This document describes the SaveGame format of all versions of Descent 1 and Descent 2. It was written by Heiko Herrmann.

eMail author: Heiko Herrmann
(*1) Table of Selected Primary/Secondary Weapons
(*2) Table of Laser Levels
(*3) Table of Difficulty

The specs on this page are to be interpreted as this:

• BYTE 1234 means a signed or unsigned one-byte integer at file offset 1234 in the SaveGame file.
• SHORT 1234 means a signed or unsigned two-byte integer at file offset 1234 in the SaveGame file.
• INT 1234 means a signed or unsigned four-byte integer at file offset 1234 in the SaveGame file.
• FLAG 1234, Bit 3 means Bit 3 of the byte at file offset 1234 reflects the state (1=True, 0=False).
• Secondary Weapons need both the flag to be true (=1) and the number of actual missiles set in the SHORT.
• - means this item is not available in the version of Descent (e.g. Descent 1 knows no Phoenix Cannon and Descent 2 Playable Demo knows no Fusion Cannon).
• - (???) means at this time unknown information. If you have the time to find it out, please write us (eMail above).

Here are the actual specs. First some version notes:

• Descent 1 Shareware V1.0-V1.2 use an own format, which is very limited. See below for more information.
• Descent 1 Destination Saturn OEM uses the Descent 1 Full Version format.
• Descent 2 Destination Quartzon OEM uses the Descent 2 Full Version format.

In all Descent 1/2 versions except Descent 1 Shareware V1.0-V1.2 the SaveGame information is saved in *.SGx (x is the slot number from 0-9) files, which are named like the player the SaveGame is from. E.g. the player HH-SOFT.PLR has HH-SOFT.SG0, HH-SOFT.SG1, ...

Descent 1 Shareware V1.0-V1.2 saves the information at a different place, see below for more information.

Here is the actual offset list for all items:

The first Descent 1 Shareware versions' saved games are very limited in functionality. You can only save after a level is finished. This makes of course the actual SaveGame data quite small, because no level status (which robots are dead, where the other robots are, which items have been taken, etc.) needs to be saved. The player however can for example not save right before the end boss of Level 7 and so always need to play the complete level 7.

You might ask yourself, why Parallax did something "stupid" like this. I *think* it was because the level save routine was just not finished in time and Parallax wanted to release the first Shareware now. D1 Full Version then was the first version to support in-game-saving, and they even released a Shareware Version (V1.4) which finally added the functionality for Shareware users.

Anywhere, lets discuss the SaveGame format on these early Descent versions, to be complete: Unlike any later version the data was not saved in extra *.SGx files, but all in the PLR file themselves. So the PLR looks like this:

So the offset of SaveGame slot 0 is 8+0*174=8, slot 1's offset is 8+1*174=182, slot 6 starts at 8+6*174=1052. With this formula the value O in the left column specs above can be calculated.