Saving SG Base file(s)

[Black Gryphon]

I would like to see unique-to-account SG base files be storable locally, to be used on other servers; similar to the AE mission files.
That is, assuming they aren't already.

[Greycat]

Bases can't be imported, or there might be a process that would allow it but has some problems the team's not willing to accept in a released process.

 

The SG base should, I'd think, be able to be stored just by doing something like a /demorecord to grab what pieces are where, after all (and no, that wouldn't grab what's stored in what, since those are basically databases linked to the item, not something that'd be saved in a demo.)

 

Honestly, I wouldn't even want to worry necessarily about "unique to account." If these could be made to be imported? I'd love to see it done so people who can't (or no longer have time to) base-build can have, say, a selection of pre-made basic or simple bases to pick from. (Say, someone puts up a wiki page or something with screenshots and downloadable files of "Basic apartment 1," "Club 2," "Two-story house #5" or some such and those could be imported in.)

 

It would open up quite a bit.

 

(Flip side of that is I'm sure there'd be complaints about "stolen" bases, too, which might be part of why we don't have it as well.)

[srmalloy]

6 hours ago, Greycat said:

and no, that wouldn't grab what's stored in what, since those are basically databases linked to the item, not something that'd be saved in a demo.

Not to mention that there would have to be protections built into a copy function if you could transfer a base including all of its stored items to prevent it from being used to dupe the storage. I can hear the screaming now if you could set up a base on a 'mule' server, cram its storage full of huge inspirations, purple, PvP, ATO, and winter enhancements, and then copy it back to your primary server again and again, giving you an infinite supply of these enhancements. I could see a 'move storage contents' option, where anything in storage was transferred to the new server and deleted from the original one, but copy should die the real death.

[Snarky]

9 hours ago, Black Gryphon said:

I would like to see unique-to-account SG base files be storable locally, to be used on other servers; similar to the AE mission files.
That is, assuming they aren't already.

good luck.  base code is so wonky I am pretty sure only insane people are comfortable working in that environment.  Also, I feel complicated bases have the possibility of collapsing an entire server into a wormhole at any second....

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Snarky said:

base code is so wonky I am pretty sure only insane people are comfortable working in that environment. 

I want to argue against this comment so bad using myself as an example... but I'm afraid that would just lend more credence to your comment....

[Black Gryphon]

9 hours ago, Greycat said:

(Flip side of that is I'm sure there'd be complaints about "stolen" bases, too, which might be part of why we don't have it as well.)

This is why I suggested that they be "unique-to-account" so, by definition, password protected.
I imagine that it'd be possible to add a "shareable" click box to the file so it could be freely distributed.
Then again, not being a coder, I can -imagine- quite a bit! 😛

 

[Techwright]

15 hours ago, Black Gryphon said:

I would like to see unique-to-account SG base files be storable locally, to be used on other servers; similar to the AE mission files.
That is, assuming they aren't already.

Do you mean as a copy only, with the original being retained on the server?  As a desktop support tech, I get very nervous when I learn anyone has stored something important and hard or impossible to replace on a local device.  I've seen too many tragedies occur because of the assumption that it is fine in a local drive.   I do mean tragedies.  I'd feel a lot better if it was just a copy to the local.  That does begger the question though, if you're going to upload a base from a local drive, doesn't that pose a threat for the server from potential malware on Joe Average's computer?

 

15 hours ago, Greycat said:

Honestly, I wouldn't even want to worry necessarily about "unique to account." If these could be made to be imported? I'd love to see it done so people who can't (or no longer have time to) base-build can have, say, a selection of pre-made basic or simple bases to pick from. (Say, someone puts up a wiki page or something with screenshots and downloadable files of "Basic apartment 1," "Club 2," "Two-story house #5" or some such and those could be imported in.)

 

It would open up quite a bit.

 

 

@Dacy and I had a forum chat about a very similar idea a while back.  I think it was back around the Halloween showcase of 2023.  The idea being to have a skilled builder create for the unskilled, then have a way within the server to transition the base to the recipient SG leader for installation as their base.  Dacy brought up some excellent concerns for the process, which more or less nullified the possibility, at least with the volunteer development team we currently have, the amount of work involved, and the mess of a base code.

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, Techwright said:

That does begger the question though, if you're going to upload a base from a local drive, doesn't that pose a threat for the server from potential malware on Joe Average's computer?

Our saved costume/power settings for our characters are stored locally on our own computers, not the server.

[Jacke]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

Our saved costume/power settings for our characters are stored locally on our own computers, not the server.

 

They're saved locally as a backup.  In-game appearance comes from the values saved on the servers.

 

 

[Jacke]

12 hours ago, Snarky said:

good luck.  base code is so wonky I am pretty sure only insane people are comfortable working in that environment.  Also, I feel complicated bases have the possibility of collapsing an entire server into a wormhole at any second....

 

From what I've heard from the devs, this is painfully true.

 

 

[Rudra]

7 hours ago, Jacke said:

 

They're saved locally as a backup.  In-game appearance comes from the values saved on the servers.

 

 

In game appearance comes from the character saved on the server. The costume files themselves when we choose to save them for later use or reference, as far as I can tell, are saved on our hard drives. The character is saved on the server with all assigned costumes, so when we select that character on the server, all selected costume parts and colors are there on the character. I may very well be wrong, but that is how things look to me.

 

Edit: And the reason why I say this is because for a while I was running 2 desktops. A really, really old one I just liked and my current one. I gamed on the really, really old one until it finally died. Logging into my account on the current one showed me as having zero costumes saved.

 

Edited Saturday at 06:17 PM by Rudra

[lemming]

Stuff that can be saved on your hard drive that if you know what you are doing, can be edited directly.

Settings

Costumes & Power Customization

Mission Architect files

Demo files

Popmenus and other mods

Logs

 

Popmenus and such get loaded when the client starts, and if there are errors, they'll be pointed out in the client log which is different than the other logs.

Logs if enabled just get added to, and not recommended to edit while running.

 

Costumes, Power Customization, and Mission Architect files can be loaded at any time, but they do go thru sanity checks.

 

I would imagine if there was a base save & load, it would be a fairly complex file, but certainly doable.  (Item plus location, facing, tint, etc...)

Loading would probably be doable, it would strip stored items, and make sure stuff was legal and sane.   (No buffer overflows, etc...)

There's a bunch of other stuff that would have to go into it

Loading and Saving just a room.   What happens to stored stuff on loading?  Hard fail, or "Are you sure?", or can we still store what's here in what you're loading?

I can see this being used to tweak a base where you want to reorg, or setting up a completely new base.  It's a large range of options that would need a lot of planning on development.

[macskull]

On 1/10/2025 at 4:41 AM, Greycat said:

Bases can't be imported, or there might be a process that would allow it but has some problems the team's not willing to accept in a released process.

SG bases can be imported from demorecords. It's how people on the other server restored their SG bases from back on live. It's just not something HC is willing to do.

 

On 1/10/2025 at 4:41 AM, Greycat said:

(and no, that wouldn't grab what's stored in what, since those are basically databases linked to the item, not something that'd be saved in a demo.)

The items in base storage are considered part of the map and are saved in demorecords, so it is possible to import their contents with the rest of the base. When bases were imported from demorecords the items in storage were stripped for pretty obvious reasons.

[Indystruck]

Base importation via a code or demo record was absolutely doable in Paragon Chat and we know now that this existed because of the private server (Things like the START vendor being culled out but still occupying space). It's probably doable but I'd imagine it's more of a privacy issue? Things like bases getting 'stolen' or whatever other drama you could think of from people having such a tool.

[Black Gryphon]

On 1/10/2025 at 11:04 PM, Techwright said:

Do you mean as a copy only, with the original being retained on the server?  As a desktop support tech, I get very nervous when I learn anyone has stored something important and hard or impossible to replace on a local device.  I've seen too many tragedies occur because of the assumption that it is fine in a local drive.   I do mean tragedies.  I'd feel a lot better if it was just a copy to the local.  That does begger the question though, if you're going to upload a base from a local drive, doesn't that pose a threat for the server from potential malware on Joe Average's computer?

Yes. Sorry that it wasn't clear. And I agree that backups are essential.

[Greycat]

20 hours ago, macskull said:

The items in base storage are considered part of the map and are saved in demorecords, so it is possible to import their contents with the rest of the base. When bases were imported from demorecords the items in storage were stripped for pretty obvious reasons.

 

Mm. Yeah, actually, fair.  I had to go look at the .cohdemo file contents again when you said that, since I remember hand-editing these things back on live to do group shots of characters. I'd forgotten entirely about that whole block of unreadable "stuff" at the beginning when you grab a record in a base (which doesn't exist on city maps,) just the item/description/location/action plain text sections I'd spent way too much time in.

 

(Used to know way too much about hand editing various bits and spent way too much time doing it...)