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X4FProjector

A command-line tool that reads X4 Foundations game files (.cat and .dat files), extracts raw stats about various game objects and outputs the data into files that are easy for humans or other programs and scripts to read.

The purpose is to provide as much (useful) information as possible to aid players who want to optimize their play, to provide this information in format that is easy to read and process, and to provide this information on demand (no need to wait for wiki pages to update their data for a new version of the game -- just rerun this script).

Beware that a lot of data that is outputted is very raw and requires additional processing to obtain something usable. Also, some of the outputted data might not be available in game (yet).

Features:

  • Supported game objects and stats:
    • Engines and thrusters - thrust, boost, travel, hull, and more.
    • Shields - capacity, recharge, hull, and more.
    • Ships - class, hull, drag, inertia, num. weapons, num. engines, num. shields, num. turrets, cargobay, docks, ship storage, and more.
    • Lasers and missile launchers - damage, reload time, heat, hull, bullet stats, missile stats, and more.
    • Wares - price, production methods, tags, volume, license, module construction, blueprints, and more.
    • TODO Station modules.
  • Supported output formats:
    • CSV. Data is saved in a tabular format which can be loaded into Excel. Some things are omitted.
    • JSON. Data is saved in a structured format. Nothing is omitted.
    • YAML (requires pyyaml). Data is saved in a structured format. Nothing is omitted.
  • Multiple language support. Can resolve strings such as ship names to any language that the game supports.
  • Fast. Needs less than 6 seconds to produce all the output files on my system with an SSD.
  • Easy to use.
  • Lazy .cat file loader. Loads game files effortlessly so you don't need to perform any extra steps. Avoids loading all the .cat files unless it has to.
  • File system loader. Reads game data from extracted .cat files.
  • Reusable code. Feel free to pick up parts of this project such as the CatFileLoader, LanguageResolver or the MacroDB for your project. I would appreciate if you would credit my work if you use parts of my project.
  • TODO Support for mods.

Installation

Prerequisites:

After you got the prerequisites installed you can download the latest project archive and extract it on your disk or clone this repository on your computer by running:

git clone https://github.com/bno1/X4FProjector.git

Installing the prerequisites on Windows

  1. Install the latest release of Python 3.7 from the offical site. Make sure to enable pip and Add Python to environment variables.
  2. Open a cmd terminal and enter: pip install lxml pyyaml.

Installing the prerequisites on Linux

Almost all Linux distributions should come with Python 3 included. Python lxml and pyyaml can be installed using your package manager or by installing python3-pip and running # pip3 install lxml pyyaml.

Usage

On Windows: open a terminal in the directory of this project (Shift+right click in the directory, select Open command window here or Open PowerShell window here). Run:

python.exe ./X4FProjector.py --help

On Linux: open a terminal in the directory of this project and run one of:

./X4FProjector.py --help
# or
python3 ./X4FProjector.py --help

Common command-line options:

  • -h, --help. Show help message.
  • -v, --verbose. Enable more verbose output.
  • --file-loader FILE_LOADER. File loader to use. Accepted values: fs and cat, defaulting to cat if this option is not specified. See the More details section for more information.
  • -g GAME_ROOT, --game-root GAME_ROOT. Path to the game installation. Default: the current directory. This option will be passed to the file loader:
    • When using the Cat file loader this option must point to the directory where the game .cat files are placed.
    • When using the File system loader this option must point to the directory where the game files are extracted. The directory should contain the directories assets and libraries.
  • -l LANGUAGE, --lang LANGUAGE. Language to use for resolving game strings. If this option is not specified then the English language will be used. See the More details section for more information.

Common commands:

  • export: reads raw game data and exports it to one or more files.

Export command-line options:

  • -d EXPORT_DIR, --dir EXPORT_DIR. Directory to export game data to. Defaults to the current directory if not specified.
  • -f EXPORT_FORMAT, --format EXPORT_FORMAT. Format to export data as. Defaults to CSV if not specified. Supported values:
    • csv. Creates tabular .csv files that can be loaded in Excel.
    • json. Creates structured .json files.
    • yaml. Creates structured .yaml files.
  • all. Export all game data that this script can read.
  • engines. Export engine and thruster data. Will create a engines.{csv,json, yaml} file in the export directory.
  • missilelaunchers. Export missile launcher weapon and turret data. Will create a missilelaunchers.{csv,json,yaml} file in the export directory.
  • shields. Export shield data. Will create a shields.{csv,json,yaml} file in the export directory.
  • ships. Export ship data. Will create a ship.{csv,json,yaml} file in the export directory.
  • wares. Export ware data. Will create a ware.{csv,json,yaml} file in the export directory.
  • weapons. Export laser weapon and turret data. Will create a weapons.{csv, json,yaml} file in the export directory.

Extra commands that most users don't need:

  • resolve-string: read a game string template from the command line and tries to resolve it using the game language files. String templates contain placeholders of the form {page_id, text_id} that reference language-dependent strings.

Exporting game data

To export all the game data that this script reads into the directory x4_data in the CSV format simply run:

./X4FProjector.py -g path/to/x4 export all -d ./x4_data -f csv

This will override existing files in x4_data.

The all is optional if no other object is specified. The following has the same effect:

./X4FProjector.py -g path/to/x4 export -d ./x4_data -f csv

You can choose which game objects to export:

./X4FProjector.py -g path/to/x4 export ships engines wares -d ./x4_data -f csv

To change the language used to resolve strings pass an -l option. Example for German:

./X4FProjector.py -g path/to/x4 -l de export ships engines wares -d ./x4_data -f csv

resolve-string example

./X4FProjector.py -g path/to/x4 resolve-string 'This ship is {20101,30302}' 'That ship is {20101,30303}'
This ship is Nemesis Vanguard
That ship is Nemesis Sentinel

resolve-string example using German language

./X4FProjector.py -g path/to/x4 -l de resolve-string 'This ship is {20101,30302}' 'That ship is {20101,30303}'
This ship is Nemesis Angreifer
That ship is Nemesis Verteidiger

More details

Cat file loader

Loads .cat and .dat files directory from the game installation. It looks for files named 01.cat 01.dat, 02.cat 02.dat, ... 99.cat 99.dat and stops when a file cannot be found.

Files with a higher numerical value have a higher priority. E.g. if both 01.cat and 05.cat contain assets/props/Engines/macros/engine_arg_s_travel_01_mk1_macro.xml then X4Projector will load the one from 05.dat instead of 01.cat.

Beware that if you add your own .cat and .dat files to the game directory those might be loaded too.

File system loader

Loads game files from a location where .cat files have been extracted. This loader is faster than the Cat file loader because it doesn't have to parse .cat files (this takes about 1 second).

Game files can be extracted using X Catalog Tool or another .cat extractor. When extracting you have to:

  • Extract each .cat file, from the lowest to the highest number such that higher-numbered cat files override the content of lower-numbered ones.
  • Check the Keep folder hierarchy box.

Language support

The language used to resolve game strings is specified via -l or --language option.

The argument to this option can be:

  • 2-letter language code. E.g. en, fr, ru.
  • 3-letter language code. E.g. eng, fra, fre, rus.
  • Language name in English. E.g. english, french, russian.
  • Language name in the language itself. E.g. english, français, русский.

For Chinese you can add the -cn or -tw suffix to choose between simplified and traditional.

See the LANG_TABLE in X4Projector.py for a full list of accepted names.

How can you contribute

I'm happy to look into and possibly accept any contribution to this project.

  • Try to run this script on your computer for your game installation. Post an issue if you have any problems.
  • Report any inaccuracies that you find in the exported data.
  • Report code bugs or documentation typos.
  • Suggest new stats to export and why would they be useful.
  • Suggest new features or show interest in ones already suggested. I will be more likely to implement features that are highly demanded.
  • Suggest improvement to the source code or documentation.