[0.16.7] Multiple users same computer

[spidernet]

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature or whether it's been posted before, but every user on the same computer shares save games and achievements. Even when logged into different Steam accounts. Worse still, any achievements another user has, automatically unlocks those same achievements under another logged in account when first opening the game. Could you make the save games, the achievements and the Steam synchronization of settings user/account specific?

Edit: also forgot, first post, hi everyone!

Edit 2: assuming this is also in the newest version as per forum rules

[BenSeidel]

yeah, Factorio does some strange things with user settings. You will also find any display configuration and key bindings are global. I can understand why the standalone zip install has this behaviour, but the installed versions (MSI/Steam versions) are a real pain in the neck.

You can fix it yourself by using relative soft-links and have them point to the user's home/documents directory (depending on system). Creating them is relativity simple. Just google it for your OS.

edit: To add to the "global things that should be user-specific": stored blueprints

[spidernet]

Thanks for the workaround, but it doesn't fix the bug. I mainly noted this because people got annoyed that they had the achievements unlocked without first doing anything for them in the game when I showed it to them.

The workaround means I'll have to do this on every computer that uses the Steam synchronization and hope it doesn't break, possibly losing all the saves and blueprints in the process. Besides, not everyone is tech savvy enough to know about soft-links or their uses. The few games that aren't user-specific these days do allow internal user creation with each user having their own achievements and saves.

That aside, I love the stability of the game and the fact I haven't found any game-breaking bugs yet (I'll keep looking though). These days that's odd for any game in beta or even one that's released and a nice change. Heck, taking the time during the holidays to fix bugs in 7 releases... That's dedication.

(Feel free to move this to feature request if it works as intended)

[Rseding91]

I don't understand: saves and settings are stored in %appdata%\Factorio which is a per-user folder on Windows.

Are you logging out and back into steam with different users or does each person have their own windows login?

[spidernet]

Thanks for the fast response! The first is the case, I had the same Windows account and different Steam accounts.

Most games that Steam synchronizes have had per-user settings, saves and achievements, but that's not the case for Factorio. I'd understand if that's a design choice, then I'd assume achievements only unlock on loading a saved game so different users can use different saves. The best solution however would be per-user settings/blueprints/saves/achievements, though that might take a bit more time to code in. Both work to prevent accidental achievement carry-over.

[Rseding91]

I see.

The problem is: the game has no way to know if the contents of %appdata%\Factorio are for one steam account or another: the entire point of that folder location is it's meant to be unique per-windows-user (which it is). Except you're bypassing the entire windows-user concept by re-logging into different steam accounts under the same windows user. You're meant to use multiple windows profile logins - one for each person - and not re-log with different users on steam.

Since you're doing such a strange process I'm going to move this to won't-fix.

[spidernet]

Could you at least make the achievements not unlock on first run of the game for all users? Anyway, I understand the reasoning.

[Taneeda]

Hi there, I noticed today the same thing. I am sharing my games with steam family share with a friend and started today factorio in his machine with his windows and steam account and see that all my savegames are synced with his steam profile. In my opinion this shouldn't be done. For example, i checked another game "Grim Dawn" and there aren't my saves synced on his account. So, there must be a way to solve this ...