Daggerfall:SAVEGAME.DAT description

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Layout of Daggerfall savetree.dat Files

Contents 1 Acknowledgements 2 Notes 3 Level One: Base Structure 4 Level Two: Record Structure 5 Level Three: Record Contents 5.1 Record Types 5.2 Record Contents 5.2.1 Record type: spell (09) 5.2.2 Record type Guild (0a) 5.2.3 Record type: Character (03, ...) 5.2.4 Record type: Item (02) 5.2.5 Record type: "Destination" (28. 29) 5.2.6 Record type: Unknown (6) 5.2.7 Record type: Item Group (34) 5.2.8 Other Goofy Things 6 SAVEVARS.DAT

[edit] Acknowledgements

The Quest Hacking guides on Dave Humphrey's Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages and DaggerWeb (the hacking guide is now on Michael Schneider's site) started me looking into the format of the QBN files. I reached a point where I decided that a better understanding of the save file and its relation to the QBN files was required. My effort has gone in that direction, and I hope that what I find here will help those working on the QBN files. Further, I'd like to thank the many people that figured out most of the information for the character records and for the item records. A lot of what is in here is taken directly from what they found.

[edit] Notes

All numbers given in this document are in hexadecimal. Numbers written as XX XX XX are in the same byte order as they would appear in the savetree.dat file. Numbers written as XXXX are short words, and the two bytes are reversed from their order in the file. Numbers written as XXXXXXXX are long words, and the four bytes are reversed from their order in the file.

[edit] Level One: Base Structure

Savetree.dat has a 13 byte (hex, remember) header record. This is followed by a variable number of variable sized records( there does not appear to be any counts of records, or any offsets, or any other information useful to extracting records). The variable records have a long word header, which is the size of the record excluding the four bytes of the record size. There are special records which are 0 size, used to break the save file into the following sections:

• 13 byte header
• Town record (zero length if not in town)
• Monster, character, and item records
• 0-sized record
• Quest records
• 0-sized record
• Dungeon info (Note: this size must be multiplied by 27!)
• 0-sized record
• End-of-file

[edit] Level Two: Record Structure

With the exception of the Town record and the Dungeon info, each record has a 1-byte record type at the beginning. This record type is followed by a 46 byte common structure that contains all sorts of interesting data, most of it uninterpretable by myself. The parts that are fairly clear are:

06	0c bytes of location data
1e	04 byte object ID
25	01 byte quest ID
26	04 byte parent object ID
42	04 byte parent record type

I don't know much about the location data, but I have a suspicion that it is interpreted as 6 short words, where each pair of short words represent the X, Y, or Z position of the object in question. Some records don't have a location that makes sense, and some are contained within other records (e.g. objects carried by the character).

The object ID appears to be a unique long word for every item.Records that are carried by the character have a special ID of 0064XXXX. Some special records have an ID of 0001XXXX. Usually, though, the most significant two bytes are a common value thoughout a savetree file.

The parent object ID is the unique ID of the record this record belongs to.

The parent record type is (you guessed it!) the record type byte that the parent object ID references.

The Quest ID associates the record with a particular quest. Every quest that the character is involved in has a unique ID, which is at the beginning of each saved QBN record. These appear to start counting at 1.

[edit] Level Three: Record Contents

I have identified a number of record types and some of their contents, although the rest of the records remain a mystery to me.

[edit] Record Types

Hex Type	Item Description
02	Item Records
03	Character Record - one per save file
04	Character Record parent - unknown purpose
05	Character Record parent - unknown purpose
06	Unknown
08	Unknown
09	Spells and Spell Effects
0a	Guild Membership Records
0e	QBN Records - slight differences between these records and the QBN files, but still recognizable.
10	Parent for QBN records
12	Parent for QBN records
16	Spellcasting creatures - spell list head
17	Control Setting Records - detail, volume
18	Location Names, possibly logbook entries
19	Unknown, 1 per save file
1f	Potion mixing records
20	Unknown, Linked to TOWN record structure
21	Unknown, usually in dungeon saves
22	Creature record
24	Possibly items on store shelves
27	Mystery Record - referenced, but doesn't exist in file
28	Location names - possibly for quests
29	Location names - possibly for quests
2b	Mystery Record - referenced, but doesn't exist in file
2c	Creature record
2d	NPC records
2e	Generic NPC Records
33	Dungeon record? Huge, mostly zero filled
34	Container Records
40	Unknown Records, all are part of a 'container'
41	Unknown, Possibly quest information

[edit] Record Contents

There are a few special fields that need interpretation. Time stamps are recorded in minutes of game time since one year previous to your character's start in Privateer's Hold. Tamriel has 12 months per year, 30 days per month, 24 hours per day, and 60 minutes per hour.

[edit] Record type: spell (09)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	effects	BYTE	0x06
0006	category	BYTE	0x02
0008	cost	BYTE	0x06
000e	Duration	BYTE	0x09
0017	Probability	BYTE	0x09
0020	Strength1	BYTE	0x05
0025	Strength2	BYTE	0x05
002a	Strength3	BYTE	0x05
002f	Name	CHAR	0x14
0047	??????	BYTE	0x03

NOTE: each spell can have 3 effects. Each effect is recorded as two bytes in the 'effects' field, an entry of FF FF indicates there is no effect. Each effect has its own 3-byte probability (base + chance/level) and a 3-byte duration (same). The strength for each effect is (low, high, low per level, high per level, and level) taken straight from the spell creation window.

[edit] Record type Guild (0a)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	level	SHORT	0x01
0003	guildID	SHORT	0x01
0005	Timestamp	LONG	0x02
000D	Other

[edit] Record type: Character (03, ...)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	name	CHAR	0x20
0020	curstat	SHORT	0x08
0030	basstat	SHORT	0x08
0040	gender	BYTE	0x01
0041	transportation	SHORT	0x01
0043	race	BYTE	0x01
0044	armor	BYTE	0x07
0058	start sum	LONG	0x01
0070	opponent	LONG	0x01
007c	health	SHORT	0x02
0080	portrait	BYTE	0x01
0082	level	BYTE	0x01
0083	reflex	BYTE	0x01
0085	gold	LONG	0x01
008d	mana	SHORT	0x02
0091	reputation	SHORT	0x05
009d	Skills	SHORT+LONG	0x23
016f	Equipped	LONG	0x1b
01fd	Timestamp	LONG	0x05
0230	resist	BYTE	0x01
0231	immune	BYTE	0x01
0232	low tolerance	BYTE	0x01
0233	crit weakness	BYTE	0x01
0234	flags	SHORT	1
0236	rapid heal	BYTE	1
0237	regen health	BYTE	1
0238	unknown	BYTE	1
0239	spell absorb	BYTE	1
023a	hit/phobia	BYTE	1
023b	forb material	SHORT	1
023d	crit weakness	BYTE	1
023e	forbidden armor	SHORT	1
0240	Class Primary	BYTE	3
0243	Class Major	BYTE	3
0246	Class Minor	BYTE	6
024c	Class Name	CHAR	18
0264	HP/Level	SHORT	01
026a	Start stats	SHORT	08

[edit] Record type: Item (02)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	Name	CHAR	20
0020	category	SHORT	02
0024	Value	LONG	02
002c	Hits	SHORT	03
0032	Picture	SHORT	02
0036	Material	BYTE	01
0037	Construction	BYTE	01
0038	Colour	BYTE	01
0039	Weight	LONG	01
003d	Enchant Pts	SHORT	01
003f	Message	SHORT	01
0041	Magic	SHORT	18

[edit] Record type: "Destination" (28. 29)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	Questor	SHORT	1
0002	LINK	LONG	1
0006	Destination	CHAR	20

NOTE: This record can have multiple entries of Questor, LINK, and Destination. I don't know what provides the count or the terminating sentinel.

[edit] Record type: Unknown (6)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	Unknown	SHORT	10
0020	Location	SHORT	6

NOTE: This record type is referenced by what I think are the dungeon descriptions.

[edit] Record type: Item Group (34)

Offset	Description	Field Type	Count
0000	Unknown	unknown	unknown

NOTE: All items owned by the character have a `parent link' back to a type 34 record. This appears to be the grouping of an item: whether it is on the character, in the cart, weapon list, etc. The type of group is determined by a value in the header for the record.

[edit] Other Goofy Things

The Town and Dungeon records don't have an identifying type byte. I don't know much about them, but Ive been using the following fields to dump these records, which are in themselves a list of records of some type.

TOWN (1a bytes) 

1*SHORT, 0x10*BYTE, 2*BYTE, 1*LONG, 2*BYTE

DUNGEON(27 bytes) 

2*SHORT, 1f*BYTE, 1*LONG

The long values look to be record ID's, much as found in the common headers of all the other record types.

The records for Potions aren't simply enchanted items. In fact, the potion is a linked record of "glass bottle", indicating that the bottle itself isn't the magic, the contents are! The potion contains both a list of the ingredients that went into the mixture, and a spell effect list.

The 'epoch' for the time stamps is 12AM, 1st of Morning Star, 3E 404.

[edit] SAVEVARS.DAT

My small contribution to the savevars.dat file is that the current game date is saved at offset 0x3c9.