Nexus description: Batch BA2 Unpacker - Avoid BA2 Limit
This is a simple Python script that extracts all small non-texture ba2 files so that you won't run over ba2 limit.
In case you don't know, Fallout 4 engine has a hard limit of 256 non-texture BA2 archives that can be loaded in your game sauce. If you have more, chances are your game will crash on load, behave erratically, and all kinds of fun stuff.
It has been suggested that Buffout users can use a ba2 limit bypass. However, while the trick allows the game to load, sometimes you get broken atlas (texture) regardless. The best solution is to reduce your ba2 count.
For me, that means to manually extract hundreds of small ba2 files and back them up in case something breaks. Yucks! This helper script hopefully frees you from all that manual work. Just 1 minute of easy configuration and it will take care of the rest :)
The AIO version is known to cause false positive on some antivirus software (MS defender, BitDefender, etc.). This is due to Nuitka that I use to pack the py file. Apparently it is also used in some... less legal ways, which causes Nuitka-compiled files to be blacklisted in some heuristics. If you know any better way to pack py files please let me know!
The AIO version has all dependencies packed in - no need for manual Python 3 or BSA Browser installs! :D
To run it, unzip the entire folder to a convenient place, like your Desktop. Then, simply double click unpack.exe to get started. The program will guide you through the entire unpacking process.
You can edit the ignore.txt in the folder to specify the files that you do not want to extract.
You will need the following dependencies:
- Python 3 All recent Python 3 releases should work just fine.
- BSA Browser
For your convenience, a CLI version is placed inside the release archive. If you download the source directly,
you will need to put
bsab.exein/bin/bsab/folder.
First, unzip the entire folder to a convenient place, like your Desktop.
Then, run the following command in cmd/Windows Terminal/whatever terminal in the folder where you extracted the files, and enter:
python3 ./unpack.py
The extraction and backup will then proceed automatically.
You can edit the ignore.txt in the folder to specify the files that you do not want to extract.
By default, the script will proceed in interactive mode (like the exe version). However if you want to automate the process or wish to manually configure the settings, please read the "Manual Configuration" section.
Extracting small ba2 files should not impact your performance or destabilize your game in a significant way.
However, since loose files always wins conflicts against ba2 files, newly extracted loose files may cause overwriting /conflict issues that did not exist before.
This is why it is recommended to carefully look at your load order and look out for conflicts. Mod managers such as MO2 makes it easy to see file conflicts but it doesn't check against ba2 (by default, you can turn on that option in Settings > Workarounds > Enable archives parsing) (thanks Mimicry for the tip!). You might need manual checks to make sure everything works as expected.
You do NOT need to worry about it anymore, unless you specifically want manual configurations.
The following parameters can be configured to suit your needs. Parameters with an asterisk (*) next to it must be changed before running the script.
-
interactive*: you must set it to False for your manual configurations to be effective. -
mod_path*: this should be the path to the mod folder in your mod manager. In MO2 it's Open > Open Mods folder. In Vortex it's Open > Open Mod Staging Folder. You can technically supply your Fallout 4 root folder (if you don't use any mod manager), but I haven't tested this approach. -
threshold: this is the maximum size of bsa to extract, in bytes. Thus 5 * 1024 * 1024 gives 5MB, while 200 * 1024 gives 200KB. Any file larger than this will not be touched. -
postfixes: this is the file postfixes (case-insensitive) that should be extracted. The default should be fine for most cases. For example, "main.ba2" matches all files that ends with "main.ba2" (abcmod - main.ba2, xyzmod - main.ba2, etc.). Note: you do not need to extract texture BA2 files, they are exempt from the BSA limit. -
bsab_exe_path: this should point directly to your bsab.exe from your BSA Browser installation. A copy of bsab.exe is already included in the download, and you can leave the default unchanged. -
ignored: if you have any file that should not be extracted, you can list them here (case-insensitive). Use standard Python string array format.Example: ['abcmod - main.ba2', 'xyzmod - main.ba2']
AlexxEG for BSA Browser
The source code is released under GNU