Separate savefiles of different playthroughts

[Toshis8]

Wouldn't it be great if each playthrough you play had its saves separated from the saves of other playthroughs into different groups? What if player wants to try a new, different start, without risking of losing saves of old playthrough? Currently all saves are in one spot, there is a risk of accidentally overwriting them with a new ones, autosaves and quicksaves are overwritten.

For example, i click on a playthrough, that i've already started and a new window pops up, with saves, related only to that playthrough. If that is too much, maybe at least increase the amount of save slots?

[Eyeklops]

There sort of a way to do this.

You can use the -personalfolderid arg and different profiles, each with its own set of enabled/disabled mods and saves. Add it to the command line args followed by a numeric folder number matching one in the documents/egosoft/x4 folder.

-personalfolderid 1
-personalfolderid 123456789

Note: folder name will be the number value, not the actual text, so this will produce a folder named "1":
-personalfolderid 00000001

If not given, the steam x4 exe automatically fills your steam id as the folder number.

In retrospect, the steam workshop will mess with the content.xml file based on workshop subscriptions for whatever folder you use, if you launch through steam. So if you want to keep using workshop for updates and such, you could try this approach:

a) Subsribe as normal to all mods wanted for every variation, and occasionally launch from steam to get updates.
b) Get the nosteam x4 exe (sorry, I don't think there's any way to make this work cleanly with steam normally).
c) Set up shortcuts for each folder id for each playthrough, and enabled/disable their mods respectively.

Each folder will have its own graphics settings, key bindings, etc, so that may add some hassle to keep them in sync. Also, any time you add new mods, you need to update the enabled/disabled state for each folder individually. This could be prone to accidents if you have an unmodified version using ventures, if you get too accustomed to ignoring the (modified) tag.

A more advanced approach would be to have multiple x4 "installations", each with only its own workshop items in its extensions folder. Making use of lots of symlinks, you can keep the file overhead minimal, and still benefit from steam workshop updates. Basically, symlink nearly everything (cat/dat files and subfolders except extensions) to the steam x4 install, and selectively symlink the wanted extension subfolders.

[dtpsprt]

That's a valid concern ever since the beginning of the series. What I actually do when I strart a new playthrough is renaming the existing save files to something I can recognise and remember. Then, if I want to go back I do it the other way around.

[chew-ie]

I heavily support this - kind of a standard in the RPG genre to separate multiple playthroughs. As we don't name our characters in X [yet] I suggest the grouping element to be done by a ingame profile management.

[jlehtone]

For example, i click on a playthrough, that i've already started and a new window pops up, with saves, related only to that playthrough. If that is too much, maybe at least increase the amount of save slots?

I do use all "save slots" for one playthrough. When I've (over)written all ten explicit slots, I make an archive copy of the entire directory.
That way I have every explicit save made during the playthrough in archive. Every.

If I had more than one playthrough, then I would swap entire directories to and from archives. The game would ever see data of only one playthrough.


There was a tool written for X3R (by mrbadger, IIRC) that did similar backup/swap operations by "click a GUI button".

[Raptor34]

I certainly hope the save game system isn't "baked in" like how the main menu visuals and audio is. Because this is a good idea, though they should then also actually show in game the size of each profile and the individual saves within it. And perhaps let us set a warning parameter to start warning us when we hit a certain total size, because you just know someone is going to accidentally create several hundred GBs of saves.

[Nanook]

... because you just know someone is going to accidentally create several hundred GBs of saves.

That may be a lot harder than you think. I archive all my saves from all my playthroughs, and I've done it since v2.0, with over 8000 hours of X4. And my combined archive is only 36 GB. And a long time ago I moved all my archives to a separate data drive so as not to clutter up my Documents folder.

[Eyeklops]

A lot of good ideas in here. If I were to imagine my "perfect" X4 save system it would have the following design attributes:

• The save system would be "branch" based. At the beginning of a new game it would create a unique folder for that branch of saves.
• The branch name and original start date would be embedded into every savegame file.
• The default branch name would be time/date based and unique but the player would have the option to rename it at creation or during saving.
• When saving there would be an option to create a new branch.
• The number of savegames (per branch) would have the option to be unlimited, limited by "keep X number of", or limited by "keep X GB of".
• Renaming a branch "on save" should give the options "only change branch name in savegame file" and "change branch folder name and branch name in all savegames within".
• savegame filenames would be more flexible.
  
  Stretch goals for this would be the ability for each branch to have unique mod and game configurations.

[Raptor34]

... because you just know someone is going to accidentally create several hundred GBs of saves.

That may be a lot harder than you think. I archive all my saves from all my playthroughs, and I've done it since v2.0, with over 8000 hours of X4. And my combined archive is only 36 GB. And a long time ago I moved all my archives to a separate data drive so as not to clutter up my Documents folder.

My current folder is 2.46 GB. I cba to check if any substantial part of it is XR. But just some lazy calcs means 36GB is around 12-18 separate profiles with max saves each, which means 10+3auto+1quick.
So fair, it would be hard. 36 GB is still a large chunk though considering my current 1TB drive has only around 40 GB left. And I still actually have games I want to download.

[Nanook]

That's why I move all my archived saves to a different drive. If you can't upgrade your drives or add new ones, there's always external drives. Even a high capacity USB flash drive is not that expensive these days.

[Baddieus]

Personally, I generally use 3 save slots for my active game and would only need to keep the primary if trying something different.

1. I'm completely satisfied with everything I've done thus far so this is my primary save.
2. I'm about to take a mission or start a plot .. not sure if this is the right direction at this time.
3. My next action might not be something I've thought all the way through ... so I should save 1st.

=Baddieus=