Corpses disappear too quickly

[mellowzhd]

So, currently in my play through I'm at Primm, I've killed all the convicts outside, entered Vikki & Vance, and went out only to find that every corpse had disappeared. I first thought that the mods I had installed were the ones doing this, I've tested it playing on a completely vanilla game and the same thing happens.

 

So does anyone have an idea if there's a mod/.ini edit that stops corpses from disappearing too quickly?

[dubiousintent]

Interesting question, so I did some research which turned up the following conclusions by the community over the years.

1. Corpses count against the number of actors in a cell. I could not find an INI setting for this, but the "Bashed Patch" (BP) from "Wrye Flash" (WF) has an adjustable "Combat: Max Actors" setting. [Edit: The BP also has a "Max Active Actors" setting, and a multiplier of that for the number of "Dead Actors".] Someone claimed you could have about 80 actors max, and about 50 before taking an FPS hit. (YMMV.)
2. Corpses with a Quest marker never disappear (perma-corpses). Named NPCs (like "Joe Cobb") usually have this marker.
3. Normal corpses disappear in exterior cells when the cell respawns or is purged (i.e. fast travel or switching to an interior cell), so you need to loot first.
4. Corpses in an interior cell don't disappear because such cells don't respawn. (Note that does not always apply to "containers" in such cells.)
5. You can't "carry" (grab key) a body through a door or fast travel with it.

6. Adding an item to a corpse turns it into a "container", which causes it to persist through a cell respawn.

 

-Dubious-

Edited March 27, 2016 by dubiousintent