Mods to be wary of?

[Mookeylama]

which mods might corrupt a save, if used or removed? like Open Cities mod totally ruined my last game w/ 400+ hours on it. so i'd really like to know of others that just possibly might have similar affects. and tips would be appreciated too. like i've read that raising uGrids can mess things up down the road. disabling ingame vsync can cause problems with game time and physics. that sorta thing.

i've heard UFO (which i used last game and loved) is kinda hard to fully remove and may cause problems after uninstallation. any info like that would be welcome. thanks!

[gsmanners]

I don't know what your problem was, but Open Cities worked fine for me. As for myself, I only avoid mods that "overhaul" things. That's usually a bad idea.

[PlutoHimself]

Open cities prior to 0.5 I think as issues with records caused by tesvsnip or something, so it was pretty messy. Arthmoor revamped the whole thing after that (or as of that version).

 

Don't use the "Sounds of Skyrim" modules. They're extremely messy and cause problems long after you've removed them.

 

I haven't had a problem with UFO tho.

[Cthuloot]

Honestly in my experiences I've never found a mod that just wrecked everything. If you're really worried about this though here are a few basic tips.

 

ALWAYS READ THE INSTALL AND FAQ. Always. If you don't you're likely to miss something, as a good number of mods usually have some little things extra to do. They also usually list potential problems and mod incompatibilities.

 

Read the comments. Check the first few pages of the comments and look for people complaining about errors and bugs and such. Also look for comments made by the mod author (Outlined in blue). Much insight can be found there. And you can get an idea of potential problems as well as possible fixes to these problems. If an author hasn't commented for a while or there's a lot of talk about it being a 'dead' mod, you might want to think twice about rushing in to install it. However, take a lot of these things with a grain of salt. I've got a few 'dead' mods installed and don't get problems from them.

 

Don't install mods that will obviously conflict. For example, I had a friend install 3 different mods that messed with magic perks. Needless to say, he had a rough go of things.

 

Don't try too hard to get a mod to work. I know that sounds bad, but usually if something isn't working properly, it's probably due for an update. Additionally a lot of common mods have 6 or 7 different versions and you may find another mod that does a similar thing to the one you're having problems with.

 

And of course, back up your saves. Keep them someplace completely away from the game directory. Just make a copy of them that you can revert to in case things go awry. If after uninstalling you're still having problems, read through the uninstall processes to make sure you didn't miss something. If all else fails, a fresh install never hurt anybody.