REPRODUCTION: How to lose cars, how to save cars.

[Lordred]

People are losing cars that they spend quite a bit of time building.

This is a Reproduction / Solution to prevent such an issue.


Steps to Re-produce a lost car.

Step 1: Start a new car.
Step 2: Build the car all the way though to the end with out ever changing the name from "Car Model #"
Step 3: Proud of your vehicle, but lacking a name, exit Automation.
Step 4: Profit
Step 5: Open Automation to find your hard work lost.


Steps to have a successful save.

Step 1: Start a new car.
Step 2: Finish morphing the vehicle and move to the materials page. NAME THE CAR
Step 3: Finish car, exit Automation.
Step 4: Profit
Step 5: Re-launch Automation and find your car well and intact.


I will post a Video to follow up with.

[Sayonara]

My case:

Step 1: Start a new car.
Step 2: Finish morphing the vehicle and move to the materials page. Name the car.
Step 3: Fine-tune and detail car.
Step 4: Automation crashes.
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Car saved but it's corrupted and makes Automation crash or throw LUA errors when loaded trololol.
Step 7: Repeat steps 1-7 ad infinitum until car is finally finished and/or ragequit.

[Madrias]

My case:

Step 1: Start a new car.
Step 2: Pick a body shell.
Step 3: Name the car.
Step 4: Save (Manual)
Step 5: Morph, Save, Add fixtures, Save, add more fixtures, Save.
Step 6: Build car until end.
Step 7: Save (Manual)
Step 8a: Exit Sandbox, restart Automation, Car occasionally survives.
Step 8b: Exit Sandbox, Restart Automation, Car corrupted, Automation crashes with the dreaded "front suspension" Lua Error.
Step 8c: Automation crashes. Restart automation, Car corrupted, Automation crashes with the Front Suspension Lua Error.
Step 9: Try again.

I understand this is early access Alpha testing, essentially, but this saving thing is a nuisance. It seems to hit at random, then refuses to go away, at least in my case, until I wipe out every car I've got in my saves folder, which means I may as well have spent the last handful of hours playing something else, like Kerbal Space Program or Skyrim.

[evoixmrfq400]

well i am also having the same problem..i guess ill wait till the next update before i play again...because i change name of the car model in order to save the car but sometimes when i restart it the car is there with all work gone just the stock body anw

[TurboJ]

My case:

Step 1: Start a new car.
Step 2: Pick a body shell.
Step 3: Name the car.
Step 4: Save (Manual)
Step 5: Morph, Save, Add fixtures, Save, add more fixtures, Save.
Step 6: Build car until end.
Step 7: Save (Manual)
Step 8a: Exit Sandbox, restart Automation, Car occasionally survives.
Step 8b: Exit Sandbox, Restart Automation, Car corrupted, Automation crashes with the dreaded "front suspension" Lua Error.
Step 8c: Automation crashes. Restart automation, Car corrupted, Automation crashes with the Front Suspension Lua Error.
Step 9: Try again.

I understand this is early access Alpha testing, essentially, but this saving thing is a nuisance. It seems to hit at random, then refuses to go away, at least in my case, until I wipe out every car I've got in my saves folder, which means I may as well have spent the last handful of hours playing something else, like Kerbal Space Program or Skyrim.

Well described. This is what happens to me also - but with the exception that every single car design has the same error, not one model has survived so far.

[ethanwdp]

Yeah, they're gone for good.

After losing an amazing 200+ MPH car (would've probably been more, game crashed before I could check), I decided to have a little test. I made a new throwaway car, exited, and revised it once. It did not crash. I will refer to the lost amazing car as Car 1 and the throwaway car as Car 2.
I compared the trims game files (which are nothing more than Lua tables), and found that the break values, the suspension values, etc were ALL set to 0 in Car 1. That's right, the game straight up refused to save your tweaks, and set them to 0. They were not set to 0 in Car 2.

So yeah, not playing this game until the developers figure this out would be the best option.

[carskick]

My case:

Step 1: Start a new car.
Step 2: Pick a body shell.
Step 3: Name the car.
Step 4: Save (Manual)
Step 5: Morph, Save, Add fixtures, Save, add more fixtures, Save.
Step 6: Build car until end.
Step 7: Save (Manual)
Step 8a: Exit Sandbox, restart Automation, Car occasionally survives.
Step 8b: Exit Sandbox, Restart Automation, Car corrupted, Automation crashes with the dreaded "front suspension" Lua Error.
Step 8c: Automation crashes. Restart automation, Car corrupted, Automation crashes with the Front Suspension Lua Error.
Step 9: Try again.

I understand this is early access Alpha testing, essentially, but this saving thing is a nuisance. It seems to hit at random, then refuses to go away, at least in my case, until I wipe out every car I've got in my saves folder, which means I may as well have spent the last handful of hours playing something else, like Kerbal Space Program or Skyrim.

Exactly what I've experienced. I am using the steam Open Beta version, and have had this happen many times in the past month to two months. Going back and forth between existing models also seems to be a recipie for disaster, creating dreaded LUA errors. Maybe the game needs to implement some sort of auto-backup system to prevent this?

[Killrob]

There is at least one reliable workaround to these problems (which are very annoying for both you and us, as it's really hard to track what's going on). I have not lost a single car since the recent update and it seems to be the following procedure that ensures that. Please have a try.

Building a new model, first trim:
Build your car to completion first, test it on the final testing page.
Go back into the engine designer, final testing tab. Name the engine family and variant. Hit the save button. (this step might not be necessary)
Go to the final testing tab and name your model and trim. Hit the save button.

Building a trim after the first:
Clone your first trim using the clone function in the drop-down menu.
Select this trim and first name it when on the final testing page after updating all the aspects you want. Hit the save button.

As a rule of thumb: only name a model, trim, family or variant after the whole thing is done in its first iteration. Once that is done just modify it as you like, always end with going to the final testing page (of engine designer for engines, of car designer for cars) and hit the save button.

[Madrias]

Huh. That actually seems to work, Killrob. Copying that to a notice on my desktop so I don't lose that bit of nice workaround trickery. A touch nerve-wracking for a save-a-holic like me, but it is admittedly working for me. I've gotten my save folder to the point where otherwise I'd have to delete trims/models to make room for whatever I was adding, and yet I was able to add another car and load it. Thank you!