So I finally installed Steam.

Hooplah · Nov 28, 2019

It took awhile as they said this new account already existed with my email account although I've never installed Steam. Lots of emails with passwords to get Steam to like me then they were happy to take my money for X4 Foundations. Maybe it was a Christmas present I gave to a child a year ago sending her the credits to purchase whatever game she liked. I don't remember.

I'm an idiot with Steam. I just downloaded X4 and am about to click on the play icon. The point is I might go with a few other Frontier games which can only be accessed using a Steam account.

I did not install Steam on my C: OS SSD drive but a secondary SSD drive all about the games I play. We'll see how that works out. Meanwhile pressing that button to play the game telling X4 I'm using a Logitech X-56 gray HOTAS it could care less defaulting to the mouse and keyboard. Oh well.

Regards

Rick6549 · Nov 28, 2019

I hate steam. The new update ruined the simple and easy library interface. And its also increibly slow and it needs to be on all the time.

STRONTIUM DOG · Nov 28, 2019

not sure if the above will work if you purchased the game from steam after april 24th 2019?
personally I have had steam for donkeys years but never linked it to my elite dangerous game account

Rick6549 · Nov 28, 2019

STRONTIUM DOG said:
not sure if the above will work if you purchased the game from steam after april 24th 2019?
personally I have had steam for donkeys years but never linked it to my elite dangerous game account

It works, i can launch ed without steam being open

STRONTIUM DOG · Nov 28, 2019

but you purchased ED before april 24h 2019? (steam and frontier developments have basically had some fisticuffs)

EUS · Nov 28, 2019

Hooplah said:
I did not install Steam on my C: OS SSD drive but a secondary SSD drive all about the games I play. We'll see how that works out.

One of Steam's strengths is how easy it is to have your game library spread across as many, or few drives as you want.

I really dislike the new steam layout, that's for sure.

I did finally activate the elite steam key, and my elite downloads are 10x faster than what FD's dying hamster server could muster.

Speedcuffs · Nov 28, 2019

My condolences.

Para Handy · Nov 28, 2019

CMDR Maylor Rom said:
As a side note, most games you purchase in Steam will run from their respective .exe's without Steam being open.

In general, PC games are not Steam dependent in Windows.

I suspect that the "no-CD key" mechanism in place with current Elite purchases on Steam are their method of ensuring they get their cut from micro-transactions. You have to buy ARX using Steam Wallet for example (and what a pain that was). No doubt they will extend this wherever they can to maximize their revenue.

I have not been able to run Planet Coaster direct from the exe either - just get an "Unable to initialize Steam API" error, prolly the same with zoo and dinos (not got them) - NMS launches steam when you run its exe - so maybe "most games" is not an accurate description any more.

Hooplah · Nov 30, 2019

I've played the X EgoSoft series games starting out with X: BTF in 1999 then later with X2. I didn't go with X3 because I didn't like the direction with the hard coded missions missions in X2. Now we are X4 with a lot more graphics but it is still pretty much the game I played long ago with a two dimensional plane. Programming an X-56 HOTAS for flight the game will take over per always correcting for those two dimensions on one plane. That's OK as EgoSoft never worked on three dimensions but I smile after many years later playing this game again. Fond memories.

After two days playing X4 v2.60 I've already came up with Saitek/Logitech X55/56 HOTAS solutions.More to follow if anyone is interested.
Regards