What is this?

This tool is a very simple web scraper that takes data related to Fallout 4 crafting components and displays that data within a CLI. The fo4_component_scraper.py contains functions that handle scraping and parsing the data, and the main.py file contains the 'loop' that allows you to query the data via the command line.

Why?

In the game you need the correct number/type of components in order to craft and upgrade things. Personally I don't find scouring the wasteland for junk enjoyable, so I tend to use the game console and spawn in whatever components I need. I found navigating the Wiki to be a pain, so I created this utility. I can run it in a terminal on a second monitor, tab over to get the object ID I need, then tab back into the game.

This program is total overkill (I could just copy the IDs I need into a txt file, or write a script that only prints all IDs) but I wanted to try out some web scraping with Python.

How?

This program requires Python 3.6+ as it utilises f-strings. The following steps assume you already have Python 3.6 installed.

Clone the repository to any folder with git clone https://github.com/pmdredd/fo4_component_scraper.git.

Create a new virtual env using python3 -m venv venv then activate that env with venv\Scripts\activate on Windows, or source venv/bin/activate on Linux/MacOS.

Install the required libraries (requests and BeautifulSoup) using python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt.

Now you can open the tool by typing python3 main.py.

What next?

• Add ability to search a junk item and gets its components in return
• Include DLC junk items
• Show quantities of components you get get from breaking down a junk item
• Show potential sources for components?
• Nicer UI?

Musings

I'm not convinced I need a class for this tool. Really I have a (private) function that scrapes the data, a (private) function that parses the scraped data, and a few variables to store stuff. I run both functions on instantiation so 'users' of the object are not actually calling these functions themselves. Maybe I can just turn it into a module and skip the ceremony of OOP.

I have removed the FO4ComponentScraper class and replaced it with a module (containing only functions). I think defining a class wasn't necessary as the resulting object was not composable or re-usable, and I was accessing the attributes directly anyway so encapsulation was pointless. Caching the result of the scrape was not necessary either as the script only scrapes once when it starts anyway.