Do I just need to download the Editor to be able to Edit Fallout?
No, unfortunately you'll need to do a few more bits, first. This tutorial will show you what you need to do next.
Be advised that the more experienced editor users on the DaC forums will almost certainly assume that you have gone through the processes in this tutorial already. Either with the program
DatMan! Light, or one very similar.
HALT!
Before we go on, it is assumed that you have brought your copy of
Fallout 2 up to date by installing the last official patch. If you haven't - do so NOW before doing anything else!
Find the last official patch on
this page.
OK, we can continue now... phew!
There are two large files in your
...\Fallout2\ directory that you'll need to
extract (or open out). The files within them contain the blood and guts of Fallout 2, and that's what you'll be up to in your elbows in your more advanced adventures with the editor. The two files are
master.dat and
Patch000.dat.
Unfortunately, extracting the files isn't a double-click on Winzip away. You'll need one of the specialist
DAT unpacking tools on
this page. (Scroll down to
DAT Utilities).
I can't speak for all of the DAT Utilities on the DaC boards personally, although others can. However, I have had good results with
DatMan! Light, the
readme for which can be found
here. Don't worry about the odd file extension on the readme (
.nfo), it opens perfectly well in Wordpad.
The following tutorial uses
DatMan! Light to perform the extraction, Doctor. Scalpel!
DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING DATMAN! LIGHT
- Download DatMan Light! here.
- Now, you can follow the readme to get it installed properly, but I've put the details here, too.
- Unzip DatManl.zip to the directory you want it to live in.
- One of the files unzipped into that folder will be zlibtool.zip. In turn, unzip this one into your ...\Windows\System folder. Select 'Yes To All' to overwrite the files it needs to replace.
- Use 'Find ==> Files and Folders' to find regzlib.bat and double-click on it. (in other words, execute the file).
- Open DatManl.exe in the folder you unzipped DatManl.zip to, to execute the program.
EXTRACTING THE FALLOUT 2 MASTER DATA FILES
- Open DatMan! Light.
- Click on the 'Open' button on the toolbar. The second one from the left.
- Find and open your ...\Fallout2\ directory
- Double-click on master.dat
- Wait for DatMan Light! to 'Retrieve DAT DirTree Information'. When it's done, the main window on the left will show you a root directory of all the files in master.dat. The one on the right will show you a list of all the files in any directory you select.
- Click on the 'All' button on the toolbar. The fourth one from the left.
- Select a folder you'll be easily able to find in a minute. Something like My Documents, for instance. Doesn't really matter. Hit 'Extract'.
- This next stage takes a while. It's where DatMan! Light extracts all the files, and there's upwards of 23 thousand of them. It will make a folder called master.dat itself and put all the extracted files in there.
While you're waiting, go and fix yourself a drink and look out of the window for a bit. Go on, wave to that neighbour you never usually speak to.
Right, the files in the main, master.dat compressed file should be unpacked by now.
- Now minimise the DatMan! Light window and find and open the master.dat folder in the directory you extracted the files to.
- Select, and cut, all the files in the folder and paste them directly into your ...\Fallout2\data directory. Hit 'Yes To All' in the window that comes up, to replace any old files in the directory with the new, extracted ones.
PATCHING THE EXTRACTED FILES
Now you need to update the extracted files using the
Patch000.dat file that was installed in your
...\Fallout2\ directory by the official patch..
Follow all the steps in the above section, except you need to go through all the stages using the
Patch000.dat file in your
...\Fallout2\ directory, instead of
master.dat. Luckily, the patch only contains 500 odd files, so you won't even have enough time to pick your nose before they're unpacked.
Incidentally,once you've cut-and-pasted the extracted files into your
...\Fallout2\ directory, it's OK to delete the two folders created by
DatMan! Light when you extracted the two
.dat archives.
By Stevie D.
Why the extracted files go into '...\Fallout2\data' instead of the Fallout 2 root directory
Thanks Red.
The engine is actually built to read the data files from
...\Fallout2\data first (Well, that's how
fallout2.cfg sets it by default...) and failing that, will read the
...\Fallout2\ root directory.
Of course, this causes problems since when you put the extracted files in
...\Fallout2\data, Fallout2 likes to delete most if not all the files in
...\Fallout2\data\proto, so you need to make them
read-only. Yet if you want to be able to edit them, they should NOT be
read-only... Quite a pain in the ass huh?
I [
Red] haven't found any clever workarounds...The danger in putting the extracted files in the root instead of in
...\Fallout2\data is that I think the original
.dat files would actually have priority over them... While the extracted files in
...\Fallout2\data have priority over the
.dat files.
