How bad is it REALLY to install mods midgame?

[SirCadsimar]

On 3/17/2025 at 10:18 PM, RedHeadAngel said:

@SirCadsimar @scorrp10 @Karna5
I’ve installed some outfit mods midgame without any issues. I imagine it was because they didn’t alter anything besides adding the outfits to the world.

Many outfit mods are light plugin types (ESL, ESPFE) and are usually safe to install to an ongoing playthrough.

[Karna5]

46 minutes ago, SirCadsimar said:

Many outfit mods are light plugin types (ESL, ESPFE) and are usually safe to install to an ongoing playthrough.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Whenever I install any outfit mod (which is generally several times a week), the first thing I do before logging into the game to try it is checking my plugin load order. If I see a slot was assigned to the outfit, that means it's not ESL.

So before logging into the game I open the plugin with SEEdit (XEdit) and change the flag in the header to be ESL. If XEdit tells me that's not permitted, then I renumber the records from 800 to eliminate any invalid records and then try again.

If XEdit says that's still not allowed, it gives me the reason which could be it has some kind of lighting or effect record not suitable for ESL in which case I leave it as is.

But I never ever ever (ever) allow an outfit mod to take a slot spot for no reason.

I have to do the ESL conversion before trying the outfit for the first time because once I log in with the plugin it's too late to change it.

If I decide I don't like the outfit or decide it's not suitable for my character to use I uninstall the mod before saving the game to avoid saving with a plugin installed I don't  plan to use.

[anjenthedog]

On 3/19/2025 at 9:53 PM, Karna5 said:

Hi, anjenthedog. I've been thinking about this, and I'd say I agree but with caveat. I'm currently at 769 active mods with 553 plugins, and I do add, upgrade and remove mods several times a week (with great care, of course).

This said, no matter how careful I am, I do from time to time finally hit a stage where I can't fix something in my game and have to either find a save location from weeks previous or start a new game. For instance, I play with super high difficulty where I have it set so that NPCs and monsters can one-shot kill me regardless of hit points if they're lucky. But lately I was noticing that instead of dying, I kept getting back up. At one point a couple of days ago, evil guards in Riften tried to behead me, and instead of my head coming off, I just got up.

I went back and found that I had to restore to several weeks ago if I wanted to fix the issue (it wasn't a setting I could fix in MCM). So yesterday I restarted a new game (without redoing any mods) and am happily dying periodically once again.

I estimate that every 150 to 200ish levels something eventually goes wrong which I can't fix through configurations. In this case I suspect (but could not confirm) that something put me into protected mode and did not remove it. As there is no console command to remove protected mode, and as this seems to have been done via a script, I simply couldn't fix it.

This isn't a complaint from me as in truth I very much enjoy the process of beginning with no skills or strength at all and gradually building up into a super soldier/assassin/mage.

This said, do you not run into the same issue from time to time where you're forced to start a new game because the old one hit an unfixable condition?

At this point, (I've only had 1.6.1170 running for about a month and a half so far, after 1.5.97 died on me last Oct/Nov... edit: note: died because of a Steam FU that left the game inaccessible by Steam for play authorization, not because of installed mods), no, I haven't been forced into a new game.  (with the exception of doing so to create my two new player character instances)

And tbh, honest, while I did have some routine issues with 1.5.97, I never *had to* start a new game, I simply dealt/coped with the issues as they reared their figurative heads. The main issue I faced in 1.5.97 was a somewhat routine freeze termination, very likely (ie almost certainly) caused not by mods but by my overloading the game with too "stuff" much for my video subsystem to handle (1060SC 6G card) My new games were to introduce new player instances. That's all. 

The one REAL issue that I faced (and still face) with some routine as I periodically decided to purge old mods I wasn't really capitalizing on, or had grown tired of, or I had decided I wanted to replace with something else, was in *uninstalling* those existing mods. Some (most) uninstalled without issue, some uninstalled with resolvable issues, and a small handful, that once installed and played on for a while, simply cause the game to terminate without their presence (either disabled OR uninstalled was good enough to cause irredeemable havoc), either at game load or at save load, unless I'd go back to a save created before they'd been installed and "re" start from there (with them absent by disable or uninstall). And I'd bet that a substantive majority of those unremovable mods were unremovable because their creators were lazy and or sloppy...

My advise about installing mods "mid way" would be "Be careful and test thoroughly after mod installation so you can back out gracefully if it goes belly up",  but tbh, I've seen very little to substantiate the overbearing, preachy, condescending scolding about never installing mods "midgame" that some have engaged in over the years on the subject.  

I see no evidence to justify the sweeping advise. I could see advising people to be careful and make sure that they have older saves to fall back on if their choices lead to a failure, and make sure they have and know how to use utilities like falllrim, sseedit, nifskope etc for addressing issues, etc, but the sweeping fallacy that "And Goyd said: Thou shalt not install and uninstall mods "mid way", or thy Gamelord shall strike thy game dead" is palpably absurd and patently false. Been playing since early 2019. I've installed roughly 1500 mods and uninstalled roughly half as many, all during "mid game' situations. And I'd bet that 90% or more of those "experts" repetitively declaring "though shalt not" all the time have too. And frankly, were I a candid insider in their lives, I'd bet I'd find that their "midgame" installation and uninstallation numbers are far higher than mine.

What it would mean, if everyone went by that rule, is that you'd have to start a literally new game every time you added or removed a mod. Worse is, it's no guarantee that said game will run smoothly, but admittedly, it's a really good corporate-level "dark matter" cover-story. Can't explain it? Fundamental model screwed up? Don't have an answer but want to maintain the robes of the "expert"? >>> It's dark matter. Dark matter explains everything. As so does "don't' install mid game"

[wfandrews]

My answer to whether one should install or uninstall mods mid game would be "it depends".