TF2Idle - An easier way to idle

[iviv]

[QUOTE=hornypinecone;36598662]Has anyone made a step by step tutorial on how to do this yet? Just wondering.[/QUOTE]

I'll do one once I'm certain I've got mine up and running.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/tYjD6.jpg[/url]

That's what I've got with one of my servers. Is that all correct and working? The fact that it says VAC is disabled makes me think that something is wrong, though I don't know what.

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=iviv;36610784]I'll do one once I'm certain I've got mine up and running.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/tYjD6.jpg[/url]

That's what I've got with one of my servers. Is that all correct and working? The fact that it says VAC is disabled makes me think that something is wrong, though I don't know what.[/QUOTE]

disabled VAC is fine, but your Steam library failing to load is probably not. Although I get this sometimes, and terminating and restarting the accounts works.

[editline]3rd July 2012[/editline]

Not sure if this feature will be useful to some of you..

[IMG]http://s14.postimage.org/q3qcmz3kx/webidle.png[/IMG]

[iviv]

[QUOTE=Moussekateer;36610867]disabled VAC is fine, but your Steam library failing to load is probably not. Although I get this sometimes, and terminating and restarting the accounts works.[/QUOTE]

Hmm, just restarted and its still the same. Ah well, I'll run it overnight, see if anything drops.

With regards to the TF2Idle item logging, which is the best backpack viewer to use? If I select Steam, that's the one that needs the API key, which I can't do on my idle accounts as they don't have any games.
The other options just leave me without a clue which to select. I currently have tf2items selected as that's what I usually use for looking at backpacks. But if I go into the drop log view and click 'add accounts' I get warned that my API key is not valid. Does this mean I need an API key on each account if I want to log the drops?

Sorry for all these questions, though I hope once I have the answers I can make a nice detailed post for others to use :D

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=iviv;36611068]Hmm, just restarted and its still the same. Ah well, I'll run it overnight, see if anything drops.

With regards to the TF2Idle item logging, which is the best backpack viewer to use? If I select Steam, that's the one that needs the API key, which I can't do on my idle accounts as they don't have any games.
The other options just leave me without a clue which to select. I currently have tf2items selected as that's what I usually use for looking at backpacks. But if I go into the drop log view and click 'add accounts' I get warned that my API key is not valid. Does this mean I need an API key on each account if I want to log the drops?

Sorry for all these questions, though I hope once I have the answers I can make a nice detailed post for others to use :D[/QUOTE]

It doesn't matter what viewer you use, you will need an API key to use the drop logging functionality. The program uses the API key to directly check your backpack for new items through Valve's servers. Your backpack viewer choice only affects which site it will open up to inspect the item on their viewer, nothing more.

[iviv]

[QUOTE=Moussekateer;36611248]It doesn't matter what viewer you use, you will need an API key to use the drop logging functionality. The program uses the API key to directly check your backpack for new items through Valve's servers. Your backpack viewer choice only affects which site it will open up to inspect the item on their viewer, nothing more.[/QUOTE]

Aah, I see. Time to buy an indie bundle to get some API keys for them! Though if I'm idling with 4 accounts, the only place to enter the API key is in the main TF2Idle settings screen, which is account independent. Or does it simply need a valid API key for any account to check any other backpacks? So I could get a key for my main account, stick that API key in and it can track these new idle accounts?

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=iviv;36611385]Aah, I see. Time to buy an indie bundle to get some API keys for them! Though if I'm idling with 4 accounts, the only place to enter the API key is in the main TF2Idle settings screen, which is account independent. Or does it simply need a valid API key for any account to check any other backpacks? So I could get a key for my main account, stick that API key in and it can track these new idle accounts?[/QUOTE]

You can get an API key from [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/dev"]here[/URL]. It is associated with your Steam account but you can use it to check anyones backpack and to use any of Steam APIs, not just yours.

[iviv]

[b]Complete guide to using TF2Idle[/b]

First of all, you will need:
Steam accounts to idle on. You can create new accounts [url=https://store.steampowered.com/join/?]here[/url].
[url=http://www.sandboxie.com/]Sandboxie[/url] so you can run multiple Steam accounts. A full version is needed to run multiple sandboxes.
(optional) A Steam [url=http://steamcommunity.com/dev]Dev API key[/url] for an account which contains a purchased game. This will be used to access steam backpacks so you can see your drops happening.

All my instructions are written assuming you will be running 8 idle accounts, and are running Windows 7. XP and earlier OSs do not have the mklink command available for making the symlinks needed to save a ton of hard drive space. I've also written it assuming you have Steam installed in c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam and you put all your idle steam copies in C:\idle if you have these in different places, you will need to change the below info accordingly.

Preparations:

Firstly, you need Steam installed and TF2 downloaded and playable. If you're idling then you no doubt already have an active account and play the game, so will already have this.
(I'm not sure if these parts are needed, but I saw that tf2idle checked for an idle.cfg so I did some googling and found this:)
Go to your steamapps\username\team fortress 2\tf\cfg folder and create a new text file. Name it idle.cfg (Make sure it isn't idle.cfg.txt turn on the showing of file extensions if you aren't sure, google if you need to know how) and paste in the following:

fps_max 30
r_rootlod 2
r_lod 2
mat_picmip 2
threadpool_affinity 0
mat_aaquality 0
mat_bumpmap 0
mat_antialias 0
mat_reducefillrate 1
mat_specular 0
r_shadowrendertotexture 0
r_waterforceexpensive 0
mat_hdr_level 0
mat_hdr_enabled 0
mat_hdr_level 0
mat_hdr_manual_tonemap_rate 0
mat_aaquality 0
mat_use_compressed_hdr_textures 0
mat_disable_bloom 1
mat_bloomscale 0

Also, open up your server.cfg and add the following:

hostname "Valve Loves Idlers"
fps_max 30
rcon_password typeapasswordhere
sv_password typeapasswordhere
sv_minrate 13000
sv_maxrate 13000
sv_minupdaterate 20
sv_maxupdaterate 20
sv_mincmdrate 20
sv_maxcmdrate 20
sv_region 255
mp_waitingforplayers_cancel 1
mp_disable_respawn_times 1
mp_timelimit 9999
mp_allowspectators 1
mp_idledealmethod 0
mp_idlemaxtime 9999
sv_pure 2

*End of possibly unneeded stuff*

In your steamapps folder, create a new folder containing the username of each account you are going to idle with. Go into your original one, and copy the 'team fortress 2' folder, and paste it into each of these named folders.

Create a folder to contain all the copies of steam needed for the sandboxes. For me, I simply made a folder in the root, c:\idle
In this folder, create a new folder, and give it a simple name with a number at the end to help differentiate it. I named mine steam1 to steam8. Into the steam1 folder, copy the contents of your normal Steam folder, minus the steamapps folder, as that will be a huge folder. Once you have the steam1 folder, I simply copy+pasted it 7 more times into the folder, renaming each folder so I had 8 steam folders.
Each of these folders needs a symlink to your steamapps folder. This makes it appear that there is a copy of the steamapps folder in each of these steam installs, when in fact they are all automatically redirected to your base steam install. This means that you don't need 8 copies of the ~10Gb of TF2 files for each sandbox.
Open up a command prompt (Not sure if you need admin rights, but run it as an admin just in case), and navigate to the first idle steam folder (c:\idle\steam1 for me)
Once there type the following:
mklink /D steamapps "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steamapps"

Now if you go to the steam1 folder, you will see what appears to be a shortcut to the steamapps folder, double click it and you go there, but the address bar still shows it as being in the steam1 folder, which is what we want.
You will need to repeat this for each idle steam folder you have, you can't simply copy+paste the steamapps symlink. Use the command prompt to go to the steam2 folder, run the mklink again, and so on for all the idle accounts you want.

Now all that is prepared, you need to install Sandboxie, which is a program that will allow us to run multiple instances of Steam. Once installed, on the menu go Sandbox>Create new sandbox. Give it a name, don't bother copying the settings.
Once created, right click it and go to Sandbox Settings.
In there, you need to go to the restrictions>Drop Rights option, and unsure it is [b]unchecked[/b]
Next go to the Resource Access>File Access>Full Access, and add the root folder of the drive that contains Steam, and the drive which will contain all the sandbox files (If they are both on the same drive then you don't need to add it twice)
Now, create more sandboxes, one for each account you will be idling with. With these, copy the settings from one of your previously made sandboxes so you don't need to go into the settings for each one. Giving them all simple names is strongly advised.

Finally, run TF2Idle. I put it into c:\idle so I had everything in the same place, but it doesn't matter where it goes. Its a stand alone exe, no installing, though it does make its own cfg file, and will make error files to check if there are problems, so its nice to have it separated.
Hit the 'add account' button and it will bring up a simple screen. Your steam username and password are self explanatory. You will need to log into the [url=steamcommunity.com/]Steam community[/url] page with each account to create a vanity ID, which is required for item tracking.
In the Sandbox Name, this needs to be the name of one of the sandboxes you created earlier in sandboxie. The sandbox path needs to be the root directory of one of the idle steam folders you created. For instance C:\idle\Steam1
You don't need any of the other options, so just hit ok and your account will be listed there. Repeat this process for each account you want to idle with, remembering you need a different sandbox name and sandbox path for each account.

Once all the account settings have been made, in TF2Idle go file>settings
In the TF2 tab, the steam install location and sandboxie install location should have been filled automatically, but point it the right way if not. Enter the Steam API key obtained right at the top to allow you to track the drops into all of your accounts. The API key can be from any account, it just needs to have a game tied to it to be able to generate the key.
The backpack viewer is optionally used as a way to view details on an item that has dropped. Leave the idle launch settings how it is, and I would advise increasing the account launch delay to ~120 seconds, as this gives each account time to create a server and get through any CPU/ram intensive tasks before the next one tries. And you aren't going to miss a couple of minutes not idling.
Any other settings are optional. In the TF2Idle tab you can select to encript the config file, as this otherwise contains the steam account usernames and passwords in plaintext.

And you're done! For the first time running, I would select one account at a time (orange icon if selected, grey if not by default), and hit the 'start idling' button. This will launch steam through sandboxie, and you will eventually get a command prompt full of text as the game runs in text mode. For reference, mine looks [url=http://i.imgur.com/tYjD6.jpg]like this[/url]. The important thing is that it contains the '<account name> connected' line near the bottom, as this shows you have connected fine. Once it looks ok, unselect the first and select the second, and start idling again (You don't need to close the first one). Repeat this for all of the accounts, until they are all idling. Once they started up ok, next time you can just select them all and hit the start idling button and it will do all this automatically, but for the first time I find it better to start them manually so you can spot any problems.

Once they are all idling you can hit the 'terminate sandbox' to obviously stop them idling.
Otherwise, you can hit the 'drop log view' to see the drops, though first you will need to click 'add accounts'. This should bring up a message for each account confirming that it has started logging the drops. Then you can sit back and watch as the list slowly fills up with all your free items.
And now you're idling!

References:
[url=http://facepunch.com/threads/805043]This thread[/url] for the .cfg contents

Questions or comments? Ask here! Everything I've just posted comes from searching various forums and threads trying to work out how exactly to get this working, so I hope this proves useful to some of you. And in the end, all credit goes to Moussekateer for actually making TF2Idle in the first place!
And remember, free TF2 accounts can only find weapons, no hats. And you can't trade either, you'll need to buy a copy of TF2/buy something from the Mann Co store if you want to get the top drops and start shifting them over to your main account.

Here's some pictures of my setup:
[url]http://i.imgur.com/KFoqQ.jpg[/url] - Idle folder containing 8 physical copies of the steam folder, bar the steamapps folder.
[url]http://i.imgur.com/hhFsj.jpg[/url] - Inside one of the steam folders, showing the mklink steamapps
[url]http://i.imgur.com/LAmCw.jpg[/url] - Inside the steamapps folder, account names blanked out.
[url]http://i.imgur.com/TZZIi.jpg[/url] - TF2 idle settings, API key blanked out
[url]http://i.imgur.com/R6CrP.jpg[/url] - More TF2 idle settings, details blanked out
[url]http://i.imgur.com/yYPUv.jpg[/url] - 8 named sandboxes
[url]http://i.imgur.com/gtPBn.jpg[/url] - Sandboxie full access

[blinkerz]

I notice it also looks for listenserver.cfg when idling as a server... is this the same as server.cfg you mentioned?

[iviv]

[QUOTE=blinkerz;36614263]I notice it also looks for listenserver.cfg when idling as a server... is this the same as server.cfg you mentioned?[/QUOTE]

No it isn't. I don't have a listenserver.cfg and it seems to run ok though, so just ignore that :)

[Clavus]

I've used this tool yesterday, got quite some stuff in the course of the day, but today my drop log shows nothing at all. Did yesterday's update break this idling method?

[Moussekateer]

Thanks for the guide iviv, I'm sure it will prove useful to other users. I ha started on a more in depth guide myself, but I may delay it or integrate your stuff.

[QUOTE=Clavus;36619248]I've used this tool yesterday, got quite some stuff in the course of the day, but today my drop log shows nothing at all. Did yesterday's update break this idling method?[/QUOTE]

Hate to ask the obvious questions but did you enter your correct steam vanity id in your account settings? Did you get an API key and fill it in in the program settings? Did you select your account and click add accounts on the drop log screen? Did it show the started logging message?

[Clavus]

[QUOTE=Moussekateer;36619386]Thanks for the guide iviv, I'm sure it will prove useful to other users. I ha started on a more in depth guide myself, but I may delay it or integrate your stuff.

Hate to ask the obvious questions but did you enter your correct steam vanity id in your account settings? Did you get an API key and fill it in in the program settings? Did you select your account and click add accounts on the drop log screen? Did it show the started logging message?[/QUOTE]Everything worked fine yesterday and it shows that it started logging. However it hasn't shown any drops all day. I can't check if I actually did get drops (since I'm just checking my home comp through teamviewer), but the log is empty.

Edit: the only change I made was removing the -width and -height params in Idle launch settings since that screwed up my resolution once I launched TF2 to play. That should not affect anything right?

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=Clavus;36619559]Everything worked fine yesterday and it shows that it started logging. However it hasn't shown any drops all day. I can't check if I actually did get drops (since I'm just checking my home comp through teamviewer), but the log is empty.

Edit: the only change I made was removing the -width and -height params in Idle launch settings since that screwed up my resolution once I launched TF2 to play. That should not affect anything right?[/QUOTE]

That shouldn't mess anything up no. I would check you got drops first.

[Clavus]

Went ingame, no notifications of new drops. And I've been running the program all day.

[werewolf0020]

[QUOTE=Clavus;36624135]Went ingame, no notifications of new drops. And I've been running the program all day.[/QUOTE]

looks like you capped your weekly drops

[blksith0]

I don't think that server.cfg in my cfg folder is being applied to the server that it creates, is there something else that I need to do?

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=blksith0;36627099]I don't think that server.cfg in my cfg folder is being applied to the server that it creates, is there something else that I need to do?[/QUOTE]

Make sure it's in the correct account folder. When sandboxed it should be copied over to the virtual copy.

[Ideal-Hosting]

[QUOTE=blksith0;36627099]I don't think that server.cfg in my cfg folder is being applied to the server that it creates, is there something else that I need to do?[/QUOTE]

Probably listenserver.cfg
At least the server searches for that file when booting.

[Snake4life]

hi, first of all thanks you very very much Moussekateer for this usefull tool!

since 2 weeks Im getting into a problem. Sometime when I start 4-5 accounts, tf2 is loading up and at the conntect to server Im getting "bad challenge". I can fix this but its a pain for me because all the time I have to open up for every single account in Steam "servers" and connect manually.

So Im asking you would it be possible to add a "connect to server only button" or maybe a auto reconnect? Maybe you implement the auto reconnect function over from this python tf2idler: [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1182876"]http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1182876[/URL]

This would really help me out because I got a auto internet disconnect all 24hours from my ISP.

[Ideal-Hosting]

[QUOTE=Snake4life;36632910]hi, first of all thanks you very very much Moussekateer for this usefull tool!

since 2 weeks Im getting into a problem. Sometime when I start 4-5 accounts, tf2 is loading up and at the conntect to server Im getting "bad challenge". I can fix this but its a pain for me because all the time I have to open up for every single account in Steam "servers" and connect manually.

So Im asking you would it be possible to add a "connect to server only button" or maybe a auto reconnect? Maybe you implement the auto reconnect function over from this python tf2idler: [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1182876"]http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1182876[/URL]

This would really help me out because I got a auto internet disconnect all 24hours from my ISP.[/QUOTE]

The bad chellange goes away when you higher the time between the startups.
(Can still happen, but helps)

[mechanarchy]

I'm having problems with the drop-log. I requested an API key a few hours ago and plugged it in, and checked to make sure my Vanity URLs were correct for all the accounts. I've started them idling and then added them all into the drop log monitor, and it says "Started logging", but nothing has shown up. If I check the accounts myself on tf2b.com I can see they've got items, but TF2Idle's drop log doesn't show them. It's been well over an hour since I turned the drop log on.

I'm not sure if the privacy settings of the accounts is an issue - I've got all of the idling accounts set to friends-only visibility but I switched one to public to test and still nothing from it has shown up in the list.

[t]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6929441/screenshots/tf2idle-droplog-01.png[/t]
The vanity URLs weren't correct the first time so I had to fiddle with them a bit - you can see that in the picture. But at the top you can see I had set them up properly and they were being logged.

Any ideas?

[editline]6th July 2012[/editline]

hurr okay it's working now. I think it is the privacy settings - the one account I'd set to public just showed up with the Charred Pocket Lint and the Escape Plan in the list.

I'll just change all of the rest of them to public and that should fix it.

[Ideal-Hosting]

When you set them on anything else but public you can't look into their backpack. So yes, it's a issues with the private/public setting.

[Yo_D]

Just wanted to say thank you for this program :) I hope to code something as great as this as I go to college for computer science someday :P

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=Snake4life;36632910]hi, first of all thanks you very very much Moussekateer for this usefull tool!

since 2 weeks Im getting into a problem. Sometime when I start 4-5 accounts, tf2 is loading up and at the conntect to server Im getting "bad challenge". I can fix this but its a pain for me because all the time I have to open up for every single account in Steam "servers" and connect manually.

So Im asking you would it be possible to add a "connect to server only button" or maybe a auto reconnect? Maybe you implement the auto reconnect function over from this python tf2idler: [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1182876"]http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1182876[/URL]

This would really help me out because I got a auto internet disconnect all 24hours from my ISP.[/QUOTE]

I'm going to try to implement a reconnect function in the update after this (along with something else major). Just got to figure out how to do it nicely.

[editline]7th July 2012[/editline]

[QUOTE=Yo_D;36655878]Just wanted to say thank you for this program :) I hope to code something as great as this as I go to college for computer science someday :P[/QUOTE]

Thanks :) But I'm sure if any experienced Python programmers looked at my code they'd shake their head silently.

[WindPower]

[QUOTE=Moussekateer;36656708]But I'm sure if any experienced Python programmers looked at my code they'd shake their head silently.[/QUOTE]
:3

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=WindPower;36657848]:3[/QUOTE]

Oh god, I suddenly seem to have developed a cold sweat and an unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach!

[Moussekateer]

1.6.0 is out. Changelog:

* Version 1.6.0
** Added web viewer for drop log on port 5000. Port forwarding will need to be set up for external networks
** Added system tray pop up notifications
** Fixed bug with Sandboxie easy mode pointing to wrong directory for Steam.exe
** Better error logging

System tray notifications
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/r9FwJ.png[/IMG]

Web view for drop log
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/gY6bT.png[/IMG]

[natman117]

I hope this isn't a question that's already been answered, but whenever I click on the backpack button, it goes to my web browser and displays a steam error. what thing have I stupidly overlooked?

[Moussekateer]

[QUOTE=natman117;36677244]I hope this isn't a question that's already been answered, but whenever I click on the backpack button, it goes to my web browser and displays a steam error. what thing have I stupidly overlooked?[/QUOTE]

In the account settings you have to enter a correct Steam vanity ID. So my account ID is 76561198009347956 but in my Steam community profile I have created a vanity ID of 'moussekateer'. You can either create a vanity ID or find out your account ID, upto you.

Edit:

For those of you not aware, the web viewer is off by default for privacy reasons. You can find it under TF2Idle's settings, in the drop log section.

[natman117]

if I were to use my account ID where would I enter that number in?