Too Many Follower Mods?

[MikeD1982]

Hello everyone. So a while back with a completely different mod list than the one I have now, I posted on another forum my load order / mod list just so the people could look at it and help me with some issues with my game. One of the things pointed out to me was that I apparently had too many follower mods. A comment was made that many follower mods have the same home at times so inns could get really crowded. Can you have too many follower mods in general or is the issue related to the second comment about how the issue is that they're being added to the same place? Meaning if I am just careful about which followers I pick based on where their home is, it might not be as big of a burden on the system? In case it helps, here's a rundown of what I believe are follower mods and mods that add NPCs to my game:

 

My current list has 25 follower mods. One of those is the Karlov Brood - Vampire Followers which is four people and there may be two other follower mods with two followers included each, the rest are all single person followers. So for followers added alone from these mods that would be 30 followers added to the game.

 

I also have some of the other following mods that add NPCs to the world: Populated Skyrim HELL EDITION, OBIS - Organized Bandits In Skyrim, Immersive Wenches, Deadly Wenches, Judgment Wenches, Hateful Wenches, Forgotten Wenches (all the wench spawns on these wench mods are turned down to 5-10%), Bijin Wives, Warmaidens, and NPCs.

 

I also have Skyrim Immersive Creatures which I was told is going to put a load on my system due to all the creatures it adds. I have EFF if listing that somehow helps with the question here.

[laiilaiiheii]

Hey there,

There are indeed a few places where many authors dump their followers. Candleheart hall, whiterun inns, Sleeping giant inn and a few more of those. This normally is no problem, as long as skyrim can still handle it all loading in without crashing. Just try and see if it can handle it.
Or better, try a memory tracker in game, and see if there is memory room for so many followers.

There are ways to place a follower in another location through the CK. With bijjin and other overhauls you can also exclude certain npcs with tes5edit, when certain mods try to apply a change to the same character.

While immersive creatures can indeed be a heavy load, you can disable the random cell spawn located in the advanced options. This will help a lot on your load.

When worried about using too many esps for just followers, look into mergeplugin. 'MOST' Followers can be safely merged with mergeplugin to safe up on Esp room and overall make it more stable.

[MikeD1982]

Thanks!

[panurgy]

Just want to throw in an addition to laiilaiiheii's good advice:

 

If you've got an average or better computer, mods like Immersive Creatures shouldn't do more than just create occasional, momentary lag. I run Immersive Patrols + SIC + Travelers and a few other spawn mods with ETaC (Enhanced Towns and Cities) with no problems.

 

But if you've got a lot of followers with custom scripts, that could be a problem. You can have a very few mods that are script-heavy, but you have to choose those with care, or your game might get crippled.

 

For example, Bijin Warmaiden's changes faces and a few settings, so no performance loss. But if you use Vilja + Inigo + Sophia + Arissa + EFF/IAFT or whatever in addition to other mods, you might run into trouble, because there's a lot of custom scripting that went into improving the follower AI. There's no problem with any of these mods, you just don't want to use all of them at the same time. Create different characters with different mod setups to avoid the trouble.

[MikeD1982]

Just want to throw in an addition to laiilaiiheii's good advice:

 

If you've got an average or better computer, mods like Immersive Creatures shouldn't do more than just create occasional, momentary lag. I run Immersive Patrols + SIC + Travelers and a few other spawn mods with ETaC (Enhanced Towns and Cities) with no problems.

 

But if you've got a lot of followers with custom scripts, that could be a problem. You can have a very few mods that are script-heavy, but you have to choose those with care, or your game might get crippled.

 

For example, Bijin Warmaiden's changes faces and a few settings, so no performance loss. But if you use Vilja + Inigo + Sophia + Arissa + EFF/IAFT or whatever in addition to other mods, you might run into trouble, because there's a lot of custom scripting that went into improving the follower AI. There's no problem with any of these mods, you just don't want to use all of them at the same time. Create different characters with different mod setups to avoid the trouble.

 

So how do I know which followers have custom scripts? Or are you mainly referring to EFF/AFT? Even though I'm familiar with all of the followers you mentioned, I looked them up on Nexus and according to their description I can see what you're saying about the custom scripting. I also looked up a couple of other followers that I could remember off the top of my head that I have and they're along the same lines as the ones you listed.

 

Is the problem when they're all in the game world together even if in different parts of it or is it a problem when I have them all in my party running around with me at the same time? This is frustrating finding this out as I just like to have a variety of followers to choose between at any time without having to install and uninstall mods repeatedly. One more question is this: Is this an issue because of Skyrim being 32 bit? Meaning is this something we won't have to worry about with 64 bit Skyrim Special Edition?

 

Thank you for all your help!

[laiilaiiheii]

You can see a lot with tes5edit. Merge plugin also gives information on what the mod is, dependencies and certain scripts.

Basically having 30 followers around at the same time is most likely a no go. Even though I seen crazier things go well. It depends what other 'heavy' mods you use.
I couldn't really see why you would want more than 3-5 followers at the same time though. Having more than 3 followers usually results them getting in the way or them doing everything for you. I used about 15 followers myself on the same playthrough. I do choose them with care and never have more than 3 around.

inigo,
vilja-chaconne,
sephina,
sophia-toccata,
husky followers,
armored sabre cat,
Lunariana,
mirai with customizer,
Mrissi,
bishop romance,
shaley,
rs daemonic followers,
signar
vivace
I used more of course, but these were ones I could recall right now.

The special edition can indeed handle more load. More characters will fight at the same time and you can get manage to have a lot more characters on screen before a crash. It's a lot more stable.
See broduals video with hidden extras, or my videos for a short review on it if you like.

Aft, eff, iaft etc. do indeed mess with certain chars like inigo. I however used this together with no problem, as long as you don't try to activate the iaft, eff, aft etc. options on him.
Or even better, exclude it with tes5edit or make a patch if possible.

Edited November 12, 2016 by laiilaiiheii

[panurgy]

So how do I know which followers have custom scripts?

Like laiilaiiheii said, the only way to know for sure is to look at the mod in TES5Edit or the CK. You can get some idea by seeing if there are scripts included in the download, though these might be "hidden" in a bsa archive.

 

You can get an idea by reading the description, though. You won't know for sure, but you can usually make a reasonable guess. In general, scripted followers are smarter, have more complex behavior, and don't use the vanilla follower system.

 

If a mod description mostly talks about hair, eyes, and perks - you're probably safe

If a mod desc talks about unique behavior, interaction, and event/location responses - scripted

 

For a simple, inaccurate but better than nothing approach, make up a number of slots, like: 5. That number will depend on your hardware and mod list. Some people could have 10, others 2. Each heavily scripted mod takes up 1 slot.

 

For example, looking at the Followers category, sorted by endorsements:

1. Skyrim Beautiful Followers - pretty sure this is just a cosmetic overhaul, 0 slots
2. Arissa - very advanced AI, script heavy mod by a quality author, safe to use, but you've taken up 1 "slot"
3. Spouses can live everywhere - small script mod, should be fine, 0 slots
4. Mirai - this is a hard one to guess at, maybe medium to heavy scripts, the author talks about interaction with other followers, so that's probably scripting, 1 slot to be safe
5. Tania the Hermit - hard to guess, but light to medium script usage, description says that she uses the vanilla follower system, there are some toggle options that require scripting. The toggle options should be super light scripts, but suggest that the author is interested in more advanced modding, so there may be more under the hood, I'd count this as 1/2 a slot just to be safe
6. Toccata - medium or heavy scripting, you know this when looking at the "[How to Update]" section, but there are options for "scripted" and "non-scripted" versions, 1 for scripted, 0 for non-scripted
7. Poet follower - 0 slots
8. Rosa Round-bottom - 0 slots
9. Mystic Knight Sara, 0 or 1/2 slots, hard to be sure

 

This system is rough and really only good for high-level guessing, but it's a start.

[MikeD1982]

You can see a lot with tes5edit. Merge plugin also gives information on what the mod is, dependencies and certain scripts.

 

Basically having 30 followers around at the same time is most likely a no go. Even though I seen crazier things go well. It depends what other 'heavy' mods you use.

I couldn't really see why you would want more than 3-5 followers at the same time though. Having more than 3 followers usually results them getting in the way or them doing everything for you. I used about 15 followers myself on the same playthrough. I do choose them with care and never have more than 3 around.

 

inigo,

vilja-chaconne,

sephina,

sophia-toccata,

husky followers,

armored sabre cat,

Lunariana,

mirai with customizer,

Mrissi,

bishop romance,

shaley,

rs daemonic followers,

signar

vivace

I used more of course, but these were ones I could recall right now.

 

The special edition can indeed handle more load. More characters will fight at the same time and you can get manage to have a lot more characters on screen before a crash. It's a lot more stable.

See broduals video with hidden extras, or my videos for a short review on it if you like.

 

Aft, eff, iaft etc. do indeed mess with certain chars like inigo. I however used this together with no problem, as long as you don't try to activate the iaft, eff, aft etc. options on him.

Or even better, exclude it with tes5edit or make a patch if possible.

 

So while I do have a lot of follower mods, I never have more than 1-2 with me at a time and the most I ever have is 3 at a time and that would only be for taking down some hard dungeon/location. The only reason I don't keep to the default one follower would be because I use Requiem and a couple of other difficulty mods and going solo would be really difficult unless I cheat.

 

You said something about "or make a patch if possible." Do you mean a typical merged patch because I use the STEP series and I also used TES5Edit Merged Patch for my mods, too. Could this somehow help with the issue?

 

Thanks to you both and I will take your walkthrough under advisement when looking at my followers again panurgy. I will also look at your video laiilaiiheii and Brodual's as well. I am glad to hear the good news about Skyrim Special Edition. I probably won't mod it until SKSE64 is working properly though.

[ahsanrusyd]

Your pc cannot run it? Or you need more mod slot?

 

If you need more mod slot just merge the esp with merge plugin just search it on nexus.

 

Its different my lag is caused by JK skyrim T_T

[MikeD1982]

Your pc cannot run it? Or you need more mod slot?

 

If you need more mod slot just merge the esp with merge plugin just search it on nexus.

 

Its different my lag is caused by JK skyrim T_T

 

I can't remember what my problem was originally as the list I referenced in my first post was from earlier this year. I was just addressing a certain part of what was told to me to fix my issue. I have looked into Merge Plugin as well and I'm about to try it out soon after reading the docs and watching several videos.