Best way forward.

[Lupusvorax]

Hi All. I've been poking around the forums, but must not be wording my searches correctly.

I've bought some stuff on Steam, didn't really understand what I was doing at first, just seemed the easiest thing to do.

I do a fair amount of traveling for work, and as such I don't always have access to premium internet. So I started thinking about offline play, and I'm guessing restarting to buy everything from here would allow that to happen, is this correct.

Also, if I did this, does that mean I won't be able to play with a pal of mine who only plays on steam?

 

[Jade_Monkey]

You can play offline with the steam version as well when you are traveling.

 

Also, you can play with anyone online regardless of where you purchased the game (steam vs here).

[Lupusvorax]

Could you walk me through where the offline .exe is?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

9 hours ago, Lupusvorax said:

Could you walk me through where the offline .exe is?

There is none. Just use the same. exe as always.

 

Do know that if you choose to play entirely offline, only quick and single missions will work. The career and campaigns won't (EDIT: campaigns will work, thanks Yogiflight). This is basically for user authentication reasons.

 

Alternatively, you could set up an ad-hoc network with your phone and use that to log in to the game. Once you've logged in (when the startup screen disappears), you can disconnect and still play the campaign and career modes. 

Edited January 9, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Yogiflight]

6 hours ago, Lupusvorax said:

Could you walk me through where the offline .exe is?

Exit internet, if you are in, then start either Steam or the game and click on Offline Mode. That's all.

 

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

The career and campaigns won't.

Campaigns do work in Offline Mode, only the career mode and of course multiplayer don't.

 

For playing a career in Offline Mode I recommend when you have a good internet connection to download PWCG (Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator) and the 64bit version (Attention, the default version, you usually download is only 32bit, which won't work) of Java, then you can play a career in Offline Mode.

[Ghost666]

I think what the OP is saying is he uses the launcher to start the game and if he is offline he gets an error. so to start offline and skip the launcher use the IL-2.exe file, highlighted in the picture below. What I have done is make a shortcut to this file and place it on my desktop.

 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, Ghost666 said:

I think what the OP is saying is he uses the launcher to start the game and if he is offline he gets an error. so to start offline and skip the launcher use the IL-2.exe file, highlighted in the picture below. What I have done is make a shortcut to this file and place it on my desktop.

According to the OP, he uses the Steam version. There is no launcher.exe on the Steam version, and using IL-2.exe to launch the game is not the proper way to launch the Steam version. In fact, if you do so, it won't recognise all your bought content.

[Ghost666]

Ok, learn something new every day.