For those of you that have multiple accounts...

[Jeebs]

I know some of you have the game on both Steam and Epic. I was wondering how that works. Do you need a separate e-mail address for each of them, or can you have a Steam account and Epic account linked to the same address and play a copy from both stores?

I'm tempted to pick up another copy, but I'd rather not have to make an e-mail address just for that. Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.

[CarpoonSan]

you can add a period anywhere in your email address and it will function as a new one, but still feed everything into the inbox of the original email, so I suggest doing that

[SillyWalk]

Originally posted by CarpoonSan:

you can add a period anywhere in your email address and it will function as a new one, but still feed everything into the inbox of the original email, so I suggest doing that

Note that creating aliases of your email adress using . and + is not a standard feature of email providers, it's a gmail only thing that maybe a few others providers have. For example, that won't work with Hotmail, Yahoo or Apple iirc.

[frumple]

Can you make an alias?
An alias will function as a separate address, but will be controlled from your main account.
You can also use more than one Steam account.

If you have a phone, you have some address tied to it, so you can use that as well.

Not every email address is active. A lot a burners. I have 2-3 burner aliases i use for nothing more than signing up for web stores and the like.

[funkynutz]

You'll need an alternate email address for an alt account. If you've got gmail, just create a new one linked to your existing account.

[Jeebs]

Fair enough. Thanks for the answers. Funky, IIRC, you've got an Epic account and you said it would download another copy of the game unless you did something to launch it from the existing copy... I can't recall what that is now. Can you enlighten me?

[funkynutz]

Yeah you want to look up mklink commands to sim link to the "Products" folder in your Steam install, to the products folder in your Epic install... I still have 2 launchers installed (one for Steam one for Epic), but it saves a chunk of drive space because it just uses the Steam install game data. Also saves messing about with login info in the launcher.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/mklink

Assuming default Steam/Epic install locations, it should look something like this...

mklink /d C:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\Elite Dangerous\Products C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products 

Check your file paths first. There's a good chance they won't match... I'm pretty sure I've missed a folder on the Epic path for instance, but I have it in a weird location and install games to other folders... So... yeah... Hopefully this points you in the right direction though.

Double check everything... It's been a while since I did it. Might have to put the file paths in individual sets of quote marks?

mklink /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\Elite Dangerous\Products" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products" 

I GOT IT THE WRONG WAY AROUND. Epic path first! (link then target). Edited now...

Now for the bad news, and a neat little trick to work around it...

Epic defaults to Legacy, so every time there's an update it wants to download Legacy again if you removed it. I used the method above to make a legacy folder on my storage drive. Epic sees it's installed, downloads live updates without getting that extra 20GB for no good reason.

[spam]

You do need a second email, but you can actually have both accounts on steam. I posted about my experience with it is here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/595136186401426916/

Originally posted by spam:

Elite dangerous deluxe addition is on sale on Steam for $8.74 (US). I added a second Steam account and bought copy so I could have another Commander to do things like move fuel around on my FC when my main is too far away.

Here is what I learned about the process:

• You need a second email account for the second ED account.
  
• The ED launcher will actually run without Steam. Once you set up your second ED account, you can just login using your Frontier credentials.
  
• Switching Steam accounts is easy, but you cannot switch while ED is running, even if you close the ED launcher.
  
• Steam does not play well with Virtualization (did not fully explore how to get it to work).
  
• You can run both accounts from the same install directory, but making a second copy of the ED launcher (in the install directory), and you will only be able to run one account at a time.
  
• To run both accounts at the same time (should you enjoy pain), you can make a full copy the install directory, launch your main account from steam, and the second account from the second install directory.

Here is what I ended up doing for maximum flexibility:

• Set up second Steam account
  
• Bought Elite Dangerous deluxe edition at amazing price.
  
  • It updated by reinstalling the entire game, not sure how to avoid this, but it had no negative impact other than long wait.
    
  • Note - when switching back to main account it also requires an update, but hitting the button appears to do nothing but clear the game for play
    
• Copied entire ED directory to use with second account.
  
• Made shortcut to the launcher in copied directory and renamed it for Alt
  
• Logged in and checked remember box

The only limitation with this setup is that the ED launcher has to be closed before launching the second application. Basically one account is run from steam and the other is run directly from the ED launcher.

What did not work for me

• I was not able to get a second steam account running in a virtual machine.
  
• I was unable to get both accounts running at the same time using the same install directory with or without virtualization. In these cases the best I could get is for the launcher to successfully log in but never actually launch the second copy of the game.

Note - this does not mean it is impossible, just that I couldn't quickly figure it out and tried something else.

Special thanks to @Sighman for hints dropped in previous thread that inspired me to give this a try.

Side note - starting out with a second account and actually understanding what I'm doing is fun in it's own right.

[Jeebs]

I mean, I already have a second Steam account for Elite. I suppose if I need to make another e-mail address anyways, it might be easier to just make another Steam account too.

At this point, I would be happy if they just let you buy extra Commander slots from the ARX store. I wouldn't even care if it cost the ARX equivalent of the base game and Odyssey at full price. I'd gladly pay it for the convenience.

[76561199535677220]

BTW I just switched accounts (in Big Picture mode) and got the 'this account is not linked to a frontier account' error message in the launcher - twice in a row. Switched out of big picture, tried again, and it worked.