rfvgyhn / min-ed-launcher

Minimal Elite Dangerous Launcher
MIT License
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elite-dangerous

Minimal Elite Dangerous Launcher

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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.

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Table of Contents

Features

Usage

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.

Setup

Steam

  1. Download the latest release for your operating system
  2. Extract executable from the zip/tar archive
  3. Place 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:
    1. Right click Elite Dangerous in your Steam library
    2. Select properties
    3. In the Local Files tab, click Browse Local Files...
  4. Update your launch options to point to MinEdLauncher.

    1. Right click Elite Dangerous in your Steam library
    2. Select properties
    3. In the general tab, click Set Launch Options
    4. 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

  5. Launch your game as you normally would in Steam

    Epic

  6. Download the latest release for your operating system
  7. Extract executable from the zip/tar archive
  8. Place MinEdLauncher in your Elite Dangerous install location so that it's in the same folder as EDLaunch.exe.
Windows

Either configure the Epic client and use the provided Bootstrap exe or use legendary to launch the game

Linux

This method utilizes Legendary.

  1. Ensure you've authenticated, installed Elite Dangerous via legendary and setup your wine prefix
  2. Pass an exchange code to the launcher by either
    1. Using the --dry-run flag and passing the arguments directly to MinEdLauncher via command substitution
      WINEPREFIX=/your/wine/prefix /path/to/MinEdLauncher $(legendary launch --dry-run 9c203b6ed35846e8a4a9ff1e314f6593 2>&1 | grep "Launch parameters" | cut -d':' -f 3-) /autorun /edo /autoquit
    2. Using the get-token command and passing it to MinEdLauncher via Steam and command substitution
      steam -gameidlaunch 359320 -auth_password=$(legendary get-token 2>&1 | cut -d':' -f 3- | xargs)

Frontier

  1. Download the latest release for Windows
  2. Extract executables from the zip archive
  3. Place 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.
  4. Create a shortcut to MinEdLauncher.exe by right-clicking it and selecting create shortcut
  5. Right-click the newly made shortcut and select properties
  6. Add the /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)
  7. Click Ok

You can place this shortcut anywhere. It doesn't have to live in the Elite Dangerous install folder.

Arguments

Shared

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

Min Launcher Specific

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
Epic accounts and the /restart feature

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.

Settings

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"
  }]
}

Multi-Account

Frontier account via Steam or Epic

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.

Epic account via Steam

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:

  1. 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 a code via Legendary.
      legendary get-token
    • Manually - Within the Epic launcher, click your username and select manage account. This will open a browser. The URL will contain an exchangeCode=code parameter. Copy the code before the page is redirected (can just hit the stop button in your browser).
  2. 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.

Steam Shortcuts

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

Icon on Linux

  1. 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.

  2. 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/

  3. Set the WM_CLASS/Application Id property in your launch options. How you do this will depend on your terminal emulator. Examples are below:
    • Alacritty - alacritty --class min-ed-launcher -e ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo
    • kitty - kitty --class min-ed-launcher ./MinEdLauncher %command% /autorun /autoquit /edo

Troubleshooting

Debug logging is placed in the standard log location for your operating system:

Cache

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.

Build

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.

Launcher

  1. Install the .Net SDK

    At least version 8. In general, min-ed-launcher follows the latest version of the SDK.

  2. Clone repository and build
    $ 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.

Bootstrapper

This project is Windows specific and won't compile on other operating systems.

  1. Install Rust

    In general, min-ed-launcher follows the latest stable version of the compiler.

  2. After cloning the repo (mentioned above), compile via cargo:
    $ cargo build --release
    $ .\target\release\bootstrap.exe

    Release Artifacts

    Run either publish.sh or publish.ps1 depending on your OS. These scripts make use of dotnet publish. Artifacts will end up in the artifactsfolder.

Note that the bootstrap project specifically targets Windows and won't publish on a non-Windows machine.