FOR:CE Community Engine

FOR:CE is a fully working re-implementation of the classic Fallout engine, optimized for a hassle-free experience on multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux. It provides high resolution support, quality-of-life improvements, and dozens upon dozens of bug fixes.

This is a fork of the original Fallout2: CE project, which is no longer getting regular updates.

Popular total conversion mods are partially supported. Nevada and Sonora work. Fallout 2 Restoration Project is supported. Fallout Et Tu and Olympus 2207 are not yet supported. Other mods (particularly Resurrection and Yesterday) are not tested.

CE has broad (though not total) compatibility with Sfall scripting extensions. Many traditional Fallout mods work out of the box, including NPC Armor, Party Orders, FO2Tweaks (we recommend v14.5+), Talking Heads, and many others.

Installation — Download Latest CE Release

You must own the game to play. Purchase your copy on GOG, Epic Games or Steam.

Download CE from the link above, then extract the archive into your game folder. Launch fallout2-ce.exe on Windows (or the platform-specific executable) to play. CE has a lot of enhancements that require configuration. See Configuration for examples.

For detailed instructions on how to play on Mac, Linux, iOS, or Android, see the Platform-specific instructions.

Quality of life benefits over vanilla Fallout

• High resolution support
• Party members can loot and barter in place of PC
• Directly equip party members instead of convincing them to use the right equipment.
• Expanded 2-column inventory, loot screens
• Expanded 4-row barter screen
• Expanded AP bar
• Ctrl-click to quickly move items when bartering, looting, or stealing, and auto-balance caps
• Music continues playing between maps
• Auto open doors
• Integrated "HELP" menu
• 44.1 kHz stereo sound/music supported, in .ogg and .wav format as well as legacy .acm
• Last used save slot is remembered
• You can cancel elevator floor selection using ESC
• Spiffy ammo meter with burst-mode segmentation
• Item/Corpse/Container/Critter highlighting (configure using mods/sfall-mods.ini)

Expanded 2-column inventory	Companion equip screen
Party member loot	Integrated HELP menu

There are also dozens of small things that just work a little better than they did in the original. Better pathfinding, fewer graphics glitches, less finicky weapon stacking, and much more.

Configuration

The main configuration file is fallout2.cfg. This contains original game config as well as new CE settings.

Additional settings for screen resolution, UI customization, and map options are now integrated into the main fallout2.cfg file (previously part of f2_res.ini from Mash's HRP).

Here are some important settings in fallout2.cfg under the [screen] and [ui] sections. See the example config for a full list of settings.

[screen]
resolution_x=1600 ; actual game window size (screen resolution), in pixels
resolution_y=1080
windowed=1 ; 0 = fullscreen
scale=2 ; 1 = original scale, 2 = 2x scale, etc. (e.g. at scale 2 and screen resolution 1920x1080, in-game resolution will be 960x540, thus every pixel is twice as wide and tall)

[ui]
; Maximum number of columns shown in the main inventory and loot/steal windows (valid range: 1..2)
inventory_columns=2

; Set to 1 to expand the barter/trade window vertically, adding a 4th item slot per side (requires ce.dat)
expand_barter_window=1

[qol]
; Allow opening party member inventory from the long-press context menu.
party_trade_from_menu=1

; Allow switching to companions' inventories in loot screens (and barter, in the future)
party_loot_and_barter=1

Recommendations:

• Desktops: Use any size you see fit.
• Tablets: Set these values to logical resolution of your device, for example iPad Pro 11 is 1668x2388 (pixels), but its logical resolution is 834x1194 (points).
• Mobile phones: Set height to 480, calculate width according to your device screen (aspect) ratio, for example Samsung S21 is 20:9 device, so the width should be 480 * 20 / 9 = 1067.

In time this stuff will receive an in-game interface, right now you have to do it manually. To see all currently working fallout2.cfg settings, just run the game once and quit. It will be automatically updated with defaults for every supported setting. Note: Use of the IFACE_BAR settings requires the f2_res.dat file, which contains graphical assets. Various versions are available, but one compatible with the above settings can be found here: f2_res.dat

Note: There are a few settings that are still configured in ddraw.ini. They will be migrated to cfg over time.

Platform-specific installation

Windows

Download and unzip into your Fallout2 folder. Launch the game using fallout2-ce.exe.

Linux

• Use Windows installation as a base - it contains data assets needed to play. Copy Fallout2 folder somewhere, for example /home/john/Desktop/Fallout2.

• Alternatively you can extract the needed files from the GoG installer:

$ sudo apt install innoextract
$ innoextract ~/Downloads/setup_fallout_2_1.02_gog_v1_\(77792\).exe -d Fallout2

• Download the Linux release archive, extract fallout2-ce and ce.dat, and copy them into this folder.

• Run ./fallout2-ce.

macOS

NOTE: macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) or higher is required. Runs natively on Intel-based Macs and Apple Silicon.

• Use Windows installation as a base - it contains data assets needed to play. Copy Fallout2 folder somewhere, for example /Applications/Fallout2.

• Alternatively you can use Fallout 2 from Macplay/The Omni Group as a base - you need to extract game assets from the original bundle. Mount CD/DMG, right click Fallout 2 -> Show Package Contents, navigate to Contents/Resources. Copy GameData folder somewhere, for example /Applications/Fallout2.

• Or if you're a Terminal user and have Homebrew installed you can extract the needed files from the GoG installer. Note: You must use "Offline backup game installer", not the main game installer.

$ brew install innoextract
$ innoextract ~/Downloads/setup_fallout_2_1.02_gog_v1_\(77792\).exe -d fallout2
$ mv fallout2 /Applications/Fallout2

• Download and copy Fallout II Community Edition.app to this folder.

• Run Fallout II Community Edition.app.

Android

NOTE: Fallout 2 was designed with mouse in mind. There are many controls that require precise cursor positioning, which is not possible with fingers. Current control scheme resembles trackpad usage:

• One finger moves mouse cursor around.
• Tap one finger for left mouse click.
• Tap two fingers for right mouse click (switches mouse cursor mode).
• Move two fingers to scroll current view (map view, worldmap view, inventory scrollers).

NOTE: From Android standpoint release and debug builds are different apps. Both apps require their own copy of game assets and have their own savegames. This is intentional. As a gamer just stick with release version and check for updates.

• Download the Android release, which contains an .apk file and ce.dat.

• Use Windows installation as a base - it contains data assets needed to play. Copy Fallout2 folder to your device, for example to Downloads. You need master.dat, critter.dat, patch000.dat, and data folder. Watch for file names - keep (or make) them lowercased (see Configuration). Copy ce.dat into this folder.

• Copy fallout2-ce.apk from the release to your device. Open it with file explorer, follow instructions (install from unknown source).

• When you run the game for the first time it will immediately present file picker. Select the folder from the first step. Wait until this data is copied. A loading dialog will appear, just wait for about 30 seconds. If you're installing total conversion mod or localized version with a large number of unpacked resources in data folder it can take up to 20 minutes. Once copied, the game will start automatically.

iOS

NOTE: See Android note on controls.

• Download fallout2-ce.ipa. Use sideloading applications (AltStore or Sideloadly) to install it to your device. Alternatively you can always build from source with your own signing certificate.

• Run the game once. You'll see error message saying "Couldn't find/load text fonts". This step is needed for iOS to expose the game via File Sharing feature.

• Use Finder (macOS Catalina and later) or iTunes (Windows and macOS Mojave or earlier) to copy master.dat, critter.dat, patch000.dat, ce.dat, and data folder to "Fallout 2" app (how-to). Watch for file names - keep (or make) them lowercased (see Configuration).

Controls on iPad:

• One-finger tap → left click; hold → left button held.
• Two-finger tap → right click (cycles cursor mode between walk and attack).
• One-finger drag → scroll map / windows.
• Two-finger drag → mouse wheel.
• Three-finger swipe down → ESC (opens options / main menu).
• Four-finger long press → F6 (quicksave). Hold four fingers on the screen for about half a second.
• Three-finger long press → hold Shift (highlights interactable objects — containers, doors, items — while held).
• Taps on the HUD (interface bar / end-turn / end-combat buttons) act as direct touches so small buttons are easy to hit without aiming.
• A Bluetooth keyboard works for everything else (numbered dialog choices, load game, etc.).

Browser

NOTE: WebAssembly build with emscripten

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/src emscripten/emsdk:3.1.74 sh -c 'git config --global --add safe.directory "*" && mkdir -p build && cd build && emcmake cmake ../ -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../cmake/toolchain/Emscripten.cmake && emmake make'

• Demo available at https://github.com/ololoken/fallout2-ce-ems.git

Contributing

For build instructions and contributor notes, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Integrating Sfall goodies is the top priority. Quality of life updates are OK too. In any case open up an issue with your suggestion or to notify other people that something is being worked on.

For current sfall compatibility status and the remaining work needed to close gaps, see SFALL_COMPATIBILITY.md.

For modders

• Robust (though not 100%) Sfall opcode and hook support
• .ogg/.wav support for map music
• .png support for static assets (must be 8bit indexed)
• .zip support for .dat archives
• Working BIS mapper

License

The source code is this repository is available under the Sustainable Use License.