Vespene Companion (desktop app)

Vespene Companion is a free Windows app that sits in the system tray next to StarCraft II and does the things a browser cannot: it watches your replay folder and uploads every game the moment you leave it, and it hosts the in-game add-ins. If you play ladder regularly, it is the difference between Vespene being a site you visit and a pipeline that feeds itself.

Get it at vespene.gg/download ("Download for Windows"). It also comes up naturally in the Command Console (click the top-left logo; F10 is the Companion-only shortcut), which shows a "Vespene Companion" card with an install button when you are in a plain browser.

What it does#

• Replay auto-upload. Watches your Documents\StarCraft II\Accounts replay folders and uploads new .SC2Replay files as you finish them. This feeds your stats and grades, the daily and weekly quests that pay vespene, tournament auto-results, and the ranked ladder's result reporting. Folder discovery re-runs on boot, on SC2 start and exit, after each game, and periodically; new folders prompt once before being watched.
• Hosts the add-ins. You never download add-ins separately; Companion installs and updates them:
• Stardex: study a pro mid-game and log their card; your dex syncs back to the site.
• Ranked Ladder (the Ladder Overlay card in the console): an optional overlay to queue, accept, ban maps and read your hosting orders for Patch Clash from inside SC2. Ranked itself works without it. See The Ranked Ladder add-in.

Build Coach, the old practice-build overlay, is retired, and the Companion removes it automatically. Your practice builds stay on your account; see Practice builds. The Broadcaster add-in is retired too: its caster desk and the Overlay Studio are the console's Broadcast tab, and the in-game signal it seemed to own was always the Companion's (see below). - Tells your overlays when you are in a game. Once a minute while you play, the Companion reports your game state to the site so the post-match recap and caster scenes get out of the way. The switch is on the console's Broadcast tab. See OBS overlays and Overlay Studio and Caster tools and tournament scenes. - Tournament lobby notifications. When both players ready up on the site, the Companion fires an OS notification with the exact lobby instructions (who hosts, the map, the server, who to invite). Clicking it opens the match room. - Ranked ladder helpers. On the Patch Clash ladder it reports your result by uploading the replay, marks the game as started, and cancels your ranked search if you start a normal SC2 1v1. None of it is required to play ranked. See The Ranked Ladder add-in.

Installing and pairing#

The installer is per-user (no admin password) and the app updates itself. Windows SmartScreen will warn on first run because v1 is not code-signed; the download page walks through it ("More info", then "Run anyway").

On first launch the app opens your browser to sign in with the same account you use on the site. If you are already signed in there, the handoff is instant. The credential is stored in the Windows Credential Manager, not in a file.

The overlay caveat everyone hits#

In-game overlays (Stardex, the ranked overlay) cannot draw over exclusive fullscreen StarCraft II. Set SC2 to Windowed Fullscreen (Options, Graphics, Display Mode). This is true of every SC2 overlay tool, not a Companion quirk.

Requirements and platform notes#

Windows 10 or later, 64-bit; around 200 MB of disk; StarCraft II installed with the standard Documents\StarCraft II\Accounts layout. It idles at roughly 60 MB of RAM. macOS and Linux builds are on the roadmap but not available yet.

Add-ins sync per-user state, so installing them requires being signed in. If the tray icon is running but replays are not appearing on the site, check the watched-folders list first (F10 console, "Watched replay folders"): a replay folder that never got added is the usual cause, and on the ranked ladder it is the classic reason a finished game "never reported".