Compatibility and save games
How OpenTS lists and loads save games, and which save games a build accepts.
OpenTS uses the English Tiberian Sun 2.03 release as its inherited data and behavior baseline.
A build lists and loads only saves written by the same OpenTS version. Every save records a version stamp: the major, minor, and patch numbers of the version shown in the corner of the title screen. A prerelease label such as -beta1 and the build details in parentheses after the number are not part of the stamp.
The load dialog skips any save whose stamp differs from the running build’s. A save opened without the dialog is checked the same way and refused. For example, QuickLoad shows that there is no quick save to load when the quick save has another stamp. Save games lists the other paths that check the stamp.
The campaign and skirmish load dialog lists only .SAV files. Saves from a game against other machines are listed separately, during a match; see Loading during a match.
OpenTS cannot load saves from the original game. There is no converter for those saves or for saves from another OpenTS version, so finish or abandon a game in progress before you move to another version.
Two builds with the same stamp can still store a save differently, and such a save is listed but can fail to load:
- Development snapshots of one version share its stamp. Finish or abandon a game in progress before replacing a snapshot.
- The Win32 and x64 builds share the stamp. Load a save with the platform that wrote it, and play a network game with every player on the same platform; a mixed network game can go out of sync.