emtee40 / fopdoc

Documentation for the Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas plugin file formats.

FOPDoc

Documentation for the Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 plugin file formats.

The Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 plugin file formats are all very similar, but while there exists good documentation for Oblivion and Skyrim, there is no equivalent for the Fallout games. The aim is for this repository to become that equivalent.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for information on how to contribute.

Contents

The conventions used by this documentation are given in Conventions.md. Data structure definitions are found in one of the following subfolders:

• Fallout3 contains definitions specific to Fallout 3.
• FalloutNV contains definitions specific to Fallout: New Vegas.
• Fallout4 contains definitions specific to Fallout 4.

Each record type is documented in a separate file. Subrecords that share the same structure across multiple record types are documented in separate files, while those unique to a particular record are documented in that record's file.

Format

This documentation is written in GitHub Flavored Markdown and stored in a Git repository on GitHub because:

• Revision control is good.
• You can download the documentation for offline reading.
• Markdown gives readable plain text and can also be readily converted to HTML.
• GitHub offers in-browser editing and HTML preview for Markdown.
• GitHub makes it easier to make, share and integrate edits with others.

File Format Data Source

The most complete open-source implementation of plugin parsers for these games is TES5Edit, written in Delphi. The information on the file formats contained within its parsing code has been adapted into a reasonably generic format that programmers should be able to interpret regardless of their preferred language, similar to how it is presented by UESP.net.

This documentation was originally written to reflect the TES5Edit source code on 2 June 2014.