Compressed surveys to recover large Expedition saves
Lossless survey ranges keep long-running worlds below the old save-size ceiling while retaining their explored cells.
I found a real failure at the fifteen-hour reload: the prior checkpoint had grown beyond the old eight-megabyte input limit, largely from its exploration survey.
The survey now saves lossless inclusive ranges and still accepts legacy uncompressed input. The import ceiling is 32 MB so older oversized checkpoints can be recovered.
“I found a real failure at the fifteen-hour reload: the prior checkpoint had grown beyond the old eight-megabyte input limit, largely from its exploration survey.”
The verified remote checkpoint kept all 865,030 explored cells, unit identities and campaign progress. Its saved representation shrank from 8.02 MB to 1.39 MB, then reloaded successfully. That checkpoint comparison is separate from this native save-menu demonstration.
Seven save and compression checks passed, and compressed checkpoints subsequently reloaded successfully through hour twenty. That completed evaluation used saved continuations and a protected-hero fixture with worms disabled; persistent vehicle and deposit-access congestion remain. The save repair is verified without claiming a clean reliability or normal-survival sign-off.