Advanced - X2CommunityCore/xcom2-launcher GitHub Wiki

Content

• Launch arguments
• Mod configuration
• Handling duplicates (mods with the same ID)
• Cleaning mods

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Launch arguments

[WIP]

Starting the game with different Launch Arguments allows you to change its behavior. Launch Arguments can be specified in AML's settings.

• -review
  This argument is used by default, it starts the game in the "for common people" mode. Without this launch argument, the game will start in developer mode, allowing access to Tactical Quick Launch and Debug Strategy Start. If you don't mind your main menu being a little bit more cluttered, it is perfectly fine to remove the -review launch argument forever.
• -noRedscreens
  This argument is used by default, it disables redscreens, which are commonly used for debugging. The game tends to spam a lot of largely irrelevant redscreens, so it's typical to have redscreens disabled most of the time.
• -allowconsole
  Allows opening the console by pressing the tilde ~ key. The console is a useful tool all-around. Link to article with commonly used console commands.
• -nostartupmovies
  Allows the game to start significantly faster by disabling intro videos when the game starts.
• -autoDebug and -noSeekFreeLoading - see Unreal Debugger.
• -log
  Opens the game's Launch.log file as a separate console application. Can be useful for monitoring logs in real-time.
• -language=INT Allows starting the game in a different locale.

[TODO]

Mod configuration

[TODO]

Handling duplicates (mods with the same ID) (v1.4)

In some cases, it can be useful to have different versions of the same mod "installed" simultaneously. A good example is the Community Highlander BETA that is required by some mods, while other mods only depend on the stable CHL release.
In the past, you had to uninstall the stable Highlander before using the BETA version. It was not possible to individually enable/disable mods that have the same mod ID, because the ID is the only criteria that is evaluated when XCOM checks if a mod should be loaded.

AML provides a workaround for this limitation. This will also prevent AML from warning about missing dependencies, because mods with the same ID are assumed to be interchangeable.

How do I use this feature?

Since this is an experimental feature, this feature is disabled by default. You can enable it from the settings dialog.

Using the mod lists context menu, you can select one mod from a group of duplicates (State = Duplicate ID) as the primary duplicate, by clicking Preferred duplicate. AML will then "disable" the other mods that share the same ID. This is achieved by renaming the .XComMod files to .XComMod-disabled. This prevents XCOM from loading those mods.

After selecting a primary duplicate, the mod state of all related mods changes to disabled accordingly. You can restore everything to normal by selecting "Restore duplicates", which will re-enabled ALL mods of the respective group.

Summary

• Using the AML workaround, it is possible to have multiple mods with the same mod identifier installed at the same time.
• Prevents warning about missing dependencies if a mod relies on mod A but you want to use mod B that has the same ID.
• If there is a group of mods that have identical identifiers, one mod can be marked as primary. This will effectively disable the other mod of that group.
• Duplicates can be enabled/disabled using the mod list context menu.
• AML handles (updated/detect etc.) disabled mod information files normally.
• AML indicates which mods are using the workaround by assigning special mod states.
• AML disables the duplicate mods by renaming the .XComMod files to .XComMod-disabled.

Cleaning mods

The Tools->Clean mods... function from the main menu can be used to remove unnecessary files from the mod folder.

Why would I need this?

Mods uploaded to the Steam workshop usually contain some files - like uncompiled source code - that aren't required for the mod to work. Usually those files don't take up much disk space, but some of the earlier mods ship 16MB of base game code, which does add up.

How does it work?

Technically either the whole src folder (Source files -> All) or only the scr/XComGame sub folder (Source files -> XComGame) from the mod folder is deleted.