Saved games¶

A saved game is an IFF file in the saves folder of the game's folder, saves\<call sign>GAME<slot>.IFF: the call sign as the pilot typed it, then the slot in two digits at least (0x004E86E4). game_save (0x00475650) writes it and game_load (0x00475430) reads it; the saved games screen lists and chooses them (Front end).

sltool save info <file.IFF>   # everything a saved game holds, field by field
sltool save ls <folder>       # the saved games in a folder: each one's name, mission and pilot

In OpenReliant¶

game/gameflow/save.zig writes and reads the files (save.write, save.read), takes the records from the campaign as OpenReliant holds it and puts them back (save.Game), and finds the files in the game's folder whatever the case of their names (save.Folder), as the game's reader upper-cases every name it opens. The IFF reader is game/iff.zig. OpenReliant writes the game's layout byte for byte and reads what the game writes: a save of the original comes back out the same through OpenReliant's campaign, but for the bytes the game leaves as its buffers held them, such as those after the call sign's terminator, which OpenReliant writes as zeros.

• Improvement: OpenReliant keeps the restart point in memory, where the game writes it as slot 100 and reads it back; and it makes the saves folder where the game's folder lacks it, which the game leaves to its installer, failing to save without it.
• Fixes: each record takes no more of its chunk than it holds, where the game reads each chunk by the length the file gives, so that a longer one runs on into what follows the record in memory. A rank, a tier, a ship or a missile past those the game has is taken as the nearest it has, or none. A file with no SAVE form loads nothing. A call sign with a character a file's name can't hold saves nothing, where the game would take a separator in it for a folder's. The game checks the disk by writing 0x1400 bytes to saves\test.bin before each save, then writes the save without checking it; OpenReliant checks the save's own write.
• Improvement: the mods' scripts keep their state with each saved game, in a file of the same name with the extension .scripts beside it (save.companionName), so that the saved game stays as the game writes it. The saves folder tells the driver as a game is saved, loaded or removed (save.Extra), and the driver writes, reads or removes that file (Scripting).
• Improvement: the record MISS keeps the loadout's choice as the game knows it, so a ship type or a missile a mod adds is written as its base (tables.savedShip, tables.Missile.savedId). OpenReliant keeps the mods' own beside the save, in a file of the same name with the extension .mods (save.ModChoice), by their qualified names, under [Loadout]:

[Loadout]
Ship=teapot:teapot
Rack2=bananas:banana

Rack1 to Rack20 are the racks in saved_racks' order. Loading the save puts each back over its base where its mod is still on, and keeps the base otherwise. A save without a mod's ship type or missile has no .mods file, and removing a save removes it. - The wing's pilots and the pool of their replacements live beside the campaign, as the game's globals do (pilots.Wingmen, Objects). A load puts back the wing and the pool's first record; the rest of the pool stays as the session left it.

Layout¶

The file is one IFF form of type SAVE: FORM, the form's length big-endian, SAVE, then the chunks. Each chunk is its id, its length big-endian, and that many bytes, which lie as the game holds them in memory, little-endian, followed by a zero byte where the length is odd, which the length leaves out and the form's counts. The form's length is the file's less 8, which game_save writes as a zero first and sets once the chunks are written (0x004758E4).

game_save writes NAME, then the five records of its table (save_chunks, 0x00500A20: an id, an address and a size a record):

Every chunk but NAME has an even length, so a save whose name has L characters is 580 + ((L + 2) & ~1) bytes long.

game_load looks for each record's chunk from the form's first chunk, so that the chunks may come in any order, the first of an id counts, and chunks it doesn't know, forms within the form too, are passed over. A chunk the file lacks leaves its record as it was. It never reads NAME, which only the saved games screen reads.

MISS¶

The 0x17C bytes from mission_number (0x00562DC8) to save_version:

VARS¶

Thirty words (saved_variables): the game's variables 16 to 21, 5, 22, 23, 6 to 8, 11 to 13, 24 to 27, 29 to 32, 34 and 36 in that order, which game_save copies in before it writes the chunk (0x004757A0), then five words nothing writes, always 0. game_load clears variables 0 to 31, then puts those back (0x004754DA on); variables 33, 35 and from 37 on keep what they held (Script VM).

PILO and ALPH¶

The pool of pilots that replace the wingmen who die (pilot_pool, 0x005047D0) is 65 records of 4 bytes: a pilot, by the pilot stats' number (a halfword), a status (0 dead, 1 in the wing, 2 free) and a byte nothing uses. PILO keeps the first record alone, as the game sends it alone to the other players too (0x004BA338). Unverified: that the whole pool was meant, 0x104 bytes.

ALPH is the pilots of the player's wing, Alpha 1 to 6 (alpha_pilots, a halfword each): -1 for the player, then the five wingmen's. A new campaign's are -1, 0x55, 0x6C, 0x56, 0xAC and 7 (campaign_pilots_reset, 0x0049CD20).

The autosave¶

As a mission's end moves the campaign on (mission_end_record), after the record, the medal's ceremony and update_pilots (0x0049CD70), the game saves itself as slot 0, outside a network session. Its name is the game's string AUTOSAVE: Mission (0x18A) and the number the player sees for the mission it has moved on to (mission_display_numbers, 0x004E5C78), which counts the campaign's missions in the order they are flown, so that mission 14 is AUTOSAVE: Mission 12. A mission the pilot does not come through, mission 25's first part, and the last mission make none.

The restart point¶

WinMain saves the game as slot 100 before each attempt at a mission of the campaign (0x004AA3FC), and as a campaign starts or is loaded. The restart screen's REPLAY MISSION FROM BRIEFING and FROM LAUNCH, the ITAC's REPLAY MISSION and the pause menu's RESTART each load it (restart_load), which keeps the loadout's ship and racks as they stand (restart_choice_keep, 0x00475D70; restart_choice_put_back, 0x00475DA0): a replay starts from the game as the attempt began, the variables as a load leaves them, in the ship chosen last.