[FAQuestion] Saves?

[aspcartman]

It's my first day in the game. Is there a some kind of savegame (at least per galaxy) mechanism? Or there is no because the developers decided it for the best? I mean having no ability to save my game progress makes it even more interesting, but maybe I'm missing something?

BTW: As for now I'm using GIT to save my game (saves are inside ~/Library/Application\ Support/FasterThenLight/ folder)

[Ethaniel]

You can save and quit the game to continue later. There is no autosave nor "multiple save" function implemented yet. There are some open threads regarding autosave, though.

[Fangz]

This game is supposed to be brutal and that is what makes it great and fun.

You may keep a backup of the save file, but this is considered cheating and will completely break the game's spirit.

Do it at your own risk.

[aspcartman]

This game is supposed to be brutal and that is what makes it great and fun.

You may keep a backup of the save file, but this is considered cheating and will completely break the game's spirit.

Do it at your own risk.

Yep. You right. Removing git from a savefolder. I've missed oldschool games)

[boa13]

Is there a some kind of savegame (at least per galaxy) mechanism? Or there is no because the developers decided it for the best? I mean having no ability to save my game progress makes it even more interesting, but maybe I'm missing something?

This game features so-called permadeath, a classical feature in rogue-like games. This means you do not get to fool around with several save files, and do not have the ability to "restore the past and try again". However, it allows you to stop the game and keep playing later with the Save&Quit option.

The way it works is that as soon as you use the option, a save file is automatically created, and the game exits. When you start the game, if you choose to continue your game, the save file is automatically loaded, and then deleted. If you start a new game, the existing save file is deleted.

Of course, you could make manual backups of the save file when the game is off, and manage several save files this way. This is called save-scumming in rogue-like circles, and both frowned-upon by most players, and actively done by others.

Note that there is one issue with FTL: in rare cases, it can crash, and in such case, your game is gone, since there is no save file on disk while the game is running.

FTL keeps track of your high scores, achievements and unlocked ships in a separate file, this one is of course never deleted. Note that in some rare cases of FTL crash, this file has been known to be corrupted or lost, so you might want to make backup copies.