save and quit

[Timo]

Just to confirm, I did read that saving while combat is not allowed because that has been decided. period.

However, I would like to propose "save and quit" save slot with "continue current game" button when you come back to game, which saves game and quits at any point of game.

I just got a base under attack - mission and it took me about ten times more time to find and eliminate all the aliens than usual ufo battle, and it started to get way too time consuming. I just walked around in my base for nearly a hour before I found the last few aliens. I didn't have much time so I considered to just plain quit and load situation 24 hours (game time) earlier. This is a issue which just plain has to be fixed, if not immediately then some point in future. Game with unplayable missions because real life limitations is broken IMO. If someone abuses that by making backups of that savegame I say let them do that. It's cheating, but you can also cheat by modding the game so that your characters are basically invulnerable easily enough anyway.

Other way to fix that is to ensure that there is no such long lasting missions. In my above case my soldiers spawned almost as far as it was possible from the enter points of the base and they had no idea where the aliens were. Some sort of motion detection system to alert where aliens have been detected has to be implemented. Maybe add entity "motion detector" which works as "civilian" target for aliens in corridors. When alien attacks that you might then lose the knowledge of the alien activity in that area, but you know that there has been alien in there. Haven't played game long enough to know if there are other such missions (like alien base missions in x-com), but if there is and speeding up them becomes too hard this "save and quit" becomes necessity.

If it is technically difficult, then just put it on to-do -list until someone has time to implement it. Because game is in "work in progress" -stage it doesn't matter much if that is not done this instant, but it needs to be done.

[geever]

Just to confirm, I did read that saving while combat is not allowed because that has been decided. period.

However, I would like to propose "save and quit" save slot with "continue current game" button when you come back to game, which saves game and quits at any point of game.

If you search the forum you will find other reasons we don't implement it.

btw. you don't  need to load a 24hrs old save on starting a battle auto-save is done.

-geever

[Timo]

If you search the forum you will find other reasons we don't implement it.

btw. you don't  need to load a 24hrs old save on starting a battle auto-save is done.

-geever

I assume that would lead to start that too long mission again which is not useful. Quitting during long battle without losing current status is absolute requirement for this game to be usable to anybody else than hardcore players without life outside cyberspace, or alternatively all missions should be playable in few minutes (10-15 minutes tops). I personally like long missions as long as I can take a break every now and then to do RL stuff and those missions turn out to be something else than just hunting aliens (more tactical selections, ambush possibilities, traps with proximity grenades and other such things)..

In couple of messages I found a link to some thread that gave 404, I assume that is where that explanation should be. (http://ufoai.ninex.info/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=937&highlight=save) I assume reason is technical, because otherwise it doesn't make any sense. All other explanations I found are just poor excuses, like "it takes fun out of game because you can abuse it by backing up the savefile". If player is gonna cheat outside the game he can do it already simply by modding the game. It doesn't take away the fact that quitting during mission is sometimes unavoidable. Autosave before mission doesn't help in that.

Anyway a decision to not ever implement it needs to be reverted. I don't care if it takes long time and is not done for next few releases, but it just plain has to be done. Otherwise this game becomes unplayable for great many potential players, especially if there are unavoidable long missions. For severity it equals crash every time long mission starts.

[H-Hour]

I'm locking this thread because all the ideas have been thoroughly discussed (and not rejected) elsewhere, including the "save and quit" method. To be clear: the devs are not opposed to a battlescape save feature if someone undertakes the extensive work it would require to implement it.