Question about starting new save games

[Duijin]

So whenever someone brings up uninstalling a mod mid-playthrough, people casually suggest to just start a new game rather than trying to uninstall them. But Skyrim is such a vast game, even with unmodded vanilla, it has numerous long questlines that can be pretty time consuming. Like, when you start a new game, do you repeat playing over all the long questlines again?

 

Or is there some kind of shortcut that I've missed? For me myself, I'm already 64 hours in on my current save. Do the people that casually start new games have a lot of time on their hands?

Edited November 24, 2022 by Duijin

[7531Leonidas]

A new game after uninstalling a mod during a playthrough that is not solely textures or (usually?) meshes, with no .esp or .esm file included, is recommended.

 

Why? A LOT of data is held in the save games, which involves their ref ID and base ID numbers, and scripts, amongst other information, so the game knows what everything was doing/being when you saved. That is why your saves get larger as you adventure. All of the NPCs and places you have seen get added to the save. When you remove an .esp or .esm from your load order (LO), you change the numbering of all of the mods after the one/ones you install, which changes all of the ID numbers in the game, and removes references to any scripts or state information in the saves.

 

You might get an immediate CTD (cut to desktop) style crash upon loading, or crash after you have spent hours moving across Skyrim and encounter the game trying to call up information or perform an action from a missing, or now mis-matched reference, or upon movement to Solstheim, Blackreach, or one of many other mod-added worlds. Again, it may be immediate, or it may be many hours (weeks) later - I don't think that there is any real way to know. Save cleaners have been touted as remedies for script problems, but are iffy in many instances, and they do not really address the problem of the altered IDs.

 

There are save games that have only the base game, and maybe USSEP, that have completed many of the base game quests, and others that are alternate start type mods that can skip around for you.

 

There are more than a few users who routinely d/l and install mods to test, and uninstall them later. Maybe some of them will come by here and comment. (Anjen - you lurking out there?)

[Duijin]

Right. But my main question is, when you start a new game, isn't it a drag to do all the long questlines over again? Because, some questlines are pretty good to do for the sake of gameplay advantages, such as doing the DB questline for the horse etc

[7531Leonidas]

There are game saves, utilizing only the base game files, and maybe USSEP, that start you off about lvl 60-100 (?), and have all/most of the major questlines completed. You just add your mods, load the game, and boom. Might have to use Racemenu to alter the PC to suit you. I do not know what category such files are found under.

 

There are alternate start mods/game overhauls that avoid some of the basic questlines, usually the Dragonborn/Dragon Rising/High Hrothgar sequence, maybe more. I haven't paid much attention to them, you will have to hunt around, unless someone with more knowledge comes around.

[anjenthedog]

As to installing mods mid game, Each to his/her own. I've been installing and uninstalling mods since day one, and using the same base character vector the whole time. I do have a couple of artifacts I picked up along the way, but had I been the least bit more savvy about the entire skyrim "paradigm" and for that matter, modern gaming of any kind, prior to installing, or if I'd even been able to get many of my initial questions answered for the first year, I doubt those would be present.

 

Yes, you do have to be careful with some mods, yes you have to be patient when installing and initially testing mods. Failures are fully recoverable without exception, as long as you install only one mod at a time and thoroughly test it before accepting it as part of the long term game (then uninstall it and revert back to a prior save if it doesn't pan out). Bulk installation is a recipe for disaster, dissatisfaction, and imo, silly-assed leet-gamerZ rules like "though shall never install a mod mid game"

 

As to your followup... Personally speaking, I've given up on being faithful to the game line. If I choose to follow a quest line, I do so only as long as it interests me. And some, like the thieves guild, assassins guild, Boethia, I haven't done and probably never will. Same for companions. There's nothing to say you have to do anything the game wants you to, outside some minimal and initial participation in the main questline (presuming you haven't employed Alt life or something). After using it to boost yourself to level 20 or so, you can all but abandone the main quest and any other, (as long as you accept not getting the particular goodies they often reward you with.

 

If you get clever, you'll stash away a solid game at early level so you can clone it to a new game vector later on renaming that vector via Racemenu name change (and body change via racemenu preset if you want a new look...caveat, with any necessary bodyslide work if a gross body (or gender) change).

It will also provide a base save with at least some of the intial "footwork" in quests done. fwiw

[showler]

Right. But my main question is, when you start a new game, isn't it a drag to do all the long questlines over again? Because, some questlines are pretty good to do for the sake of gameplay advantages, such as doing the DB questline for the horse etc

Gameplay advantages? My Skyrim gameplay is all about making things harder these days.

 

If I need to start a new save game, I make a new and different character and start out on a quest line I hadn't done on my previous run.

 

And if I have a character I want to play for a while, I don't change my mods.

[LostForrest]

If I can't uninstall a mod mid play trough it pisses me off as well. I usually delete them permanent if they are not important enough. If you keep adding and removing mods from your save games soon or later it will prob crash. However there is a solution for that. After removing mods if you don't have imediate ctd and your savegame is corrupt your can pretty much fix everything. Just make sure to use fallrimtools or another program to clean your save games every once in a while. This should prevent data of unused mods piling up.