Savefile mapping - the complete reference

[sargon0]

Thanks, got it!

What does your terminology with size means? First one with planets, it says xB8 by 108. Does it mean each planet contains 184 (B8x) x 32 bit worth of data? And there's 108 entries allocated for the planets in all?

That's roughly correct. First is size of individual entry in bytes then the number of entries. The savefile has 108 planet entries of 184 bytes each, enough for a huge galaxy.

[PlzBreakMyUmMap]

Ah I knew someone would have already done this. I started before I realize how much information is in there...

This seems to indicate that the save file does NOT contain likelihood information for special events, but this goes against my testing. I have save files where (if no changes are made) as specific event WILL occur upon hitting the next turn button.

I assume there is a pseduo-random number generator that is seeded with some information from the save file (or information in the starmap composed from information in the save file). Am I right about this? If so its a shame, because I'd like to crank up the likelihood of all or specific special events.

[Ianus]

Are you sure that events WILL happen at the next turn? In my experience restarting to a point just before the occurence of a random event will reset the event. That just happened in my game when the Amoeba showed up REALLY early and I didn't want to deal with it so I closed Dosbox, continued the game at the last autosave and didn't see the Amoeba for another 100 years. All of my experience has found the events to be truly random. Can you post a save file where an event is guaranteed? I'd like to see that!

[sargon0]

Ah I knew someone would have already done this. I started before I realize how much information is in there...

This seems to indicate that the save file does NOT contain likelihood information for special events, but this goes against my testing. I have save files where (if no changes are made) as specific event WILL occur upon hitting the next turn button.

I assume there is a pseduo-random number generator that is seeded with some information from the save file (or information in the starmap composed from information in the save file). Am I right about this? If so its a shame, because I'd like to crank up the likelihood of all or specific special events.

Well the savefile contains:
1. the chance of any special event happening based on current year and year of last event, increases over time
2. which events have already happened ruling them out if event chance successful
So if a long time since last event you may have a savefile with a 'very likely' chance of a new event but generally this could be one of many events unless others had already happened earlier or conditions not met.
See discussion in following thread - Special Events detail