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[snjwffl]

[I would assume this has been mentioned before but I couldn't find a topic, so I started this one.]

Considering the unavoidably-buggy nature of a new version I think it would be useful to have a save-without-quitting feature (like dfhack's "quicksave" command), at least for the first few iterations of the new version.  There's no avoiding the fact that it will make savescumming easier, but I think that's outweighed by the fact that a 28th of Galena segfault won't set you back an hour (which will make testing for later-game bugs easier and more efficient).

[palu]

I want this so bad. Especially in adventure mode.

[swordsmith04]

Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game.  AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY.  This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability.  You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times.  Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.

[AUTOSAVE:NONE]
[AUTOBACKUP:NO]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]

[snjwffl]

Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game.  AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY.  This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability.  You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times.  Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.

[AUTOSAVE:NONE]
[AUTOBACKUP:NO]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]

But that's only at the very beginning of a season (thus my "crash on the 28th of Galena" remark, as that's the last day of Spring).  Three months is still long enough to fit a significant amount of work; for example, processing and reassigning 38 migrants.

[Lockem Shoto]

Assuming you've already saved beforehand, if you find yourself in a situation that screws your character over, I like to CTRL+ALT+Delete and close Dwarf Fortress' exe's process. This prevents complete death and allows you to access your previous save.

[snjwffl]

Assuming you've already saved beforehand, if you find yourself in a situation that screws your character over, I like to CTRL+ALT+Delete and close Dwarf Fortress' exe's process. This prevents complete death and allows you to access your previous save.

Creating the save without much hassle is the issue.  If I'm in danger and about to lose, why would I want to undo the Fun?  On the other hand, if I just spent 45 minutes processing my 38 new migrants but still have half the season to go, I either need to risk a crash and having to re-process them (in fact, it would be an entirely new set of migrants), or spend five minutes doing a save->quit and then reloading.

[GavJ]

There should be both saving without quitting and quitting without saving.

Pretending that players of dwarf fortress don't know how to use control alt delete is a little silly. Everybody who wants to already does this, so it would be nice to just make it less annoying by having it in game and not having to scroll through lists of processes and such. *shrug*

[Safe-Keeper]

You are not supposed to save-scum, so why should Toady make it easier for you?

[RoaryStar]

You are not supposed to save-scum, so why should Toady make it easier for you?

Neither is game supposed to unexpectedly crash on you, thus making you lose an hour's worth of work and thereby forcing you to savescum if you want to continue to play the same fortress.

[GavJ]

You are not supposed to save-scum, so why should Toady make it easier for you?

I said in my post: almost everyone does anyway. So it should be easier because it is simply a reality and, given that, might as well spare people the tedium.

Also why would anybody including Toady give a crap if somebody loads an old saved game?

[FrankMcFuzz]

You are not supposed to save-scum, so why should Toady make it easier for you?

As fun as losing is, some people just want to make an epic fortress with a badass militia of hardened dwarves, and not want to use exploits like atom smashing and unpassable-drawbridge-entrance-into-fort.

I feel like a 'save' button would be nice, however it would encourage more savescumming, which is bad (despite myself being a huge user of this feature)

[GavJ]

more savescumming, which is bad

Erm?

It's a sandbox game. One that has already been built in a way to intentionally allow easy modification of way Way WAY more advantageous things than loading saved games. You can use the provided raws system to make invincible, emotionless, non-breathing eating or sleeping dwarves that run 10x normal speed, if you feel like it. It confuses me how it can still be a valid argument to say "Well sure you can cheat your way to invulnerable uber-dwarves using toady-provided tools. BUT HOW DARE YOU LOAD A SAVED GAME YOU CHEATER!"

There are also several very good reasons why you would want to save and load EVEN IF you're a person who enjoys losing and starting over whenever you get unlucky. For example:
1) For science you need common reference points to play two parallel branches of the game from for valid control cases, which requires "save scumming"
2) If your game crashes due to a bug, almost everybody is going to load a save, not start over, because that's not actual losing/FUN.

[FrankMcFuzz]

more savescumming, which is bad

It's a sandbox game. One that has already been built in a way to intentionally allow easy modification of way Way WAY more advantageous things than loading saved games. You can use the provided raws system to make invincible, emotionless, non-breathing eating or sleeping dwarves that run 10x normal speed, if you feel like it. It confuses me how it can still be a valid argument to say "Well sure you can cheat your way to invulnerable uber-dwarves using toady-provided tools. BUT HOW DARE YOU LOAD A SAVED GAME YOU CHEATER!"

Those things are also bad. But the average player (I consider myself that :3) is less likely to, say, make it so that Dwarves can fire bolts out of the pores in their skin in every direction, or put a cat's temperature to 10,000,000 Urists, than they are to savescum on a regular basis.

Sometimes, though, I do feel cheated by the way I've lost; for instance, a dwarf runs the wrong way when goblins show up despite having a clear path into the fortress, yet, savescum, and they make it in with plenty of time to spare. General AI sillyness losing a fort is a bad way to go.

I dunno. If there's "Save", "Save and Quit" and "Quit without saving" buttons, there will be a lot less people unintentionally letting their fort reach a hilarious end. But the method already exists if it's going to happen, with very little penalty. So meh. I am in support of either way :3

[TalonisWolf]

  Even adding a [WEEKLY] or [BI-WEEKLY] autosave option would be handy, if Toady is really that concerned about save-scumming. So I'm voting in favour.

[snjwffl]

I feel like a 'save' button would be nice, however it would encourage more savescumming, which is bad (despite myself being a huge user of this feature)

Which is why it should be there temporarily, until there's a (semi-)stable release.

Unfortunately, it seems this thread is devolving into a fight over savescumming.  That may be why I couldn't find a similar topic when I searched...