Yesterday I had been fooling around in space for some time. I eventually found myself aboard a freighter for sale, which I didn’t buy.
I flew off to buy some frigates, then went back to the freighter. It was late, and I was tired. In the freighter docking bay, I jumped out of my ship to save the game, then hit the buttons to shut the game down.
It was only as the closing screen was fading, I realised that it said “your game was last saved 51 minutes ago”. Too late - I had already pressed “close”.
OK, I only lost an hour of play time - but I’d bought some nice frigates in that hour - and now they’re gone.
So be warned - leaving your ship while you’re on board someone else’s freighter will not save your game.
Just one question. Do you remember if you saw the message that confirms your save before you hit escape to start the log out process? (I’m assuming PC because I don’t remember how you play)
The reason I ask is because that has happened to me at a saving post on planet, where it was late, I was in a hurry to log, and I hit the save icon, saw the Save Post swizzle up, and as it swizzled I hit Esc to log out, losing four hours of progress because I didn’t wait for the confirmation. I found that out when I logged back in the next day.
Lesson learned. Now I always wait until the “Restore Point Saved” (or something like that) shows and then fades from the screen.
EDITing to say that I believe it is as you say if you are auto-save-ship-jumping inside of an NPC Freighter. You don’t get that confirmation message.
As I said, it was late, I was tired, and my actions were mostly automatic. I went through a series of actions I’ve done a thousand times before - I wasn’t really thinking about it.
I returned my ship to the freighter. It parked and turned around. I got out. I didn’t check that I had a “game saved” message. I hit ESC, and pressed Quit to Desktop. It was only as I pressed the “Confirm YES/NO” button that I realised it didn’t say “Your game was last saved 5 seconds ago” as I expected. It actually said “Your game was last saved 51 minutes ago”. But it was too late by then -I’d already pressed the button.
Due to my habit of always waiting a moment before exiting a ship, (to let graphics settle), I’ve not been caught out by this but I can see how easily it could happen.
Many has been the night where drowsy and nodding off as I play, I have found myself crashing into things or near death from exposure. A quick exit at a reasonably safe location and relying on my restore point as my save.
Only in my normal save though…I’m too paranoid in P/death to even play once I get a bit tired. I scoot home and save safely in my abode.
I fell asleep once while entering the atmosphere of a new planet. Thumb on the throttle button. Crammed my ship into a cave and could not get out. Had to shut it down. Lost about an hour of game time.
I was falling asleep on a hazardous planet recently and decided right, time to call my ship and save before I fall asleep in this hell hole and die perpetually until the morn.
Called my ship, got in, got out to save. Fell asleep immediately during the getting out of ship animation. Woke up to what must have been fifty deaths and an empty exosuit that had been full of archaeology items I’d spent an hour or two looting from that planet. My last manual save was three days ago so that was not an option
Thankfully all my mineral stacks etc are kept in cargo so didn’t lose all my stacks of 9999
Just to confirm (interesting conversation though it was, I think the point drifted a bit).
I’ve just confirmed, again, under more controlled conditions:
Every now and then, you will warp into a system, and find a capital ship under attack. You are given the opportunity to fight the pirates. If you beat them, you get the opportunity to buy the ship.
To deal with the capital ship’s captain, you have to board his freighter. Even if you don’t buy it at first, the freighter will generally hang around until you warp out of the system. You can go back and buy it later, but not if you leave the system. Then it will be gone.
My point was that when you board this capital ship, you need to exit your own ship. Under every other circumstance in the game, when you exit your ship, the game gets saved. However, if you exit your ship whilst on board a capital ship that’s for sale, your game does NOT get saved.
That’s my point. Anywhere else in the game, exit your ship = saved game. But NOT on board a capital ship that’s available to buy.
