You can do it, it's just that you'd be very close to being kicked off if that wasn't enough to do it. I think that their VAC looks for modified Steam installs whether or not it actually helps cheat.

EDIT: And does logging out not stop the downloads?

In theory it would work.

But in practice, Steam downloads whenever the hell it wants. Even if you tell it to start downloading, it might just say "Nope!" and freeze the download. It keeps doing this for me whenever a game I have updates, it might download the first 50-75 MB fine but then it freezes until I keep poking the "Resume" button.

Oh, I'm not saying you're wrong. :) In fact, that suggestion was pretty good. I'm saying that even if this works, Steam will probably laugh at you and not download anything during that particular period. :p

I dunno if your being serious or simply trying to be an ass with that reply lets assume you were being serious.

My point was that if you only download one game per night it won't still be running in the morning and therefore won't affect your cap.

The games are between seven and fifteen gigabytes each. I can't do that in the five hours allotted to me every morning. If they were piddly little 300MB indie games, I wouldn't have even bothered to write this topic.

I'm just curious... Who is your ISP?

Good idea, but one glaring problem: no network connection = no Steam login, no Steam login = no downloads. Steam won't automatically connect when network connectivity returns and even if you connected to Steam, then disabled the network connection, it would pause all pending downloads and will only resume when someone manually pushes the "resume" button (assuming Steam doesn't freak out over the loss of network connectivity in the first place).

That's a valid problem... I just thought of a solution though:

The command

Steam.exe -login [username] [password]

should log Steam in, and in fact putting this in the scheduler would mean you don't have to bother with disabling your internet connection. Just have the steam startup happen at 2am and then use

taskkill /f /IM steam.exe

at 7am.


I appreciate the fact that you took the time to read it properly (unlike someone... >.>) so thanks for that.

Now THAT is a good solution! Don't bother with restricting the network connectivity at all, just schedule Steam to launch. Have you ever tried to launch Steam like that before?

Not by putting that command in the scheduler, but my brother and I have separate Steam shortcuts using that -login command. We have this because Steam doesn't have a proper way of dealing with multiple users on the same computer (can only save one set of login details at a time, even on separate windows accounts).

On my desktop I have one with my login details and on his, he has one with his login.

So I can vouch for that parameter working and there's no reason it wouldn't work in the scheduler.

HughesNet. It was either that or WildBlue. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

HughesNet
+ Transfer Cap refreshes every 24hrs
- The cap on my current plan is 450MB
+ The modem seems to be more "user friendly" (i.e. I can actually access the software inside, as opposed to WildBlue's modems, which lock the end-user out)
- Their Technical Support always routes me to an overseas call center, to someone who always wants to send a technician to my account site because he can't figure out the problem using the remote connection tools, because he never passed his A++ certification and doesn't know a coaxial cable from his...er, elbow.
+ If I get "FAPed" (that is, violate the Fair Access Policy and go over my cap), I get one free "Restore Token" a month.
- The free token is used automatically, and if I should get FAPed again, I'm prompted to purchase a three-pack of Tokens for about ten bucks, each of which are used automatically.
+ Multiple satellites for my dish to lock onto, if one's signal is too weak.
- Can't really think of a negative for this one.

WildBlue
+The plan that I had when I terminated the account allowed me a 17GB cap.
- It refreshed in a "Rolling" 30-day period.
+ Tech Support was always answered by someone in the States (Please understand, I'm not bigoted. The problem is that there is often a language barrier between someone who speaks English natively and someone who speaks it as a secondary, or even tertiary language).
- The inner workings of the modem were restricted to the end user, namely me, so I couldn't diagnose any of the problems on my own. And if there WAS a major problem with it, one that required replacement of the modem, I was made to wait for the new hardware in the post, install it myself, and hope that the old modem I sent back was received properly, else I be penalized the full cost of the damned thing. It happened once. The box with the old modem was sitting in the warehouse for three weeks, and no one had scanned it in yet. At least HughesNet had a technician come out to my house to take away the old modem when it needed replacement.
- 1/4 as many active satellites as HughesNet
- Weaker dish

Back on topic, I'm just going to wait until Valve applies it's own scheduler to Steam. It's healthy for me to wake up a couple times in the morning. "Early to rise" and all that.

Holy crap, your ISP is even worse than an Australian one! How much a month is it? I take it you can';t get adsl2+ locally then

Ahhh... I get it... You live out there in the wild. You might not be off the grid, but you can see where the grid ends maybe?

I was having a hard time figuring out why you had these odd bandwidth cap issues, but having satellite Internet clears up that mystery.

My hats off to you. I couldn't do it. I'm a Chicagoan. If I don't have a dry cleaner, a dentist, a deli, and three Chinese restaurants all in walking distance, I break out in hives. If I even see an animal that hasn't been skinned, bled, butchered, grilled, and served next to a baked potato, I quiver with fear. Why would I think you were bigoted? I also like understanding the people who answer my phone calls.

Beyond the language issue, I think it's also good that if you do business with an American company, it should be a company that provides American jobs.