Noggog Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 (edited) So, I stumbled upon a pretty neat mod called Shining Creatures. Basically it adds a script effect on the creature's already existing self buff spell that creates invisible light source to follow a certain NPC, like a flame elemental, to give it the look that it's putting off light. I've heard the horror stories of PlaceAtMe, and how it bloats savegames. This mod says it handles it by putting it in a cell when the creature dies or gets far enough away, once 10 light sources are in the cell, it purges it and gets rid of the bloat. Problem is, when I enter an area with lit creatures and several light sources spawn, and then I leave the dungeon without killing them or getting far enough away. I don't see any way that those light sources are going to be deleted by the mod. The cell will eventually respawn and the creatures will disappear, but I've heard that the placeatme items still bloat the savegame. Is this true? If it isnt a problem, I wanted to add one more feature to the mod that I was concerned about, which was to take out the conditional statement to remove the light source when the creature dies. That way, the light source would remain on the dead body instead of immediately going out on death. Is that going to pose any issues from what you know? Also, I was doing some fruitless googling.. anyone know of anything that can fix a bloated save game? Edited February 5, 2011 by Leviathan1753 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coreypikes Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Wrye Bash has a Remove Save Bloat function. I believe purge cell buffer also takes care of any persistent lighting issues (it does in FO3 with the Reavers). Streamline has a PCB on save/wait/fast travel command. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggog Posted February 5, 2011 Author Share Posted February 5, 2011 Killer. Yeah, I just did a search and found the Wrye Bash function. I just wanted to post and see what people said before I went ahead and ruined my lovely savegame. 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hickory Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 PlaceAtMe puts a permanent copy of items into your saved game that do not get removed, even on a cell reset, and should be avoided. Please be aware that Wrye Bash's remove bloat function is risky and may end up corrupting your save game altogether -- periculum est vestri (use at your own risk). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggog Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 I was reading somewhere that if you disable the mod that added them, and do a clean save, that they get removed. Is that true?If that's the case, I could just disable my shiny creatures mod every so often and reset any that fell through the cracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hickory Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 No, it is not true. Permanent means permanent -- the references are in your save file for good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggog Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 (edited) Alrighty, maybe I'll invest some time into a non-placeatme system for it. Make 50 or so light sources in a room by default and just move them around as necessary Time. I need more Edited February 6, 2011 by Leviathan1753 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QQuix Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 PlaceAtMe creates a dynamic object with FormID FFxxxxxx. This object does not belong to any mod, therefore removing the mod does not remove the object (which may well stay in your game forever). In the past there were (not well known) ways of removing carriable items created with PlaceAtMe, but no way of removing other types (like statics or lights).Now, OBSE has a DeleteReference function that can be used to get rid of any non-actor, dynamic object, so a modder may use PlaceAtMe at will, provided she takes care of the object when it is not needed anymore. As you already guessed, in your case it seems the best solution is creating the lights in a hidden cell, at CS time, move them to the creature when needed and back to the cell when done.Problem with this solution is that the number of lights created limits the number of creatures you may have (10 lights per creature / 50 lights available >> cant have more than 5 creatures at a time). This may or may not be a problem, depending on your objectives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggog Posted February 7, 2011 Author Share Posted February 7, 2011 (edited) Shouldn't be too much of a problem. It just puts one light on a creature, and since I'll know its ID ahead of time I can check to see if it's in a different cell than the player and move it back to its hidden cell at that time. That's the problem with Shining Creatures at the moment is you didn't know the form ID, and once you leave the cell, the script on that unknown placed object stops running and can't clean itself up. Edited February 7, 2011 by Leviathan1753 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QQuix Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 True. And even if you saved the FormID, once the cell is unloaded, you can't handle the object anyway. Persistent objects don't have this problem as they are kept in memory all the time, regardless of the containing cell being loaded or unloaded. And, btw, moving light sources is tricky. If you have problems, let me know and I will try to find a clarifying thread on the Beth forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts