Moon Sweepers: saves that won't load, backups and crashes

The developer reports a repeatable freeze about half a minute after loading some worlds fixed on both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. Version 1.0.5 also fixes unintended forward movement or ignored keyboard/mouse when a connected controller, wheel, joystick or pedals rest off-centre. This is a named fix, not a diagnosis for every crash or input fault.

The patch reports fewer garbage-collection stutters in large bases and fixes memory leaks after leaving a world or removing structures. The earlier 1.0.4 backup system remains dated below. Keep backups; Kingy has not load-tested a save, measured performance or verified recovery.

Since 1.0.4 each save slot keeps up to five full backups of your world, taken a minute into every session and then every 30 minutes, stored outside Steam Cloud. If a save or part of it is damaged, the game restores it from those backups when the world loads and tells you. After a crash it checks your saves on the next start and repairs damaged ones. Saving big bases now takes a fraction of a second, and quitting no longer waits on "Saving your progress...".

1. To copy a backup by hand, open C:\Users\[user-name]\AppData\LocalLow\DragDropGames\MoonSweepers\Backups.

Before 1.0.3 some heavily cleaned worlds looked corrupted and wouldn't load; one player's broke after about 7 hours and 446 cleaned regions. Patch 1.0.3 says those save files were fine and now load normally, and saves repair themselves from a backup or recent snapshot as they load. Saves made in 1.0.4 can't be opened in older versions.

Many players with AMD cards, especially the Radeon RX 7600, reported "Driver Timeout" crashes within minutes at launch, even on low settings with updated drivers. Patch 1.0.4 made DirectX 11 the default to prevent AMD GPU crashes. To go back to DirectX 12, add -force-d3d12 to the game's Steam launch options. The same patch fixed startup issues on Steam Deck and Linux with older Proton versions.

Two players whose astronaut walked forward from the moment the game loaded fixed it by unplugging a sim racing wheel or closing its wheelbase software. A third, with only a keyboard and mouse, found no fix.