Feature Request: Option to "Manage Second Instance" of a game

[aggietallboy]

Howdy!!
I use both GamePass and Steam (and SteamDeck). Primarily for Starfield, but also for Cyberpunk 2077.

I would love to be able to right click on a game and "manage new instance" -- I "cheat" to do this today by having completely separate user data folders: --user-data S:\Games\VortexSteamData, but I'd like to be able to do that within the app, by specifying a new game instance.

When I manage the game today, I can only specify the one path per user-data folder. In my edge-case, I would have a Starfield-Steam, Starfield-SteamDeck and Starfield-Gamepass where I could easily manage the mods for each.

Ideally, each of these could also have a space, in the case of starfield, for the plugins/ini files for each profile, as that game has a bit of weirdness in how it manages each of them

Perhaps a section for each category of .ini file/text file necessary for the configuration, or some other indicator to let the app know "this needs to go in my documents, this needs to go in local appdata, this file needs to be deleted if you want to open the in-game creation kit"

Much of the logic to find these folders is already present:

It would be a matter of specifying one of those folders as a target for various files.

[LukeNexusMods]

We will be working on being able to tell the difference between game installations from different game stores. Each game instance will be treated separately from one another.

[MattSturgeon]

I think this is a duplicate of #699. Lots of interesting additional ideas here though

[Pickysaurus]

It sounds like you're describing load-outs, which will be a future feature of the app.
You can also have multiple copies of the same game managed already, there's just nothing to tell them apart yet.

In this screenshot I have Stardew Valley on Steam and GOG as well as Cyberpunk from GOG

[aggietallboy]

That's not entirely​ true 😄 In order to manage two different copies of Starfield (my current use case) I have to use a separate -user-data directory, which is less than ideal. I do not seem to be able to add the second instance to my list of games. It would be nice to have the game instance managed within the single user-data instance. In the case of Starfield, there are "common" files managed in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Starfield and in the User documents\my games\starfield folders. Swapping the game instance would ideally have a set of files that may be managed for each game instance (if that's loadout, then yes, that's what I'm referring to.) [cid:35b2c66b-bde2-4200-b1a1-f1abf8a5df56] When I try to add a second instance, I don't seem to be able to add another, or I just don't know what I should be doing differently. [cid:66708bbf-b2c3-4bea-bc06-1004ead11cbb] Which is why I'm running the two user-profile choices. If there's a better way to get this as two items within the single instance, I'd love to get that done.

…

________________________________ From: Mike ***@***.***> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2024 9:41 AM To: Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App ***@***.***> Cc: aggietallboy ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App] Feature Request: Option to "Manage Second Instance" of a game (Issue #1757) It sounds like you're describing load-outs, which will be a future feature of the app. You can also have multiple copies of the same game managed already, there's just nothing to tell them apart yet. image.png (view on web)<https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9576f3e1-ef49-4b71-a382-6c2655c32dfb> In this screenshot I have Stardew Valley on Steam and GOG as well as Cyberpunk from GOG — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#1757 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACN7UXQ6SYBMCY77IYHHDRLZMPNSBAVCNFSM6AAAAABKZPSDKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDEMRYGY3DSNRZG4>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.

[aggietallboy]

Indeed, it is quite similar. Y'all have done a great job on the Starfield plugin to recognize the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Starfield link and MyDocuments links [cid:21d524fd-23e8-471b-8fa3-ca7f635da347] These all work very well. Perhaps just another modstaging folder as "Game Metadata" or similar, where the files for the game settings\appdata could live, and just like today - push the files over as if they were any other mod, backing up the replaced file and restoring them/replacing them as you switch over the game instance you're managing.

…

________________________________ From: Matt Sturgeon ***@***.***> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2024 9:03 AM To: Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App ***@***.***> Cc: aggietallboy ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App] Feature Request: Option to "Manage Second Instance" of a game (Issue #1757) I think this is a duplicate of #699<#699>. Lots of interesting additional ideas here though — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#1757 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACN7UXT7MH7JTCCC7KZFQPTZMPJDTAVCNFSM6AAAAABKZPSDKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDEMRYGU4DINRRG4>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.

[Pickysaurus]

The app will have the ability to sync folders outside of the game if they are relevant to your loadout. This can include things like saves. It's probably not worthing talking about Bethesda titles until we start working on those though.