How To: Skip the launcher when starting Elite:Dangerous - command line arguments

[Pfeil]

Some of this information (I.E. the "Run an Application" action examples) pertains specifically to VoiceAttack, however it can also be applied to Steam, or shortcuts to the launcher directly.

While they do not appear to be documented officially (at least not where they are easily found using a search engine), the Elite:Dangerous launcher supports the following command line arguments:

/autorun	Automatically start selected product when launcher starts
/autoquit	Automatically close the launcher when the game closes
/edh	Select Elite Dangerous Horizons as the startup product
/ed	Select Elite Dangerous as the startup product
/eda	Select Elite Dangerous Arena as the startup product
/vr	Tell the game that you want to play in VR mode
-auth_password	Epic exchange code. Used for authenticating with Epic

These arguments were documented by the creator of an alternate launcher, here, however they are also supported by the official launcher. Credit goes to alterNERDtive for finding this.


What this means is that you should be able to launch the game without needing to interact with the launcher directly by applying a combination of these arguments.

With VoiceAttack, this can be done using the "Run an Application" action
E.G.

Code: [Select]

Run application 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Frontier\EDLaunch\EDLaunch.exe' -with parameters '/autorun /edh /autoquit'
should launch Elite:Dangerous Horizons, and close the launcher when you close the game, assuming that is the correct path to your Elite:Dangerous launcher.


For the Steam version of the game, you may be able to apply these arguments through Steam instead:
Right-click the game in your Steam library list and choose "Properties..." in the context menu (alternatively, with the game page open, click the gear icon on the right-hand side and do the same), then in the "General" section enter your combination of arguments into the "LAUNCH OPTIONS" field; close the window to save the changes

You can then try this action to launch the game:

Code: [Select]

Run application 'steam://rungameid/359320'

The EPIC Launcher version of the game requires a special token that is re-generated every time you launch the application (and passed via the "-auth_password" argument), so unfortunately this method likely does not work for that (however the alternate launcher mentioned earlier might)



Note that I have not been able to verify any of this information personally, as I don't own/play this game.