Note: The following contents have been experimented with version 0.7 of the game (originally 0.4, updated since then).
I sometimes purchase early access videogames (not yet finished and sometimes even in alpha state) to support game developers. I don't do it often, though, because being an early adopter usually means coping with a lot of bugs and sometimes having to reset your game progress.
I am enjoying the slow, calm, and non-violent pace of The Planet Crafter, but with a recent update I faced a hard choice: start a new game to experience the new content, or keep with the old game and focus on finishing all the things I can... eventually having to begin anew anyway.
I decided to do something in the middle: Create a new savegame, but see how to alter the file and "cheat" by transferring as much as possible.
First of all, make a backup of the Survival-X.json file located at C:\Users\<your-username>\AppData\LocalLow\MijuGames\Planet Crafter folder (or a different drive if not installed in C:).
If you open that file, you will notice that is some kind of ndjson file, but using \n@\n as the line separator.
Useful tweaks
Terraform levels
You can recover your old terraforming levels by editing the first group in the file:
{"unitOxygenLevel":188221964288.0,"unitHeatLevel":17476050944.0,"unitPressureLevel":117979529216.0,"unitPlantsLevel":9475682304.0,"unitInsectsLevel":56.0,"unitAnimalsLevel":0.0}
This is what controls the main blueprints, the ones you get from milestones in terraformation. If you restore the value, they will automatically unlock upon loading the saved game.
Unlocked things
Another of the first blocks contains a property called "unlockedGroups". If you also set that property to your old values, you will have again the extra unlocks (I think they are blueprint chip-based). Combined with the previous tweak it's a nice progress recovery. I for example had the following value:
"unlockedGroups":"MultiToolMineSpeed1,BootsSpeed1,HudCompass,MultiToolMineSpeed2,BootsSpeed2,podAngle,MultiToolMineSpeed3,RecyclingMachine,InsideLamp1,ScreenMap1,RocketMap1,Destructor1,Jetpack2,RocketMap2,MultiToolMineSpeed4,BootsSpeed3,DisplayCase,Pod4x,Jetpack3,MultiToolLight2,RocketMap3,RocketInformations1,Fence,HudChipCleanConstruction,MultiToolDeconstruct2,RocketMap4,RocketDrones1"
How items and inventory work
For context, this is how an item description line looks like:
{"id":204986269,"gId":"Backpack5","liId":0,"liGrps":"","pos":"0,0,0","rot":"0,0,0,0","wear":0,"pnls":"","color":"","text":"","grwth":0}|
And this is how a group looks:
{"id":1,"woIds":"209872472,202646469,202558410,202173013,204755405,202003892,204986269,206167325,202455419,203517384,205709091","size":12}|
From my research on the files, the basic rules are:
- Biomes have their items inside, but until you pick, harvest, or deconstruct them, they "don't exist" as individual items in the save file
- An item seems to be either placed in the world (when it has a non-zero
"pos"attribute value), or inside a container ("liId"property is non-zero) - A container can be a storage item, your inventory, the items you're wearing
- All normal items, including storage items, have an entry as an item
- Storage items also have an entry as an item
- Item
ids seem to be unique, but I haven't tried crafting new ones or reusing the same id - A group represents a container item or a special container (equipment in use and inventory)
- A group has an
idattribute, which contained items will have set as theirliIdattribute - A group contains a
woIdsattribute that contains a comma-separated list of item ids - Inventory is a special group with
"id":1 - Equipment in use is a special group with
"id":2 - All items and groups except the last one have at the end of the line a
|character
I played safe and didn't altered group "size" attribute, and just in case didn't messed with the equipment in use group. Instead I placed the desired items in the inventory, booted the game and equipped them in-game.
As I haven't added new items, what I do when I want to convert an item into another is to go pick some generic materials, save and exit, and edit, replacing them by my desired item. This in practice is just changing the "gId" attribute of the item.
This is a partial list of item gIds. (there's a bigger list at NexusMods) Note that they seem to be case sensitive, and sometimes contain typos or have case inconsistencies 😅:
AlloyAluminiumastrofoodBackpack1Backpack2Backpack3Backpack4Backpack5Bacteria1Bioplastic1CobaltEquipmentIncrease1EquipmentIncrease2FabricBlueFertilizer1Fertilizer2FusionEnergyCellHudCompassiceIridiumIronJetpack1Jetpack2Jetpack3MagnesiumMutagen1MultiBuildMultiDeconstructMultiToolLightMultiToolLight2MultiToolMineSpeed1MultiToolMineSpeed2MultiToolMineSpeed3MultiToolMineSpeed4OsmiumOxygenCapsule1OxygenTank1OxygenTank2OxygenTank3OxygenTank4PulsarShardPulsarQuartzRedPowder1Rod-alloyRod-iridiumRod-uraniumSeed0Seed1Seed2Seed3Seed4Seed5Seed6SeedGoldSiliconSulfurTitaniumTreeRootTree0SeedTree1SeedTree2SeedTree3SeedTree4SeedTree5SeedTree6SeedTree7SeedTree8SeedUranimVegetable0SeedVegetable1SeedVegetable2SeedVegetable3SeedWaterBottle1Zeolite
Upgrading Buildings
An easy way to accelerate terraforming the planet is to upgrade old drillers, extractors and energy sources by the most powerful ones. Place some solar winds, and level 1 drills and heaters, and then editing the savegame search and replace:
EnergyGenerator1 -> EnergyGenerator6
Heater1 -> Heater5
Drill0 -> Drill4
This will give you Plasma reactors, level 5 heaters and level 5 drills. I haven't played around with trees, insects, and animals (for now) so I don't know how those appear in the inventory.
Summary
Being able to recover the old terraforming parameters and unlocks, your old equipment, and optionally altering items to ease things like having your nuclear power plants and labs again, makes it kind of similar to a "new game+" mode: You maintain your progress for all practical purposes, but you will still need to rebuild your base, and gather and grow plants and flora again.
Lately I'm having fun tweaking and modifying games when either I get a bit tired of them, I finish them but want to keep playing, or simply when faced with issues like progress resets, so expect similar posts on the topic in the near future.