Choose a stopping point for a loaded shift
If you want potatoes to remain at the processing station after a break, feed the hopper while it has room and confirm the load entered. For a vacuum cleanup run, the tank is another documented place that preserves its contents. The patch identifies these two locations specifically; it does not make the same promise about every container and loose object in the room.
Identify what physically crossed the receiver boundary. A sack still suspended above the drum is a load in transit. Visible stock in its hopper has entered the machine. The 1.0.2 note documents the hopper's contents. For a clean before/after check, the vacuum tank is easier to observe than a motorized drum that may consume the stock while you walk away.
Official patch sheet • 1.0.2 timer, saves and handling rules ↗
Find the load when you come back
For a hopper or vacuum, look at that same receiver before going outside. For a bucket or wheelbarrow, start at the pile instead. An empty transport container after reload is explained by the return rule; it does not by itself mean the potatoes were deleted. A sack that remained whole at a full hopper never entered the hopper in the first place.
For the bucket and wheelbarrow, photograph the load before saving and inspect the yard after loading. A handful of returned potatoes may be impossible to see in the outline of a huge pile. An empty barrow alone cannot prove a loss. For the vacuum, check the tank before unloading; firing the first burst discharges the evidence you were looking for.
Compare saves when something really disappears
For a reproducible check, use a small, visible load in one location. Note the game version and save slot, save, then reload that same slot and inspect the expected destination. Keep earlier progress intact if you have another slot available. A useful report names the container and whether the potatoes were actually inside it, instead of grouping a hopper, an unemptied sack and a parked wheelbarrow into one missing-load report.
The 1.0.1 notes describe an automatic backup before an older save changes format. A patch note about a newly written 1.0.2 save cannot establish where every item in an old save went. Keep an independent copy before experimenting with a valued shift. Include both the version that wrote the save, if known, and the version that loaded it when reporting a discrepancy.
Sources
- Player report • Bucket and sack spillage at the crank hopper steamcommunity.com
- Official patch sheet • 1.0.2 timer, saves and handling rules clan.fastly.steamstatic.com
- Developer notes • Hotfix 1.0.1 steamcommunity.com
- Developer notes • Hotfix 1.0.2 steamcommunity.com