2 people, 2 steam accounts, 1 PC

[Grambo44]

I’ve spent all morning reading through threads regarding this issue, still no concrete answer found or clear direction.

My son and I both want to play ED with our own Steam accounts on the same PC. I just purchased ED through my Steam account, installed, linked to my existing Frontier account (from PS4 purchase), and I can start and play the game.

After trying to get my son’s account working, I discovered that ED doesn’t support the Steam family sharing - fine, kind of a disappointment, but fine. He has a Frontier account from our PS4 purchase. Tried to link his Steam and his Frontier but get a “must purchase game” message each time I try to start. So, it appears I need to purchase the game again as to allow my son to play under his Windows login and Steam account? Is this correct? Do I purchase through Steam using his account? Do I purchase direct from Frontier?

Some of what I’ve read this morning leads me to think I don’t have to install another instance, but I haven’t found a clear answer there.

Any input and direction on how to cleanly make this work is appreciated!

 

[GraphiteGB]

All Fdev games digital licences are locked to the single platform...
Xbox license only Xbox
Playstation only playstation
Steam only steam.
Epic games only epic games
and so on...

If you want multi PC Users on the same PC platform Then you have to pay for multi licenses for PC...

You should also set up multi PC windows account with stand alone passwords to keep multi users out of each others accounts or braking other user game saves...

This will require multi steam accounts... so use his steam account on His PC password...

 

[Grambo44]

All Fdev games digital licences are locked to the single platform...
Xbox license only Xbox
Playstation only playstation
Steam only steam.
Epic games only epic games
and so on...

If you want multi PC Users on the same PC platform Then you have to pay for multi licenses for PC...

You should also set up multi PC windows account with stand alone passwords to keep multi users out of each others accounts or braking other user game saves...

This will require multi steam accounts... so use his steam account on His PC password...

Thanks for the response. I understand the licensing per platform, but even on PS4 I didn’t have to purchase another physical copy of the game or a separate license for my son to play under his PS4 account separately from me playing in my PS4 account. Figured l could have a single install on PC and we could play it separately. Guess not.

As I understand your post, basically purchase another license of ED through his (my son’s) Steam account. Great, but will that require a separate installation or will it utilize the existing install?

 

[Para Handy]

......t. Great, but will that require a separate installation or will it utilize the existing install?

Use the same install, just log out one Steam user, log in the other Steam user then run that user's Elite Dangerous.

I don't use different Windows accounts - so the installations are shared, as are the options, game saves are not an issue as the files contain the commander name.

 

[Templar01]

Thanks for the response. I understand the licensing per platform, but even on PS4 I didn’t have to purchase another physical copy of the game or a separate license for my son to play under his PS4 account separately from me playing in my PS4 account. Figured l could have a single install on PC and we could play it separately. Guess not.

As I understand your post, basically purchase another license of ED through his (my son’s) Steam account. Great, but will that require a separate installation or will it utilize the existing install?

You already learned about the hard part, that being the fact that their is no family share. I recommend this video from D2EA who covered this topic a year ago and offered up a method of setting up two instances on the same Windows Desktop. However, I don't personally recommend this approach. It's better to set up seperate Windows credentials for a lot of reason not related to ED.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2oRT-_rxTQ

As far as the limitations of running two commanders on the same Windows desktop using two Steam Logins goes. I have four logins and experienced and tested many of the complications running them from the same Windows 10 desktop. There aren't any real limitations from the Steam/ED side of gameplay but their are drawbacks/complications to running the same installation of Steam and ED on the same User Desktop. The principle of those limitations are the fact that your journal files will be combined. This is only a factor for certain 3rd party utilities that have trouble distinguishing between different commander log entries. As an example, I've where Inara will get contaminated when you have mixed commanders in one journal file. The most annoying of this is that when I logged into Inara with one of my commander logins and updated my logs. Inara mistakenly combined my ships inventories from two different commander profiles. This messed up my fleet inventory but in no way interfered with game play. Inara combined ships and modules from all of my commanders. It took me a while to purge and clean my Inara profile.

If you use Inara then you know that one of their great utilities is the ability to manage your inventory of ships modules on one screen and to verify your ships loadout across stations. I contacted the mods about the cross contamination and they did recommend not mixing commanders but truth be told, it was more of an annoyance not game breaker so I really didn't pursue a solution to this. Perhaps some Inarans here might have some recommendations.

---

On a separate note. If you aren't already doing so, there are a lot of advantages to making sure that each user on the Windows 10 desktop maintain their own login credentials for each PC you have. Microsoft tries makes this a very difficult task but it can be done easily once you know what to do.

It's more than ED and games that can get cross contaminated. Keeping separate desktops will ensure data hygiene for a lot of Windows and web logins that use your windows credentials such as Office365 or OneDrive, Gmail etc. Personally, I don't allow my desktop credentials to link to the web precisely for this reason. Aside from privacy concerns, unless you are extremely tech savvy and keep a mental inventory of where you are in cyberspace, you run the risk of losing track of files and potentially information going out of sync. In my case, I will typically hop between 6 or more different desktops between my tablets, work, gaming and my consulting work during the course of the work week. So believe me, I can attest to the aggravation of getting all mixed up when you maintain multiple identities on a desk top and the web. So I always recommend to my friends to sever their Microsoft connection and operate each desktop as standalone.

 

[Ashnak]

The consoles have a different setup for "family sharing" from the PC. On consoles, as far as I've heard, you can share any game(?) for all the users in your family (or whatever). On the downside, you have to pay the monthly console tithe to be able to play multiplayer (i.e. in Open or PGs).

On the PC, each user needs their own (or multiple - if you want) account with FD (with their own email address), but multiplayer gaming is always free.

As for your setup: your son needs his own FD account, and buy a copy of the game (from Steam or FD or Epic basically). You then can choose:
- get you r son his own user account on your PC for a completely separate installation. Separated logfiles, seperated bindings, separated install files (so twice the disk space required)
or
- let your son share your user account on the PC. That means he will also use the same logfiles, bindings and install file as you do.
Up to you - but in this case. I'd set up a separate user account. Makes moving one of you to a different machine easier, once he gets his own PC.

 

[Grambo44]

You already learned about the hard part, that being the fact that their is no family share. I recommend this video from D2EA who covered this topic a year ago and offered up a method of setting up two instances on the same Windows Desktop. However, I don't personally recommend this approach. It's better to set up seperate Windows credentials for a lot of reason not related to ED.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2oRT-_rxTQ

As far as the limitations of running two commanders on the same Windows desktop using two Steam Logins goes. I have four logins and experienced and tested many of the complications running them from the same Windows 10 desktop. There aren't any real limitations from the Steam/ED side of gameplay but their are drawbacks/complications to running the same installation of Steam and ED on the same User Desktop. The principle of those limitations are the fact that your journal files will be combined. This is only a factor for certain 3rd party utilities that have trouble distinguishing between different commander log entries. As an example, I've where Inara will get contaminated when you have mixed commanders in one journal file. The most annoying of this is that when I logged into Inara with one of my commander logins and updated my logs. Inara mistakenly combined my ships inventories from two different commander profiles. This messed up my fleet inventory but in no way interfered with game play. Inara combined ships and modules from all of my commanders. It took me a while to purge and clean my Inara profile.

If you use Inara then you know that one of their great utilities is the ability to manage your inventory of ships modules on one screen and to verify your ships loadout across stations. I contacted the mods about the cross contamination and they did recommend not mixing commanders but truth be told, it was more of an annoyance not game breaker so I really didn't pursue a solution to this. Perhaps some Inarans here might have some recommendations.

---

On a separate note. If you aren't already doing so, there are a lot of advantages to making sure that each user on the Windows 10 desktop maintain their own login credentials for each PC you have. Microsoft tries makes this a very difficult task but it can be done easily once you know what to do.

It's more than ED and games that can get cross contaminated. Keeping separate desktops will ensure data hygiene for a lot of Windows and web logins that use your windows credentials such as Office365 or OneDrive, Gmail etc. Personally, I don't allow my desktop credentials to link to the web precisely for this reason. Aside from privacy concerns, unless you are extremely tech savvy and keep a mental inventory of where you are in cyberspace, you run the risk of losing track of files and potentially information going out of sync. In my case, I will typically hop between 6 or more different desktops between my tablets, work, gaming and my consulting work during the course of the work week. So believe me, I can attest to the aggravation of getting all mixed up when you maintain multiple identities on a desk top and the web. So I always recommend to my friends to sever their Microsoft connection and operate each desktop as standalone.

Thanks for the information and taking the time to respond with good details.