Official Launch of the SE4 Companion

[Joachim]

Ruatha said:
Hmm, perhaps you can delete those savegamefolders if you don't like them???
That is not PBW files, that ordinary playerfiles....


there is a path.txt in the seiv folder, open tgat and make sure it says
none
and not a mod name in it, if not change that.
The companion saves a original copy of the path.txt but I'm at work now and don't remember what it's called.

The Modlauncher edits the same file, but the modlauncher only switches back when you close the program, the companion is supposed to switch it back after 200 milliseconds.
When you run modded games with the savegame in the main savegame directory, can you still view combats then??
Whne started from the modlauncher?
I though it looked for the combat.cmb in the mod directory.
Hmm, perhaps it doesn't if there is no savegame directory there..

Couldn't view combats with companion, but can with mod launcher.

OK, and here I show my utter ignorance - where is the path.txt (and I mean exactly)?

[Ruatha]

Hmm, as I said I'm not at home now, can't check.

If it isn't in the base SE IV folder it's propably in the DATA folder.
Rightclick on the SE IV folder and select search, enter path.txt and press enter.


The reason you couldn't view combat in the companion was that it was looking for it in the mod folders savegame directory.
Will have to look into how the mod launcher has solved this..

When you start a game in the main savegame folder with the mod launcher, do you then first start the game with the mod and load the savegame in SE4 or do you click on the savegame in the modlauncher??
It's the loading of the combat.cmb that i can't get the hang of if it's outside the standard savegame folders..

This is what I found in the modlaunchers documentation:

Code:

---

To load a mod for a saved game you must make sure you

 save the game into “SE4Path\<modname>\savegame” 

(e.g. “D:\SpaceEmpires4\Pirates\Savegame\”).

Doing that will also keep your saved games organised and 

means you will never accidentally 

load a saved game using the wrong mod.

If you *really* want to load a saved game using a different

 mod, either move the saved game, or just launch into SE4

 having selected the mod on the left, then load the game

 using SE4’s built in interface

---

I'd really like to solve this for the next Version.

[Fyron]

The Mod Launcher overwrites Path.txt any time you launch the game using it, so that can not be an issue.

[Ruatha]

You are correct Fyron. The Companion does the same as the Launcher but resets within 200 milliseconds instead of when the program ends. That is the only change to the SE IV files the Companion makes.

The cause of Joachims problem is propably only the existance of the SAVEGAME folders in the mod folders, if he deletes them then everything should be back to original status.

As the path.txt is the only thing the companion changes I instinctly blamed that one, I thought it hadn't resetted it to original state.

[Joachim]

Ruatha said:
You are correct Fyron. The Companion does the same as the Launcher but resets within 200 milliseconds instead of when the program ends. That is the only change to the SE IV files the Companion makes.

The cause of Joachims problem is propably only the existance of the SAVEGAME folders in the mod folders, if he deletes them then everything should be back to original status.

As the path.txt is the only thing the companion changes I instinctly blamed that one, I thought it hadn't resetted it to original state.

Yep, it appears that by deleting the savegame folders in the mod folders there is no longer a problem. Please note that non of my comments are designed to denigrate the excellent work you have done with the companion. I simply dont have the time to learn how to use what is inevitably a great game aid.
Cheers, Ruatha.

[Captain Kwok]

I've noticed that the companion will keep old mods in its list when the folders themselves have been deleted - is there a way to remove the old entries within the program? I think I tried to delete the mod from using the companion but got an error since the folder no longer existed. I also noticed the companion keeps track of the mods (with a number reference) in a .ini file - can I just remove those and I guess re-number the ones afterwards?

[Ruatha]

Captain Kwok said:
I've noticed that the companion will keep old mods in its list when the folders themselves have been deleted - is there a way to remove the old entries within the program? I think I tried to delete the mod from using the companion but got an error since the folder no longer existed. I also noticed the companion keeps track of the mods (with a number reference) in a .ini file - can I just remove those and I guess re-number the ones afterwards?

Hi.
Ni, that won't work.
To make a mod invisible in the companion one should press the "mod button" above the mod list or the "mod button" in the settings and then disable that mod, it won't remove it though...
If it's deleted that can't happen, as you've discovered.
I'm sorry but in your situation there are only two ways to solve it:

1) Recreate that mod directory and make a modinfo.txt file there (Copy from someother mod) and then disable it in the companion (Disabled mods don't show up in the list), or delete it from the companion.
or
2) delete the companion.ini and companion.gdb in the companion_resource directory and then restart the program. A lesser operation is to only delete the companion.gdb and then the mods you don't need in the ini file, renumbering them and adding a new total, at restart it will recreate the companion.gdb (database).

I'd reccommend deleting the ini and gdb altogether..
Will have a better fix for this in the next Version I hope, so that it auto deletes non exisiting mod items from the ini and database.

Right now changing the ini and not deleting the database (.GDB) will make all games switch mods in the companions eyes, as the database contains the mod number for each game that references the mod numbers in the ini file.

[Fyron]

Please modify the companion to allow us to specify a location to store the downloaded savegame zip files for each game, rather than having to save them in the Savegame folder (which is a terrible place for archives...). Without this, the RTC-like functionality is 100% useless to me, and many others that like archiving their savegame files...