Weird Issue Starting a New Game, Events don't happen when they should

[duckyduckyquackquack]

Have re-installed Skyrim Special Edition recently as felt a pull to play the game again. Game is installed on a dedicated SSD Drive for Games, so no User Acess Issues or anything like that can effect it. When I load the game up as Vanilla straight after install I can start a game and play through the intro quite fine without any issues. But of course we don't play the game vanilla because mods make the game better and can fix game issues. So I've installed a light modlist load order below, and am using the latest version of SKSE and the only Creation Club content I have is Survival Mode, which although downloaded and installed I don't activate in the game options, I'm also aware of the issues Immersive Armour can cause with the game start, so disable that mod before trying to start a new game, and only enable it when I get out of Helgen and into Skyrim Proper:

 

*Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp

*RaceCompatibility.esm

*USSEP Survival patch.esp

*SkyUI_SE.esp

*iHUD.esp

*Point The Way.esp

*The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp

*Gildergreen Regrown.esp

*Bring Out Your Dead.esp

*Ars Metallica.esp

*Run For Your Lives.esp

*JK's Riverwood.esp

*JKs Whiterun.esp

*JKs Whiterun exterior.esp

*Dawnguard Delayed - Level 90.esp

*No Vampire Attacks In Towns.esp

*Believable Crime Report Radius.esp

*fastermining9-9.esp

*SuperStorage.esp

*InfiniteShouts.esp

*Carry Weight x5.esp

*NoSaltThanks.esp

*Level Booster.esp

*BAAB_English_MaxDamage_v1_2_5.esp

*Skyrim Unlimited Rings And Amulets SSE.esp

*AcquisitiveSoulGemMultithreaded.esp

*ToneyCraftingResource.esp

*Enchanting Freedom.esp

*MultipleEnchants32.esp

*FortifyEnchanting.esp

*Daedric Dawnbreaker.esp

*Hothtrooper44_Armor_Ecksstra.esp

*Hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp

*Immersive survival Armors.esp

*Survival Armor Patch.esp

*Cloaks.esp

*Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp

*Cloaks - USSEP Patch.esp

*1nivWICCloaks.esp

*1nivWICSkyCloaksPatch.esp

*CharacterMakingExtender.esp

*EnhancedCharacterEdit.esp

*RaceCompatibilityUSKPOverride.esp

*Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul.esp

*AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp

*AFT_NoFriendlySpellDamage.esp

*Relationship Dialogue Overhaul.esp

*RDO - USSEP Patch.esp

*RDO - AFT v1.66 Patch.esp

*Jaggarsfeld.esp

*No Essential Npcs.esp

*RealisticWaterTwo.esp

*RealisticWaterTwo - Watercolor.esp

So I load up the game, start a new save and during the intro have several issues. Sometimes on occasions during the cart ride into Helgen, the gates don't open and the carts just crash into it and the animation keeps going, no solution to this apart from exit the game and start a new save and hope it doesn't happen again. When you manage to progress the intro to the point after the dragon attacks with you on the chopping block and you escape to the keep with Ralof and Ulfric, when you go up the stairs the event where Alduin crashes through the keep wall, killing the storm clock and creating the hole for you to jump to next building occurs only in sound but not in actual physical event, the wall doesn't get broken and you can't jump to the next building. This can be fixed by using the TCL command and ghosting through the keep wall. Then for the next phase until you make the decision to follow Hadvar or Ralof into the building the scene plays okay except again Alduin and all his actions and events don't occur and NPCs only make reference to them, basically the dragon seems to completely disappear from the game during the intro. Inside the Keep everything seems to play okay and without any issues. Upon exiting the Keep into Skyrim again I'm seeing issues where the Dragon does not appear and fly off toward Riverwood. Whoever you choose to follow be it Hadvar or Ralof, goes through all their dialogue, interacts with you, but stays crouched by the rock and never moves onwards towards Riverwood.

I'm wondering what is causing this error? I've tried launching games with different mods toggled on and off to see if it's a mod issue. I've tried starting games with any mods that have scripts disabled, so as not to interfere with the base game stuff, and yet I'm still getting the issue. I've even tried verifying the game cache to make sure no files have downloaded funny, and have even completely uninstalled and re-installed the game and still I'm having this issue. Any suggestions?

[JimmyRJump]

You say you have the CC Survival mod not active, but there's several mods in your load order that depend on that mod.

 

If and when you run into trouble in whatever game, best thing to do is start from scratch and add mods one at a time until you again encounter a problem. Thats's the only sure way of knowing which mod is the culprit.

[QuagaarWarrior]

Firstly I agree with Jimmy. I've not used survival mode but I assume some of your mods would require it as a master? If they do I'm surprised you even managed to launch the game.

 

Secondly the vanilla intro is one of the most intensive parts of the game so things do go wrong with it sometimes

 

Thirdly are you using an alternate start mod? I'll never understand anyone who mods their game but doesn't use one. Try installing live another life and using a different start (I often use camping in the woods as it spawns you near the vanilla start anyway) - also great for testing mods

[JohnnynRoger]

Firstly I agree with Jimmy. I've not used survival mode but I assume some of your mods would require it as a master? If they do I'm surprised you even managed to launch the game.

 

Secondly the vanilla intro is one of the most intensive parts of the game so things do go wrong with it sometimes

 

Thirdly are you using an alternate start mod? I'll never understand anyone who mods their game but doesn't use one. Try installing live another life and using a different start (I often use camping in the woods as it spawns you near the vanilla start anyway) - also great for testing mods

I agree. IMO certain mods could probably even list Alternate Start as a requirement because they are extremely likely to cause problems if they are configured to automatically initialize upon starting a game.

 

I always let all of my mods finish their start-up procedures in the ASLAL prison cell before I even enter the game world. And yes, "camping in the woods" will place you a few paces from triggering the the events necessary to start the main quest if you wish, or if you really want to you can actually select the vanilla start from the LAL prison cell.

[duckyduckyquackquack]

Survival Mode being and ESL is automatically loaded when the game launches alongside the ESM’s of the vanilla game, hence why they are not listed in the Plugins.txt file. What I meant when I said I don’t enable it is after you’ve completed the game intro and escaped Helgen as you walk down the path a short ways from the cave you emerge from, you get a pop-up asking if you’d like to enable the survival feature which you can disable anytime from the game pause menu. I chose not to enable it. I just want to retain some of the stat and recipe tweaks that those mods bring to items in the game.

 

I am not running the alternate start Mod, but can give it a try and see what happens. I was just concerned with scripts and events not happening correctly during the intro if this was something I’d run into deeper in the game, so have not ventured beyond the Cave exit yet with a save as don’t want to risk sinking hours into a save if it’s going to be broken and have issues.

 

One other thing I am thinking of trying is to remove SKSE64 and Mods using it and see what happens as I never had any issues playing the Special Edition when it first launched with many of these mods.

[JohnnynRoger]

Survival Mode being and ESL is automatically loaded when the game launches alongside the ESM’s of the vanilla game, hence why they are not listed in the Plugins.txt file. What I meant when I said I don’t enable it is after you’ve completed the game intro and escaped Helgen as you walk down the path a short ways from the cave you emerge from, you get a pop-up asking if you’d like to enable the survival feature which you can disable anytime from the game pause menu. I chose not to enable it. I just want to retain some of the stat and recipe tweaks that those mods bring to items in the game.

 

I am not running the alternate start Mod, but can give it a try and see what happens. I was just concerned with scripts and events not happening correctly during the intro if this was something I’d run into deeper in the game, so have not ventured beyond the Cave exit yet with a save as don’t want to risk sinking hours into a save if it’s going to be broken and have issues.

 

One other thing I am thinking of trying is to remove SKSE64 and Mods using it and see what happens as I never had any issues playing the Special Edition when it first launched with many of these mods.

It's probably immersive armors initializing during the carriage ride that breaks the intro. Like I said, your best bet is to install Alternate start and wait a minute in the cell after character creation for your mods to finish loading before entering the world. You can even select vanilla start, and you won't have the headache of wondering whether or not something is broken. Trust me, there is no reason to take any chances on a save that is less than an hour old if you can rule something out of breaking the game 100 hours later. Even if it has no effect on the game, you'll know one thing that ISN'T a problem if you experience any bugs.

[QuagaarWarrior]

If it is immersive armors you can always have the mod installed but untick the associated esps until after the intro. Then tick the esps next time you load the game. The mod will configure on loading your save.

 

Far easier just to use alternate start. I've been using alternate start for years and it's never caused any issues with any quests. Essential in my load order.

[duckyduckyquackquack]

Have download and installed Alternate Start and loaded that and tried starting a new game, and chosing the vanilla start option with Alternate Start, again the opening scene is broken exactly the same, with events not happening that allow you to continue through the intro without using console commands to work around the issue. So I went back and disabled some mods in my load order:

Immersive Citizens

Amazing Follower Tweaks

Relationship Dialogue Overhaul

Jaggersfield

Realistic Water Two

 

Went back into game and started a new save and this time the intro scene works correctly. So I'm guessing one of these deactivated mods is breaking the games starting scripts. Will do some testing enabling them one at a time until I find the exact culprit.

[duckyduckyquackquack]

Okay turns out I had another mod disasbled not included in the post above, the No Essential Npcs.esp. Managed to reload all but the No Essential Npcs.esp and the game functioned fine, the intro scene and tutorial worked okay. So for some reason it seems the No Essential Npcs Mod breaks the game. I've loaded it in SSEEdit and it only appears to edit Non-Player Actor Data and Race records, so don't see how it's changing the games scripted events. Though it is weird as I do notice a difference in the dialoque spoken after the dragon attacks whilst your on the headsman's block. Without this mod activated Ralof gives you an order to get on your feet and get to safety and head towards the keep. With the mod activated that doesn't happen and you just kinda figure that's where to go, when Ralof himself eventually takes off running toward the keep. You go up the stairs and Alduin never breaks down the wall and kills the stomcloak, so you are unable to jump to the next building and proceed further with the info. Handy to know now which mod is the cause, and time I guess to ask the mod author why his mod is messing up the game's events.

[JohnnynRoger]

Have download and installed Alternate Start and loaded that and tried starting a new game, and chosing the vanilla start option with Alternate Start, again the opening scene is broken exactly the same, with events not happening that allow you to continue through the intro without using console commands to work around the issue. So I went back and disabled some mods in my load order:

Immersive Citizens

Amazing Follower Tweaks

Relationship Dialogue Overhaul

Jaggersfield

Realistic Water Two

 

Went back into game and started a new save and this time the intro scene works correctly. So I'm guessing one of these deactivated mods is breaking the games starting scripts. Will do some testing enabling them one at a time until I find the exact culprit.

The only one of those mods I don't have installed is Jaggarsfeld and my into works properly. I doubt this is the culprit, however, being it is only a player home mod.

 

Edit: Now that I've read your last post, you've found the culprit. I feel kind of foolish at this point for not noticing that you had that mod installed. Disabling the essential status of every actor in the game will most-likely break it and is not recommended because of both scripted events and radiant events that depend on this setting.