Save file backup utility for the game They Are Billions
When I designed this software and decided to make it open source, I envisioned it being useful for anyone interested in testing game mechanics as well as content creators. Generally I would recommend most people play the game without this tool.
This software makes backing up and restoring save files very easy and convenient when compared to doing it manually, but it doesn't do anything that you can't accomplish manually.
That said, using backups to circumvent the intentional save mechanics in They Are Billions is without question cheating.
If you don't want to cheat, then don't use this software.
This program was originally written to work on Windows 11. We're working on testing other operating systems, and wish to make the program as portable as possible. It is very likely that this software will function just fine on other systems, but more testing is needed.
To run the software you will need to have Python 3 installed. I designed the software to run on Python 3.7+.
At the moment the only file that is needed to run the program is the tabsave.py file. Where you save/clone is
insignificant.
The goal with this step is to make using the command as easy as possible from the command line.
This is nice if you would rather type tabsave backup Survival1 instead of
python3 "C:\Users\<username>\tabsave\tabsave.py" backup Survival1
There are a number of ways to accomplish this. You could create an alias, a function, create a script (or batch file)
in your bin directory, or add the directory where you saved the script to your Path environment variable
(and add .py to PATHEXT).
Eventually we may create an installer to do this automatically but for now you'll have to figure it out for yourself if you want the convenience.
The following are going to assume you mannage to get things set up to run like a command named tabsave.
Otherwise, just replace tabsave with python3 "C:\Users\<username>\tabsave\tabsave.py" replacing
"C:\Users\<username>\tabsave\tabsave.py"with the absolute path to the tabsave python file.
To get a help message use the -h or --help option.
Example:
tabsave --help
To get a help message for a subcommand, use -h or --help with that subcommand.
For example to get help for the list command use the following:
tabsave list --help
Create a backup of a specified save file.
Note: To manually trigger the game to save you must exit the current game before running this command.
To create a backup of the save named Survival1, use the following:
tabsave backup Survival1
or this alias:
tabsave b Survival1
Sometimes it is nice to label your backups. You can do this by using the -m or --message option.
Examples:
tabsave backup Survival1 --message "Built First Sawmill"
tabsave backup Survival1 -m "Final Wave"
By default, each time the backup command is executed a new backup is created. If no backups exist, the first backup will be number 1, otherwise it uses the number following the largest backup for the save.
Occasionally you may wish to overwrite a specific backup. You can do this by using the -n option.
The following will create backup number 3 or overwrite it if it already exists:
tabsave backup Survival1 -n 3
Note: Backup number 0 is treated like a temprory backup and will be overwritten anytime the restore command is invoked.
Don't use -n 0.
This will overwrite the game's save file with a backup.
With the default operation the highest backup number is selected. Unless the -n option was used during backup, it will be the
most recent backup.
Examples:
tabsave restore Survival1
tabsave r Survival1
If you need to restore a different backup than the one with the greatest number, you can use the -n option similar to
how it was used in the backup command.
tabsave restore Survival1 -n 3
To allow for corrective measures in case the restore command is accidentally invoked, we create a temporary backup number
0 of the save before actually overwriting the save. If you need to try recovering a save named Survival1 that was
just overwritten with a backup, you would use the following command:
tabsave restore Survival1 -n 0
You can list all backups for a given save using the list command.
By default, it will only list the backup numbers that exist
Example:
tabsave list Survival1
or this alias
tabsave l Survival1
will output something like this:
Number
------
1
2
3
4
To show the messages use the -m or --message option.
tabsave list Survival1 -m
will output something like this:
Number Message
----------------------------
1 -------
2 Just Built Sawmill
3 Just Built Farm
4 Just Built Bank
To show the paths use the -p or --path option.
tabsave list Survival1 -p
will output something like this:
Number Path_to_Directory
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 "C:\Users\user\MyDocuments\My Games\They Are Billions\Saves\backups\Survival1\1"
2 "C:\Users\user\MyDocuments\My Games\They Are Billions\Saves\backups\Survival1\2"
3 "C:\Users\user\MyDocuments\My Games\They Are Billions\Saves\backups\Survival1\3"
4 "C:\Users\user\MyDocuments\My Games\They Are Billions\Saves\backups\Survival1\4"
You may want to list all saves. You can achieve this with the list-all command.
Example:
tabsave list-all
or this alias
tabsave L
will output something like this:
Josh1 has 2 backups
Josh2 has 3 backups
Survival1 has 5 backups
Note: You don't need to provide a save name for this command.
If you use the -v or --verbose option, you'll get more output.
You can get more fields in this output with the -p/--path and m/--message options.
Example:
tabsave list-all -v -m
will output something like this:
**********************************
* *
* Josh1 has 2 backups *
*................................*
* *
* Number Message *
* ----------------- *
* 0 ------- *
* 1 ------- *
* *
**********************************
* *
* Josh2 has 3 backups *
*................................*
* *
* Number Message *
* ----------------- *
* 0 ------- *
* 1 ------- *
* 2 ------- *
* *
**********************************
* *
* Survival1 has 4 backups *
*................................*
* *
* Number Message *
* ---------------------------- *
* 1 ------- *
* 2 Just Built Sawmill *
* 3 Just Built Farm *
* 4 Just Built Bank *
* *
**********************************
If you need to delete all the backups for a specific save file, use the delete command.
Example:
tabsave delete Survival1