If you haven't seen the dozens of places that the location of the save file has been posted already, then here you go:

• Linux: ~/.local/share/endless-sky/saves/
  
• Windows: C:\Users\<Your Username>\AppData\Roaming\endless-sky\saves\
  
• Mac OS X: ~/Library/ApplicationSupport/endless-sky/saves/

These are the locations of the save files, and where all your dreams will come true.

The save file, depending on how much you have done with your pilot, can be a rather big file. It has multiple sections to it that contain everything about your character's existance, from your reputation with governments to your entire fleet, and even every single mission or job you have ever completed. All these things are saved inside of your save file, easily accessible and editable by you.

The top of your save file contains within it a number of things.

The first thing you will see is your pilot name.This is what you entered at the beginning of the game and what npcs in game will call you during missions. The conversation variable <first> will fetch your first name and <last> your last name.

After your name is the current game date.This is what appears in game as the date, changing every time you launch from a planet or go to a new system, and can also be used as an event trigger. This can be seen in the case of the Remembrance Day event or the beginning of the war.

Following the date is the current location of your pilot.The system and planet that your pilot is located determine where you will be whenever you load up your pilot. If you're ever going to change this, then you'll probably also want to change the location of your ships. More on that later.

The next two bits of information you will find are the clearance and travel lines.Clearance comes into play for certain missions. One such example of clearance being used is during a FW mission where you must go to a pirate planet. At that point in the campaign, you're most likely hostile with pirates and need to bribe your way on to their planets, but a clearance line allows you to land on a planet by hailing it without needing to bribe the government. The travel lines don't really need to be touched at all, and really determine where your jump pathing is marked when you open the map, seen on the right.


The final part of the top of the save file is the "reputation with" section. This section holds within it all of the relationships you have with every government in the game, plugins included. If ever you need to change a government's reputation so that they are either hostile or friendly, then all you need to do is change the number that comes after that government's name.

Up next is the ships section, holding within it all the information about your fleet. Everything from costs to stats, to what outfits it has to where it is located, this is where you go to make your ships invincible by giving them 10000000000000000000... hull strength.

As stated in the previous section, moving your pilot will also require you to have to move your ship. This can be seen by the lines 181 and 182 at the bottom of this image. You can clearly see that this ship has its own system and planet, meaning that its location can be completely independant from where your pilot actually is.

Given the way your fleet is saved in ES, your ships will be completely unchanged by future updates to that ship's stats, since your ship has its stats saved inside of the save file. So lets say for example MZ, god forbids, decides to nerf the cargo space on the Bactrian. Now you can't convert as much cargo space into outfit space! But fear not, for any precious Bactrian that you own will retain its old cargo space stats, placed safely within your save file.

So pretty much as long as the outits that are located on your ship exist within the game and the sprite that that ship uses exists as well, your ships will be completely safe.

The account section of the save file is long but simple. It holds within it four things: the amount of credits you own, your credit score, your networth each day for the past 100 days, and any mortgages you may have (in that order).
"Wait, why does it track how much money I had in the last 100 days?"
Well the game uses these values to find out how big of a loan you are able to apply for, checking how much money you have earned over those 100 days and calculating the loan size you can make.

The missions section of your save file contains within it all active and available missions on your character. Active missions are the ones that will appear in your missions box when you go to the map, excluding those which are invisible. Curious as to what kind of invisible missions are active on your character? Just go check it out! Available missions are also included here. These missions are ones that you are able to do as you meet all the to offer requirements. All you need to do is either land or check the spaceport on the proper planet(s), and/or hope that the random condition lands on the right number. So if you are ever stuck at a part in the campaign and are not sure what to do next, check your available missions section of your save file and see what you are able to do.

Now comes the most interesting part: the conditions section. The conditions section is probably the most important part of the save file, especially to modders who want to make interesting missions. The conditions section holds within it every mission you have ever been offered and completed, every job you have done as well as how many times you have done them, every event you have ever triggered, and a number of other things. A full list has been given below. What makes the conditions section so interesting is that it can completely control the missions that are offered to you, even allowing you to take missions again or retry missions that you messed up by removing a line or two. If ever you fail a mission, all you have to do is find the name of that mission in the conditions area and remove the "<mision name>: offered" line. This will cause the game to think that you were never offered the mission and offer it to you again. This happens because conditions act as "triggers" for missions. They are what the game looks for when seeing if you can trigger all the "to offer" requirements of a mission. Has the player done this and that and is the random number of the day under this? Well then the mission is offered! Oh yeah, your combat rating is also found within your conditions, so changing it there will change your combat rating.

List of conditions that can be placed in the to offer section of a mission:

• "<mission name>: offered" <number of times offered>
  
• "<mission name>: active"
  
• "<mission name>: done>" <number of times done>
  
• "event: <event name>"
  
• "cargo space" <amount of cargo space free>
  
• "passenger space" <amount of bunks free>
  
• "combat rating" <combat rating number>
  
• "license: <license name>"
  
• "net worth" <number>
  
• "reputation: <government>" <number>
  
• "ships: <ship category>" <number>
  
• random <number>
  
• day <number>
  
• month <number>
  
• year <number>
  
• "tribute: <planet name>"
  
• "language: <language name>"
  
• "<condition name>" <number>

That last one is a custom condition that missions are able to set using `set "<condition name>"` with `on ( offer | accept | fail | etc)`. Examples include karma that is used during the FW campaign to find out what missions you will be offered, the "main plot completed" condition that is given after you complete the campaign, and the "chosen sides" condition that will be used in other campaign aside from the FW campaign.

The changes section of your save file is pretty simple: It's just all the changes that have happened in the universe of your game due to events. Includes things like the southern systems changing from `government "Republic"` to `government "Free Worlds"`, description changes, fleet changes, and stuff like that.

These are two big but simple sections. The economy section tracks economic changes in the commodities of the systems of the universe that have been altered by you trading, and the visited section is simply every system and planet you have visited, making it visible on the map.

Whether by reading it all or just scrolling to the bottom because you're lazy, you're here.
Did I miss anything? Does anything need clarified? Go ahead and tell me in the comments! I'll probably do more of these, so if you want anything specific then ask that in the comments as well.