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Tried to install more maps via installer. now can't run the game?


YuriPRIME

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Hello, I'm in a dire pickle over here. I've just purchased the new edition of SB (after few years it's good to be back with Steel Beasts)

But here's the thing, after downloading and installing 4.1 version (with latest patches, etc.) I wanted to see some more scenarios, or play the old ones I knew from 3.X version.

There was no maps or scenarios beside Range and Tutorials and maybe some demos, so I wanted to download some maps, like it says in Download section, I downloaded all the bin files and the installer.

However, I have installed Steel Beasts on other drive with more space, not the default directory on Drive C:\

But now, I cannot run the game at all, on the start I get the following message (First attachment)

)aaa.jpg.bcabe42c0847abb9b08607fcfb51e28a.jpg

 

That's it, I can't click ok, can't change the Folder, when I try to I get response saying:

Incorrect path specified

Specified path 'C:\ProgramData\eSim Games\Steel Beasts\maps\packages\' is not a directory.

 

And I can't do anything about it. No matter what I change it to, it's all I get. Can't run the program pass this screen? What should I do? Please help.

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I would start over.  Uninstall everything.

 

Follow the order on the downloads page:

https://www.esimgames.com/?page_id=1607

 

Run maps installer.  Pay attention to the folder you choose to put the maps in.

Download and run the additional maps installer.

Download and run the maps tools installer.

Download and install pro pe 4.159.  It will ask where the maps are, it should have the right location pre selected.

Download and install pro pe patch 4.160.

 

The included scenarios should work fine with no modification, but running old scenarios aside from those will not work out of the box without doing a conversion.  Link below on that process.

 

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You have the default, flat, and Tutorial Map packages in a different location.

 

As long as these files are not in the new destination, Steel Beasts won't proceed and as long as you start it up you'll end in that menu.

 

 

 

If you can't locate the three map packages above and move them to the new location (you could search for "flat.lnt" to find the location, but remember that you need to copy the whole folders, not just a few files), the next best option is to uninstall Steel Beasts, and to reinstall it again (this time, and for the future, leave the map package destination path alone).

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I have this same question (sort of).  I haven't purchased a license yet, but wanted to download and install everything first.  I consider myself very proficient in PC's and installations, but find this very obtuse.  I don't want everything going on my system (C) drive either, so I picked a different install path for the above default directory (first post). 

 

I logically installed the game first, and then the 4.160 patch...apparently that isn't the right order?  Can I ask why it doesn't specify that on the downloads page on the eSim games site?  I then installed the 'Maps Installer'.  I assumed that these are 'extra' maps in addition to the default ones?   Is that not correct?  Are these just for use to make scenarios or something?  Again, not explained anywhere.  So I downloaded and installed these (not the 'Map Tools' or the 'Legacy Maps Installer' as I assume I don't need those??) to the same directory as the other maps (the default one that I redirected) and it asked to overwrite one file I believe, so I did.  I now have two SB Pro PE directories on the same HD but suspect this is not correct. 

 

For all of Steam's faults, I've been spoiled by how easy it is to install and update things (and I love it).  Can everything not be installed to a single directory for this?  If all of the things are required for install, why not have an 'All-in-One' install option?  The Combat Mission games even have that option now.  Surely it's not the slow internet thing still?  I would venture most people now have reasonably fast internet?

 

Also, do I need to install the Codemeter software if buying a timed license?

Edited by aleader
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  1. It is possible to install everything in any order, but only if you don't change the installation paths mid stream. We haven't found the time yet to implement "a self-repair mode" where Steel Beasts recognizes two different iunstallation paths, and then simply moves all the other map packages into the new directory.

    Maybe that actually isn't desirable, as it would substitute the current problem with an entirely new problem that we don't foresee here, which might make matters even worse.

  2. Anyway. There's basically two solutions,

    a) uninstall, then reinstall SB Pro PE 4.160. You installed the map packages later, so the Windows registry contains only the map file path that was entered last (with the map package installer). If you install SB Pro PE again, it will recognize that path, and move the missing three map packages into the right folder.

    b) manually move the three map packages "flat", "default", and "Tutorial" to the new location.

    The "new location" is shown in "File path" of the Options Menu. The old location where you should find the three map packages that the Steel Beasts installer creates (and without which Steel Beasts will not start) is probably C:\ProgramData\eSimGames\Steel Beasts\maps\packages

    You would simply move the folders to the new place. After that, Steel Beasts should start normally again.

  3. Yes, the CodeMeter runtime software is needed for time based licenses as well (but it gets installed along with Steel Beasts, so you don't need to do anything special

We can of course discuss the merits and flaws of the way we wnet ahead. I cannot dispute that when you juxtapose Steam with the Steel Beasts installation, Steam is more convenient. There's no doubt about it.

But convenience is not always everything.

  • We split the installers into a program and a map installer because the program installer will be updated way more frequently than the map installer. In the past the map files, while already making up the bulk of the installation, were still relatively small. Now they are much bigger; of course, in the Steam age where X-Com 2 along consumes 70 GByte disk space the map installer size of merely 13 GByte is only "relatively large" (then again, SB Pro PE 4.0: 7 GByte, PE 3.0: 5 GByte, PE 2.6: 2 GByte, PE 2.4: 1.5 GByte)
  • Anyway, the notion that "most" people have reasonably fast internet is true, but there's still those who can't get DSL or cable, and for them downloading 16 GByte may be possible once, but preferably not with every new patch.
    So we decided to split the maps from the program installer.
  • That there's also the Legacy Maps installer and the SB Map Tools, so that we're talking about four installers in total (five, if you count 4.159 base installation and 4.160 patch) is somewhat unfortunate (and I hope we can unify all this in the future), but we simply ran out of time to refine this. At some point you have to stop fine-tuning everything, and release what you have. End of July, we were at that point.
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1 hour ago, Ssnake said:
  1. It is possible to install everything in any order, but only if you don't change the installation paths mid stream. We haven't found the time yet to implement "a self-repair mode" where Steel Beasts recognizes two different iunstallation paths, and then simply moves all the other map packages into the new directory.

    Maybe that actually isn't desirable, as it would substitute the current problem with an entirely new problem that we don't foresee here, which might make matters even worse.

  2. Anyway. There's basically two solutions,

    a) uninstall, then reinstall SB Pro PE 4.160. You installed the map packages later, so the Windows registry contains only the map file path that was entered last (with the map package installer). If you install SB Pro PE again, it will recognize that path, and move the missing three map packages into the right folder.

    b) manually move the three map packages "flat", "default", and "Tutorial" to the new location.

    The "new location" is shown in "File path" of the Options Menu. The old location where you should find the three map packages that the Steel Beasts installer creates (and without which Steel Beasts will not start) is probably C:\ProgramData\eSimGames\Steel Beasts\maps\packages

    You would simply move the folders to the new place. After that, Steel Beasts should start normally again.

  3. Yes, the CodeMeter runtime software is needed for time based licenses as well (but it gets installed along with Steel Beasts, so you don't need to do anything special

We can of course discuss the merits and flaws of the way we wnet ahead. I cannot dispute that when you juxtapose Steam with the Steel Beasts installation, Steam is more convenient. There's no doubt about it.

But convenience is not always everything.

  • We split the installers into a program and a map installer because the program installer will be updated way more frequently than the map installer. In the past the map files, while already making up the bulk of the installation, were still relatively small. Now they are much bigger; of course, in the Steam age where X-Com 2 along consumes 70 GByte disk space the map installer size of merely 13 GByte is only "relatively large" (then again, SB Pro PE 4.0: 7 GByte, PE 3.0: 5 GByte, PE 2.6: 2 GByte, PE 2.4: 1.5 GByte)
  • Anyway, the notion that "most" people have reasonably fast internet is true, but there's still those who can't get DSL or cable, and for them downloading 16 GByte may be possible once, but preferably not with every new patch.
    So we decided to split the maps from the program installer.
  • That there's also the Legacy Maps installer and the SB Map Tools, so that we're talking about four installers in total (five, if you count 4.159 base installation and 4.160 patch) is somewhat unfortunate (and I hope we can unify all this in the future), but we simply ran out of time to refine this. At some point you have to stop fine-tuning everything, and release what you have. End of July, we were at that point.

Ok, before I go uninstalling everything and doing all that I want to clarify.  When I first installed the game files I picked a new directory path D:\SB Pro Pe.  All the game files (and the 4.160 patch) went in there.  I then changed the next directory (C:\ProgramData\eSimGames\Steel Beasts\maps\packages) to D:\SB Pro PE Maps and they installed in there. Next the Map Installer to the D:\SB Pro PE Maps directory that I created and it overwrote one file (I think it was one).  Will this work?   

 

I don't know if I fully understand, do I need one directory for the game, another for the maps included with the game installer (C:\ProgramData\eSimGames\Steel Beasts\maps\packages) and another directory for the extra maps in the Maps Installer (3 total)?  Also, in an above post, 'Sean' indicates that the Maps Tools installer is something that 'needs' to be installed?

 

As for the All-in-One option, I guess it would be nice to just have the base game install 4.159 and Maps Installer as one install package to one directory, and then just have the patches (like 4.160) install on top.  It's not a big deal to have to download all the files with fast internet, but the different directory paths required make it confusing.  At least maybe give a short description on the downloads page for those not wanting to keep the default directories, and explain where the maps go and why I even need them in the first place (i.e. are they required to play the included scenarios, or are they for creating new ones, etc).

Edited by aleader
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All the descriptions and installation advice is in the Release Notes. Maybe I'm kinda stubborn to expect that people read 'em. But I'm not sure for what reason people who don't read the first few pages of the Release Notes can be expected to read text on the download page. They will just as well skim or skip the boring passages, and possibly complain here that the Downloads page is needlessly convoluted. ;)

 

As to your question "Will this work?": I don't know.

I don't think that I have a good and complete overview about what you installed where, including overwriting maybe one file.

 

All I can say is that the recommended procedure is to run the map installer first, then the Steel Beasts installer (and the patch), finally the optional (but recommended) SB Map Tools and the "even more optional" (as in: You probably don't need it) Legacy Maps installer. In the process the CodeMeter runtime software will be installed as well as other components (if necessary).

If you don't want to uninstall everything (something that will take but a few minutes) you can give it a try, maybe it does work. If not, reinstall then. The time-based license will survive an uninstallation of Steel Beasts (just not a reinstallation of Windows). Just don't purge your harddisk with the God Emperor's CC Cleaner or similar equivalent of concentrated bleach; most people don't know what they are doing, and create more damage in the process.

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4 hours ago, Ssnake said:

All the descriptions and installation advice is in the Release Notes. Maybe I'm kinda stubborn to expect that people read 'em. But I'm not sure for what reason people who don't read the first few pages of the Release Notes can be expected to read text on the download page. They will just as well skim or skip the boring passages, and possibly complain here that the Downloads page is needlessly convoluted. ;)

 

As to your question "Will this work?": I don't know.

I don't think that I have a good and complete overview about what you installed where, including overwriting maybe one file.

 

All I can say is that the recommended procedure is to run the map installer first, then the Steel Beasts installer (and the patch), finally the optional (but recommended) SB Map Tools and the "even more optional" (as in: You probably don't need it) Legacy Maps installer. In the process the CodeMeter runtime software will be installed as well as other components (if necessary).

If you don't want to uninstall everything (something that will take but a few minutes) you can give it a try, maybe it does work. If not, reinstall then. The time-based license will survive an uninstallation of Steel Beasts (just not a reinstallation of Windows). Just don't purge your harddisk with the God Emperor's CC Cleaner or similar equivalent of concentrated bleach; most people don't know what they are doing, and create more damage in the process.

I don't know why you sim guys are always so resistant to simplifying things 😉.  I've seen this same thing with Battlefront, Graviteam, ED, and the IL2 crew.  Maybe it's the nature of the sim business, I don't know.  Had you just said a few posts back 'read page 3 of the 4.160 patch release notes' this could have been cleared up.  The first page of the release notes says "This document focuses on changes since version 4.023 (December 2017) and changes since version 4.159 (August 2019)."  That's where I stopped reading as I'm not that interested in the changes since the last release, and usually skip release notes unless I'm particularly interested in if some change I was anticipating was made or bug fixed. 

 

My process and most people's I believe is to get the game installed, start playing, and dig into the manual/release notes if I need to know something or run into problems.  Human nature.  I didn't have any clue that the entire install process had changed as I obviously don't have any other versions, and I don't hang around on forums much.  My god I even cracked the manual and see the install procedure in there still tells me to 'insert my Steel Beasts CD.' 

 

Installing a map pack before the actual game is not intuitive at all, and is the first time in 30+ years of gaming that I've run into this situation.  I think a note on the downloads page saying something to the effect of 'please be sure to read page 3 of the patch release notes before installing' is not very convoluted or boring and would eliminate confusion. 

 

Rant over, I still don't get what the SB Map Tools are used for?  Yes, I see that it's to 'get maps from the eSimGames map server', but what does that mean?  Is it required to download user made content?  Is it like a JSGME mod manager or something?  Can't seem to find this explained anywhere.  

 

Anyways, not trying to wind you up here, I just don't think it's out of line to point out when something is not as intuitive as it can be...but I started my career writing technical fact sheets for farmers on water quality chemistry and had to always be sure to keep instructions clear and simple.  

 

EDIT:  If I wanted to now install the game to the system (C) drive after uninstalling everything, is there anything special I need to do first?  I freed up some space on my 500GB SSD as I have a feeling this one may have some long load times.

Edited by aleader
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It might not be intuitive, but its actually explained very well.  Which a step above some of the devs you listed.  Even the reasons are relatively well laid out.  I find its the stubbornness of gamers who don't want to do a little work up front to understand what is going on that cause the majority of problems.  At some point, I always say that if you can't figure it out after this much help, you are playing the wrong game.

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37 minutes ago, thewood said:

It might not be intuitive, but its actually explained very well.  Which a step above some of the devs you listed.  Even the reasons are relatively well laid out.  I find its the stubbornness of gamers who don't want to do a little work up front to understand what is going on that cause the majority of problems.  At some point, I always say that if you can't figure it out after this much help, you are playing the wrong game.

You seem to have missed my point completely.  It's explained well in the PATCH notes how to install the game.  Nowhere else that I could find is this very rare install method explained.  Am I some kind of moron then and playing the 'wrong game'?  Yeesh, this is exactly the kind of derisive comments I expect from sim forums unfortunately.  Reminds me of the old farmers I've come across telling acreage owners "if you don't like it, leave!"  A great quote you may want to think about:  "If you think you know everything, you know nothing.  If you think you know nothing, you know something."

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5 hours ago, aleader said:

I don't know why you sim guys are always so resistant to simplifying things 😉

Because it's really hard work to make simple interfaces for non-trivial tasks work reliably under a wide range of conditions, and we are a small team, and time is precious.

 

Quote

I've seen this same thing with Battlefront, Graviteam, ED, and the IL2 crew.  Maybe it's the nature of the sim business, I don't know.  Had you just said a few posts back 'read page 3 of the 4.160 patch release notes' this could have been cleared up.  The first page of the release notes says "This document focuses on changes since version 4.023 (December 2017) and changes since version 4.159 (August 2019)."  That's where I stopped reading as I'm not that interested in the changes since the last release, and usually skip release notes unless I'm particularly interested in if some change I was anticipating was made or bug fixed.

The whole document opens, I made sure that it did, with the table of contents on the left.

If a single opening statement of a sixty pages document makes you immediately ignore the entire document, well, I don't know what to say, except that maybe you should reevaluate your heuristics for when it's permissible to skip the documentation.

 

Quote

My process and most people's I believe is to get the game installed, start playing, and dig into the manual/release notes if I need to know something or run into problems.

And that's perfectly fine, except that you didn't read the release notes when you ran into a problem, you came here -- and got your help; now you react indignant when being informed that the instructions you were after are in a place that you chose not to study. ;)

 

Quote

I even cracked the manual and see the install procedure in there still tells me to 'insert my Steel Beasts CD.'

Yeah, I admit, that's a passage that needs to be reworked. Thanks for alerting me. Future reprints will describe it differently. In my defense, the final details of the installation process were hammered out at a rather late stage, so I overlooked that part of the manual.

 

Quote

Installing a map pack before the actual game is not intuitive at all

I agree. There's no point debating that.

 

 

Quote

I still don't get what the SB Map Tools are used for?  Yes, I see that it's to 'get maps from the eSimGames map server', but what does that mean?

It is for user-generated content.

The Steel Beasts Map Package Download Manager is intended to let you download map packages based on their unique identifier (map UID) which essentially is a hash value. For reasons I explained elsewhere, maps can either be a "base map" or a "delta map" where delta maps, in order to function properly, depend on their individual base map (one base map can have many deltas, but each delta can only have one base map). The entire user interface of Steel Beasts is designed to not bother the user with details such as whether a certain map is of one, or the other type. But since deltas depend on base maps, if you want a delta map for which you don't have the base map, the SB Map Package Download Manager will automatically queue everything that you need for download, will then unpack the map packages into the right location, handle possible renaming of folders in case of duplicates, etc.

Another application (it's the SB Map Tools, after all) is an upload manager (but that one is still in development).

 

If you will never participate in a multiplayer session, if you don't plan to download scenario files (which may need maps that you don't have) from this site or others, if you will never generate a map that you want to share with others, you don't need the SB Map Tools. Otherwise they may, one day, be useful.

 

Quote

not trying to wind you up here, I just don't think it's out of line to point out when something is not as intuitive as it can be...but I started my career writing technical fact sheets for farmers on water quality chemistry and had to always be sure to keep instructions clear and simple.

It's perfectly valid to raise these issues, and I would agree that writing the perfect manual may be an art form that I haven't yet fully mastered (also, my English is deceptively good in that it makes people assume that I have better command of the language than I actually do). I wouldn't mind contracting the maintenance of the manual to a third party, interested?

 

Quote

If I wanted to now install the game to the system (C) drive after uninstalling everything, is there anything special I need to do first?

No.

The complications of the map file locations are largely derived as a reaction to people who wanted to be able to store the map files on drives other than C :

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11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

The whole document opens, I made sure that it did, with the table of contents on the left.

If a single opening statement of a sixty pages document makes you immediately ignore the entire document, well, I don't know what to say, except that maybe you should reevaluate your heuristics for when it's permissible to skip the documentation.

Not true, at least not on either of my PC/Laptop (both with Win 10).  I click the 'RELEASE NOTES' at the top of the downloads page, it downloads the pdf, I open it, no table of contents anywhere on the screen (I can provide you a screenshot if you'd like).  Probably becauase it opens in my browser (Chrome), not Adobe (which I don't have installed with Win 10)?

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

And that's perfectly fine, except that you didn't read the release notes when you ran into a problem, you came here -- and got your help; now you react indignant when being informed that the instructions you were after are in a place that you chose not to study. ;)

Maybe I'm not being clear enough here, and I'm certainly not trying to come off as indignant.  When I install a game (first of all there is generally no issue doing that...I can't recall a time since the 90's maybe that I've had an issue with a game install) I would go to the manual if I wanted install inscuctions.  Not an option here as the aforementioned manual is so out-of-date.  I would go to the release notes with the 4.1(?) release as I would expect that to be where the install instructions should be.  I don't see that anywhere, and assumed the PATCH release notes to be for the PATCHED version of the game showing the changes, as most patch release notes for games are.  If I could see these table of contents you speak of, I probably would have went there, eliminating most of this thread we've been on. 

 

As I've indicated many times now, a simple one-sentence bolded statement at the top of the downloads page stating that it is necessary to read the 3rd page of the release notes for the NEW, very unintuitive install method, I wouldn't even be here.  If adding one sentence to a webpage is that onerous, I don't know how to respond to that.  The install method in the release notes is very detailed and well-explained...it's getting there that I have an issue with.  Again, not winding you up, just saying that maybe what you've landed on isn't perfect and can be improved quite easily.

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

 

It is for user-generated content.

The Steel Beasts Map Package Download Manager is intended to let you download map packages based on their unique identifier (map UID) which essentially is a hash value. For reasons I explained elsewhere, maps can either be a "base map" or a "delta map" where delta maps, in order to function properly, depend on their individual base map (one base map can have many deltas, but each delta can only have one base map). The entire user interface of Steel Beasts is designed to not bother the user with details such as whether a certain map is of one, or the other type. But since deltas depend on base maps, if you want a delta map for which you don't have the base map, the SB Map Package Download Manager will automatically queue everything that you need for download, will then unpack the map packages into the right location, handle possible renaming of folders in case of duplicates, etc.

Another application (it's the SB Map Tools, after all) is an upload manager (but that one is still in development).

 

If you will never participate in a multiplayer session, if you don't plan to download scenario files (which may need maps that you don't have) from this site or others, if you will never generate a map that you want to share with others, you don't need the SB Map Tools. Otherwise they may, one day, be useful.

I will definitely be downloading user-made content and this will be absolutely required for my interests, thanks for the explanation.

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

It's perfectly valid to raise these issues, and I would agree that writing the perfect manual may be an art form that I haven't yet fully mastered (also, my English is deceptively good in that it makes people assume that I have better command of the language than I actually do). I wouldn't mind contracting the maintenance of the manual to a third party, interested?

Yes, your english is very good and much respect to those of you that have mastered multiple languages...I wish I had that kind of ambition.  Not sure I'm the best person for that as I can't seem to even get the game installed properly 😄 

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

No.

The complications of the map file locations are largely derived as a reaction to people who wanted to be able to store the map files on drives other than C :

Ok.  I noticed that when I attempted to reinstall it brought up the previous directory that I created (D:/SB Pro Maps).  I shall just rename that with C drive and see what happens.  

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2 hours ago, aleader said:

I click the 'RELEASE NOTES' at the top of the downloads page, it downloads the pdf, I open it, no table of contents anywhere on the screen ...  Probably becauase it opens in my browser (Chrome), not Adobe (which I don't have installed with Win 10)?

Yes, that would explain it. And yes, you'd be right if saying that the assumption of everybody using Acrobat is on rather shaky ground.

 

As I've indicated many times now, a simple one-sentence bolded statement at the top of the downloads page stating that it is necessary to read the 3rd page of the release notes for the NEW, very unintuitive install method, I wouldn't even be here.

It's a valid point. If I could still maintain our homepage using Wordpress I would have changed that a while ago.

But no, people talked me into "modernizing the page" so it would be "mobile friendly" and no longer look so 2010. Now it is "mobile friendly" and conforming to our corporate design, but I can no longer edit pages because everything is so fucked up the web interface exceeds my level of competence ... sigh.

If adding one sentence to a webpage is that onerous, I don't know how to respond to that.

It shouldn't be, we're in agreement here. But it is. Eventually we'll get around doing it.

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Acrobat Reader is not the essential install that it once was.  I've now gone through the release notes and various other documents in the folder (excellent reading when I'm bored at work).  When I opened them there, the table of contents popped right up as we have Adobe installed.

 

I'm now going to attempt a license purchase and see if it all works...  

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