LE Avoiding Save Bloat

[skinnytecboy]

Hello my fellow authors, as I'm approaching the completion of a fairly large mod that I've been working on for the past year, I'm now worrying a little about avoiding issues such as save bloat (that dreadful crime...)

 

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any tips or advice they can offer me.

 

For example:

• Summoned npcs - Should I add a cleanup script that deletes them once killed/unsummoned? (they're ActorBase refs)
• Trigger boxes - Should these be deleted too? (Currently I just disable after use)
• Global Variables - I have 14. Is that too many? Is there a way to remove them once finished with?*
• My created cells - Some of my levels can never be revisited again. Are they safe to just exist?

*I kinda know, or at least guess, some of the answers to the above questions, but all the same, I thought it best to ask anyway. Here we have some of the top mind boffins in the known universe and I'd rather learn from your wisdom than pretend that I know everything.

 

Thanks in advance :geek:

 

Edited January 10, 2016 by skinnytecboy

[lmstearn]

@skinnytechyboy: congrats on the coming release! From my own (very limited) experience:

 

Ditch the summoned NPCs if you can.

Are the trigger boxes linked to anything? If so, might be a problem otherwise leave them.

Setting the globals to null should be enough.

Keep the created cells- in a bsa with compression perhaps?

[skinnytecboy]

@skinnytechyboy: congrats on the coming release! From my own (very limited) experience:

 

Ditch the summoned NPCs if you can.

Are the trigger boxes linked to anything? If so, might be a problem otherwise leave them.

Setting the globals to null should be enough.

Keep the created cells- in a bsa with compression perhaps?

Thanks for the response.

 

Regarding null globals, do mean setting them all to 0?

[lmstearn]

Yes, having no further use for them 0 is fine, :)

[sLoPpYdOtBiGhOlE]

Rule of thumb (for me anyway)...

Iif the object is spawned in game on the fly during runtime (be it NPC or any other object) and you have finished with the object then disable and delete it.

If the object is placed in the game world via CK or outside of the games runtime (permanent reference), then only disable it when you have finished with it.

 

Since you can dynamically spawn objects such as Trigger boxes, Collission boxes (nif models with phantom collision layers), the same rule as above applies.

If spawned in game at runtime and they are no longer needed and no longer held by a property, then disable and delete them.

If they are added from outside the game via CK or outside the games runtime, then only disable them.

Some of this also depends on the flags you set when in CK when adding object references to the game world also as to what properties and aliases may be holding the object reference.

[skinnytecboy]

Thanks for the advice guys.

 

I've already started a cleaner implementation for my "placeatme" scripts.I Think I'll do a little experimenting to monitor save file size and look into how my reference aliases and quest closures affect them :)

Edited January 13, 2016 by skinnytecboy