Parsing the DWGame savefile

[drdru7029]

I'd like to be able to read savefile contents in order to, for example, write python scripts to create line charts for various aspects of a game as it progresses (ship count, income/expenses, mining volume by resource, resource price history etc). Have tried opening the DWGame files but can't find anything legible. Is there any method/tools available to parse savefile contents?

Thanks for any help.

[Miletkir]

Decrypting save files crossed my mind too. Accessing stats would be awesome, but also the prospect of modifying an already started game and procedurally-generated galaxy. Unfortunately I don't have the slightest clue. Best person to answer that is probably Elliot...

[drdru7029]

I hope it would be as easy as knowing the encoding (e.g. Base64) and then running a script to decode. Also could be a feature of the game editor to export the game state to e.g. xml. Currently it's taking away something important from the experience, knowing that there's so much going on but currently having so little access to it. It's enticing to see in numbers and graphs how one's game is evolving, how colonies and fleets are growing/shrinking, how balance of power is shifting, etc etc.

Elliot (if you're browsing here), is there any chance to be able to decode/otherwise parse the save files, either now or planned for the future?

Thanks for any guidance.

[GhostIsGone]

Is the save game file format something custom for this game, or does the engine that this game uses (I read that it's a publicly available engine?) provide a save game format? If it's the latter then it might be worth browsing through the engine to see if they got any tools to decode encoded files.

[Emperor0Akim]

You can open it with a hex-editor, but it is still pretty illegible.