Data loss after power goes out

Lost all of my save file after my power went out and computer shut down. I was doing the Alpine Unrest mission where you protect the hotel against robots. To replicate, go into the game, and shut down your computer/whatever you play it on. This will result in a complete data wipe. Of course if you’ve played the game a lot, I wouldn’t recommend. Definitely don’t do this to your main profile. 0/10 would not recommend (not fun time!)

Well, when power cuts out, there is a chance that everything currently accessed on your storage drives can become corrupt. This isn’t any news.

You’re lucky that only thing that went “bad” was game save. You could’ve had it far worse, like entire corruption of your OS drive or the worst, hardware failure (PSU, MoBo, CPU, GPU), where only fix is buying new PC.

However, to prevent this, an UPS keeps your PC running if the power loss should happen. E.g my PCs are back up by the UPS. :blush: I bought the UPSes after the blackout made me loose 3 hours worth of work.

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Okay. Three hours though. I lost 53…

Well, i’m not sure we can compare 53 hours of entertainment to 3 hours of actual work. The one that you get paid for and the one that has deadline.

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UPS is the expensive option!

Same thing happened to me after about 40 hours or so. Power cut leading to a corrupt Save Game file. I had been using the little Savegame backup app from time to time when I ran the game - so I had a backup file that was only 5 days old. Since then I ALWAYS use the little Savegame backup app to launch the game, and I know that worst-case-scenario is that I lose my current session only.
There are loads of these Savegame backup apps out there, but the one I use is from the Nexus Mods forum.

Compared to the cost of new PC hardware, the price of one UPS is peanuts compared to that. (€300 UPS vs €2000 PC.)

And compared to the personal data, that you can loose due to the corruption, well, there is no comparison since personal data is priceless (unless you have it backed up).

It isn’t allowed to discuss 3rd party mods here. Due to that, i’ve removed the link to the mod.

//Mod

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Oh you were talking about work? That’s rip for you to lose all that from your job.

Yes. And it was bad.

No matter how you cut it, the savegame design in this game is very bad. Steam sync does not save your files, neither does the backup save. So I actually think this gives some sort of “false security” where you think you’re covered, but actually you’re not.

It’s simply designed in a very non-resilient way, period. Saying people can take manual backup is fine, but shouldn’t be necessary. The savegame mechanic should under all circumstances be designed in a more resilient way. I’ve never experienced savegame problems with any other game, the way I have with GZ.

I hope the devs would finally acknowledge this, and do something about it. I have a handful of ideas about how this could be solved, if they can’t come up with a good design (which they obviously haven’t been able to so far).

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Iirc, wasn’t this brought up in their latest survey? I hope they’ll sort it out, fixing such a crucial flaw should’ve been top priority long ago.

It’s a question, but unfortunately you can’t really elaborate on it - just state that you have a negative experience. However, its very much based on luck - maybe less than 1% of players have a bad experience, but on the other hand, that might destroy their entire game of 400+ hours of play, which should never happen to anyone because of poor game design.

you cant really blame game designers for your electricity supply be fair , there is a backup sav they have made but , if you understand computers you will know that something cannot be saved anywhere without electricity . also its worth having a look on write caching.

you cant really blame game designers for your electricity supply be fair , there is a backup sav they have made but , if you understand computers you will know that something cannot be saved anywhere without electricity . also its worth having a look on write caching.

I’m not, I’m blaming them for poor game design, that provides no redundant savegames, in case one or both existing files get corrupted - for instance by power outtage, or the computer shutting down, or anything else. I personally don’t have any electricity issues, but sometimes the game or OS crash anyway, and that can corrupt savegames.

Sorry, your argument doesn’t hold up. And please don’t give me a lesson about how much or little I know about computers. :expressionless:

I could come up with at least 3 different ways to solve this, but since it’s not my job but the developers I don’t have time to go into it, unless I’m asked and paid.

they do make a backup file , many people have posted about this.

“as i understand it , the game should try the save game first and if it fails then try the bac file. you could remove the normal save and leave the bac file and see if it loads.”

The backup file does not work, it gets corrupted along with the save file. Did you even try this on yourself, or just guessing? I tried it. And the Steam backup does not work either, I tried it. Please let’s stop here.

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“\Documents\Avalanche Studios\GenerationZero”
but , this can also be a cloud issue , a corrupted save can become a corrupted saved cloud backup [ back to square one ] .
i personally manually backup on pc with cloud disabled.

Which is exactly why the current way the game handles saves is not resilient enough.

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i understand you are angry , especially if you have put alot of hours in, i lost a save that wasmore than 40 hours and i was so angry that i didnt want to play anymore . what is a good way to solve this.
im just thinking , the game saves alot yes ? ( every safehouse , fast travel , and more ) , what if it saved less , or even a manual save option , less saves would mean less chances of corruption.

Yes you are exactly right, one or more manual or “less frequent” save slots would be some of the options to reduce chances of corruption. Just the fact that you have different “types” of saves with different frequency would reduce the risk dramatically, while the current model does not really provide any backup at all.