Exiting in the evolve screen breaks slot expansion when reloading game

[moonshine]

As far as I can tell this happens any time you're in the evolution screen and about to pick which new slots to give Cogmind.

To reproduce:
- Start a game and run to the nearest main exit to the next level (I found it easiest to strip to core for this part and hover, but I don't think it matters)
- Take stairs, the evolution screen will appear
- Alt-tab the game, then in the Windows taskbar right click Cogmind, click close
- The game will make the shutdown noise & close
- Reload the game

At this point Cogmind will spawn at the stairs in the previous level just before you went to the evolve screen. This is fine, however, now if you take the stairs again, it sends Cogmind to the next level without allowing you to choose new slots. You can continue to play the game as normal but those 2 slots appear to be gone forever.

[Kyzrati]

Thanks for the info, moonshine, this is technically intentional/by design.

You're not supposed to exit the game while evolving, which is why there's no normal command/button to do this and the only way to get this result is by closing the window or force quitting, but technically under the hood the game considers the possibility that it's an unnatural cause and saves the game in an emergency.

This is an old behavior which has already been slated to be removed in Beta 8. If you quit while evolving during the next release, it will return you to the stairs before you left.

(Note that currently you can still get back to your earlier state by using the previous autosave.)

[jpka]

I had the same issue and was about to report it. I force-quitted the game because I didnt know what to choose atm, this seems reasonable in a long game in which you want to make a considered choice when you are less tired so probably there should be an option but that's another issue. What if there is a forced windows restart or power outage?

If you quit while evolving during the next release, it will return you to the stairs before you left.

Also, like moonshine said, you are already being returned to the stairs on previous level, and that is fine. The issue is using the stairs again doesn't prompt the evolution screen again.

[Kyzrati]

I had the same issue and was about to report it. I force-quitted the game because I didnt know what to choose atm, this seems reasonable in a long game in which you want to make a considered choice when you are less tired so probably there should be an option but that's another issue. What if there is a forced windows restart or power outage?

You won't need to worry about this because Cogmind makes backup saves and will use that instead--that's actually how it already works if you have a power outage or whatnot, so it's not really relevant here.

Also, like moonshine said, you are already being returned to the stairs on previous level, and that is fine. The issue is using the stairs again doesn't prompt the evolution screen again.

Right, that's because we're not up to Beta 8 yet . Beta 7.2 still autosaves if you force-quit during evolution, but that feature will be removed. In the event of a forced quit initiated by the player, the game will revert to the last autosave on startup, which will be before the exit action.

[Kyzrati]

I've decided to keep the saving on force quit and just add some more checks on it to prevent certain other potential oddities, but as described earlier Beta 8 is now going to work differently on entering the evolution UI--before that happens it'll automatically autosave then block all autosaving until done, so in the event of a force quit it will restore the state to the turn of the exit, with you on the stairs with the chance to evolve as expected.

[lsend]

Great decision. Other potential oddities are terminal windows and popup dialogs? Anything else?

[Kyzrati]

Not that I know of. Hacking and dialogues block it, though there doesn't seem to be anything else out there that I can see at the moment. Guess we'll find out later if there are