementation does not allow that. (So that we can ban them to oblivion)

Requirements

• You need to be a sever admin with access to Start/Stop the server and edit/replace files
  
• Latest Release of SOTFEdit[github.com]

Step by Step Guide

Step 1: Confirm that one or both of your NPCs are dead in your server.

Step 2: Stop your server

Step 3: Navigate to your save file:

serverconfig/Saves/DedicatedServer/Multiplayer/(Save Slot number)
If you have multiple save slots, it’s usually the one recently updated

Step 4: Download SaveData.zip

Step 5: Open the SaveData.zip from where you saved it.

It doesn’t matter if you’re opening it under “Singleplayer” for the OCDs out there.

Step 6: Go to “Followers” then click on revive.

You will receive a confirmation that your selected follower has been revived.

Step 7: Save.

Note that the application will not give you a warning if you have not saved your changes.

Step 8: Upload SaveData.zip and delete the “Dedicated_Server_Autosave…name” file that is on the same folder

Step 9: Delete all backup ZIPs just outside the save slot folder.

Step 10: Start the Server

Step 11: Login to your game and confirm that your Kelvin/Virginia is now alive

[piep]

Yeah I did every step. Also tried to change settings manually, but same problem

[TriadWarfare]

Also, stop the server and make sure the SOTFEdit is current.

[TriadWarfare]

@piep

Did you also do the other things like deleting the other files and autosaves?

[piep]

Hi, its not working for me. When I upload the ZIP and reconnect to the server it always starts a new game.

[Miro]

@Crazed Chikin I had same issue with G-Portal server. In my case, the trick was using FileZilla instead of in-house G-Portal data manager to get the edited save file work.

[Crazed Chikin]

Tried this and it somehow removed all progress when I uploaded the new zip file. Luckily we were able to restore from backup but Kelvin's still dead. Is there something in SOTFEdit to prevent this? When I load the save it seems to have a new player (strength 1)

[TriadWarfare]

@SHaRky dunno. The reason why I point to the tool is because it's easier to have the tool do the hard level stuff for you without breaking stuff unintentionally like what happened when I tried to modify the game files myself then reupload it. The save file just breaks and causes the game to "start over".

Might need to have a further look but as of right now, I'm not actively playing the game or managing the server.

[SHaRky]

Should I change this too?
{\"TypeId\":9,\"PlayerKilled\":1,\"KilledOnDay\":{\"19\":1}}

[TriadWarfare]

@Noremac

Glad this is still working and is helping people.

[Noremac]

Life saver, Kelvin is back! I was confused when the console command didn't bring him back.