Universal Quicksaver for All v.MTP2023-07-02

by Rian

Yes, I had to return with some updates on the script. Please do check out the previous post, as I will be keeping it up to date. As for why the separate post was made, I thought to share where some of the changes were made and why. If you are looking for the new script, check out the original post.

Mainly there are two changes in the script. Now the script will gracefully exit out of ‘autosave’ mode, instead of using keyboard interrupt. The other is restore function. Previously, the script did not include a handy way to copy-paste any save files, only the most recent one. I’ve made it so that the script will prompt the user to enter what kind of save to be restored, (i.e. either manual or auto) and which one (i.e. legacy save extension number).

Both changes came across after running it in the real world. I did not anticipate Windows PC users to have problems exiting a python script, especially with the prevalence of full-sized keyboard in Windows environment. I believe the way to raise KeyboardInterrupt in Windows is actually Ctrl+Break, which, let’s be honest, most people would have never dared to press “break” key before this time.

The other problem was, and I should have seen this coming from miles away, that exiting out of autosave didn’t always mean “stop the session”. There could be myriad of reasons as to why, but in most cases I had to stop the auto-save to restore an earlier save to remedy save-locked situation. In those cases, most players, including myself, would rather want to restore a file quickly as possible and get right back on it.

This brings me to the next point. No thanks to my poor choice in naming folder names and file names, it was rather difficult to navigate manual saves, auto-saves, and current in-game saves, all on the same GUI windows. At first, I was looking for a way to fix the problem without meddling too much, perhaps just the changing the naming convention. What I soon realized is that games aren’t so creative in naming their save files either; it’s hardly cooperative if you are navigating through it on GUI. Now users of the script can choose what save they wish to restore on the script itself: manual/auto, and extension number.

There were some other features that did come across, but were eventually dropped. One of them, which has been sitting on the top of the list for awhile, is archiving legacy save files. Eventually I decided against it. It’s better to have files accessible, so it be examined either by person or by scripts. Quicksaver is not meant to be a backup. It’s an automated save file copier. The relocated file themselves may be corrupted, or become corrupted in the process.