How do I TOTALLY avoid cell reset? : IV

» Thu May 19, 2011 12:00 pm

Let's say I wish to wipe out every foe on the land and be sure they won't respawn, ever. In other words I want to be sure that when I clear a dungeon it will stay that way, with no new items respawning after a few days and no new foes coming in. Is there a safe way to do that? I found out that the Cell Respawn Time set to 1 year would do the trick but WryeBash clearly states it will increase save sizes overtime, so I'm not sure if it is a good idea or not. Thoughts?

» Wed May 18, 2011 9:49 pm

It will increase save sizes by quite a bit, because the game regularly cleans out the savegame of cell spawn data for cells that have not been recently visited. By setting the respawn timer that high, you will bloat the savegame because the game will not be allowed to let go of that data for a VERY long time.

Your best bet is to just take note of which dungeons you have visited and just never go there again. Map Marker Overhaul can be immensely helpful for this.

» Thu May 19, 2011 1:12 am

Let's say I wish to wipe out every foe on the land and be sure they won't respawn, ever. In other words I want to be sure that when I clear a dungeon it will stay that way, with no new items respawning after a few days and no new foes coming in. Is there a safe way to do that? I found out that the Cell Respawn Time set to 1 year would do the trick but WryeBash clearly states it will increase save sizes overtime, so I'm not sure if it is a good idea or not. Thoughts?

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul includes optioinal ESP's that will allow you to adjust the respawn rate from one or two weeks up to a year but in the README it states that choosing longer respawn times (a month or longer) may drastically increase the size of your savegame file since the game must keep track of more data about what you've done in the world and these large savegames may lead to bugs, CTD's and corrupted savegames, especially if you use the default Oblivion AutoSave function.

» Thu May 19, 2011 11:11 am

Then what might be a safe respawn setting? Should 1 month be safe? Last time I tried out MMO it threw a bunch of script errors at the console so I gave up.

» Thu May 19, 2011 8:30 am

There is a mod called "Claim that interior" that lets you claim ny interior location as yours, preventing respawns. Try to see if that is what you want...

» Wed May 18, 2011 10:53 pm

It will increase save sizes by quite a bit, because the game regularly cleans out the savegame of cell spawn data for cells that have not been recently visited. By setting the respawn timer that high, you will bloat the savegame because the game will not be allowed to let go of that data for a VERY long time.

This is actually just a myth, and not correct at all.

The game never cleans out any data for cells that has not been visited in a long time. With normal spawn rate of 3 days, if you visit and then leave a cell, never coming back, the cell will never be reset and the data related to it will stay in your savegame forever, regardless of spawn settings. If you revisit the cell after the spawn time has passed, the cell will be rest then, but at the same time, all spawn locations will spawn new enemies and all respawnable chests will spawn new content, etc. - thus making the savegame stay about the same size.

So respawn timer has almost no effect on your savegame size at all, contary to popular myth

There is a mod called "Claim that interior" that lets you claim ny interior location as yours, preventing respawns. Try to see if that is what you want...

...and this is another myth

Owned cells are just as likely to respawn as other cells - it is just that most containers in the regular owned houses are non-respawnable, thus giving the impression that owned houses doesn't reset the cell.

» Wed May 18, 2011 8:24 pm

...and this is another myth

Owned cells are just as likely to respawn as other cells - it is just that most containers in the regular owned houses are non-respawnable, thus giving the impression that owned houses doesn't reset the cell.

That said, maybe it does not make the cell player-owned, but claims to prevent respawns. Check out the description http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27951. I haven't used this mod, but Nexus comments are positive.

» Thu May 19, 2011 6:47 am

In my experience, it's realistically impossible because of the design of the game. I actually played a game with a 1 month respawn time set in the bashed patch... it took less than three in game weeks before my save game was unloadable due to size. Granted, I visited a lot of places, and I was able to fix the save by cleaning it, also with bash. But the moral of the story is, there is a maximum functional size for Oblivion save games. Once you start to approach a few hundred cells with significant changes stored in a save game, it'll be borked. It's not really a function of the time per se, but just how much bloat your save game is carrying. You could accomplish the same thing by slowing down the timescale to real-time and wreaking as much havoc as possible within three days.

If you're using a mod that will allow you to kill spawn points, I suspect that even if this is the ONLY change being saved per cell for more than three days, your save games will reach critical mass before you clear the world of baddies.

» Thu May 19, 2011 10:44 am

. . . . If you revisit the cell after the spawn time has passed, the cell will be rest then, . . .

Not sure about it . . .

A couple of years ago, when I was doing some deep research on savegame bloat, I ran a test were I saved the game, created (PlaceAtMe) a large number (100+ if memory serves) of NPCs in an interior cell, exited the cell and saved the game after 24, 48, 72 and 96 game hours (not moving from where I was).

The 1st , 2nd, and 3rd day saves were significantly larger but the 4th day save was back to the size of the initial one.

I cannot state that the cell was reset, as this was not the object of the test and I did not have spawning points or containers inside, but I can say that the NPCs were 'spontaneously' removed from the save game without my returning to that cell.

At the time I questioned if this 'cell-resets-only-when-the-player-returns-after-3+-days' concept was really true, but I never tested it further.

Besides, a game design that removes 'useless' data from the save game as soon as possible makes much more sense that keeping forever the new position of a goblet the player moved on a table of some never-to-return-tavern.

» Wed May 18, 2011 9:21 pm

This is actually just a myth, and not correct at all.

The game never cleans out any data for cells that has not been visited in a long time. With normal spawn rate of 3 days, if you visit and then leave a cell, never coming back, the cell will never be reset and the data related to it will stay in your savegame forever, regardless of spawn settings. If you revisit the cell after the spawn time has passed, the cell will be rest then, but at the same time, all spawn locations will spawn new enemies and all respawnable chests will spawn new content, etc. - thus making the savegame stay about the same size.

So respawn timer has almost no effect on your savegame size at all, contary to popular myth

...and this is another myth

Owned cells are just as likely to respawn as other cells - it is just that most containers in the regular owned houses are non-respawnable, thus giving the impression that owned houses doesn't reset the cell.

I stand quite thoroughly corrected. :toughninja:

You learn something new every day.

» Wed May 18, 2011 9:20 pm

This is actually just a myth, and not correct at all.

The game never cleans out any data for cells that has not been visited in a long time. With normal spawn rate of 3 days, if you visit and then leave a cell, never coming back, the cell will never be reset and the data related to it will stay in your savegame forever, regardless of spawn settings. If you revisit the cell after the spawn time has passed, the cell will be rest then, but at the same time, all spawn locations will spawn new enemies and all respawnable chests will spawn new content, etc. - thus making the savegame stay about the same size.

Umm... you just proved the point. If he sets the respawn time to 1 year, or never (there are mods that do this), the cells may never respawn, and the data will remain in his saves forever, thus increasing the size over time and making it unplayable, like Tyrth said.

I'm rather interested in this discussion, since someone recently told me that changing the respawn time to 1 day, going in game and waiting 24 hours, then resetting it to another period of time (like 5 days) wouldn't actually do anything, since cells only respawn when you enter them. QQuix's experiment seems to contradict this, so a new test might be in order. I might try it myself, just to see.

» Wed May 18, 2011 11:46 pm

I think the difference between what TheNiceOne is saying and what you're interpreting him to mean, WalkerInShadows, is that once you've visited a given cell, edits to that cell will ALWAYS be in your save game - the save game will hold the data from X cell till you actuall GO there, generating new data for said cell.

My own testing seemed to show, though (and as QQuix said) without using a program to actually look at what's IN a save game file... that if you save your game, then sit in a cell and pass 72 hours (presuming you have the standard 3 day reset function), then save again... the second save will be smaller than the first. This suggests that the save file is dumping significant amounts of info. I can actually see evidence of this in my current existing save games.

I use Streamline streamsaves for 90% of my saves. In my second to last save, I went down into the sewers under the IC market district and slept away 73 hours - I did this on purpose as my level had gone up and I wanted to see some new inventory in shops. I saved again while still in the sewers. Savesize in KB... before the 73 hours of sitting in the same cell, 4299. After, 3645.

If the game isn't dumping data from the to-be-saved list with the passage of time, why would the save game size ever go down without the player changing cells?

» Thu May 19, 2011 2:02 am

Umm... you just proved the point. If he sets the respawn time to 1 year, or never (there are mods that do this), the cells may never respawn, and the data will remain in his saves forever, thus increasing the size over time and making it unplayable, like Tyrth said.

I agree that the data will then remain the the save forever and increase the size of the save over time. But what I'm saying is that more or less the same happens with a short (3 days, or even less) respawn time.

I'm rather interested in this discussion, since someone recently told me that changing the respawn time to 1 day, going in game and waiting 24 hours, then resetting it to another period of time (like 5 days) wouldn't actually do anything, since cells only respawn when you enter them.

That's what I'm saying, or rather that cells only respawn when they get loaded. Interior cells mostly only get loaded when you enter them, while exterior cells also gets loaded when you're maximum two cells away.

Anyway, the moment a cell respawn, most data gets cleaned out, but at the same time, new data is generated from all the spawn points and respawnable containers in the cell, thus more or less keeping your savegame size increased.

I haven't tested this personally, so it is possible that some specific types of data gets cleaned out earlier, but if I'm not completely mistaken, the two modern spawn mods, "Less Predictable Respawn" by Tekuromoto and "SPAWN" by shademe, both works on this principle, that you control the respawn of a cell, by changing the respawn time just before you load the cell. If cells got reset before they got loaded, this wouldn't work.

» Thu May 19, 2011 9:53 am

I agree that the data will then remain the the save forever and increase the size of the save over time. But what I'm saying is that more or less the same happens with a short (3 days, or even less) respawn time.

Well, yeah, if you never enter the cell, it'll never respawn. That's nearly impossible to do for anything besides dungeons, though - at some point, you're going to pass near an exterior cell, and it will respawn.

That's what I'm saying, or rather that cells only respawn when they get loaded. Interior cells mostly only get loaded when you enter them, while exterior cells also gets loaded when you're maximum two cells away.

Anyway, the moment a cell respawn, most data gets cleaned out, but at the same time, new data is generated from all the spawn points and respawnable containers in the cell, thus more or less keeping your savegame size increased.

I haven't tested this personally, so it is possible that some specific types of data gets cleaned out earlier, but if I'm not completely mistaken, the two modern spawn mods, "Less Predictable Respawn" by Tekuromoto and "SPAWN" by shademe, both works on this principle, that you control the respawn of a cell, by changing the respawn time just before you load the cell. If cells got reset before they got loaded, this wouldn't work.

Ah. SPAWN, according to the readme, "records the time and tags it with a respawn timestamp. The list of visited cells is evaluated in intervals; when time passed since the player's last visit is calculated for each cell and compared with the cell's respawn timestamp. If time passed exceeds the timestamp, the cell is reset."

BTW, dAb, SPAWN can be set to "never respawn".

Less Predictable Respawn goes into greater detail:

Spoiler

First off, what do I mean by "respawn"? Well, don't think of it in a Diablo-esque sense. You cannot respawn monsters in the area for a hack-and-slash style horde of monsters that continually come at you from off screen. In Oblivion, every cell contains data about what's in it: NPCs and monsters, items (both placed by the designers and dropped by actors including the player), havoked items (like books and dishes), plants, food, and containers. When a cell is respawned, a number of things happen:
- dead actors (and their inventories) are removed
- new actors are "spawned" if there are any spawn points in the cell
- havoked items that are still in the cell are returned to their original positions (books onto shelves, dishes onto tables, whatever)
- food that was initially in the cell (not dropped there by an actor) is replenished (this is a special case, and seems to have to do with NPCs being able to eat via the AI packages; other non-edible ingredients that have been removed do not replenish)
- items that were left in the cell are removed
- plants have their ingredients replenished so they are harvestable again
- containers that are not marked as "non-respawning" (ie, most containers other than those in player houses) have all their contents removed and discarded, and new contents are generated.

Everytime you enter a new cell, whether it's a shop, a dungeon, or a "cell" in the wilderness, that cell gets a timestamp indicating when it was last visited. The _next_ time you enter that cell, the timestamp is compared with the respawn timer and if enough time has elapsed then the cell is reset. This has a number of ramifications:
1) A cell that is visited fairly frequently, say once every couple of days, will _never respawn_ with the default timer of 3 days.
2) A cell that is visited only once in the game still has all of it's data stored in the savegame file; it does not get reset (and garbage cleaned up, etc) until it is visited again.
3) The length of the respawn timer should not affect savegame size; only the number of cells visited (in addition to quest variables and all that) affects the amount of data in the savegame.
4) An inordinately long respawn timer (that never changes) will have the effect of making the world seem less dynamic, especially in cities and dungeons (see point 1).

This means that every cell you enter is checked against the _current_ respawn timer value. So what this mod does is randomizes the respawn timer. Say it's been randomized to 36. If you've been away from this cell for more than 36 hours, it'll reset, and the timestamp set to the current time.. At that time (when you've entered your new cell) a new value is rolled; let's say it's 62. The _next_ cell you enter is checked against the _new current_ respawn timer of 62 hours. Again, if you've been away from this cell for more than 62 hours, it'll reset and the timestamp gets reset and all that... BUT! If you haven't been away from the cell long enough for it to get respawned, the timestamp STILL gets set to the current time. Hence the problem with revisiting a cell over and over within the respawn time limit: it'll never respawn.

» Thu May 19, 2011 4:00 am

Some data is never purged though. If you drop something in a cell, it will remain there forever. Even after the cell respawns. (Yes, I have tested this. Left some potions in a goblin cave, and each time I returned to go 'soul harvesting', they were still there.

» Thu May 19, 2011 6:50 am

Seem sif

You had to script everything......
A lot of work....

I t can be done.
Just the doin' part that gets me lol/
If you do,.... do it right...

» Wed May 18, 2011 11:04 pm

BTW, dAb, SPAWN can be set to "never respawn".

Sounds interesting. For the time being I'm going to experiment with the cell respawn setting in wryebash, check the save sizes and see what happens. I'll keep you updated.

» Thu May 19, 2011 3:08 am

Well, yeah, if you never enter the cell, it'll never respawn. That's nearly impossible to do for anything besides dungeons, though - at some point, you're going to pass near an exterior cell, and it will respawn.

Correct, but my main point is that cells only respawn when it is loaded (because you enter it, or close to it), and at that time new data is generated, thus making about as much data stay in the savegame. So the effect is that spawn rate hardly affects your savegame size or cause bloat.

Ah. SPAWN, according to the readme, "records the time and tags it with a respawn timestamp. The list of visited cells is evaluated in intervals; when time passed since the player's last visit is calculated for each cell and compared with the cell's respawn timestamp. If time passed exceeds the timestamp, the cell is reset."

True, and the readme you quoted says exactly the same I have argued here

» Wed May 18, 2011 11:44 pm

The more I think about it, the more I conclude we are talking two different things here: Cell Reset and Cell Respawn

What I propose/conclude is that cell reset occurs after 72 hours (or a tweaked period) regardless of the PC returning to the cell.
Cell reset means that a lot of data about the cell status will not be saved in the next save: new position of dozens of items that may have been displaced from their original positions, dynamic objects left in the cell (like my 100 NPCs), dead actors etc, while other data will still be saved: objects moved by the player by grabbing (not bumping into), items dropped by the player and others (?).

The cell load process, first, loads the cell data from its original esp and, then, adjusts whatever has to be adjusted using data from the save game. So, if the cell has not been reset, the savegame still has all the data and the player finds the cell the way he left it a while ago. If, OTOH, the cell has been reset, most items are back from their original places, flora is replenished, etc (as the data was taken from the esp).

Think as a game designer: what would be the point of keeping all that large amount of data about the cell for a very long time and ignore it just when the player returns to the cell and the cell is reloaded? Or, in other words, knowing that the data will be ignored anyway, why not remove it from the save in the first place?

I think the very objective of the cell reset mechanism is, exactly, keep the savegame within a manageable size.

Respawning is a whole different business and, yes, this is the one that happens only when the player returns to the cell. As it happens during cell load, it gets confused with cell reset.

Respawning is the process of selecting a new 'spawns' from spawn points and selecting a new content to spawning containers.

I think someone mentioned, long time ago, that respawning occurs when the player returns to the cell after 72 hours (which is true) and people, mistakenly, assumed the cell reset also occurs then, (creating a new urban legend).

All of the above is just an intellectual exercise, of course, as I have little evidence to support it: my 100 NPCs and Tyrthyllanos testimony a few posts back.
But, as far as I remember, there is no evidence to deny it.

I guess someone knowledgeable about inspecting the contents of saved games might confirm or reject these theories.

» Thu May 19, 2011 11:17 am

All I can add is that what I stated before is easily re-confirmable. I semi-habitually rest or wait for 72 hours at a time, just to reset something, get rid of a body littering the IC somewhere, etc.

Each time I do it, I also habitually save before and after, sitting in the same place. I keep 25 streamsaves, and I can clearly mark the places I've done this by inspecting my savegame folder... the saves that have gone down in size are the latter ones.

I guess I said all this before, but at this point I can say I've triple-verified it. Works every time, guaranteed: passing the given cell reset time means the save game shrinks significantly, with or without changing cells.