Headless Character (And it's not Morokai + Archmage)

[dragonstunna]

Found something that might hopefully lead to a fix:

 

If you open the console and type in "savegame test 1" (where test can be any word), it creates a saved game called test and opens it up in a txt file (test.ess.txt) formatted in a way that's vastly different than if you were to open up a save file directly into notepad.

 

So with the txt file, you can search for your player name and the second result (should be under ACHRs) will show "dismembered limbs(22)" in that given row.

 

It seems the save file also keeps track of sizes so deleting the attribute might screw up everything; I think if you replace 22 with 0 or something to that effect, the head should no longer be lopped off immediately upon loading the game or entering an animation such as mounting a horse.

 

However, I haven't had any luck with this, as the game will no longer recognize the file as a saved game, even after saving it as a .ess; it throws the error "The savegame could not be loaded because its outdated. Its version is 0 and the current version is 8." I can't seem to find a work around for this. Upon further inspection it looks like it throws this error if you make a .ess in notepad and type random gibberish, so the file being "outdated" might be a misnomer.

Some suggested fixes for this included making a new game and loading the test file after exiting the wagon, I had no luck with this. Another suggested fix was to uninstall the game and reinstall without updating: thanks to Steam this is absolutely impossible, the game requires an internet connection to install, and even after going offline after installing it won't run unless all the patches are downloaded, this is because a patch is on queue the second the install begins and starts downloading the second the install is finished. Even if you terminate the internet connection during the install Steam will not run offline because a patch is being paused (and the game will not run unless all patches are installed). Also, in my experience with loading the test.ess (the one after being edited with notepad), after receiving the previously mentioned error message, it "corrupts" all the other save files and prevents them from loading. The fix for this is to restart the game.

 

Now, the save game that's created by the console, the one originally called test.ess, loads up fine, and if you were to open it up in notepad it looks like every other save file, different from the one the console opens up in as a test.ess.txt

 

Upon further inspection, I still can't seem to find any variable associated with dismembered limbs in the normal .ess file, only the one that opens up directly from the command prompt.

 

 

I feel like I got closer to fixing this and further from it at the same time.

[dragonstunna]

Some new information I discovered yesterday:

 

http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/37805/my-head-keeps-falling-off-what-can-i-do

 

In here there's a suggestion to go load a save before I was beheaded, get beheaded again, and then run a program that checks the difference between the two saves, which I would then apply that difference to my current save.

 

To anyone who wants to try it: You'll need to go to find someone with a two handed axe (single blade), turn on TIM, then wait for them to eventually chop your head off (fastest way is to find the bandit chieftain inside fort dunstad).

 

Only problem is, it seems no matter how similar the save saves are, no matter how small the difference in time elapsed or distance travelled is, there is somehow thousands of lines of code (for lack of a better word, 70% of it looks like ascii gibberish) that differentiate between the two saves

 

15KB for what is literally a time difference of 19 seconds