Hey all,
Above is the last screenshot I have of ~26,000 piece world map mosaic I made (albeit, half-completed in the screenshot). I don't know how many hours this took - other than a lot. Days... ! Alas, just as I finished, and before saving as a blueprint (well, several blueprints) for all y'all to enjoy, I left my 'sandbox map' and visited another zoo save file. Not really thinking, I saved that zoo and... oh no... oh nooooo... completely overwrote my sandbox map, containing the above map.
Oops! I thought. But no biggie. Surely the multitude of previous autosaves for the 'sandbox map' should still be available, right?
Oh. Apparently they're not. Turns out when overwriting a zoo save file, all previous autosaves seem to be removed too. Lost to the abyss.
And so there went all my hard work.
I've tried pretty much everything to try and see if I can recover those old auto-save files. From scouring potential system back-ups of my PC, to using deleted file recovery programs to see if some lingering .zoo_auto files for that map somewhere on my machine. Alas,no luck. However, I do know that save files are shared with the Steam Cloud, and apparently, if I'm not mistaken, Steam generates back-ups of these files. Does anyone know if it's possible to screen through old save files or similar via Steam (and not on your local machine)? I know I'm clutching at straws here, but if there's any way to recover that work, I'll give it a shot.
Thoughts appreciated; thanks!
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1) When saving, for whatever reason, Frontier doesn't put the map you've just loaded at the top of the save option menu - rather, the most recently saved map file. The UI is pretty bad too - it doesn't actually highlight what you're saving currently (only showing a small red 'x' at the far right of the screen). Nor can you generate separate folders for different types of save files. Blergh. Needless to say, please always double-check what you're saving!
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2) Back-ups! Given the auto-save files seem to be completely removed after manually saving for that file in that play session / time period, they cannot be relied upon to recover human errors - only good for the odd game crash. However, given save files are stored locally on your machine, you can set up a system to automatically back them up.
On Windows 10, to do so:
- i) Search: 'backup settings'
- ii) Click 'Backup'
- iii) Ensure 'Automatically back up my files' is turned 'on'
- iv) Click 'more options'
- v) Ensure, under 'Back up these folders', the file location "C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\Saved Games" is present. If not, add it.
- vi) Optional: there are additional options for back-up frequency (I'm now on ~3 hours), plus location to save back-up files (be it an exterior F:\ drive, or similar) etc. By default Windows backs-up everything, so to save space you can remove the automatic back-up of, say, Pictures, Video, Downloads, etc. if your goal is more PZ orientated (though generally backing-up your shizz is a worthwhile endeavour anyway).
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3) In extreme situations, without a backup of your saved games folder, it is still possible to completely recover removed save files with recovery software such as Recuva - particularly if you do so as soon as possible after the event (otherwise your machine takes over the deleted file space and rewrites it for something else). Ensure you save and install this software to another drive (other than C:\ to maximise the likelihood you recover something.
It's a bit hit-and-miss whether you can recover target, say, deleted auto-save files, depending on how soon after the map file was overwritten, plus a bit of luck. In my case, I was actually able to recover some previous .zoo and .zoo_auto save files that were otherwise no longer available. Alas, they were for other zoos/maps, and my ~26,000 piece endeavour was permanently lost and fragmented in the bowels of my desktop.
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TL;DR: Don't be me! Be careful what you save, and back-up your saved games folder on your machine just in case!
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