Removing Simple Mods from Save Games: Long term effects? : V

» Wed Apr 03, 2013 1:21 am

As we're all well aware at this point, removing mods that have scripting is (generally speaking) a bad idea. There are ways to mitigate long-term damage if the mod is built correctly (Frostfall) and the proper steps are taken, but in black & white terms, it's not a good idea to remove mods with scripting at all. Lest you risk sacrificing your save to the dreaded Papyrus Monster.

But, what about simple plugins? I.E. Placeholder'ish ESP's that do nothing but swap textures/meshes or modify a few values (such as transformation damage values), if you install these and then remove them later on down the line, is there any damage done to your save game or cause for concern?

To my current understanding, even these types of mods irreperably modify data within your save file, effectively "baking" some tiny form of data into your save. Is this correct?

(Off-topic Tangeant below as to why I'm asking)

Spoiler

To be blunt, I want to play this blasted game for once... I've not played through any of the DLC I've purchased and stopped actually playing Skyrim at least a year ago. I'm tired of waiting for mods to mature to have a rock-solid save. I've grown impatient waiting for this game to access it's full 4GB's of memory (which has effectively hamstrung those who can cram mountains of high-res textures in, making the game unstable by consuming +2.7 GB's of RAM [not VRAM] on the executable, leaving the game crash-prone due to memory starvation) and I don't want to mess with updating mods mid-playthrough. More than that, I want to be able to pick up the same character in a years time, jump back in, and not have to wrestle with load orders, unforseen complications with mods that were thought to be 100% safe, or updating mods... So, I'm going to just not play with anything but the USKP. At all... Scary idea, but yeah. If I can get away with a few minor things I'll do it, but, I want to get all my ducks in a row first.