Commonwealth Dashboard

What it shows

The Status page

Health and AP, level and XP, caps and carry weight, each limb on a figure (crippled in red), the weapon in hand and its ammo, your grenade, Stimpaks, RadAway and Rad-X, and active effects with their time left. On the bigger sizes the game's clock, the date, where you are and the tracked quest join in. Tabs along the top lead to the other pages; a dot on a tab says where to look, such as a crippled limb or a broken piece of armor.

The pages

• SPECIAL and perks: the seven values with what gear and effects add, and every perk with its rank.
• Inventory: aid items and ammo with their counts, the ammo in use marked, and the weight you carry against your limit. A list too long for its panel shows its next rows when you tap it.
• Quests and date: the tracked quest with every objective, the other quests in progress with their next step, and the game's date and time.
• Map: your position and heading, your custom marker, quest markers, your power armor and the places you have found, over the game's own map picture. Tap to zoom in around you.
• Radio: the station playing, and every station with its frequency and whether it is in range.
• Power armor: each piece of the suit in its condition (broken in red, missing dashed), the suit's condition, the worst piece and spare fusion cores; out of it, how far away you left it.

Touch buttons

The buttons act in the game, on this PC only, through Commonwealth Deck or Commonwealth Link:

• tap a radio station to tune in, or the one playing to switch it off;
• use a Stimpak, RadAway or Rad-X;
• Mark here and Clear marker for the map marker.

Chems and the marker take two taps: the first arms the button, a second within 3 seconds uses it, so a brush against the screen uses nothing. Each tap says what happened, or why it could not go. Commonwealth Deck's Edge controls setting, or Touch controls on the widget in Commonwealth Link's tray menu, turns the buttons off.

When something is missing

The widget says what to set up instead of going blank, and comes back by itself once the figures flow again.

• Waiting for Commonwealth Deck or Link: nothing has written the file yet. After a minute it says what to start (see the FAQ).
• Commonwealth Deck or Link is not running: the program writing the file was quit, with when it last wrote.
• Waiting for Fallout 4: the game is not running.
• The game's Pip-Boy app server does not answer: the game runs, but the Pip-Boy Companion App Enabler (AE) or F4SE is not loaded.
• Another Pip-Boy app is connected: another companion app, such as the phone app, holds the game's one connection.
• Open your Pip-Boy in the game: connected, and the data starts once you open the Pip-Boy.
• At the main menu and You died, which say just that.

What you need

• A Corsair XENEON EDGE, on Windows.
• iCUE 5.51 or newer. Earlier versions cannot let a widget read a file.
• One of these on the same PC:
  • Commonwealth Link, a small Windows program for people without a Stream Deck; or
  • Commonwealth Deck 1.0.0 or later, our Stream Deck plugin, with Edge feed ticked under Options (all keys) (the default).
• Fallout 4 1.11.240 on PC with F4SE 0.7.9 and the Pip-Boy Companion App Enabler (AE) mod, started through F4SE, allowed on Private networks if Windows asks, and the Pip-Boy opened once in game. The steps, with links, are in Set up the game on the Commonwealth Deck page; they are the same for Commonwealth Link.

Feeding it

Fallout 4's Pip-Boy companion app server sends the game's data to one app at a time. A widget cannot connect to it itself, so a program on your PC does, and writes what it reads to one file, %APPDATA%\CommonwealthDeck\feed.json, about once a second while you play and at once when something changes. The widget draws from that file. Two programs can write it, in the same format:

• Commonwealth Link, which sits in the notification area. Download it and set it up below.
• Commonwealth Deck, our plugin for Stream Deck, with its Edge feed setting on (the default).

The game allows one Pip-Boy app at a time, and each of them counts as one. If both run, Commonwealth Link stands by while Commonwealth Deck writes the file, and takes over by itself when Commonwealth Deck stops. Close the Pip-Boy app on your phone or tablet while you use the widget.

Start Commonwealth Link or Commonwealth Deck once before you add the widget in iCUE. That makes the folder the widget reads, and iCUE only watches a folder that existed when the widget was added. If you placed the widget first, remove it and add it again, or restart iCUE.

Commonwealth Link, for players without a Stream Deck

Commonwealth Link is a small companion program for Windows. It connects to the game's Pip-Boy companion app server the same way Commonwealth Deck does, writes the same feed file and answers the widget's touch buttons the same way, so Commonwealth Dashboard works without a Stream Deck. It also makes the widget's map picture from your own copy of the game.

It is one program in a zip: no installer, no window, just an icon in the notification area by the clock. It is offered at no charge.

Download Commonwealth Link 1.0.0 Windows 10 or 11 · 64-bit · 5.6 MB zip

Commonwealth Link is open source (MIT), so you can read exactly what it does: github.com/AussieH/commonwealth-link. The same zip is on its GitHub release.

Install Commonwealth Link

1. Set up the game as in Set up the game: F4SE 0.7.9 and the Pip-Boy Companion App Enabler (AE) mod.
2. Download CommonwealthLink-1.0.0.zip and unzip it anywhere you like, for example into a folder in your Documents. Inside are CommonwealthLink.exe, a README.md with these steps and the LICENSE.
3. Double-click CommonwealthLink.exe, once before you place the widget in iCUE. A tray icon appears in the notification area. (If Windows shows a blue "Windows protected your PC" box, see below.)
4. Start Fallout 4 through F4SE, with f4se_loader.exe or your mod manager's F4SE tool. If Windows asks, allow Fallout 4 on Private networks.
5. Load a save and open the Pip-Boy once. Hover over the tray icon to see the status: waiting for Fallout 4 before the game runs, in game while you play.

Right-click the tray icon for its menu:

• Touch controls on the widget (on): untick it and the widget only shows the game.
• Map picture from your game (on): untick it and the widget draws its own grid instead.
• Show the character's name (off): only then does the feed carry your character's name.
• Open the folder: opens %APPDATA%\CommonwealthDeck, where the feed file, the map picture and the settings are.
• Start with Windows: tick it and Commonwealth Link starts when you sign in, for your account only.
• Quit.

To uninstall, untick Start with Windows if you ticked it, quit from the tray menu, and delete the folder you unzipped it to. Its files are in %APPDATA%\CommonwealthDeck, which Commonwealth Deck shares, so leave that folder if you use the plugin too.

"Windows protected your PC"

The first time you run Commonwealth Link, Windows may show a blue box that says Windows protected your PC. Windows SmartScreen shows this for any new program that is not yet signed and that few people have run yet. It does not mean anything was found wrong with it. Click More info, then Run anyway. Windows remembers your choice for that file.

• Commonwealth Link never needs administrator rights, and never asks for them.
• It talks only to this PC: it connects to the game's Pip-Boy app server here while Fallout 4 runs, and answers the widget on this PC's own loopback address. It makes no internet connection and has no account.
• It reads your Fallout 4 folder only to make the map picture, read only, and writes only to %APPDATA%\CommonwealthDeck, plus the Start with Windows entry if you tick it.

Commonwealth Link settings

On its first start Commonwealth Link writes link-settings.json in the same folder. Most people never need to change it: the tray menu changes the first three. To change the rest, edit it in Notepad, then quit Commonwealth Link and start it again.

{
  "showName": false,
  "touchControls": true,
  "mapPicture": true,
  "gameDir": "",
  "pipboyHost": "",
  "pipboyPort": 27000
}

• gameDir: your Fallout 4 folder, if Commonwealth Link does not find it by itself (it looks at the game's own registry entry, then every Steam library).
• pipboyHost and pipboyPort: the game on another PC. Left empty, Commonwealth Link connects to this PC only, while Fallout 4 runs here.

Running Commonwealth Link and Commonwealth Deck together

With a Stream Deck you do not need Commonwealth Link: Commonwealth Deck writes the widget's file itself. If both run, they never fight over the game's one connection. Whenever Commonwealth Deck writes the feed, Commonwealth Link lets go of the game, stops writing and its tray says Commonwealth Deck is running; standing by. About 5 seconds after Commonwealth Deck stops, when you quit Stream Deck, Commonwealth Link takes over by itself.

If you turned Commonwealth Deck's Edge feed off, Commonwealth Link cannot tell the plugin is there, and its tray says another app has the game's connection. Quit Commonwealth Link then, or turn Edge feed back on.

What it reads

The widget reads one folder, %APPDATA%\CommonwealthDeck, where Commonwealth Link or Commonwealth Deck writes its file. For the touch buttons and the two map pictures it also talks to that program on this PC, at localhost port 52827, with a key the program writes into the file and renews each start. That is all: no other folder, no other address.

The map picture is not in the widget. Commonwealth Deck or Commonwealth Link reads it from your own Fallout 4 files while you play, and hands it to the widget on this PC; nothing of the game's ships with either. Without it the map is a plain drawn grid.

Sizes and settings

You choose the size in iCUE when you place the widget: Small, Medium, Large or Extra Large, across or upright. Every page is laid out for every size; small sizes leave out the least needed lines instead of shrinking the type.

In the widget's settings in iCUE you can:

• Show the Status page with its page tabs, or one page per widget, so you can place several Commonwealth Dashboard widgets side by side;
• turn the page tabs on the Status page off;
• set the game clock to 12 or 24 hours;
• turn the map picture off, for a drawn grid;
• pick the language: English, French or Spanish, with the game's own words, or Automatic, which follows iCUE's language;
• set the text, accent and background colours, and the background transparency.

What it can and cannot do

• It reads one folder on your PC and talks only to Commonwealth Deck or Commonwealth Link on this PC. It stores nothing and writes nothing. Nothing you play leaves your PC from the widget.
• Only its buttons change anything in the game: the radio, a chem, the map marker. Other taps only change what the widget shows.
• In iCUE's preview it shows a made-up character labelled sample.

Frequently asked

Do I need a Stream Deck?

No. Commonwealth Link is a small Windows program that writes the same file as the Stream Deck plugin. It needs no administrator rights and nothing to install: unzip it and run it.

Can I use it with the Stream Deck plugin at the same time?

Yes. Commonwealth Deck writes the file the widget reads, so with a Stream Deck you need nothing else. If you also run Commonwealth Link, it stands by while the plugin writes; see Running Commonwealth Link and Commonwealth Deck together.

It says Still waiting for Commonwealth Deck or Link.

Start Commonwealth Link, or Stream Deck with Commonwealth Deck. iCUE can only watch a folder that already exists, so if you added the widget before either program had ever run, remove the widget and add it again, or restart iCUE.

It says The game's Pip-Boy app server does not answer.

The Pip-Boy Companion App Enabler (AE) or F4SE is not loaded. Check the mod is on in your mod manager, and start the game with f4se_loader.exe or your mod manager's F4SE tool, not the Play button in Steam. See Troubleshooting on the Commonwealth Deck page.

It says Another Pip-Boy app is connected.

The game serves one companion app at a time. Close the Pip-Boy app on your phone or tablet. With both of ours running, quit Commonwealth Link, or turn Commonwealth Deck's Edge feed back on so the Link stands by.

Why does the fusion core say Charge not sent by the game?

The game's Pip-Boy app does not send the fusion core's charge. The pieces of your suit and the spare cores do come through.

Is this made by Bethesda or Corsair?

No. Commonwealth Dashboard and Commonwealth Link are unofficial projects made by TeaTime, not affiliated with or endorsed by Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax Media or Corsair. Fallout and Pip-Boy are trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc., and XENEON EDGE and iCUE are trademarks of Corsair. No game logo, artwork, icon, font or screenshot is used: every panel, bar, figure and glyph is drawn in code, and the map picture comes from your own copy of the game.

Something is still wrong.

Email support@teatimeservers.ca and tell us what the widget says.