omsi-launcher | An Omsi instance manager 0.7.0

This tool allows you to have multiple Omsi instances, each with different Add-ons installed, to mitigate Omsi's poor fs optimizations, without taking up more storage space

# omsi-launcher

WIP OMSI 2 game launcher &

manager built using Kotlin

and Compose.

**WARNING: This is unstable software right now. Create Backups of your game files before you use

it.**

# Why use this?

Omsi is optimized extremely poorly for usage with a lot of AddOns, as a single AddOn doesn't exist

in a single location,

it exists in a lot of locations (maps, Vehicles, Sceneryobjects, Splines, Scripts), this combined

with OMSI seemingly

checking your entire OMSI folder each time some UI refreshes the game gets increasingly more laggy

the more addons/mods

you add.

A simple solution is to not have as many addons installed, or having multiple installations of the

game itself for

different groups of addons.

This tool helps you to create multiple installation, without taking up more storage by

symlinking common resources to a base installation of

the game, therefore

each individual instance just takes the space of the individual addons it has installed

# How to launch an instance

Whilst it is theoretically possible to launch Omsi through Steam, it is recommended to let the

launcher call Steam

instead.

# What is "omsi-launcher elevation helper" and why does it request admin permissions?

[code single]omsi-launcher elevation helper[/code] is a tool we use to temporarily launch

a elevated process

for some file system

operations, this is required as Windows decided that it is necessary to be an administrator in order

to create symlinks. People interested in source code can

click here

# How does this work?

When starting Omsi through Steam, Steam just calls [code single]<SteamLibrary>\OMSI 2\Launcher.exe[/code] it doesn't

care what that file

is.

So when starting an instance through the launcher it will create a symlink

at [code single]<SteamLibrary>\OMSI 2[/code] pointing to the

instance you want to launch, this way Steam will actually run [code single]<selected instance>\Omsi.exe[/code]

# Folder structure

Base game: When starting the launcher for the first time, it asks you to set up your "base game

folder", this will

contain the actual base game and addons you want to share between all other addons (OmniNavigation,

bus DLCs)

Individual Instance: Each instance of Omsi has its own installation folder, during the creation of

the instance, the

launcher will go through all contents of the base game folder and create a symlink pointing to the

base game. The

launcher will only symlink files and not directories, those will instead be created and their

contents will be

symlinked.

Using this method addon installers can write to base game locations, without writing their contents

to the base game

folders

More information can be found on GitHub