Two CMDRs, Two Computers

Old Duck

Old Duck
I have a question.

Having recently acquired a used laptop for free, I went ahead and bought a second ED account for the primary purpose of having a copilot keep Old Duck company (multicrew). I know, that's silly, but it cost me about the same amount as the cosmetics for my fleet carrier, so hey. 🤷

My question is, can I easily swap my two CMDRs between my two computers? Both copies of ED were bought using different Steam accounts, so what I picture doing is signing out of one Steam account and into my other on my good laptop (and vice-versa), which in theory would also swap CMDRs. The reason is simple - one laptop is a gaming laptop able to run ED with ultra settings, the other is a cheap "barely runs ED in low settings" laptop. While my alt is primarily eye-candy, I do want to level this alt up at least a little bit. Conversely, when Old Duck is doing nothing more than jumping a fleet carrier every 20 minutes, I see no reason to tie up my good laptop for this. I might as well put CMDR Duck on the cheap laptop for the duration of long carrier trips.

I also assume that graphic settings and keybinds stay with the laptop, which is what I want. However, what about things like the visited star cache? Perhaps if I create a separate Windows account for each CMDR, this would separate these locally stored settings, journal files, etc. It might also separate Steam login credentials, yes? Hmmm, maybe this is the way to go. The one worry I have about this is that one Steam account might clobber the other...

What are your thoughts? Has anyone successfully played your CMDR from different computers in your house? How does Steam handle multiple Windows accounts on the same computer? Anybody with experience in any of this, please advise. Thanks!
 

Terekhov

Terekhov
I have two commanders, both 'steam only' accounts, purchased within the last seven months.

I use both on the same computer. I just don't allow the steam client to save my password, and log in with the appropriate credentials for each session.

Steamguard does not get in the way. Once you've been through Steamguard on a computer, it remembers the trusted status, so it's just username/password to flip logins.

Graphics//bindings etc are shared between the accounts on that PC, as are the game files...

I too have a seocnd PC that I keep meaning to have running at the same time as my main PC but apart from one brief login with that have not had a chance to pursue that... That logon didnt seem to affect the ability of my primary system to switch accounts...
 
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gooddoc

gooddoc
When I bought my 2nd account a couple of years back, I had to contact Support, as I'd bought it again under the same address.
Once that was sorted out, yes I played ED on two seperate laptops from the same household server.
I've even got the two accounts set on one laptop - but obviously it won't let me play two accounts on one laptop at the same time. I can't recall exactly how, but i'v got two different named 'start-up' icons for each account.
However I'v not used Steam on either account, I bought direct from the Store
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
McKeon said:
I have two commanders, both 'steam only' accounts, purchased within the last seven months.

I use both on the same computer. I just don't allow the steam client to save my password, and log in with the appropriate credentials for each session.

Steamguard does not get in the way. Once you've been through Steamguard on a computer, it remembers the trusted status, so it's just username/password to flip logins.

Graphics//bindings etc are shared between the accounts on that PC, as are the game files...
Click to expand...
So you're using a single Windows account for both Steam accounts? I don't mind Graphics and bindings being shared (they are machine-specific anyway), but I am worried about my journey getting all messed up by being shared between two CMDRs. The star cache is less important, as long as it's shared and not overwritten. I depend heavily on the "Visited Stars" filter in the Galaxy Map when I'm out exploring. Having two separate Windows accounts should solve this problem, but I don't want Steam storing two separate copies of ED on each computer...
 

gooddoc

gooddoc
Just quickly had a glance. I've created a different named folder, to launch the EDlaunch.exe command for each account.Each with it's own start icon & taskbar icon.

Added: I thought I'd seen posts in the past refering to starting up ED without going from Steam.
 
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Terekhov

Terekhov
One windows Logon
Two steam accounts
Single Standalone voice attack and EDDI plugin
Single Oculus client installed...

I login to Windows.
start a batch file that starts VA (and respawns it silently if VA crashes due to issued with EDDI)
Start Steam client or click on one of two links that I have (one for VR elite [modt of my serious play /missions], one for 2D [non game critical odds and ends, maybe a quick mat gathering expo on a planet, or outfitting/engineering))

Log into steam clent with one or other set of credentials.
If need be launch ED from steam, or interact with Steam client or ED launcher product flavour settings...

Play....

At the moment, my second commander is doing Drew Wagar's extended lore tour. On Thursdays I start using that account... Play the stream, Over the next day or two do a proper exploration/scan run to the next waypoint, park up somewhere safe. Close steam client (or logout steam client). then without necessarily logging out of Winfows, reatart Steam client with primmarly commander logon (or just log in as him) and play until the next lore tour stream as that identity.

Thhere are some days when I flip flop between both commanders a few times, withi the same Windows logon session, just switching steam credentials...

Smooth to do, but no way to save both sets of creds.. You need to reneter the userna,e and password manually each flip (although as my two usernames are the same bar one character, I merely need to correct that character un the username, and enter the full password.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
@McKeon Do you use third-party tools that rely on accurate journal logs, and if so, how does sharing two CMDRs on one Windows account affect these logs?
 

Terekhov

Terekhov
Oh, I should also say that I have Inara linked to both Commanders' Frontier data, with no cross contamination issues... Again, I just switch Inara logon to whiever commande I'm working with.
 

Terekhov

Terekhov
The Journal logs appear to contain the Commander name... The only on-pc data tool I use is EDDI (for the VA plugin) and that does not have access to any web based sources. I believe it gets what it needs from the journals and does not seem to get confused. The only thing there (that I have realised) might be the manually entered Commander name in the EDDI client.
 

Cmdr Nimineza

Cmdr Nimineza
So you use your second account for multicrew and the extra pip? Doesn't this feel a bit cheaty to you? Hopefully you are not into competitive pvp...
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
McKeon said:
The Journal logs appear to contain the Commander name... The only on-pc data tool I use is EDDI (for the VA plugin) and that does not have access to any web based sources. I believe it gets what it needs from the journals and does not seem to get confused. The only thing there (that I have realised) might be the manually entered Commander name in the EDDI client.
Click to expand...
Well... I'm still not thrilled with this idea. I may use my second laptop to experiment with multiple Windows accounts, each with their own Steam credentials, to see how it works. This would separate the journals. And if something goes wrong, CMDR Jenny doesn't have any data yet to lose.

Though this does bring up a different issue - I would need to merge journal data that would end up being spread across two computers... Hmmm. Well, that won't be too hard.
 

thistle

T
Old Duck said:
Steam doesn't work that way. :(
Click to expand...
I think it does, you don't need to use steam to launch the game, all steam does is call the launcher but its the same launcher. So you can create shortcuts for each account on one pc and it calls the same launcher (steam or otherwise) and passes in the correct commander account.

Whether that messes up locally held info like visited stars, no idea. They both use the same graphics/bindings files etc, so I imagine they will use the same files.
 

Codger

Codger
I have 3 accounts, but only one Steam account. I launch the launcher from Steam, then in the Options menu I "log out". This gives me 2 buttons at the bottom "Steam Login" and "Login". I hit Login, and enter my email and password for the account I wish to play.

This works on both my machines, but Steam will sometimes complain if I have it open on 2 computers, so I have to close the launcher and then I can exit Steam.

However, I did buy all my accounts before this whole "Steam Login" stuff was added, and from what I've heard accounts that were purchased after that work a bit differently.

Still, you can try it :)

EDEngineer handles multiple commanders, no issues. EDMC kinda does, but you have to remember to switch off the feed to EDSM or Inara if you're using those. That's all I've used.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
thistle said:
I think it does, you don't need to use steam to launch the game, all steam does is call the launcher but its the same launcher.
Click to expand...
Only if you bought ED before a certain date. It doesn't work that way for us who bought ED recently through Steam (there's a thread out there about it if you're interested in the details).
 

gooddoc

gooddoc
When it comes to data journal files, yes EDDiscovery keeps each cmdr seperate, however I've stopped using that program, it really slows down my laptop & never seems to completely sync all the files with EDSM.
I manually input my journal files into EDSM every day or two...much quicker I find.
 
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