Game Launcher

[doppelEben]

First of all; I tried to search for "launcher" but most threads I found only had rocket launcher, grenade launcher or artillery launcher in it. There was one thread where a game launcher was mentioned, but the suggestion wasn't about the launcher itself

TL;DR

A Game Launcher that let you configure active/inactive mods and modsettings. maybe even update/install mods like ingame now

What ?

A Game-Launcher that start before the game (or just another executable is also fine) that reads out all the mods in the mods-folder, and their specific options.

The Launcher could do:

mods

• activate mods
• deactivate mods
• search for new mods
• install new mods
• uninstall old mods

config

• configure each mod
  
• maybe even configure the main game
• maybe the keyboard input settings
• maybe the graphic / sound settings

Why ?

With a game-launcher you don't have to load the game severall times just because some mods activated/deactivated and/or updated and/or configured. If I want to play with a new mod and want something in the settings changed; I have to load the game three times first start; then install a mod; second start; then mod settings; third start. Since I only have 8 gigabyte RAM and the game with all the mods consumes a lot of the RAM - sometimes during start-process its 99% of RAM are in usage it takes really long each time that way instead of a launcher to manage/config the mods and then start the game only 1 time. Within all 3 starts all things/loads/unpacks etc are done 3 times aswell; 3 times nearly the same work just because maybe 1 flag is now ON and was OFF before and a mod more. Doesnt really make sense in my eyes; or lets say: it would be great if theres a launcher to reduce that to one start.

With the launcher one could easily configure and activate/deactivate all mods and make the settings, before they are fully loaded and unpacked by the game.

[ArdynLucisCaelum]

great suggestion, was looking for the exact same thing

I have more than 1 factory I have to load the game severall times too on a daily basis
would make it easier if I know which factory I want to play before the first start, I could load the game the first time the way I need, without another restart... would be great!

Maybe a launcher like the one from dwarf fortress, maybe with presets for mods & settings?

[pusch]

I agree. A launcher to set up mods for example would be awesome.

[Vetrosian]

Came to post with this exact suggestion, surprised this topic hasn't had more attention.

Additionally, if the launcher could select save games and then toggle on the appropriate mods for that save that would be great, as I sometimes forget, particularly with friends who are particularly mod heavy, which mods are active in which saves.
(The launcher for Morrowind had this feature, was very handy)

[bobingabout]

Many people agree that a launcher, that can check for and apply updates to the game, and mods, as well as download and install mods without having to launch the game itself, would be a good idea.

I personally have a love/hate relationship with launchers, and while I would love to have a light weight fast loading program that can do all the mentioned above, I wouldn't want to be forced to use it.

Remember, I get to talk to the devs on occasion, and after speaking with one on this subject, unfortunately, some of the devs don't want one, where some others think it would be useful.
I think that's where part of the debate lies, if you're going to allow players to not use the launcher and have the game do all the things the launcher does anyway, why repeat this in a launcher?

[CzBuCHi]

in regards of mods management and settings i think it would be possible to write custom launcher - probably in electron, because fork

- technically "only" thing we need is format of "mod-settings.dat" file ... but that is just another crazy idea of mine

[rldml]

I personally have a love/hate relationship with launchers, and while I would love to have a light weight fast loading program that can do all the mentioned above, I wouldn't want to be forced to use it.

I can't see the discrepance here

I think that's where part of the debate lies, if you're going to allow players to not use the launcher and have the game do all the things the launcher does anyway, why repeat this in a launcher?

I agree to you, that a launcher is only a quality-of-life-feature - but it would be a better one. The game in its current state need on some computers more than a minute to load. Even with the HiRes-graphics the game looks not very beautiful, especially compared to other strategy games (I strongly believe, nearly nobody likes this game for its graphics). With this in mind the load time to start the game is a little bit cruel and hardly to explain to people who only want to play and don't have any interest in understanding the game engine of factorio. A loader which minimize the restarts of the game until we can play it, would improve the game experience in a great manner.

Greetings, Ronny

[betrok]

technically "only" thing we need is format of "mod-settings.dat" file

It is already well described on wiki.

probably in electron

Disgusting %)

[Lubricus]

It would be great if the launcher could auto match and download mods for multiplayer servers and saves.
So then it should handle the server list and be able to switch between different versions of the same mods.The dependency list for mods has only the internal names and not the names you can search for in the mod portal, but the dependencies should of course be auto selected and downloaded.

[bobingabout]

Another thought...
I've been thinking of situations where I have previously edited the mod-settings.json to change a values that have broken the game (modder, experimenting here). Now that the file has chanched to a .dat, I can't just edit the settings in text to fix the issue. A launcher would give me a simple GUI system to edit the settings.


And a scenario I was faced with the other day.
I want to enable a mod, then change it settings.

Load game, Wait a minute...
Enable mod
restart game, wait a minute...
change settings,
restart game, wait a minute...

if I had a launcher I could do the following.
Load launcher, enable mod, change setting.
Launch game, wait a minute...

[CzBuCHi]

probably in electron

Disgusting %)

Agree