Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2

Author Topic: Quit Without Saving  (Read 5961 times)

Batgirl1

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Quit Without Saving
« on: October 05, 2017, 08:31:48 am »

Please don't run me out of here on a rail.  I know many of you will likely say that it's "against the spirit of DF" or "cheating" and I won't argue.  Regardless, I'm one of those players who would rather shut down the game in Task Manager than admit defeat (Yes, I know "losing is fun", but sometimes stupid stuff happens and I don't want my Grand Master Plan to fall apart over it, so this is what I do).  I'm fairly certain that forcing application shut-downs is not all that healthy for my computer.  I'm willing to put up with the game itself making fun of me in some way as compensation.  Could you maybe just...throw me a bone, here? Pretty please?   :(
Logged

Quarque

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2017, 08:51:29 am »

DFHack can do this for you. Type 'die' into the console.
Logged

FantasticDorf

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2017, 09:59:39 am »

You can also this using windows task manager to kill the executable directly, i tend to do this especially when i've made a enormous logistical error instead of regenning my worlds if they are interesting.
Logged

Reelya

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2017, 11:53:40 am »

@FantasticDorf: she said she already does that.

Another way is to make a taskkill batch file and stick it on the desktop or a taskbar toolbar button, one-click closing, but without dfhack. something like:

@taskkill /f /im dwarffortress.exe

and you put than in a batch file, perhaps set it to open in administrator mode (only if absolutely necessary).
« Last Edit: October 05, 2017, 11:59:06 am by Reelya »
Logged

Larix

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2017, 01:15:31 pm »

If i understand this right, you want to "discard" a game gone wrong so you can continue playing from the last save?

This action is supported by the game itself with no need for DFHack or the like. Set
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[INITIAL_SAVE:YES]
in \data\init\d_init.txt

This should automatically create a backup save whenever you load a fort. If something goes wrong, quit in whichever way you want (can be retire/abandon/save and quit) and continue from the backup. You might wish to rename the backup to your main game's name, because otherwise you can get weird backup-of-a-backup-of-a-backup file names.

You can also set [AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL] to offer more restore points if you usually play more than one season per session.
Logged

Shonai_Dweller

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2017, 03:35:00 pm »

DFHack can do this for you. Type 'die' into the console.
Could people please stop doing this? No-one cares what mods and memory hacks are capable of in a suggestion for things which they want Toady to add to the actual game. The only time it's a relevant response is when people start saying 'it's impossible to do xyz'.
Logged

Reelya

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2017, 03:43:14 pm »

Shonai, I don't think that's a legitimate complaint.

batgirl1 just wants the feature of cleanly shutting down the game without Task Manager. She didn't specify that it had to be an official addition. She just wants the feature. dfhack provides that feature. It's within the scope of the suggestion for that to be brought up. Quarque's suggestion provides here with a working solution that she can implement now. You complaint does not help.

Also, the developer's time is the one finite resource here. Replicating existing dfhack features in the official game is a waste of development time so it's not likely to happen. So mentioning that features already exist as mods is extremely relevant to any suggestion.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2017, 03:46:59 pm by Reelya »
Logged

Starver

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #7 on: October 05, 2017, 04:27:09 pm »

Above that, as leniant as Toady is to all the legitimate save-scumming that he allows to be done1, it may not be in his plan to make it as trivial as "quit without saving" atop of pause+save+quit and retire+save+quit, etc. And, from the player's side, balance the imminent cries of anguish as the wrong key-combos pressed leads to a player unwittingly not saving their pride and joy of many game-years (or one rathe complicated season...). Whilevan awkward-but-doable reversion technique, that goes beyond the trivial in the active rejection of the game's progression, fits much more with "story generator" pardigm that doesn't have inbuilt rewinds/do-over features either.

So consider the possibility that he doesn't want to replicate this DFHack function in vanilla2. He's happy enough that it's doable, but it's not in his vision for implementing in his interface. At the moment, at least. Given how it would be a mysterious option to omit or overlook...


That said, it never does do to process-kill things trivially, just in case of memory leaks (at the OS level, rather than the application, which can't be expected to clean up its spilled giblets after its own killed corpse is removed!). Still, should be safe enough at the disk-data level (so long as you aren't doing it during a seasonal backup save, which you might have to avoid loading in, incomplete) and a properly rebooted machine can reset ram-data sufficiently, if it comes to that.



1 There are ways to prevent, or at least count, rewinds of aborted games...  If, as a games programmer, I was trying to put the 'dev' in 'devious', I could make it subtly ramp up the odds against success for every attempt to avoid bad luck. Karmic difficulty could even ensure that the rolling total of randomised combat rolls adjusted to keep the average as intended, so that redoing each and every failure in the pursuit of a success (by any simple measure) would lead to a near-certain failure beyond a certain point. Wouldn't be proof against back-up and restore of all the right files/etc, but that's why I'd make this a subtle effect using unadvertised vectors, with a second-tier system to spot 'trivial' get-around-it behaviour which perhaps renders all savegames liable to the karma...  If I were inclined to do that kind of thing. Which I'm not, and neither (I presume) is Tarn. Just saying.

2 Actually, it'd not even be as technical as that. Tarn does not need to try to work out what complicated stuff DFHack does and redo it in his own core code, he can just amend his existing core save+quit code to allow a simple branch to skip over the existing saving part. In fact, I'd be surprised if this isn't a Dev-Flag-Only feature already in there, for testing purposes, like the ability to place already moving minecarts with customised contents and/or passenger in mid-air wherever the cursor is, when trying out the mechanics of such situations.
Logged

Batgirl1

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #8 on: October 05, 2017, 11:42:26 pm »

Thank you guys for not tarring and feathering me, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who wants/needs this capability. :)

Quote
Still, should be safe enough at the disk-data level (so long as you aren't doing it during a seasonal backup save, which you might have to avoid loading in, incomplete) and a properly rebooted machine can reset ram-data sufficiently, if it comes to that.

This is a relief, as concern for my PC was a major reason I even dared to speak up.

I've heard of DF Hack, but never used it.  Is it a very different experience from playing regular DF?

Quote
This action is supported by the game itself with no need for DFHack or the like. Set
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[INITIAL_SAVE:YES]
in \data\init\d_init.txt

This solution also sounds like it may have potential.

Quote
Another way is to make a taskkill batch file and stick it on the desktop or a taskbar toolbar button, one-click closing, but without dfhack. something like:

That's probably a wonderful suggestion for someone with a bit more computer savvy, but I don't really know how to make/use batch files.  Before today, I didn't even know what they are.  ???   Thank you anyway, though.

It would be nice to have this as a feature in vanilla DF (and I still think Toady should add it someday), but I'll take what I can get.  :)
Logged

bloop_bleep

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #9 on: October 06, 2017, 01:22:07 am »

One of the unwritten principles of DF is that you should be able to play a game the way *you* want to play it. If you feel that something would make the game more fun for yourself, you should do it.

DFHack is basically just an add-on to Dwarf Fortress. It comes with a bunch of useful commands, adds a few things to the UI (mostly just search tools), and allows you to do more things with mods. It's generally very useful and you'll thank yourself someday for installing it. I would insert a link, but I'm on mobile.
Logged
Quote from: KittyTac
The closest thing Bay12 has to a flamewar is an argument over philosophy that slowly transitioned to an argument about quantum mechanics.
Quote from: thefriendlyhacker
The trick is to only make predictions semi-seriously.  That way, I don't have a 98% failure rate. I have a 98% sarcasm rate.

Quarque

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #10 on: October 06, 2017, 01:46:23 am »

Thank you guys for not tarring and feathering me, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who wants/needs this capability. :)
What bloop_bleep said.

I've heard of DF Hack, but never used it.  Is it a very different experience from playing regular DF?
It is just an application that runs next to DF and doesn't directly change anything about the game unless you tell it to. It does grant you the ability to apply an incredible range of hacks, fixes and modifications to the game, but as long as you don't use those, it's just regular old Dwarf Fortress.
Logged

Batgirl1

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #11 on: October 06, 2017, 06:54:46 pm »

Sweet!  Thanks for the tip. :)
Logged

PatrikLundell

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2017, 04:13:08 am »

Bats don't need feathers to fly, so there's no need for either tar nor feathers ;)

A slight modification to what Quarque said: DFHack is a modification to some of DF's code (SDL.dll is replaced [and restored of DFHack is deinstalled], but I guess that's not really useful info, if my understanding of your computer knowledge is correct) with a console window running on the side, rather than a separate application. However, unless things are activated, the DF game play is unchanged, while the console allows you to run DFHack commands (such as "die" or "open-legends"). The default setting of DFHack adds various UI additions (e.g. a "sand" pre embark indicator), plus handy additions (naming of items, such as stockpiles, levers, etc., dynamic change of track stop dump direction [rather than deconstruct/rebuild], and other handy things).

Installing DFHack isn't particularly hard and there are instructions, but the easiest way is probably to use the LNP where it is part of the default setup (which also uses the Phoebus tile set, so you might want to change that setting back to character "graphics"). Changing settings with the LNP is rather easy.

Regardless, I'd recommend trying a separate installation of LNP or DF+DFHack rather than trying to modify your current installation. That way you can easily back out and return to what you had before.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2017, 04:15:10 am by PatrikLundell »
Logged

Bumber

  • Bay Watcher
  • REMOVE KOBOLD
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #13 on: October 07, 2017, 09:12:23 pm »

There are ways to prevent, or at least count, rewinds of aborted games...
A crash is indistinguishable from an abort.

That's probably a wonderful suggestion for someone with a bit more computer savvy, but I don't really know how to make/use batch files.
You literally just put the line in a text file and make sure the extension is .bat.
Code: [Select]
@taskkill /f /im "Dwarf Fortress.exe"
Logged
Reading his name would trigger it. Thinking of him would trigger it. No other circumstances would trigger it- it was strictly related to the concept of Bill Clinton entering the conscious mind.

THE xTROLL FUR SOCKx RUSE WAS A........... DISTACTION        the carp HAVE the wagon

A wizard has turned you into a wagon. This was inevitable (Y/y)?

Reelya

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Quit Without Saving
« Reply #14 on: October 07, 2017, 09:16:12 pm »

One last note on that is that if you have Windows default which is to hide extensions of files, then you can't manually change the extension within the file system itself. You either need to use "Save As" from Notepad to save the file as a .bat file, or change Windows folder view options to show the extensions, at which point you can edit them manually. Extension hiding is so dumb however that you should definitely turn it off.
Pages: [1] 2