mega.co.nz has been been having problems so Patch 6.0 is not on it

I'm going to share some alternative patches for the Steam version, that minimize the amount of downloading required to get up and running (and optionally allow you use the Windows version of the game to create Linux/Mac installations). These are the smallest patches available: on average they have been 70-90% smaller than the Steam downloads (and slightly smaller than the GOG.com patches).

This is an unsupported upgrade path; do not contact inXile for support. These patches work for me, but there is no guarantee they will work for you. Do not get upset: if you waste a lot of time for nothing, your computer explodes, or you cause a global apocalypse. In other words: proceed at your own risk. If any of this sounds intimidating, stop reading and just stick with the normal supported upgrade path.

My initial goal was to make the retail discs useful to Linux & Mac gamers (who are currently stuck downloading the whole game on a first install). So having said that: my patching workflow is going to rely heavily on a open source tool called rdiffdir.
rdiffdir is part of the duplicity software suite and will be used to apply the patches; which means you'll need to have it installed to continue. duplicity is in the software repositories of most Linux distributions so you shouldn't have a hard time finding it. A Windows version can be found here: https://www.itefix.net/cwdup. But I suggest you use a Linux LiveCD when you start using rdiffdir; my instructions will be for Linux environments (until I get a chance to play with cwdup some more). [Supposedly a Mac version of duplicity is available somewhere as well.]
Feel free to contribute any findings, howtos and reports on successes and failures. I'll try to keep this post updated with the most recent information. If the patches work for you: feel free to reshare them on bittorrent; just be sure to link people back to these instructions.
resources.assets md5sums
By looking at the md5sum of the resources.assets file you will be able to tell which version of the game you have. On Linux and Windows the resources.assets is found in the WL2_Data directory, but on Mac it's in the WL2.app/Contents/Data directory.
rdiffdir will not stop you from applying a patch to the wrong files. So pay attention to these md5sums when you start using the patches. Applying a patch to the wrong version will create a garbage file. Steam will replace the garbage file with the correct one during the verification step. So it's not a "game breaker"; but you will waste bandwidth.

- Vanilla Retail [Version 1.0]: 16e86e8ee0c99a9a7420567f0c500f29
- Vanilla Backer [Version 1.0]: 1f71c64d3a365c7f53e415ceafb2dd52
- Patch 3.1
- Linux: 994b0fb6db3879377e7a3d3064347e00
- Mac: b9c602fce35825aaedfd5d8ff2fb1d28
- Windows: 6f97375149a01c5843f054adc509ced9
- Patch 4.1
- Linux: 99a9d3e02fac58f82e68ec9e84acad1a
- Mac: d681c1314a9f037d40d2dd848df75373
- Windows: c2411416394f965de89b2f24e9a33c6a
- Patch 5.1
- Linux: 5975b0518fef1d9903769627e8d6b1a8
- Mac: 0e12fc3613b67cb7808fcef5fca4b7cc
- Windows: 0111bd8d868a4333ec981cc3b3a77d9e
- Patch 6.0
- Linux: 36134dd1e1fa855585311cba01d0c93c
- Mac: d2c49317121bbc95dc7c815eceedadb9
- Windows: 027d5788b6d6a2574b6762f467792658
You can skip this step if you already have the game installed. Otherwise continue reading for instructions on how to get the Vanilla WL2_Data directory from the installation media.
Unfortunately the installation files were encrypted by Steam. So regardless of your desired end platform (Linux, Mac, or Windows) we will need to use Steam on Windows to unpack them for us. (It's been suggested that WINE might be used to unpack the files on Linux; maybe someone can confirm.)
But we don't want Steam to actually finish installing the game; it will start downloading updates and changing the files before we've had a chance to patch them ourselves.
- Start a normal game installation
- As soon as you see the Steam dialog say "Installing from disk..." disconnect your computer from the internet. Steam will continue to happily unpack the game files to this directory:
Code: Select all
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\downloading\240760\Build\WL2_Data
- Once the installation finishes: copy/move the WL2_Data directory somewhere else on your computer (like your desktop)
- Quit Steam (if it's still running)
- Reconnect your computer to the internet
- Start Steam
- Highlight Wasteland 2 in your games list on Steam and select the “Delete Local Content...” from the context menu
Pro tip: The Vanilla Backer Edition WL2_Data directory can be used to make a custom installer.

Vanilla Retail 1.0 -> Vanilla Backer Edition 1.0
Two versions of the game have been released so far: a single disc Retail Edition (that was sold in stores; it has a Deep Silver logo on the front) and a two disc Backer Edition. If your game is of the single disc variety: then you need to apply this patch to turn your copy into a Backer Edition. Everything later on in this guide will assume you have the Backer Edition. (If you already have the Backer Edition just skip to the next section.)
Note: If we allow Steam to do it's own updates it will turn the Retail Edition into the Backer Edition (so don't expect to gain anything you shouldn't have).

Custom patch size: 2.7GiB
- Start by downloading the retail2backer files from one of the mirrors here:
- Use 7zip to extract retail2backer.delta from the retail2backer.7z.001 file.
- In a terminal/console apply the patch using this command line:
Code: Select all
rdiffdir patch [path to WL2_Data] [path to retail2backer.delta]
Vanilla Backer Edition 1.0 -> Patch 6.0
Custom patch size: 4.2GiB
- Start by downloading the backer-patch6 files from one of the mirrors here:
- Use 7zip to extract backer-patch6.delta from the backer-patch6.7z.001 file.
- In a terminal/console apply the patch using this command line:
Code: Select all
rdiffdir patch [path to WL2_Data] [path to backer-patch5.delta]
Custom patch size: 4.26MiB
If you want to have Linux and Windows versions of the game: simply make a copy of your WL2_Data folder and apply the below patch to the copy (leaving the Windows one untouched).

- Start by downloading the win2lin_patch6 file from one of the mirrors here:
- Use 7zip to extract win2lin_patch6.delta from the win2lin_patch6.7z file.
- In a terminal/console apply the patch using this command line:
Code: Select all
rdiffdir patch [path to WL2_Data] [path to win2lin_patch6.delta]
Custom patch size: 108.1MiB
If you want to have Mac and Windows versions of the game: simply make a copy of your WL2_Data folder and apply the below patch to the copy (leaving the Windows one untouched).

- Start by downloading the win2mac_patch5 file from one of the mirrors here:
- Use 7zip to extract win2mac_patch5.delta from the win2mac_patch5.7z file.
- In a terminal/console apply the patch using this command line:
Code: Select all
rdiffdir patch [path to WL2_Data] [path to win2mac_patch5.delta]
Now that you have the fully patched game data, it's time to let Steam install it properly. (Before installing: there may be additional patches you can apply below.)
The first thing to do is locate your SteamApps directory.
Linux: ~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps
Mac: Finder > Library > Application Support > Steam > Steam Apps
Windows: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps”
Inside of the SteamApps directory, you'll want to create a folder named “common” (if it isn't there already) and inside of that create a folder named “Wasteland 2”.
For Linux: Create a folder called “Linux” and move your WL2_Data directory inside of it. So that your final path looks like: ...“/SteamApps/common/Wasteland 2/Linux/WL2_Data/”
For Mac: I believe you'll want to create a folder called “WL2.app” and move your WL2_Data directory inside of it and rename it to “Contents”. So that your final path looks like: ...“/SteamApps/common/WL2.app/Contents/” (I'm not really sure how things are laid out on Mac.)
For Windows: Create a folder called “Build” and move your WL2_Data directory inside of it. So that your final path looks like: ...“/SteamApps/common/Wasteland 2/Build/WL2_Data/”
Once done: start up Steam and tell it to install Wasteland 2. You'll know you copied your WL2_Data directory to the correct location if Steam says "Discovering the existing files for Wasteland 2...".


Upgrade Existing Installations: ~2.x -> 6.0
If you simply want to upgrade your copy of Wasteland 2: the following patches are for you. You must apply these patches in order (i.e. when upgrading from version 3.1 to 5.1: you can't skip 4.1).
Note: If you are unsure as to what version you have simply use md5sum on the resources.assets and compare with the list at the start of this post.
For Mac: The WL2_Data folder is named "Contents" (inside you will find: Data, Frameworks, Localization, etc.).
- Start by downloading the patch for the platform you want to upgrade from one of the mirrors here:
- mega.co.nz
- filefactory.com - Linux
- filefactory.com - Mac
- filefactory.com - Windows
- Generously mirrored by vv221 (please use above links if you can).
- Use 7zip to extract the *.delta from the *.7z file.
- Quit Steam (if it's still running)
- In a terminal/console apply the patch using this command line:
Code: Select all
rdiffdir patch [path to the WL2_Data folder of your Wasteland 2 installation] [path to the *.delta you extracted]
- Start Steam (pause any downloads)
- Highlight Wasteland 2 in your games list on Steam and select “Properties” from the context menu
- On the “Local Files” tab click on the “Verify integrity of game cache...” to get steam to register the changes.
- 2.x -> 3.1 = 10x smaller (90% reduction)
- Steam 2.2GiB
- Custom 223.7MiB
- 3.1 -> 4.1 = 18x smaller (94% reduction)
- Steam 986.4MiB
- Custom 53.1MiB
- 4.1 -> 5.1 = 24x smaller (96% reduction)
- Steam 1GiB
- Custom 42.2MiB
- 5.1 -> 6.0 = 6x smaller (84% reduction)
- Steam 949.7MiB
- Custom 151.51MiB
If you have trouble with getting Steam to register the new Patch. You can try using the "new install" process above to force Steam to reinstall the game: move the WL2_Data directory somewhere else (like your desktop), uninstalling Wasteland 2 via Steam, put the WL2_Data back in the SteamApps folder and install Wasteland 2 via Steam (look above for more detailed instructions.).