Cross-platform launcher for the game Elite Dangerous. Created mainly to avoid the long startup time of the default launcher when running on Linux. Can be used with Steam, Epic and Frontier accounts on both Windows and Linux.
Minimal Interface
No waiting for a GUI to load. No waiting for the embedded web browser to load. No waiting for remote logs to be sent to FDev. For those that play on Linux, no waiting for the Wine environment.
Auto-run
Automatically starts the game instead of you having to click the Play button. The default
launcher also supports this by using the /autorun
flag.
Auto-launch Processes
Via the Settings file, you can specify additional programs to launch automatically. This includes things like Elite Log Agent and VoiceAttack. Processes are automatically closed when the game closes. This means you don't have to run the programs on computer startup or have to remember to start them before you launch the game.
Auto-quit
Automatically close the launcher when you close your game. The default launcher also supports
this by using the /autoquit
flag.
Auto-restart
Automatically restart your game. This can be useful if you're grinding for manufactured engineering materials. Off by default. For the Epic platform, this feature requires either Legendary or Heroic. See the Epic accounts and the /restart feature section for more details.
Multi-Account
Supports running your Steam, Epic and Frontier Store accounts with one game installation. See details for how this works.
This launcher doesn't setup/link new accounts. You'll need to either launch Elite Dangerous at least once with the default launcher or manually create and link your account(s) via the Linked Thirdparty Accounts section of Frontier's website. Linking is only required if you purchased the game via Steam or Epic.
MinEdLauncher
in your Elite Dangerous install location so that it's in the same folder
as EDLaunch.exe
. MinEdLauncher.Bootstrap
is for Epic only and may be ignored. To find your install
directory:
Update your launch options to point to MinEdLauncher
.
Windows users - Set the value to cmd /c "MinEdLauncher.exe %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo"
Linux users - The command will depend on which terminal emulator you use. Examples for alacritty, gnome-terminal and konsole are below.
alacritty -e ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo
gnome-terminal -- ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo
konsole -e ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo
MinEdLauncher
in your Elite Dangerous install location so that it's in the same folder
as EDLaunch.exe
.Either configure the Epic client and use the provided Bootstrap exe or use legendary to launch the game
EDLaunch.exe
(e.g. EDLaunch.exe.bak
)MinEdLauncher.Bootstrap.exe
to EDLaunch.exe
. This step is required because
Epic doesn't allow changing the game's startup application. If someone knows how to modify the
game's manifest file (EliteDangerous/.egstore/*.manifest
), this could be avoided. Please open
a new issue if you can help with this. This also means any time the game updates or you verify
your game files, you'll have to replace EDLaunch.exe
with MinEdLauncher.Bootstrap.exe
./autorun /autoquit /edo
Legendary
Use legendary's override-exe
argument via windows terminal
legendary.exe launch 9c203b6ed35846e8a4a9ff1e314f6593 --override-exe MinEdLauncher.exe /autorun /edo /autoquit
This method utilizes Legendary.
--dry-run
flag and passing the arguments directly to MinEdLauncher
via command substitution
WINEPREFIX=/your/wine/prefix /path/to/MinEdLauncher $(legendary launch --dry-run 9c203b6ed35846e8a4a9ff1e314f6593 2>&1 | grep "Launch parameters" | cut -d':' -f 3-) /autorun /edo /autoquit
get-token
command and passing it to MinEdLauncher
via Steam and command substitution
steam -gameidlaunch 359320 -auth_password=$(legendary get-token 2>&1 | cut -d':' -f 3- | xargs)
MinEdLauncher.exe
in your Elite Dangerous install location so that it's in the same folder as EDLaunch.exe
.
MinEdLauncher.Bootstrap
is for Epic only and may be ignored.MinEdLauncher.exe
by right-clicking it and selecting create shortcut/frontier profile-name
argument + your other desired arguments to the end of the Target textbox (e.g. C:\path\to\MinEdLauncher.exe /frontier profile-name /autorun /autoquit /edo
)You can place this shortcut anywhere. It doesn't have to live in the Elite Dangerous install folder.
The following arguments are understood by both the vanilla launcher and the minimal launcher. Note that specifying a product flag will override whatever option you select when Steam prompts you to select a version of the game.
Argument | Effect |
---|---|
/autoquit | Automatically close the launcher when the game starts |
/autorun | Automatically start selected product when launcher starts |
/ed | Select Legacy Elite Dangerous as the startup product |
/edh | Select Legacy Horizons as the startup product |
/eda | Select Elite Dangerous Arena as the startup product |
/vr | Tell the game that you want to play in VR mode |
-auth_password | Epic exchange code. Used for authenticating with Epic |
The following arguments are in addition to the above:
Argument | Effect |
---|---|
/autoquit waitForExit | Automatically close the launcher when the game closes |
/edo | Select Elite Dangerous Odyssey as the startup product |
/edh4 | Select Elite Dangerous Horizons as the startup product |
/frontier profile-name | Use this argument to login with a Frontier Store account. profile-name can be any name you want. Keep it to letters, numbers, dashes and underscores. See more details in the multi-account section |
/restart delay | Restart the game after it has closed with delay being the number of seconds given to cancel the restart (i.e /restart 3 ) |
/dryrun | Prints output without launching any processes |
The restart feature requires either Legendary or Heroic to work with Epic accounts.
After Elite launches, it invalidates the launcher's initial Epic auth token and doesn't communicate the new token which then prevents the ability to login with FDev servers a second time. To work around this, min-ed-launcher can use a more privileged Epic token (created by Legendary/Heroic) to generate the needed auth tokens. Simply logging in with Legendary or Heroic will allow min-ed-launcher to restart without re-launching.
Once you've logged in with either, you can go back to using the normal Epic launcher if you wish. It will require re-logging in every few days though, so it may be preferable to just stick with the alternate launchers.
The settings file controls additional settings for the launcher that go beyond what the default launcher supports. The location of this file is in the standard config location for your operating system. If this file doesn't exist, it will be created on launcher startup.
Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\min-ed-launcher\settings.json
Linux: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/min-ed-launcher/settings.json
(~/.config
if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
isn't set)
Settings | Effect |
---|---|
apiUri | FDev API base URI. Should only be changed if you are doing local development |
watchForCrashes | Determines if the game should be launched by WatchDog64.exe or not |
gameLocation | Path to game's install folder. Specify this if the launcher can't figure it out by itself |
language | Sets the game's language. Supported values are en and the names of the language folders in Elite's install directory |
autoUpdate | Automatically update games that are out of date |
checkForLauncherUpdates | Check if there is a newer version of min-ed-launcher |
maxConcurrentDownloads | Maximum number of simultaneous downloads when downloading updates |
forceUpdate | By default, Steam and Epic updates are handled by their respective platform. In cases like the Odyssey alpha, FDev doesn't provide updates through Steam or Epic. This allows the launcher to force updates to be done via FDev servers by providing a comma delimited list of SKUs |
processes | Additional applications to launch before launching the game |
processes.restartOnRelaunch | Will shutdown and restart the application when the /restart flag is specified before restarting the game |
shutdownProcesses | Additional applications to launch after game has shutdown |
shutdownTimeout | Time, in seconds, to wait for additional applications to shutdown before forcefully terminating them |
filterOverrides | Manually override a product's filter for use with launch options filter flag (e.g. /edo, /edh, etc...) |
additionalProducts | Provide extra products to the authorized product list. Useful for launching Horizons 4.0 when you own the Odyssey DLC |
cacheDir | Path to directory used for downloading game updates. See cache section for default location |
gameStartDelay | Time to delay after starting processes but before starting ED. Defaults to zero |
shutdownDelay | Time to delay before closing processes. Defaults to zero |
When specifying a path for gameLocation
, cacheDir
or processes.fileName
on Windows, it's required to escape backslashes. Make sure to use a
double backslash (\\
) instead of a single backslash (\
).
{
"apiUri": "https://api.zaonce.net",
"watchForCrashes": false,
"gameLocation": null,
"language": "en",
"autoUpdate": true,
"checkForLauncherUpdates": true,
"maxConcurrentDownloads": 4,
"forceUpdate": "PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD",
"cacheDir": "C:\\path\\to\\dir",
"gameStartDelay": 0,
"shutdownDelay": 0,
"processes": [
{
"fileName": "C:\\path\\to\\app.exe",
"arguments": "--arg1 --arg2"
},
{
"fileName": "C:\\path\\to\\app2.exe",
"arguments": "--arg1 --arg2",
"restartOnRelaunch": true
}
],
"shutdownProcesses": [
{
"fileName": "C:\\path\\to\\app.exe",
"arguments": "--arg1 --arg2"
}
],
"shutdownTimeout": 10,
"filterOverrides": [
{ "sku": "FORC-FDEV-DO-1000", "filter": "edo" },
{ "sku": "FORC-FDEV-DO-38-IN-40", "filter": "edh4" }
],
"additionalProducts": [{
"filter": "edh4",
"directory": "elite-dangerous-odyssey-64",
"serverargs": "",
"gameargs": "SeasonTwo",
"sortkey": "04",
"product_name": "Elite Dangerous: Horizons (4.0)",
"product_sku": "FORC-FDEV-DO-38-IN-40"
}]
}
By using the /frontier profile-name
argument, you can login with any number of Frontier accounts with a
single game installation. Your launch command might look like the following
Windows: cmd /c "MinEdLauncher.exe %command% /frontier profile-name /autorun /autoquit /edo"
Linux: alacritty -e ./MinEdLauncher %command% /frontier profile-name /autorun /autoquit /edo
See the setup section above for how you might run this on your platform.
If you have multiple frontier accounts, use a different profile name for each of them. After successfully
logging in, there will be a .cred
file created in either %LOCALAPPDATA%\min-ed-launcher\
or
$XDG_CONFIG_DIR/min-ed-launcher/
(depending on OS). This file stores your username, password and machine
token. On Windows, the password and machine token are encrypted via DPAPI (same as the vanilla launcher).
On Linux, no encryption happens but the file permissions are set to 600. If you login once and then decide
you want to login again (refresh machine token), you can delete the appropriate .cred
file.
There is rudimentary support for running your Epic account via Steam. Running a Steam account without Steam installed and running is not supported.
In order to authenticate with an Epic account:
Get an Epic exchange code. This part is really clunky and will need to be done for every launch as the exchange code expires after one use.
legendary get-token
exchangeCode=code
parameter. Copy the code before the page is redirected (can just hit the stop button in your browser).Add the -auth_password=code
argument to your launch options. cmd /c "MinEdLauncher.exe %command% /autoquit /edo -auth_password=code"
You can also create a separate shortcut. Right click game in your Steam library and create desktop shortcut. Edit the properties of the shortcut
to include the -auth_password=code
argument. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -gameidlaunch 359320 -auth_password=code
. Then just
edit this shortcut with the new exchange code each time instead of changing your Steam launch options.
You can create multiple shortcuts with different launch parameters. Prefer avoiding the steam protocol handler as it has some quirks that make it more of a pain to use.
Example Target field for a shortcut that launches Odyssey:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -gameidlaunch 359320 /edo
Copy the included min-ed-launcher.svg
file to your environment's default icon location
Common icon locations are ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
and /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
.
Copy the included min-ed-launcher.desktop
file to your environment's default application launcher location
Common locations are ~/.local/share/applications
and /usr/share/applications
You may need to update your cache by running update-desktop-database
pointed at whereever you copied the
desktop file. e.g. update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/
alacritty --class min-ed-launcher -e ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo
kitty --class min-ed-launcher ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo
Debug logging is placed in the standard log location for your operating system:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\min-ed-launcher\min-ed-launcher.log
$XDG_STATE_HOME/min-ed-launcher/min-ed-launcher.log
(~/.local/state
if $XDG_STATE_HOME
isn't set)When updating your game files, the launcher downloads updates into a temporary directory. You may delete these files at any time. The location of these files are in the standard cache location for your operating system.
Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\min-ed-launcher\cache
Linux: $XDG_CACHE_HOME/min-ed-launcher
(~/.cache
if $XDG_CACHE_HOME
isn't set)
You can override the default location by specifying the cacheDir
property in your settings.
Two different toolchains are needed to build the entire project. .NET is used for the launcher itself and Rust is used for the bootstrapper. Since the bootstrapper is only used for users playing via Epic, you may not need to setup both.
Install the .Net SDK
At least version 8. In general, min-ed-launcher follows the latest version of the SDK.
$ git clone https://github.com/rfvgyhn/min-ed-launcher
$ cd min-ed-launcher
$ dotnet build -c Release
$ dotnet run -c Release --project src/MinEdLauncher/MinEdLauncher.fsproj
If you'd prefer a single, self-contained binary, use publish
instead of build
. See publish.sh or publish.ps1 for more details.
This project is Windows specific and won't compile on other operating systems.
In general, min-ed-launcher follows the latest stable version of the compiler.
$ cargo build --release
$ .\target\release\bootstrap.exe
Run either publish.sh
or publish.ps1
depending on your OS. These scripts make use of dotnet publish
. Artifacts will end up in the artifacts
folder.
Note that the bootstrap project specifically targets Windows and won't publish on a non-Windows machine.