My Main Save is Borked. Is Console-Questing and Leveling OK?

[Tilki]

I'm having a couple of known problems affecting my main character's save game, and there may be still more that I haven't yet encountered.

 

I've been up and down the forums and google about these errors, and have neither found nor gotten solutions. Tried re-installing, cleaning saves, etc. etc. etc. Fact is, they are only affecting that character's saves. When I test any new character's game, everything's fine: mods work well, no weird barriers, etc.

 

Probably due to less-than-ideal modding practices (although I tried to be very careful, you just never know... with scripts and removing mods, there's always a chance to screw things up).

 

I don't want to just start a new game because I have hundreds of hours on this character, plus an RP journal with a whole story, etc. However, a new game would eliminate these problems instantly... rather than spending even more time trying to surgically pinpoint and remove them, sans success.

 

That said, is it totally bad/dangerous/etc. to start a new game and console-catch-up? Console levels, skills, quests, items, etc, up to where I left off? (Someone at reddit even provided a nice set of commands to do this)

 

I know console commands also have the potential to cause problems, so would I just be inviting more trouble by trying to do this?

 

Thank you.

[Tilki]

Also found this just now: Console Leveling the "Proper" Way

 

Just want to make sure this is an acceptable form of salvation :laugh:

[Tilki]

Since this posting, I've managed to get my character almost exactly back to where she was (Level 45, entire College Questline finished, + several other major quests finished) in just a few sittings.

 

Not sure of exact hours; a lot of time was spent adjusting mods and load order. I'll estimate under 10 hours of play-time.

 

Just going to leave the process here in case future persons with hopeless saves come googling.

 

1. Go to the Cheats & God Items section of Nexus and look for what will be most helpful to you. I chose:
   • Leveling Books
   • Perks Unbound (nice to have anyway)
   • Crafting Supplies
   • Alternate Start (nice to have anyway)
2. Get your mods in good working order. Get EVERYthing you want, test it in a test save, use LOOT, etc. Once you test your new mods, if you like them, DO NOT REMOVE THEM EVER. You never know when some tiny loose script will corrupt your entire 400-hour game. Script cleaners can only do so much.
   
3. Take screenshots of all of your most important items/quests/skills/etc. in your screwed up save so you can copy them. (Hope it's not so screwed up that you can't do this)
   
4. Make a CME (if you use ECE) or SPF save of your character and re-use it.
   
5. Create a BAT file of vanilla items that you want to replace. (Unless you also know the cods for modded items) You can even use a pre-created BAT file, or just copy its sctructure and add your own items.
   
6. Once you've used the mods to get your skills and levels back to where they were, you can re-do your quests. Consoling quests IS a BAD idea. To re-do them manually, but much faster:
   
   CONSOLE COMMANDS:
   • tgm = god mode
   • player.setav speedmult 300 = about as fast as I can go without inducing nausea
   • tcl = no clip
   • tdetect = enemies don't know you're there, but you can still kill them

ITEMS:

• Flyable Broom:
  This works for me as a Witch and is part of my playthrough anyway, but it's also the easiest/fastest form of transport apart from fast travel.
• Enchanted Daedric Sword & other OP items:
  If you don't want to use console commands to kill NPCs and/or you don't just want to run past them with tdetect because you want achievements and/or are paranoid about finishing quests properly. Since my character is a spellsword anyway, I just didn't level my One-Handed all the way to where it was, and slashed through everything on Novice mode.