Vague apologies for necroing such an ancient thread, but this is something I'd absolutely love as well and is also something I don't think I can accomplish via modding (I'm not seeing any ability to pause the game or even open the handbook programatically). Given the load times modded VS can sometimes have, it'd be really nice to be able to just set it to load then go take care of something without having to worry about being attacked or starving or anything!