I recently started playing the GOG-X-Wing Collector's CD - The first time I played through this game was about 20 years ago.

One thing I remember is that you die. A lot.

Aside from going into the game directory and copying your pilot file, is there any other way of backing up your pilot?

I'm working on the Historical Combat missions now, but should soon get to the Tour of Duty missions.

Any insight would be appreciated!

Not that I know of, even then a utility would force you to exit the game anyway.

There was something for DOS once found on the internet but even then it was easier to just exit the game and backup the save after each successful mission or copy the backup after each critical failure (pilot captured or dead), that thing was probably more made for people that still used DOS computers to play it.

If you're a bit technically inclined.... I wrote a quick little script in AutoHotkey to do this from within the game. You can press ALT+S to SAVE your pilots and ALT+R to restore them.

1. Download AutoHotkey from here: https://autohotkey.com/
2. Copy my script file below into a text document, and save it into your game folder (same location as your pilot files) as "backup.ahk". Be sure to include the quotes around the name, so Windows Notepad doesn't put .TXT at the end.
3. Double-click the script file to start it. (You should see a little green "H" icon appear in your system tray.)
4. Start X-Wing and play. Remember to hit ALT+S after every successful mission.
5. When you quit X-Wing, right-click the little "H" icon and select Exit to quit the utility.

You should be on the Flagship Independence (i.e. NOT flying a mission) when you save or restore, and when you restore you'll need to move between rooms for your pilot data to be re-loaded.

Be aware that this will save and restore ALL of your pilots at the same time. You cannot selectively restore a specific pilot. This shouldn't be a problem as long as you make sure to save before switching to a different pilot -- or better yet, save after every successful mission.

Here's the script file for the DOS version:

#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 10
#NoEnv
SendMode Input
#IfWinActive, ahk_class SDL_app
{
LAlt & s::Run, xcopy *.PLT *.PL~ /y, ,hide ; // Save all pilot files
LAlt & r::Run, xcopy *.PL~ *.PLT /y, ,hide ; // Restore all pilot files
}


For the Windows version of the game, change line 4 to:
#IfWinActive, X-Wing Win95


In a nutshell, what I'm doing is setting up a hotkey sequence that runs Windows' built-in XCOPY command silently in the background to make backup copies of all your pilot files. And then when you restore, it does the same but copies all the backups back over the originals.

This is great!

Thanks!

:-)