[tycho1974]

First: Oh my god I love this project. The Freespace games have been my all-time favorite space sims, and to be able to play them again on modern computers with updated graphics and sound is just the best thing ever, honestly. I'm just sad I'm late to the party.

So here's my deal: I'm using LaunchBox as a front-end for my game library. I've got FS2 installed, and I've got FSO working for both FS1 and FS2. I would like to set up a shortcut for each game such that I do not have to rely on the launcher (either wXlauncher or YAL), but I'm running into the launcher6.ini issue. As I understand it, the launcher6.ini file determines which mod is currently "active", and sets the command line parameters and flags for running the program. The problem is I don't see a command line option for choosing another .ini file. What this means is that even though I have two entries for the game in LaunchBox, I have to run a launcher, change the mod, then click "Apply" in order to change the content of the launcher6.ini file. If I don't I will get weird errors when I try to play the game.

Is there any way around this? Is there a command line option I'm missing? Will I have to make a batch file that deletes the current launcher6.ini file, copies in the "correct" one, then launches the game? Am I being too particular in this endeavor? Any help is appreciated, because I feel like it's a simple fix and I'm just not seeing it.

[Nightmare]

1. Use the Knossos launcher ( https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94068.0 ), that handles such things better.
2. If you can't use Knossos for some reason, the info which is actually used by FSO (launcher6.ini is just used by the launcher, not the game) is in <FS Folder>/Data/cmdline_fso.cfg

[tycho1974]

Yeah, this is nice, but it's the exact opposite of what I'm looking for. I want to create a shortcut to launch each game (FSO versions of FS1 and FS2) without having to use a launcher. Since my executable is looking for mdline_fso.cfg (thanks for that), is there a command line option to specify, say, a separate .cfg that uses a different mod and options?

In other words, is this possible:
Shortcut to launch FS1:  fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe -cfg "fs1mod.cfg" (uses options and flags necessary to launch FSO version of Freespace 1)
Shortcut to launch FS2:  fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe -cfg "fs2mod.cfg" (uses options and flags necessary to launch FSO version of Freespace 2)

I have not yet found such a command line option, but I think it would be extremely beneficial to incorporate such a thing, since all the launcher does is gather your launch preferences, then create the mdline_fso.cfg with your selected options and flags. It's a very simple procedure to create one .cfg file with my launch options for FS1, and another for FS2; the problem is that right now, fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe can only look for one specific .cfg file.

[Nightmare]

AFAIK it is not possible to get the game run your specific cfgs...

The thing that specifies which mod you're running is

Code: [Select]

-mod Mods\Solaris
which means that the game looks for a mod in <FS Folder>/Mods/Solaris.

What you can try to (but no guarantee) is creating a short cut; link to the Exe with the "mod" cmdline afterwards like "C/Games/FS2/FS2_Open.exe -mod FSPort". You'd have to figure out how exactly the cmdline would have to look like though...

[Nightmare]

IMHO, I don't see what your problem with the launcher.ini is though. Do you just want to use shortcuts that get outdated whenever you upgrade to a newer built because you refuse to click 2 instead of 1 time to launch the game (because that's what Knossos does AFAIK)? Even if you don't want to/can't use Knossos even the old 5.5g launcher allows me to switch between mods in seconds.

[tycho1974]

My problem, as outlined in my first post, is that I use LaunchBox as my overall game launcher. It launches all my Windows games, as well as all my emulated games. I've got somewhere around 5,700 games in my database, and I'd like to use that platform to launch both Freespace games, without the need to go to a separate launcher to configure each game. I have "settled" on the two mods that I'd like to use (one for FS1 that includes Silent Threat Reborn, one for FS2), and I have no interest in updating to the latest build and whatnot.

So, I copied the mdline_fso.cfg file into two new files, FS1.cfg and FS2.cfg. Then I created 2 batch files, each one configured to delete whatever current msline_fso.cfg file that exists, and copy the appropriate secondary .cfg file and rename it mdline_fso.cfg, then launch the game. The batch files are located in the main game directory. To wit:

Launch Freespace 1 w/Silent Threat Reborn:

Code: [Select]

cls
@echo off
cd data
del cmdline_fso.cfg
copy fs1.cfg cmdline_fso.cfg
cd ..
start fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe
Launch Freespace 2:

Code: [Select]

cls
@echo off
cd data
del cmdline_fso.cfg
copy fs2.cfg cmdline_fso.cfg
cd ..
start fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe
...and Bob's yer uncle. Each batch file launches either FS1 or FS2 using the appropriate command line options and flags as setup in wXlauncher, and I've set up my LaunchBox prefs to use the batch files to run the games. I suggest this method for those players who already use a frontend like I do, and would prefer not dealing with a secondary launcher.

[Nightmare]

Well if it works for you it's OK.

[niffiwan]

You don't need to use cmdline_fso.cfg, you can pass all the options you want as arguments to the FSO exec.  Just add this option as well to ensure cmdline_fso.cfg is ignored.

Code: [Select]

-parse_cmdline_only

i.e.

Launch Freespace 1 w/Silent Threat Reborn:

Code: [Select]

cls
@echo off
cd data
start fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe -parse_cmdline_only <INSERT EVERYTHING FROM fs1.cfg>

Launch Freespace 2:

Code: [Select]

cls
@echo off
start fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_AVX.exe -parse_cmdline_only <INSERT EVERYTHING FROM fs2.cfg>


[tycho1974]

You don't need to use cmdline_fso.cfg, you can pass all the options you want as arguments to the FSO exec.  Just add this option as well to ensure cmdline_fso.cfg is ignored.

Code: [Select]

-parse_cmdline_only


Ah, very cool. That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!