I don't usually use mods so it's just extra load time and extra click for me instead of getting right into the game. Is there a way to bypass this?

BTW I play this game on Linux.

A quick idea from previous experience: check the game's directory to see if there are multiple executables. It's possible that the launcher and the game itself are separate executables. If so, skipping the launcher should be as easy as directly launching the actual game executable.

Just add -nolauncher to the command line arguments. I found this solution from a Steam Community forum post and successfully tested it myself.

I'm not the OP, but I was after a solution myself and this works, so many thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the command line argument. This has proven useful as a temporary fix for a crash I was struggling with. Seems that it's launcher related.

I already tried that with ./start.sh -nolauncher and it still didn't bypass the launcher. Is this solution only for Windows?

EDIT: nvm I got that now. So I need to run the file ./game/stellaris instead of ./start.sh. Thank you :)

Glad you got it working!

Huh, if you can just run the game's executable directly...what's in the start.sh shell script?

Ditto for me....nice to be able to bypass the launcher, and start the game directly. Also want to thank you sharing +1

Here's all the script contains. I don't quite understand what it's for. Seems like it does nothing useful other than the chmod +x to ensure the game can be executed.

#!/bin/bash
# GOG.com (www.gog.com)
# Game

# Initialization
CURRENT_DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
cd "${CURRENT_DIR}"
source support/gog_com.shlib

# Game info
GAME_NAME="$(get_gameinfo 1)"
VERSION="$(get_gameinfo 2)"
VERSION_DEV="$(get_gameinfo 3)"

# Actions
run_game() {
echo "Running ${GAME_NAME}"
cd game
chmod +x "stellaris"
./"stellaris"
}

default() {
run_game
}

# Options
define_option "-s" "--start" "start ${GAME_NAME}" "run_game" "$@"

# Defaults
standard_options "$@"

I'm still a learner when it comes to shell scripting, but I believe the line stating source support/gog_com.shlib is dynamically loading a single file containing multiple libraries that the game was compiled on. I imagine this is for compatibility reasons. Some quick research indicates the versions of said libraries are old, and you're better off running the game executable directly which will result in using the distro provided versions.

Everything that is CAPITAL_LETTERS= is defining a variable.

Everything under "Actions" is two functions? But yes, the one function is making sure the Stellaris executable binary file has the necessary permission to, well, execute.

The last part seems to allow passing options to the game...somehow.

The general consensus on the internet that I'm seeing is that GOG's start.sh files aren't particularly necessary to use. So no worries!