Static Data

Static Data is the data that is downloaded by the EVE Frontier Launcher and used by the client to display information in the game without downloading information from servers.

Inherently static data is unchanging, and is stored on-disk in an immutable form, however the use of that data will vary with patches.

Important

The availability and correctness of these files is entirely down to CCP, if they choose to remove something from static data, change the format or use it in a different way they will likely do so without informing the community. These are effectively internal data structures and not intended to be destructured and read.

Finding Files

The easiest way to find files is through a text search of the contents of C:\CCP\EVE Frontier with Visual Studio Code or grep. There are a couple of key locations to extract filenames from.

The following contain server specific information, i.e. where {server} is stillness it’s for the live server, if you have access to {nova} then you will also have these files too.

  • /index_{server}.txt
  • /{server}/resfileindex.txt
  • /{server}/resfileindex_prefetch.txt

Each of these files are in the same format where each line is mad up of the following components.

res:{logical_path},{file_path},{hash},{size},{unknown}

Where each line represents a file in the virtual filesystem:

  • {logical_path} is the path of the original file and typically indicates the content and format.
  • {file_path} is the actual path relative to C:\CCP\EVE Frontier\ResFiles
  • {hash} and {size} represented attributes about the file use to verify integrity.
  • I don’t know what the last ({unknown}) part is.

Formats

  • .pickle - Pickles are a Python-native data format that supports base Python types in addition to circular references and other Python features. They can be decoded using the Python library or 3rd Party Libraries for other languages such as Razorvine.Pickle.
  • SQLite Databases (.db or .sqlite) - Simple relational databases in SQLite format can be accessed either through a browser and programmatically from any language.
  • FSD Binaries - A custom binary format that can be decoded with various different Python scripts.
  • .schema / .static Files - Contain a custom .schema with byte offsets for individual fields to be read from a .static file.
  • Images and Models - In various formats including DirectX (.dds) and Portable Network Graphics (.png).
Tip

There are several tools that will allow you to extract information from some of these files, many of the 3rd party tools in both EVE Online and EVE Frontier are reliant on these static data files to get in-depth data about the universe.

Key Files

There are several key files included in the game client:

  • starmapcache.pickle a Pickle file containing Regions, Constellations, Solar Systems and Jumps.
  • mapObjects.db a SQLite database containing NPC Stations and Celestials (i.e. Planets and Moons).
  • localization_fsd_main.pickle a Pickle file containing translation data, can be combined with localization_fsd_en-us.pickle to derive the English names for entities in the static data.
  • blueprintsbymaterialtypeids.pickle to derive some Blueprint data.