I installed the new Homecoming launcher. It worked right out of the box. Here's how it happened…
I followed along with Tahquitz's first post, but when I got to the Step By Step portion, since I don't use Lutris, I did it this way instead: on the command line, in my home directory:
WINEPREFIX=~/.wineHCLX wineboot
env WINEPREFIX=~/.wineHCLX winecfg
(The WINEPREFIX allows you to set up different .wine directories, each with their own specific tweaks, depending upon which games or programs you're using at any given time. The default WINEPREFIX is simply .wine. For all others, you need to invoke "env WINEPREFIX" on the leading edge of your command to run it in the desired environment.)
Using winecfg, I changed the Windows version to Windows 10, clicked Apply then OK. Then I copied hcinstall.exe to the appropriate 😄 drive, then moved to that directory, and ran the installer
cp /home/<USER>/Downloads/hcinstall.exe /home/<USER>/.wineHCLX/drive_c/
cd .wineHCLX/drive_c/
env WINEPREFIX=~/.wineHCLX wine hcinstall.exe
(Here, you will replace <USER> with your own user name. But you knew that!)
I went with the installer's defaults for install location. It installed the game with no errors, and even created a desktop icon. When the game was Ready, I fired it up, and there it was. No fuss! No fanfare! Well okay, technically the login splash page IS fanfare, what with that music and all. 🙂
When I want to start the launcher, I just need to do this:
env WINEPREFIX=~/.wineHCLX wine /home/<USER>/.wineHCL0/drive_c/Games/Homecoming/bin/launcher.exe
The game now runs perfectly! But this method did not prompt me to import my files from my previous installations, so I had to copy them over, myself. First, I wanted to keep using my own maps -- yeah, I COULD just pop "Reveal" in every zone, but I have my own reasons. My current maps all live at
/home/<USER>/.wineCOH/drive_c/Games/coh/<ACCOUNT NAME>/maps/
And I need to copy them over to
/home/<USER>/.wineHCL0/drive_c/Games/Homecoming/accounts/<ACCOUNT NAME>/maps/
The first note here is that <ACCOUNT NAME> is where the name of my CoH/Homecoming account goes, the one I use to login to the game. The second note is that <ACCOUNT NAME> lives directly in the coh directory in my Island Rum installation, but for the Homecoming launcher, it lives in the "accounts" directory. My costumes directory was more straightforward however, so it just lives directly in the game directory
/home/<USER>/.wineHCL0/drive_c/Games/Homecoming/costumes
Additionally, I have a few mods that live in the data directory, which I just copied in directly.
/home/<USER>/.wineHCL0/drive_c/Games/Homecoming/accounts/<ACCOUNT NAME>/data/sound/
/home/<USER>/.wineHCL0/drive_c/Games/Homecoming/accounts/<ACCOUNT NAME>/data/texture_library/
I copied my keybinds and AE directories straight across as well. I haven't tested that yet, but I imagine they correspond. I have not yet, however, found the files containing settings for my video, UI, and other Options settings. I do know that they are stored as .json files for Homecoming.
Well, that's it. I tried to make this not very wordy, and I failed. I hope it helps someone though!
-S