(Answered) how to copy/paste/edit buildings in save games?

[eaglescout666]

hello all, i was wondering if there is a way to edit my save file so that i can copy paste my fort i built in game? this is not a building made in tilezed or a map editor: im talking about my fort i put blood, sweat, and many many nails into. i was hoping to be able to copy the building or cell, then paste it into a new save or a file or something for future use.

 

is this possible?

 

also, i apologize if this question was previously answered. i googled this, and could not find anything. any help is GREATLY appreciated.

 

 

[Svarog]

Well, after seeing your question I got interested, so I ran the game, started a new one and checked if I could copy my safehouse from my favorite save.

So is it possible? Yes it is! I managed to copy my entire creation (loot in crates included) into a new save without breaking anything (As far as I know)

How to do it? Here's where things get a little complicated.

You must go to your savegame folder and find the one with the fortress ex:
C:\Users\USERNAME\Zomboid\Sandbox\AwesomeBaseSaveGame

Now you must find the .bin files that contain your creation and that is the hard part because I have no clue how to describe it better than how I did it. (it took me 5 minutes)

I went by the logic that if average file takes 10kb my fortress would take a ton more due to content within, so I sorted by filesize, found a big one and copied it into another savegame folder, it worked but as it seemed, it was only a part of my base. So I copied the files around it and eventually got it right.

Ex. My base was in the Isolated House, the files for it were:
map_1095_936.bin
map_1095_937.bin
map_1095_938.bin
map_1095_939.bin

Note: Those are for the right side next to the house itself, as far as I can tell, one file covers around 10 tiles squared.

I know that it's a brute force method and not an easy one at that, maybe there is a simpler one, I don't know unfortunately.

I hope it helped you.

[eaglescout666]

sorry for the late reply, but i was busy scurrying around the map to figure out where the fort would be if it worked. well guess what? IT WORKED! thank you so much for the info, this solved my issue.