Mod that allows to undo actions while building a settlement?

[wuwuwuwuwu]

Hello, I'd like to know if there is any mod that implements some sort of undo button. Just now I was scrapping some leaves with Scrap Everything in Sanctuary and I accidentially scrapped an NPC guard point, which I now can't replace. Is there something like this out there?

[Vanguardascendant]

I think that Workshop Plus gives you that functionality.

 

As a side point though, I've heard a lot of people suggest staying away from "Scrap Everything" styled mods. They can really hurt your FPS and also open you up to problems like you just had... scrapping things you should scrap. Instead, I'e heard it suggested that you use a mod that uses creation kit to flatten or clear the settlement and rebuild the precombines. Jenncave has a series of mods that do this for each settlement, including an all-in-one version. You should try them out. I switched to this method and it's a lot cleaner.

[LtSurge]

Save regularly.

 

I prefer taking the time to save often, so that if I happen to make a mistake(like you described), it's only a few minutes of work to "undo" at most.

[niston]

I use WSFW/WS+ and Spring Cleaning. The WS+ undo function mostly works fine. Sometimes it doesn't, giving totally unexpected or no results at all. Saving on a regular basis is still good advice.

[Vanguardascendant]

All that doesn't address the problem of scrapping mods breaking precombines. As a non-modder, I don't fully understand what all that entails. But it's my understanding that breaking precombines impacts performance as well as sometimes creating larger CTD issues.

[niston]

Well, imho its choosing between dynamic environment or FPS. I choose dynamic environment (and slight visual glitches, because Bethesda) over FPS at any time, but others opinion might differ. The impact of broken precombines also depends on where that is. For example, downtown w/o precombines might be too much for an older computer, whereas broken precombines in a cell out in the wilderness with nothing much going on, the performance impact will be almost negligible.

 

What precombines technically mean is, instead of making many draw calls for each individual object displayed on the screen, objects are combined at design time (hence precombined) into single, larger objects. This results in less drawing calls for the GPU to process. It is thus an optimization technique (spending processing time on generating the precombines during development, for saving processing time during execution of the game). Here's an interesting, more detailed read: https://bethesda.net/community/topic/86381/understanding-precombines-previs-and-why-mods-that-disable-them-can-cripple-game-performance

 

You can disable precombines either by ini setting, which affects the whole game. Or they can be broken/disabled on a cell level, which then only affects the area covered by the cell. This is a good thing for example to let people scrap to their heart's content in settlements, but keep precombines (and previs, another optimization thing) intact for the rest of the map. Scrap patches often work like that.

 

The downside of using precombines is, as objects are now precombined into single, larger objects, the individual objects that make up the precombine can obviously no longer be addressed. So if you'd like to scrap that mound of dirt in the driveway, you'll be scrapping the driveway, the house and half the trees in the backyard as well (silly example, but you get the point). The fact that the objects no longer exist individually also complicates scrapping very much. When scrapping individual objects, the game is able to tell what you are scrapping and use the appropriate receipe to give scrap components. This is no longer the case with precombines, as a precombine is by definition a whole bunch of objects lumped together into a single thing. A Dirtmounddrivewayhouseclusteroftreesblob - to stay with the silly example. What's the scrap value of that? The engine can't know as it doesn't know what the precombine is made of (else the whole precombination thing would be without merit).

 

There are even more problems with using regenerated precombines and previs in mods, as previs is calculated for areas larger than a single cell. If you have two mods supplying new precombine/previs data for the same area (even tho the mods don't alter the same cells) might result in inresolvable conflict. And the precombine/previs data is often huge, blowing up a mod by tens of megabytes. All in all, the precombines thing is more of a nasty compromise than a solution. It mostly works ok and appeases the FPS crowd, but it also makes modding somewhat more difficult and ultimately limits environment dynamics, as described earlier.

 

Breaking precombines shouldnt create CTD issues by itself (unless simply overwhelming your rig). But very often, the cause of CTDs in a certain area is some mod deleting records for that area, then another mod trying to access those deleted records. This sort of problem can usually be rectified with a few clicks in FO4Edit, to undelete/disable references (and to remove ITMs while at it). Note that mods may and do often contain dirty/wild edits (unintended by the author) or modify more than they announce. For example I have here some mod that supposedly adds new workshop objects, but then alters stuff in a lot of cells all over the Commonwealth as well. Or that other settlement mod that adds the promised settlement, while hideously altering terrain for half the map. FO4Edit is your friend!

[Vanguardascendant]

To each their own