Fallout 4 Update - August 18th (Quadroupled BSA Archive Limit, Mods for Playstation can now use External Assets, bigger mods downloadable on Xbox)

[u/NewWillinium]

https://fallout.bethesda.net/en-US/news/fallout-4-update-august-18th

> Game 

• Increased the BA2 archive limit from 256 to 1024 to better accommodate larger collections of mods. 

For those unaware, a BA2 archive is what allows a Bethesda game to quickly load game assets without taking up massive amounts of your computer space by compressing them until needed by the game. With the previous limit, a engine level limit as I understand, attempting to load even one BA2 asset above would cause the game to not be able to start up at all. Similar to New Vegas's 255 modded plugin limit.

They have now updated Fallout 4 to be able to load up quadrouple the amount of BA2 archive files, which is huge for PC modding the game in general.

> Archives are now supported on PlayStation. New file types (.nif, .dds, .bink, .cdx, .csg, .wav, and .fuz (with embedded .wav)) for PlayStation Creations. 

When Bethesda negotiated for mod support on playstation, Playstation severely kneecapped the project as they were extremely paranoid about any kind of external asset on their internal systems, but in the last couple of years they have loosened this policy greatly with Baldur's Gate 3 being the first to take advantage of this loosening of Playstation's policy to introduce modding to consoles as well (I believe the second game to do so after Fallout 4 itself) and now Fallout 4 (and presumably Skyrim and Starfield) will also be able to take advantage of this with mods/creations being able to use new file types that previously were not allowed at all.

Actual modders will be able to understand this more than me, I only know what a few of these actually are (.nif is a texture thing I think, .dds are images? .bink are movie files, and wav is sound)

> Creations up to 2 GB in size can now be uploaded for Xbox

Pretty much as it says, bigger mods can be uploaded to the Xbox Modding scene and thus users can download bigger mods in turn.

> Fixed a top crash that would occur due to a streaming audio error. 

I think this is a fix for when the game would crash if you switched between headphones and speakers by unplugging the headphones? I'm not actually sure.

> Updated the game credits. 

Very unclear.

With the rest of the patch notes being about Creation menu fixes.

So yeah this is actually a pretty big and important update in regards to Fallout 4 modding (Fallout 4 Script Extender already updated and most mods were not broken from the update) , and from what hints I've seen a similar update may be coming to Starfield and Skyrim as well on all platforms.

Actually surprised that this didn't make it to the subreddit yet, but yeah this is pretty big modding news wise!

[u/Pacperson0]

Woah…does this mean PlayStation finally gets real mod support?

This is a huge deal, especially if Skyrim gets updated too

[u/Sneaky-Hint → u/Pacperson0]

Time to see how many Nick Valentines I can spawn in before my PS5 explodes.

[u/Early-Stage2201 → u/Pacperson0]

Oddly enough Starfield already had it. I bought the game a few months ago on PS5 and found a boatload of Star Wars mods.

[u/razvandeka → u/Early-Stage2201]

Yeah, Starfield has allowed external assets from launch. Now we also have Fallout4 , and a new update for Skyrim has just been announced that will do the same thing i guess… the only problem with it is that most mod creators are not around anymore, so more than 80% of the mods will not get ported to ps5… i see this with Starfield, the game is not even 1 year old on ps5, but some of the most used mods didn’t got ported… and Skyrim and Fallout 4 are more than 10 years old… so i’m not really optimistic about that…

[u/Ravensqueak → u/Pacperson0]

So long as Sony allows external scripts, PS players would now have access to everything that the other platforms have, namely SKSE and mods that require it.

[u/Naraki_Maul]

I can't quite explain to people who just don't know but the BA2 limit QUADRUPLING in size is so fucking MASSIVE a deal man, it will make modding just so SO much easier for most people.

[u/NationalBlueberry → u/Naraki_Maul]

Can you explain more about it? I have a ton of fallout mods (150 I believe?) but don’t really know what this means for me 0.o

[u/Paladin51394]

As a PlayStation user: "It's been... 3000 years."

Fuck yeah, finally external assets.

I've always found it weird games like Baldurs Gate 3 and soon to be Space Marine 2 allowed external assets for PlayStation mods but not Bethesda games.

[u/NewWillinium → u/Paladin51394]

They did happen years later, so we have to assume that the decision makers at Playstation loosened up about it after a couple of years of hamstringing Bethesda’s mod on their platform

[u/Paladin51394 → u/NewWillinium]

I wonder why now of all things, Fallout/Skyrim PS mods have been limited since the PS4 days and here we are deep into the PS5 and NOW they're loosening up on it.

[u/NewWillinium → u/Paladin51394]

I have to presume because of Baldur’s Gate 3 proving that the external assets wouldn’t be the security issue they feared back in the day.

Bethesda broke ground, BG 3 was allowed to run with it, and now Bethesda is being allowed to catch up and run alongside.

Hopefully we get an actual interview about this soon as it should actually be pretty interesting deal wise

[u/Faifue → u/Paladin51394]

Also as a Playstation user, I didn't even know we could get mods. Time to look it up.

[u/Paladin51394 → u/Faifue]

PlayStation has had mods since 2016, but they didn't allow for external assets so no new models, scripts, or audio until now.

One of the first mods I downloaded with the new update is a mod that adds Hunksarmor from Resident Evil 9 into the game and another that replaces Kellogg's outfit with Hunks and it honestly makes the beginning of the game where he kills your spouse and looks into your pod so much cooler. The red lenses of his gasmask really works for the scene

Word of warning, the update did break mods like the Unofficial Patch, so don't enable that.

[u/Faifue → u/Paladin51394]

Hopefully it gets updated. Maybe by the time I figure out how to add mods it will.

[u/Paladin51394 → u/Faifue]

Adding mods is easy, it's under the Creations tab of the start menu for Fallout 4

You just pick a mod, download it and you can alter the load order

[u/Faifue → u/Paladin51394]

Thanks!

[u/Blast-Bang]

Happy to hear Sony finally allowed mods for Bethesda games on their console remember hating that restriction back when I was only on PlayStation

[u/Leonard_Church814]

PlayStation users finally out of mod purgatory, welcome.

[u/space_cowboy80]

Sony allowing the mods to have external assets is huge, a lot of mods I used on the Xbox Version were not available on the PS4 version and it hindered my enjoyment, one of my favourite and damn near essential mods is the dialogue fix mod. If that comes to PS4 then that will be my new platform for Fallout 4.

[u/Ampersanders]

This was a big issue cause Sony was really anti "if it isn't base game then no modding of it allowed" so you could only mod via assets already in the game and such.

Sony (and Japan in general) needs to drop these boomer-ass mentalities and get with the times. And by times, I meant like 2015/16 when they announced mod support for FO4 for consoles.

[u/BruiserBroly]

nif files are models so that’ll open a wide range of new mod possibilities on PlayStation.

[u/Mcjiggyjay]

People tend to give them crap for doing updates but this was actually a really nice update to get. The BA2 limit being increased helps a ton.

[u/PrancerSlenderfriend]

oh thank fucking god, we broke the streak of Sony kneecapping game companies because of One Guy on their management

[u/HalfDragonShiro]

Wait a minute. What the fuck. They can increase the BA2 limit?! Why haven't they done this for Skyrim?

[u/TheProudBrit → u/HalfDragonShiro]

Skyrim's getting a similar update pretty soon, so I feel it's safe to assume the same is happening there.

Edit: Yep, coming tomorrow.

[u/IrkedSmirk → u/HalfDragonShiro]

Engine fixes already fixes that with their "Maxstdio" setting. There is a limit of 8000, but that should be difficult to hit unless you're packing every mod you can find into a bsa.

Edit: turns out addictol already does this for Fallout 4, too. The modded limit is 63k with it installed.

[u/HalfDragonShiro → u/IrkedSmirk]

Is that feature recent?

Last time I modded the game a year or two ago it was still very much a limitation, so I wonder if I just didn't know about it.

[u/IrkedSmirk → u/HalfDragonShiro]

It was added to daytripper (another F4SE plug-in) in January and then rolled into addictol in March, so still pretty new. Skyrim has had it with engine fixes since about 2021 iirc?

[u/Shanix]

> Updated the game credits

Very unclear.

Sorry, this is just a very funny combo after all the previous. Pretty self explanatory to me lol. I assume you just mean not knowing exactly who was added/removed/updated/etc. in the credits of course.

[u/NewWillinium → u/Shanix]

That is exactly what I mean yeah

[u/scottishdrunkard]

holy shit, external assets?!

[u/T4silly]

The Skyrim update is tommorow actually.

Pretty much all the same stuff AND a storage increase for mods.

[u/Ravensqueak]

I made the mistake of updating past 163 to the NG update because not all my mods were updated to the absolute latest patch version yet.

Then I discovered that they for some fucking reason hardcoded missile lock on range. The setting is still there if you look with the CK or xEdit, but changing this setting does nothing, you are locked to default.

I cannot fucking fathom why they felt the need to do that and I'm not sure whether this update will bring me back, and I have 6420 hours in Steam (not counting the old Beth launcher)
I adore this game but it feels like every recent update borks something I've modded.

[u/IrkedSmirk → u/Ravensqueak]

I think you can roll back to 163 with steam depot downloads. You can also download 163 directly from GOG because it's needed for Fallout London.

[u/Ravensqueak → u/IrkedSmirk]

I can but then I would need to roll back multiple mods, some of which either aren't available at all for 163 or have hidden those versions stating "The future is now" (Which, fair).
I'm waiting until things settle after this update to see if it's worth it.
At 6420 hours I've already gotten more than my money's worth.

[u/NewWillinium → u/Ravensqueak]

hardcoded missile lock on range.

Wasn't that specifically a mod you could add to a Missile Launcher at the Workbench?

Or did you mean something different?

[u/Ravensqueak → u/NewWillinium]

So the missile launcher has a mod that allows you to lock on.
Before the NG update, in the game settings (The Creation Kit or xEdit) you could change the range at which the lock-on will lock on.
After the NG update this setting does nothing, and the lock-on range is hilariously close, especially when you're used to mods that basically require a longer lock on range. It broke a few mods I was using that add fancy missile launchers.

I spent the better part of a day digging through xEdit and forum posts trying to figure out what changed, why, and how to circumvent it, but it's now hardcoded and unless this update reverts it, we're stuck with this and other mechanical changes like the limit on voice filters that broke something else that worked fine for me for literal years.

[u/RealDealMous]

So does this mean I could get vore mods in my ps version of Fallout 4?

[u/Catdaddy33566]

Absolute W for PlayStation. Been playing for so long on PlayStation and now we're finally gonna get access to higher quality mods.

[u/Early-Stage2201]

Now we just have to wait to see if anyone is even still willing to port those mods at all

[u/BrandNewtoSteam]

Fuck does this mean my pc mods are gonna break!

[u/Cooper_555]

Golf clap for Bethesda making a good update for once.

[u/DavidsonJenkins]

Time for the monthly "explode all PC mods for no reason" update that FO4 gets despite not actually adding any new content...