Installing BepInEx 5 for Liquidation RTS

#Which build to download

There is one correct choice here and several wrong ones, so it is worth being explicit.

#The install, step by step

1. 1

   Download the x64 zip

   Use the button above, or go to the releases page and pick BepInEx_win_x64_5.4.23.5.zip from the Assets list at the bottom of the newest BepInEx 5 release. It is about 624 KB.

2. 2

   Unblock it before you extract

   Windows marks files downloaded from the internet, and that mark is inherited by everything you extract from the archive. It will not stop BepInEx working, but it is one less thing to wonder about later. Right-click the zip, choose Properties, and if there is an Unblock checkbox at the bottom of the General tab, tick it and click OK.

3. 3

   Open your Liquidation folder

   Steam library, right-click the game, Properties → Installed Files → Browse. You are in the right place when you can see Liquidation.exe.

4. 4

   Extract the contents of the zip into that folder

   This is the step people get wrong, so read it twice. You want the contents of the zip, not the zip's own folder.

   Open the zip and you will see four files and one folder at its top level. Select all five and drag them into the Liquidation folder. When you are finished, winhttp.dll must sit directly beside Liquidation.exe — not inside a subfolder called BepInEx_win_x64_5.4.23.5.

   If Windows asks about merging or replacing, say yes.

5. 5

   Launch the game once, then quit

   Start Liquidation from Steam as normal. Wait until you reach the main menu, then quit. You will not see anything different — BepInEx has no visible interface of its own — but in the background it has just created the folders the plugins need.

   The first launch is slower than usual. BepInEx is caching information about the game's assemblies. Later launches are back to normal speed.

6. 6

   Confirm it worked

   Go back to your Liquidation folder and open BepInEx. If you now see folders called cache, config, patchers and plugins alongside core, plus a file called LogOutput.log, BepInEx is installed and running. That is the whole test.

   If those folders are not there, jump to what to do when the folders do not appear below.

#Exactly what the zip contains

So you can tell at a glance whether an extraction went where you meant it to. Sizes are the uncompressed bytes; timestamps are the ones stored inside the archive.

Four files land beside the executable

Eighteen more land in BepInEx\core

You never need to touch any of these. They are listed only so you can confirm the folder is complete.

#What your folder looks like now

Before the first launch, the BepInEx folder holds only core. After it, four more folders and a log file have appeared by themselves.

Full size · 1920×1080

Full size · 1920×1080

#When the folders do not appear

If BepInEx\plugins is missing after a launch, BepInEx did not start. Work down this list; it is ordered by how often each cause turns out to be the real one.

The files went one level too deep

By far the most common cause. Check whether your Liquidation folder contains a folder named after the zip. If it does, open it, move its five items up one level, and delete the empty folder. winhttp.dll has to be in the same folder as Liquidation.exe.

Antivirus removed winhttp.dll

A DLL appearing next to a game executable is exactly the shape of something worth flagging, and some antivirus products quarantine it on sight without telling you. Check your quarantine or protection history. If winhttp.dll is in there, restore it and add your Liquidation folder as an exclusion.

You installed the x86 build

The x86 loader cannot inject into a 64-bit process. It fails quietly. Delete the four loose files and the BepInEx folder, then extract the win_x64 zip instead.

Steam launch options are interfering

If you have anything in the game's launch options, temporarily clear it and try again. A custom launcher or a wrapper can start the executable in a way that bypasses the loader.

Turn the console on and watch it start

If none of the above applies, get BepInEx to tell you directly. Open BepInEx\config\BepInEx.cfg in a text editor, find the [Logging.Console] section, and set:

[Logging.Console]

## Enables showing a console for log output.
# Setting type: Boolean
# Default value: false
Enabled = true

Launch the game. A black console window should appear before the game does, with BepInEx's startup lines in it. If that window never appears, the loader is not running at all and the cause is one of the four above. If it does appear, read what it says — it will name the problem.