Generating dumps

This page details the standard procedure that is used to generate the dumps before they are released.

Summary

Dumps are created using xEdit and ba2extract. These tools are tied together in a Python script, export.py, which also performs post-processing.

• xEdit extracts data from the game's .esm files, which contain the logic of the game, and requires expensive processing. Dump scripts are written in a special form of Object Pascal and are stored in the Edit scripts directory. The Pascal scripts are bundled together in ExportAll.pas and ExportAll.fo76pas. The latter allows invoking the script from the command line. After running xEdit, the Python script renames, combines, and compresses these dumps.
• ba2extract extracts data from the game's .ba2 files, which are archives containing the resources such as textures and some text files.

Requirements

1. 7-Zip: Install 7-Zip. The executable will probably be on your PATH after installation. If the dump script cannot find 7-Zip, add the absolute path in the configuration file.

2. xEdit: Extract the latest version of xEdit into the Fallout 76 installation directory. Download the latest version from NexusMods and extract the archive in the Fallout 76 installation folder. Alternatively, obtain a more recent build (nicknamed "EcksEdit") from the Fallout 76 datamining Discord server.

3. Dump scripts: Download the latest dump scripts and extract it to a directory of your choice. Copy the files inside the Edit scripts directory over to the Edit scripts directory created by xEdit in the Fallout 76 installation directory.
   Do not move the scripts into a subdirectory of Edit scripts because then xEdit will be unable to find some scripts.

   • Requires Python 3.9 or newer
   • Requires venv (e.g. apt install python3-venv)

4. ba2extract: Download Fallout 4 tools (not the runtime) and copy ba2extract.exe to the directory where you extracted the dump scripts source code, i.e. the directory of export.py and requirements.txt.

Usage

1. (Required once) Create a venv:

   python3 -m venv venv/

2. Activate the venv:

   .\venv\Scripts\activate  # Windows
   source venv/bin/activate  # Linux

3. (Required once) Install dependencies:

   python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

4. (Optional) Configure the script by editing config.py. Check config_default.py for more information.
5. Run the script:

   python3 -m export

   Execution will pause if potential problems are detected. xEdit requires manual confirmation at the start and end. xEdit dumps typically take several hours.