PBEM saves?

Net Warrior · October 26, 2003, 19:43

I was wondering if I've got this right. I can save a PBEM game in the middle of my move and come back to it later by just going to "menu" & "save" and renaming the file. Then I can come back to it later without getting the "reload" notice.

Note: If I reload the saved game a 2nd time, I get the reload message. If I make some more moves and save again then, that still seems to be ok on the reload.

BTW, I've only done this experimentally, on older, out of date moves that would never be forwarded to another player.

Does anyone use this feature in their games?

Net Warrior

Mongoose · October 27, 2003, 00:02

You got it mostly right. There is no need tomake some moves before resaving it, though. I do this i most of my pbems, usually after I have completed the turn except for the actual ending of the turn. This allow me to keep a end of turn save for myself. If an ally emails you before yur nest turn and asks "What did you do with those needlejets in Gaia's Landing?" you can reopen the end of turn save and write back " Well, there aren't any in GL anynore, but there are three outside of Morgan Gravitonics, ahving survived attacks on the garrison there."

Also, in very tense games, it can be useful to compare infiltration data from the prior turn to that of the current turn in an effort to deduce where the enemy moved. Be warned...this is a very time consuming task and the possibility of an inadvertant re-load is high. (easy to forget which file is which when you're saving and checking the other and saving and checking back...etc.

The ethics of doing this kind of thing are that you may not move a unit differently in different openings of an old file in order to explore more territory or to search for enemy units.

johndmuller · October 27, 2003, 07:01

It is possible to run more than one instance of the game at the same time to do those kind of comparisons without having to keep saving and loading over and over again (or to dispatch the turn of still young game while pondering a more complicated one or I suppose a variety of other reasons). Depending on what operating system you are using and how much free memory or resources you have going for you, this may or may not work satisfactorily, and there is, of course, still the opportunity to make a mistake with the file names.

Interestingly, if your system is set up with a resolution higher than 1024x768 (the game will reset the monitor to the lower resolution it uses), and you have 2 copies of the game running, when you exit one of them it will reset the monitor to 1280x1024 (or whatever you are using), leaving the game running in less than full screen mode, using the upper left 1024x768 (or 800x600, I suppose, if that was how your SMAX ran) pixels, leaving a reasonably wide L shaped area of regular desktop - not exactly running in a window, as it is immovable and permanently 'on top', but still leaving the rest of the screen as a regular windows environment.

dacole · October 27, 2003, 17:04

To me this seems unethical just my thought though. On another topic it seems to be possible to see what the other players are telling each other and what they are telling the AI in game if you open the save game as a text file difficult but doable what does everyone think about the ethics of this?

Minute Mirage · October 28, 2003, 04:13

Quote:

Originally posted by dacole
To me this seems unethical just my thought though.

What is unethical? Saving the game and continuing it later?

Quote:

Originally posted by dacole
On another topic it seems to be possible to see what the other players are telling each other and what they are telling the AI in game if you open the save game as a text file difficult but doable what does everyone think about the ethics of this?

I'd say it's unethical, but it can't be monitored and thus everyone should discuss all the important issues via email.