Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Twilight]

Hello,
 aaghh!  This game is just a bit too devious!

1.  Donate again to Paypal/Bay 12 in recognition of the massive update headed our way not soon enough (game logs this and decides that I will pay for this).
2.  Finally, I get an adventurer up to some marvellous abilities and stats (game logs this and decides that I will pay for this).
3.  Save the game at the entrance of a fortress to face the first titan - ever (game logs this and decides that I will pay for this)!
4.  Now, every time that I try to load, I get the inflate error (suffer_player=TRUE)!

Is there anyway the program could work-around such critical errors?  I mean, even with alternating save file back-ups (gonna start that from now on), an error could be something (think, "plant cheese prices") that may develop over a long length of time, and, therefore, be unnoticable for a long length of time, yet doom a generated world to Armok's Automatic Shredder.  I don't know, I am sure that you can't have a real solution to an indeterminate problem; but, as the complexity of the game increases, so too shall the need for a work-around.

[Toady One]

It could try to be careful every time it saves each little bit of everything, but that would slow me down way too much, since I'd have to cover for each type of missing whatever, and that code would have to be maintained as the game changes.  It's reasonable (and done in many cases) for stable parts of the game, but that doesn't include very much of it right now.

[Keiseth]

"Your world was destroyed by the price of plant cheese." - This will make the ultimate signature. XD

I'd suggest backing up as much as possible; it really only takes a second, it's just remembering that bites. =) I try to back up at:

1) Back up as soon as you create your world so you have an "untouched" copy. It's handy.

2) In Dwarf Mode, choose a time to back up. Every year? After every major event? Every two years?

3) In Adventure Mode, you could back up at the death of every meaningful adventurer and after every tiresome event: Just flew through a dungeon to kill a minotaur? Took a while? Back it up.

For your sanity, I'd suggest using a compression program; for Windows I prefer 7Zip. Compress the folder and save at whatever quality you like, make a "backup" folder, name the same with a date and possibly tags: Mine are like thus:

"region1-untouched-"
"region1-5-18-07-A"
"region1-5-18-07"

I use "A" to say that an adventure is in progress and "D" to say I'm currently in Dwarf Fort mode. This way, your backups are just one single file.

It SOUNDS extreme but it just takes a second!

Edit: Remember, backup both, for instance "region1" the folder and "region1.sav"!

[ May 18, 2007: Message edited by: Keiseth ]

[Twilight]

Hello,
 thanks for the advice.  I will start to be a bit more dilligent from now on. My only concern is that something as unknowable as cheese plant prices might build as an inevitable error and doom any particular world to destruction - guess this is why it is called game development!!  Maybe I'll have an on-going backup and then a days-of-the-week master back-up.

[Twilight]

Hello,
 O.K., O.K., Keiseth - you made a very good point!

[MindSnap]

I got an "inflate error -3" too. Do you still need the savegames?

[Toady One]

Nope, I can't do much with the inflate error ones in any case, though if it's still happening consistently in the next version, I'll be able to use one.