FISSION Clues System Mini-Guide

Add Readable Articles, Images, and Cross‑Links to the Pip‑Boy

This guide assumes you have a working mod folder (e.g. mods/mod_mytown.dat/ from the Quick Start Guide). You’ll add articles that appear under the CLUES tab in the Pip‑Boy.

1. What You Need

Your existing mod folder: mods/mod_mytown.dat/ (a folder for development, later compressed into a .dat file for release).

You will create one or more .txt files - each file is a separate article. Optionally, you can also add FRM images to display inside articles.

2. Creating a Clues Article File

File location: mods/mod_mytown/text/english/clues/ (or text/<language>/clues/ for other languages).

Naming: Any filename ending with .txt (e.g. my_note.txt, secret_plans.txt). Duplicate titles are ignored.

Format

  • First line: The article title (max 255 characters).
  • Following lines: The article content (plain text with optional markup).

Example - my_note.txt

A Mysterious Note

I found this note behind the old safe. It reads:

The combination is 42-17-36.

I should check the [[Security Terminal]] for more clues.

3. Formatting and Markup

Your article content supports the following markup:

Markup Effect
*text* Bold text (rendered in a lighter green).
_text_ Underlined text.
[[Target Title]] A clickable link to another article. The target must match the title of another article (case-insensitive; spaces and punctuation are preserved).
[img:filename] Inserts an image. filename is the name of a .frm file (without extension) placed in art/clues/. The image is scaled to fit the Pip‑Boy screen and rendered with a green CRT effect.

Combining markup

You can combine bold and underline, for example:

*_important_*

Links cannot be nested inside bold or underline.

Example with all markup

The Vault Door

[img:vault_door]

The door is sealed with a high-security lock.

I found a note saying: the code is 42-17-36.

Maybe [[The Security Terminal]] has more info.

4. Where to Put Everything

mods/mod_mytown/
├─ art/
│  └─ clues/
│     ├─ vault_door.frm
│     └─ terminal.frm
└─ text/
   └─ english/
      └─ clues/
         ├─ my_note.txt
         ├─ security_terminal.txt
         └─ ...
  • Article files go in text/<language>/clues/ (e.g. text/english/clues/).
  • Images go in art/clues/ and must be Fallout FRM files (palette-indexed).

The system automatically converts images to green shades when displayed.

Language fallback

If the current game language is not English and the corresponding clues/ folder is missing, the system falls back to text/english/clues/.

5. Testing Your Clues

  1. Run the game with your mod loaded.
  2. Open the Pip‑Boy (P) and click the CLUES button (broken wire).
  3. Your article titles should appear in the list.
  4. Open an article to verify that links and images work correctly.

6. Important Notes

  • Title uniqueness: Duplicate titles are ignored. Matching is case-insensitive.
  • Link resolution: [[Target Title]] links are resolved at runtime. Missing targets appear as plain text and are not clickable.
  • Automatic pagination: Articles are split into pages automatically when they exceed the Pip‑Boy screen height.
  • Image rendering: Images are centered and displayed with a retro scanline effect using the Pip‑Boy green palette.
  • Performance: Keep images under 350 × 410 pixels for best results. Larger images are clipped.

7. Quick Troubleshooting

Problem Likely Fix
Article not in list Verify the .txt file is in the correct clues/ folder and has a non-empty first line. Check clues_list.txt for errors.
Title shows “Error!” The file is missing or the first line is empty.
Links don’t work The target title must exactly match the destination article’s title.
Image not showing Ensure the .frm is in art/clues/ and the filename in [img:filename] matches exactly (without extension).
Image appears too dark Use a higher-contrast FRM. The renderer stretches contrast, but extremely dark images remain dark.
“Hash collision” popup Not related to the Clues system. That message comes from other systems such as items or holodisks.

8. Advanced: Customizing the Green Palette

The Pip‑Boy image renderer uses a hardcoded greenPalettes[] array in the source code. Changing the palette requires recompiling FISSION.

You can also adjust the blackThreshold value (default 4) in cluesRenderImage() to change how very dark pixels are treated, but this is intended for engine developers rather than mod authors.