[Lukeskywalkie]

Just in case this hasn't been said lately, thank you for making installation and file sourcing and updating so painless.  I remember being skeptical when new launchers and streamlined installers were being beta'd, but having changed PCs a number of times I'm convinced that this tool is the best thing that could have happened to the project for getting new players and keeping old ones.

[Goober5000]

Thanks for the kind words.

New features are being coded for the Installer to make it even better, though for various reasons they're still WIP.  Also, please check out ngld's Knossos project.

[Boomer20]

Just a quick question.
Sorry if its been asked before but does the installer need to re-download any mods that you already had prior to using the installer or will it just see them and pass by?

[jr2]

Just a quick question.
Sorry if its been asked before but does the installer need to re-download any mods that you already had prior to using the installer or will it just see them and pass by?

It will check if they have updates, and if not, pass by, IIRC.  But if you had the mod installed to a different folder (e.g. "blue planet the most awesome mod" instead of "blueplanet"), I think it will re-download it to the 'correct' folder.

EDIT: I could be wrong about that ▲ - it might read the mod.ini and realize what mod it was, but I'm not sure.  Goober will know.

[Goober5000]

The installer will not re-download any files that already exist on the system, if the files are in the expected locations with the expected file sizes.

[Boomer20]

Thanks jr2 and Goober, used it today 
Why i didn't use it in the past is beyond me.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

Been many an age since I played FreeSpace2 but as possibly my favorite game of all time it still draws me back. Now I never did use the installer...always got mods directly and put them in manually but some seem to like hiding even though they are certainly out there and unless you give Google the perfect search words...it sends you on wild goose chase. I'm after some mods that I used to have on my old DELL that I neglected to back up before that computer took a dump (had more vital stuff I wanted to preserve).

I downloaded the Installer jar but can't seem to find the file to open up to make the installer do its thing. Not seeing any obvious click-ables that open the program.

[chief1983]

The jar file requires the java interpreter to be installed.  If you install java, it should run when you double click the .jar file.  I forget if there is still a version available with a bundled custom java interpreter or not.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

Getting JAVA again then since the one I have is so far out of date it won't update itself.

[jr2]

Been many an age since I played FreeSpace2 but as possibly my favorite game of all time it still draws me back. Now I never did use the installer...always got mods directly and put them in manually but some seem to like hiding even though they are certainly out there and unless you give Google the perfect search words...it sends you on wild goose chase. I'm after some mods that I used to have on my old DELL that I neglected to back up before that computer took a dump (had more vital stuff I wanted to preserve).

I downloaded the Installer jar but can't seem to find the file to open up to make the installer do its thing. Not seeing any obvious click-ables that open the program.

If you still have access to the hard disk, I did a write-up on DIY data recovery (read: it's not important enough for me to pay thousands for professionals to do it) -- link is in my signature below ▼

[niffiwan]

Just having a few thoughts on usability...

1) It seems that wxLauncher isn't included in the "Basic install", could we get that added?
2) To reduce confusion, could we hide the SSE/NO-SSE versions of FSO (and maybe even one of SSE2/AVX), and YAL? If you don't want to nuke them completely how about putting them under:
   a) SSE/NO-SSE: unusual CPU support (we could add ARM here as well if we ever start supporting that)
   b) YAL: alternative launchers (noting that YAL won't support 3.8.0 when released)

[chief1983]

YAL and the legacy launcher should probably be removed from the installer altogether at this point.  I am close to a working build for the first non-x86 system I think, on Solaris UltraSPARC.  If we ever got official builds for that platform, we could include them in the unusual cpu section too.  Are we still building the same breadth of cpu support builds for 3.8 though?

[Axem]

Looking at the Steam hardware survey, 100% of respondents had SSE2 compatibility (look at the other settings part). If your computer was too old to have SSE2 instructions anyway, you still wouldn't be able to run FSO because of the OpenGL requirements coming up.

And I think it would be totally rad if that "Basic/Complete/Custom" selection scheme could turn into "Basic/Custom/Update". The complete is way too large for someone to download all at once, especially with a number of mods in the +2GB range. There's no warning for people who might be on metered connections or have potentially low disk space.

[Goober5000]

Just having a few thoughts on usability...

1) It seems that wxLauncher isn't included in the "Basic install", could we get that added?
2) To reduce confusion, could we hide the SSE/NO-SSE versions of FSO (and maybe even one of SSE2/AVX), and YAL? If you don't want to nuke them completely how about putting them under:
   a) SSE/NO-SSE: unusual CPU support (we could add ARM here as well if we ever start supporting that)
   b) YAL: alternative launchers (noting that YAL won't support 3.8.0 when released)

I made a note of these.  The wxLauncher and YAL changes I can do; the FSO versions depend on whatever the build process generates.

And I think it would be totally rad if that "Basic/Complete/Custom" selection scheme could turn into "Basic/Custom/Update". The complete is way too large for someone to download all at once, especially with a number of mods in the +2GB range. There's no warning for people who might be on metered connections or have potentially low disk space.

Good idea.

[webdove]

Good morning.  I am a new member. I had a delightful experience with FSOI2.2.1  with one exception. 

The section for Aftermath:Reboot reported files not found.

I was able to locate the Aftermath:Reboot files using this forum post: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92767.0

Is it possible that the links are just incorrect in FSOI2.2.1 or are those files broken in some way?

If the links are just wrong, am I correct that I should just unpack the Aftermath files in the freespace2 folder?

Thanks very much
Web

[chief1983]

I tested all the URLs the installer uses for Aftermath: Reboot.  I found that most seem to be working, but after clicking the first few, I saw a huge spike in response time.  The Installer may be giving up and considering those to be timeouts.  By the time I got to Visuals2.rar, I got a 502 gateway error from CloudFlare, saying the host had an error.  I am thinking this is an intermittent issue with the SectorGames host.  Hopefully it clears up.

[Goober5000]

Hunter told me that the site bandwidth was exceeded, and as a result he had to switch hosts and enable Cloudflare.  Cloudflare means that the Installer is not going to be able to download files.  So Aftermath, Deus Ex Machina, and any other mods hosted by SectorGame will need to find new Installer mirrors.

[Axem]

That's quite unfortunate. That was one of the great reasons to use fsfiles.

[chief1983]

I am not sure how CloudFlare alone would block the installer.  Do they block certain user agents?  Because I was able to paste the URLs directly from the modfile and get them all to download, aside from the few that timed out.  But those began responding later.  It seemed more like a server issue than a cloudflare issue to me.

[Goober5000]

That's quite unfortunate. That was one of the great reasons to use fsfiles.

Actually I don't think the FSOInstaller ever connected to FSFiles.  It only downloaded a couple of things from SectorGame itself.  FSFiles should still work for manual downloading.

I am not sure how CloudFlare alone would block the installer.  Do they block certain user agents?  Because I was able to paste the URLs directly from the modfile and get them all to download, aside from the few that timed out.  But those began responding later.  It seemed more like a server issue than a cloudflare issue to me.

I don't know how CloudFlare works exactly, but I suspect they incorporate some sort of defense against bots.  And FSOInstaller is, for all intents and purposes, a bot.

Links that will work in your browser may not work in the Installer.  It's for this same reason that the Installer doesn't work with e.g. MediaFire.