MapEd : Can you lose your work by pressing "Run"?

[RootlessAgrarian]

I just spent an instructive couple of hours learning some map building techniques, and when I was done I hit Save and then (out of curiosity) Run.

The "Run" option didn't do me much good because my start position was all wonky, my truck was placed in an impossible position, so I quit; the editor reappeared and I probably hit Save again, then quit for real to rebuild my map mod.

When I restarted the game after making/installing my new mod file, imagine my dismay when all my changes were gone. I don't regret the 2 hrs work really, it was all just trying things out and I could probably reproduce it in less than half an hour now (based on what I've learned so far). It wouldn't do me any harm to repeat the whole thing -- probably be good training actually. But I'm alarmed by the mysteriousness with which my work disappeared. I'd hate for that to happen if I was seriously trying to create something!

Did "Run" somehow reinitialise the game? Did it load the old mod instead of running the saved game? Did it then save the old mod over the top of the edited game? The timestamp on the save files looks OK, but... all my careful edits have gone Poof. oh well.

If this is a classic way to lose one's work, then I need to document it with boldface and caps and so on in the user guide...

[SimulatorSam]

The run button only tests the map from the one that’s packed in the mod folder, not what you just saved. What you should do is save the map, quit the game, pack the map into your mod folder, then press run.

[MandelSoft]

Your saves are still there when you run the map, but it's not in the cache memory anymore. You'll have to repack your map to see your work again as it was.

[Reinhard]

I never understood why this command is available from the menu. If I want to enter the preview mode (and this is what the command does) I use the "-preview" parameter, on startup. Who wants to load the editor, change something, save that, and then test something like it was before you did the edits? Plus entering the preview mode from the beginning is faster.

Anyway: no problem for me. I just never use preview mode by calling it from the editor.

Doesn't really matter. Anyone who gets deeper into map-editing will learn the same old song, sooner or later: "Save often! Do your backups"". There are so many ways to lose your work if you don't. And sometimes it is not caused by the editor crashes or consequences you don't understand yet: don't underestimate the risks caused by the mapper itself.

[RootlessAgrarian]

Well that would explain it. I saw the "run" button and (silly me) thought that it would run the version I was editing. I mean, why else would there be a Run button in the editor?

So there is really no way out of the workflow cycle: edit map, save edits, QUIT GAME, repackage and reinstall map mod, START GAME, enter edit mode. Any Run testing has to be done _after a restart_ which loads currently installed version of mod.

How I shot self in foot, I see now, was my reflexive "save" after exiting Run mode. Looks like the Run command reverted to the mod version of the map, then (being a cautious person and not realising I had just blown up my map) I Saved before exiting, which overwrote my edited version with a fresh copy of the pre-edit version. That makes sense, in a rather depressing way. Oh well, we live and learn. I had just made my first overpass with nicely meshing terrains

[Blackspots]

Yeah, after I've done work, I save. I then use 'exit' from the console to get back to the profile selection menu, grab the sectors I've worked on and merge them into the map I work on, then 'edit usa' from the console, let the editor load, and then click on run, all without ever quitting the game. Quitting the game isn't necessary.

[RootlessAgrarian]

AHA! Thank you ShirBlackSpots -- I will have to try that. It would at least save the launch time.

[UPDATE] well in my Win10 system it didn't work... I could not update my mod with the game running, even after 'exit' in the editor returned me to the launch screen.

It took me a while (and a bit of bad language) before I figured out what was going on. I was getting an error writing new file to the mod folder. And the reason appeared to be that the OS knew the folder (or the scs file) was "being used by application ETS2". So I couldn't delete or overwrite my map.scs file. This limitation might be new to Win10 or it might be some feature that could be turned off if I only knew how, but for now I still have to quit the game entirely before rebuilding my mod file.

[MandelSoft]

I never understood why this command is available from the menu.

It makes total sense when you consider the in-house build of ETS2, where it reads all files directly from the folder structure and not from packed .SCS files. This "unpacked" version does not have the "uncaching" issue all public builds have, so you can preview your map right after you saved it in the editor. But being an internal build, it's not a feature that's publically available.

[Reinhard]

I see. Thanks.

[RootlessAgrarian]

I find the quit/start elap time is not that bad on my machine, even in the VM. A small price to pay for access to such a powerful tool.