1.1 Broke my 6 year save

[sirdave79]

What RicRyder said. I got back into rimworld just over 2 weeks ago and wiped out 2 games and saves id spent about 2 weeks off of work doing nothing but rimworld. I realised what had happened cause this isn't my first rodeo and started fiddling with steam backups. And to be fair I could have worked it back if id been prepared to work hard enough either time. I just figured self directed rage was healthier!

Ironically since I avoid buying games from steam if I can, I've never really used the workshop for mods for any game. Having freshly bought rimworld via ludeon and registering in steam (best of both worlds hopefully) I figure id lean on the workshop. I should know better. 2 broken games and I definitely do.

After the first break I investigated backing up the game client in steam. Assumed way too much still - namely that using a steam enabled copy of the game client would point at the steam workshop folder still AND that subscribed mods would auto download regardless of deleting files from the game directory (makes for an easier binary search in the event of errors). It took the second break for me to say "right the way I protect myself from this healthy rage is removing the steam dependency. Local manual install of mods, sourced from wherever on a rimworld client that isn't hooked to my steam client".

Since I got the 1.1 direct download from ludeon I figured I should go to 1.1 and I could use steam to download and evaluate mods before moving the workshop content to my non steam version to play. Since then I've seen Tynan post a very simple method for downgrading in steam, copying the local files for the game and then removing a steam file to break auto updates.

Because im stupid im still winging it in 1.1 via steam. Next break im promising myself ill copy the mod files from steam and follow my own advice.

All of this is because of how valve does things on steam. Thing is I reckon steam  does things the way it does to make content accessible to people who aren't used to jiggling files around to get mods working. Nothings perfect and I guess this is the price of selling a million copies +

[Bozobub]

a) The Steam version runs just fine w/o Steam.

b) Fluffy's Mod Mamager (if/when it is updated to 1.1; been a few days since I looked) has a handy feature to automate copying mods to a local folder.

[RicRider]

a) The Steam version runs just fine w/o Steam.

While this is true, it should be noted that Steam does not allow you to access your mods if you don't have Steam running. If you want I can post screenshots but you can just test yourself by looking at your subscribed mods on the Steam workshop and opening the game to see that none of your subscribed mods are in the list.

I definitely tried what you're suggesting because I didn't want to buy the game twice. But here's the thing, I did decide to buy the game twice because if I get a refund on Steam I understand that hurts Tynan directly (I'm also a small business owner and know the horror of chargebacks for no good reason). And I'm advocating that people just learn their mistake with Steam and buy the game from Ludeon if they want to play with mods.

Also I need to make a small note about how people are way too reliant for their entertainment options on third party services tied into the Internet these days. Music, movies, games... everything we like most of us have on cloud servers somewhere in the Internet and if the cable is cut one day we'll be staring at screens with no software on it that works except Microsoft Word. That sounds really dumb to me. I don't want a brick.

[ProfZelonka]

a) The Steam version runs just fine w/o Steam.

While this is true, it should be noted that Steam does not allow you to access your mods if you don't have Steam running. If you want I can post screenshots but you can just test yourself by looking at your subscribed mods on the Steam workshop and opening the game to see that none of your subscribed mods are in the list.

I definitely tried what you're suggesting because I didn't want to buy the game twice. But here's the thing, I did decide to buy the game twice because if I get a refund on Steam I understand that hurts Tynan directly (I'm also a small business owner and know the horror of chargebacks for no good reason). And I'm advocating that people just learn their mistake with Steam and buy the game from Ludeon if they want to play with mods.

Also I need to make a small note about how people are way too reliant for their entertainment options on third party services tied into the Internet these days. Music, movies, games... everything we like most of us have on cloud servers somewhere in the Internet and if the cable is cut one day we'll be staring at screens with no software on it that works except Microsoft Word. That sounds really dumb to me. I don't want a brick.

Fluffy's mod manager creates local versions of subscribed mods. See below.

Use Fluffy's Mod Manager and make local copies of any Workshop mods.  This will fully solve your problem, next time.

+1 It's a lifesaver with mods altogether! Here's the steam link too: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507748539

[RicRider]

Fluffy's mod manager creates local versions of subscribed mods. See below.

So people are actually recommending that you:

1) Sign up for Steam
2) Buy RimWorld on Steam
3) Find mods on Steam
4) Download a mod to back up your mods
5) Turn off Steam (defeats Number 1 right??)
6) Start RiimWorld from the Steam folder for the sake of starting it from the Steam folder (??)

As opposed to:
1) Buy RimWorld from Ludeon.com
2) Get mods from Ludeon.com
3) Play any version you want any time without having to mess about with transferring folders anywhere.

You do you but it's still a convoluted workaround with no guaranteed payoff.

[ProfZelonka]

Well, technically, yes.

At first I bought from Ludeon.com and only downloaded mods manually and installed them manually. I use like 200+ mods... as you can imagine, it was very time consuming and tedious to do manually. Plus, every version change meant I needed to update all my mods..

So I activated it in Steam instead, went thru all of the mods for the latest version and installed them via simple "+" click to subscribe to the mod. Open RimWorld thru Steam and boom, all mods are there, just had to order them. Plus, with fluffy's mod manager, I instantly made offline copies of all my mods! So now I just launch RimWorld not even thru Steam but in offline mode [Make a shortcut from file: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin64.exe"] and I get uninterrupted working RimWorld.

The only concern now is, if I open Steam, it'll update RimWorld automatically if ever there's a major update in the future, which will likely break most mods. But hey, I suppose I can always just backup my Steam folder if I'm really concerned.

[RicRider]

I mean I could use Steam just to play RimWorld too but I'd rather use Steam to play other games and play RimWorld on my hard drive but don't let me change your mind!