[Guide] Synchronize savegames on Windows

[rynti]

This guide only discusses the way to do it on Windows.

Prologue:
This guide will help you to synchronize your savegames on multiple devices. I use it because I play this game at school on my laptop and at home on my PC, and I'd like to keep my savegames in sync. By using Dropbox, you also gain the ability to restore old files, so you'll be able to restore any state where you used Save+Quit using the history feature of Dropbox. This may also be considered cheating, I also don't use it, but it's your decision whether you take advantage of this feature or not.
tl;dr: After you followed this guide's steps you'll be able to use your savegames on all your devices.

Prerequisites:

• Basic knowledge of Windows (How to create a folder, how to find a folder's path)
• Dropbox account (Or anything else that automatically synchronizes folders, but this guide only discusses the way to do it with dropbox)

Setup (Only do this once):
This step-by-step guide should only be done once, and you should do this on the device whose savegame you'd like to use.

1. Create a Dropbox folder for your savegames. (You may want to call it something like Savegames? *derp*)
2. Go to "Documents\My Games" in the Windows explorer.
3. Copy the FasterThanLight-folder to the savegames folder of your Dropbox. (If the FasterThanLight-folder doesn't exist, you either didn't run FTL before or you're in the wrong folder)

Per-Device setup (Do this on every device you'd like to be in sync with):

1. Go to "Documents\My Games" in the Windows explorer.
2. Rename the FasterThanLight-folder to something like "FasterThanLight-backup".
3. Go to "Documents" in the Windows explorer.
4. Shift+Right click the "My Games"-folder and choose to open this folder in a command window. (It's called "Eingabeaufforderung hier öffnen" in german)
5. Type:

   Code: Select all

   mklink /J FasterThanLight DROPBOXFOLDER

   Instead of DROPBOXFOLDER type the path to your FasterThanLight dropbox folder, for instance:

   Code: Select all

   mklink /J FasterThanLight "E:\Dropbox\Savegames\FasterThanLight"

6. Press ENTER and it should've successfully created a link.

Faster than Light should now be using your dropbox-folder as a savegame-folder and since Dropbox automatically synchronizes your folders, your savegames should now be in sync across all your devices.

Epilogue:
I hope this guide was helpful, if not - feel free to ask questions here.

Best regards,
rynti


Troubleshooting:

I lost all my achieved stuff directly after following this guide
Thank god I'm so happy that you didn't just delete your FasterThanLight folder but renamed it to "FasterThanLight-backup" (If you DID delete it - your fault). You can just delete the "Documents\My Games\FasterThanLight" folder (Or rename it to something just to make sure you don't lose anything) and rename the "Documents\My Games\FasterThanLight-backup" back to it's default name (Documents\My Games\FasterThanLight). Even though you're not in sync anymore, you'll have your old savegame restored.

I lost all my achieved stuff after using this synchronization feature for a while
Probably Dropbox messed up some synchronization, you can have a look at the Documents\My Games\FasterThanLight folder and see if there are some "conflict" files (There should by something like "Conflicted version of foo bar" there). If there are some conflicting files, try them all out (Rename them to their original name, e.g. "prof.sav") and keep only the one with the correct savegame. If there's no such conflicting file, you can go to the savegame folder on dropbox and check the history of the file (Right click on the file -> Dropbox -> Show previous versions (Or something like that)) and on the homepage you can restore a previous state. If you don't see any files at all, you can right click the FasterThanLight folder and look it up on the dropbox website. There you can review all recent changes and you can restore previous states of deleted files.

[Dyason]

I'd already done this! It's very useful when you game on your laptop and pc (and great for keeping World of Warcraft addons the same too). For those on mac/linux you can do the same thing using the ln-s command to your dropbox folder. Multiplatform synchronization!

[IceCaps97]

I want to put my save file from my Mac into dropbox and let my Windows and Mac use that, but I can't find the FasterThanLight folder anywhere on my Mac. I've checked the Documents folder and the Steam folder in Application Support. I could use some help finding it
And how to link it to the version is Dropbox and all that Jazz.

EDIT: I found the FasterThanLight file, but I need to tell Steam to use the file in Dropbox, not in the Steam folder.

[RainbowFire]

EDIT: I found the FasterThanLight file, but I need to tell Steam to use the file in Dropbox, not in the Steam folder.

Where are the files? (I'm on mac)

[hirodusk]

On Mac, the save file is located in ~/Library/Application Support/FasterThanLight. Here's what I did at my terminal:

Code: Select all

cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
mkdir ~/Dropbox/savegames
mv FasterThanLight ~/Dropbox/savegames
ln -s ~/Dropbox/savegames/FasterThanLight

[RainbowFire]

Thank you! I should've looked there before asking though.

[thegreedyturtle]

Is this out of date for Steam at least? I seem to be having trouble with syncs and Steam. And is it correct that the only files needed are the data.dat, resources.dat and settings.ini?

Edit: I just found prof.sav and continue.sav, are these now Steam synced?

Edit 2: They are. If you replace the files Steam will sync the replaced files up to the Steam Cloud. So this post is definitely out of date, good work guys!

In the process, I seem to fave have found a particularly nasty bug, where if you use the Windows X to close your continue.dat is not saved. Could be unique to my system. Anyway, as long as I always Save and Quit it works as it should.

[UltraMantis]

You have to select Save&Quit from the menu. Exiting the game does not automatically save your progress.

[prophil]

There is another option which I just want to give:
I use skydrive (microsoft free cloud service, but every other way should work too) that syncronices all my documents and pictures into the cloud (that a decision everyone has to make and the cloud is not public and my pictures and documents are not important, no bank and no nudes etc, so don't just say no, think about it).
This this, the savegames are immediately synced to the cloud and available on every PC and Tablet I have as well as they are still there after I did format my PC.
And this technique is also working for every other game so far.

[jackyrofel]

Thanks for your post. Here is one solution please try it.
"Long Path Tool" is very useful if you are having problems in deleting, unlocking, copying and even renaming files that are considered filename too long by your system. Yes, these problems can occur even while using the latest Windows Explorer or FAR in managing your files. This tool can help you simplify files names that are categorized as filename too long by your system.