DAT (Final Fantasy XI)
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Quick look of a few files as an example shows there is some common structure. DAT might simple be some type of container file for general data.
Folder structures are... ROM#/FOLDER#/FILE#.DAT Example. ROM/0/0.DAT
There is a lot of different files here. The way the game loads and references other files to load is not understood yet.
Many may not even have a magic number to ID the format. The game probably assumes the file it is trying to load is the correct type so it doesn't need to validate.
| NPC List type | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size | Content | Description | ||||||||||||
| 28 Bytes | Name | NPC Name | ||||||||||||
| 4 Bytes | ID | |||||||||||||
Example: ROOT:/ROM/27/13.DAT
FTABLE.DAT and VTABLE.DAT appear to be important in how the game loads data. Such as loading a specific number file and then uses these, it'll calculate what the file ROM/FOLDER/FILE it is. Or so I've read. Still can't wrap my head around how it works, even while looking at the source of some other programs.