[roeter]

Many games feature an auto save function, often with some parameters as to the interval.
For some time now, I have been running my own version with an auto save function, set to fixed interval of 15 mins. I find it useful, for whenever I make an error I always have a save which is no more than 15 mins. old. It also helps if something goes wrong in the program as then, too, I always have a save no more than 15 mins. old.
So it can save a lot of time.

Is there any interest in introducing this as a standard feature in the program? And if so, should it be standard or optional, and should it have a fixed or variable time?
My suggestion would be to make it optional, with a time setting between 15 and 60 mins, but I would like to know what others think about this.

Regards,
Rob Roeterdink

[R H Steele]

I believe there is interest in an AutoSave function, Rob. Please see this thread at TS AutoSave There was some dissenting opinions, but that's to be expected, on the whole I think it would be a welcome addition.

 roeter, on 03 January 2022 - 03:51 PM, said:

... should it be standard or optional, and should it have a fixed or variable time? My suggestion would be to make it optional, with a time setting between 15 and 60 mins,
Regards,
Rob Roeterdink

Vote for: Optional with variable time. 60mins feels a little long to me, about every 10mins?
Here's an excerpt from the TS thread --- OP's starting post:

Quote

Hello all,
Hopefully the Open Rails dev team checks in here periodically, and if so, hopefully they see this.

I'm just wondering if it may be possible to implement some auto save functions into Open Rails, perhaps even with some user definable criteria for when we want the save to be made?

For example, it would be nice to be able to simply say to auto-save the activity every so many minutes or hours, to auto save the activity at a signal or switch or a certain distance before a signal or switch, or to be able to put location events into activities that cause an auto-save at certain points. This would be helpful to mitigate glitches with some routes when running long distance trains over them, etc.

My second request, if possible, would be for some kind of "cruise control" function that would use ONLY the throttle to hold whatever speed it was set to hold, and immediately switch off and go to idle should the player apply the train brake, the engine brake, the emergency brake, or put the dynamic brakes into Setup.

[alifatico]

My opinion is that it would be very interesting to add this option.

Our group works in Multiplayer every week, we are about 7-9 people and although we use a private server there are times that it "hangs" so if you do not have the saved game we would have to start from the beginning.

Now the Dispacher saves the games from time to time and it would be ideal for the game to do it alone.

My opinion is, that it is optional, and that the time is variable.

Kind regards.

Pedro.

[Csantucci]

Agree to have it, as an option and with configurable time interval.

[Eldorado.Railroad]

You might want to look at this thread, and ALL of the posts:

https://www.trainsim...-Cruise-Control

It seems that "some" will not like it!
Personally, I am onside, just make it optional, and as Carlo has said, configurable, that way any "objections" to it will be moot.

Steve

[Weter]

I'd vote for: "optional", (default=off); timeout 5-20 minutes.
But I have a question: will auto saves overwrite each other,
or it will flood the disk with mostly useless autosaves?
Indeed, manual saves must not overwrite each other.
What about separate subfolder for auto-saves?

[Laci1959]

Hello.

I put the question to a vote in a Facebook group.
1. Optional, with selectable time. >> 67
2. Always be, with a time of choice. >> 2
3. Do not have automatic backup. >> 0
4. Always have the time specified by the developers. >> 0

He came together in an hour.

Sincerely, Laci 1959

[roeter]

Hello all,

 Eldorado.Railroad, on 04 January 2022 - 05:54 AM, said:

It seems that "some" will not like it!
Personally, I am onside, just make it optional, and as Carlo has said, configurable, that way any "objections" to it will be moot.

I wonder if those who are against ever use the 'save' option, either. Will they indeed always run a full length roster, say 8 or 9 hours on end, with just toilet and meal breaks at the defined moments? Very much doubt that! Anyways, optional was always on the cards, so they can switch it off.

 Weter, on 04 January 2022 - 06:58 AM, said:

I'd vote for: "optional", (default=off); timeout 5-20 minutes.
But I have a question: will auto saves overwrite each other,
or it will flood the disk with mostly useless autosaves?

No, they will not overwrite each other. But I think 'flooding' is a big word, save files are not that excessive in size.

Quote

Indeed, manual saves must not overwrite each other.
What about separate subfolder for auto-saves?

Not keen on that, it would make the menu to restore just a bit too complex. Perhaps better tooling to remove old saves could help here, e.g. options to remove all saves for a particular activity or timetable-train might be come in useful.

 Laci1959, on 04 January 2022 - 09:20 AM, said:

I put the question to a vote in a Facebook group.
1. Optional, with selectable time. >> 67
2. Always be, with a time of choice. >> 2
3. Do not have automatic backup. >> 0
4. Always have the time specified by the developers. >> 0

He came together in an hour.

Sincerely, Laci 1959

Thanks for the effort - the result is quite clear.

Thanks all,
Rob Roeterdink

[jonas]

Hi,
Sounds great to me Rob! I would appreciate it very much if there would be an auto-save function! After programme crashes or misshandlings of the player, one would always have a reliable return to the last simulations situation.
It should only be optionally switchable off and have a save interval of 10 minutes by default. Basically, I would consider the time for the save intervals selectable from 1 to 30 minutes to be good.

Questions I also have, as already discussed above: What happens to the auto-save files over time. Does it become a basically overloaded file archive with more and more files or does the last autosave (maybe assigned per route) overwrite the previous one?
Should there be a difference at all between auto-saves and manual saves (F2 key), e.g. most simply through different directories for the two kind of save files?

Greetings
Jonas

EDIT: 4 files are saved per F2 key save, whereby according to my check the *.png and the *.save are the largest. The 4 files together have over 1.8 MB. With undeleted auto-saves, this can perhaps lead to a considerably large number of files and MBs.

[James Ross]

 roeter, on 03 January 2022 - 03:51 PM, said:

Is there any interest in introducing this as a standard feature in the program? And if so, should it be standard or optional, and should it have a fixed or variable time?
My suggestion would be to make it optional, with a time setting between 15 and 60 mins, but I would like to know what others think about this.

I fully support auto-save with either choosable time interval or on/off, preferably both (which looks like everyone likes).

 roeter, on 04 January 2022 - 10:20 AM, said:

No, they will not overwrite each other. But I think 'flooding' is a big word, save files are not that excessive in size.

Not keen on that, it would make the menu to restore just a bit too complex. Perhaps better tooling to remove old saves could help here, e.g. options to remove all saves for a particular activity or timetable-train might be come in useful.

 jonas, on 04 January 2022 - 10:51 AM, said:

Questions I also have, as already discussed above: What happens to the auto-save files over time. Does it become a basically overloaded file archive with more and more files or does the last autosave (maybe assigned per route) overwrite the previous one?

I agree that keeping multiple auto-save files is better, not least because it gives you more places to recover from if you screw an activity up!

However, I do think consuming an unbounded amount of space could become a problem (see below).

 jonas, on 04 January 2022 - 10:51 AM, said:

Should there be a difference at all between auto-saves and manual saves (F2 key), e.g. most simply through different directories for the two kind of save files?

EDIT: 4 files are saved per F2 key save, whereby according to my check the *.png and the *.save are the largest. The 4 files together have over 1.8 MB. With undeleted auto-saves, this can perhaps lead to a considerably large number of files and MBs.

I just took a save immediately after loading a basic activity in Open Rails 1.4 and, although the save file itself is only ~50 KB, the full-sized screenshot is ~4 MB from my 2560x1440 monitor. Most of my existing saves are similar sizes, with the screenshot usually being the biggest.

For me, after playing 100 hours of Open Rails with 15-minute auto-save, I think I'll have ~1.6 GB of auto-save files (100 hours * 4 auto-saves per hour * 4 MB per save = 1600 MB).

I see two things from this:

• Do we need a full-size screenshot? I think it's only ever displayed in the resume dialog, so we should probably resize it to some fixed size.
  
• We should probably flag auto-saves as such, either in file name or file data (or both), in case we ever want to clean them up differently to manual saves in future.