Safe Save Helpers - A Nolvus Guide

A small collection of mods to keep your saves… Safer. You heathens. ♥

Note: This guide assumes that you have watched the Adding Mods in Nolvus video. Please also familiarize yourself with the general tips listed in the Commonly Added Mods (By Sojourn) guide!

All links are hyperlinked for cleanliness and convenience. They will look like this.

 

Overall Prerequisites:

The first responses I get when I share Jeri’s tried-and-true safe saving guide with other modders are in some form of overwhelm:

  • I have to rquit to desktop every time I die?!
  • I can’t use autosaves or quicksaves??
  • I’m not going to remember to do these!

Never fear– I have a few mods to make this process as smooth as possible so you can play more and worry less!

 Clean Save Auto - Reloader

        Prerequisites: Already in Nolvus

            New Game Required: No

This handy tool reloads entire game for you; and I’m talking the entire game. I’ve shamelessly ripped the explanation of how it works:

  • When you attempt to load a save (or you die and the game is reloading the last save), the mod checks if it's the first time you do it.
  • If it's the first time, the save will be loaded, otherwise the mod will start a completely new instance of the game.
  • The save you selected will be loaded automatically after the game was reloaded. You don't have to press any buttons.

There’s a few things to note here; firstly, this only deals with issues when reloading saves. Other save and load issues can still persist, but we’ll get to those in a minute.

To install:  

      Select the Legacy SE option and install into mo2 using the mod manager download option.

 Then, right click and select send to…  choose separator from the short list.

A short list of all the separator names will pop up in a window. Select 1.2 BUG FIXES AND TWEAKS and click ok.

 

There are no .esp/.esm/.esls to sort, so you’re all done with this mod.

Alternate Death Mods

Alternate death mods change how your character can die in the game; leaving death to the base Skyrim system means you would have to continue exiting to desktop every time you die, or rely on Clean Save Auto - Reloader to do it for you.

Choosing one of the following mods for your load order means you can heavily reduce – if not eliminate – the need to re-load your game.

I do still suggest keeping Clean Save Auto - Reloader to use alongside these, for best save coverage.

Currently, I can only give walkthroughs for Shadow of Skyrim (NADS) and Respawn - Soulslike, but here is a list of other death alternative mods you can try yourself:

Shadow of Skyrim - Nemesis and Alternative Death System

Prerequisites: Already In Nolvus

New Game Required: No

Shadow of Skyrim is a two-for-one deal; it holds its own nemesis system alongside the death respawn mechanics. It is possible to turn off the death respawn mechanics and add a different alternate death mod, if you so choose.

To Install:

Download the most recent main file into MO2:

You don’t need the hotfix.

Once you’ve enabled the mod, be sure to drag its .esp directly above fnis.esp. (If you watched the video, you’ll know what I mean.) Dragging it up any farther mid-playthrough may break existing scripted mods in your save.

The following mods will need their MCMs tweaked to be compatible with NADS:

  • Experience: Turn off XP for Objectives Completed to prevent getting XP everytime you recover your backpack, or turn off item drops in the NADS MCM.
  • Headhunter: Disable NADS when fighting the bounty target if you want to capture them alive, or test out a patch Acherones uploaded in the comment section.      
  • I'm Glad You're Here: Set to Third-Person only
  • Maximum Carnage:  Turn off Spell Effects. Disable Player Gore.
  • Sacrosanct: Disable "Fortitude" ability
  • SmoothCam: Select "Animation" in NADS under MCM > Bleedout Style
  • Undeath Classical Lichdom: Turn off "Alternate Death System" in NADS under MCM > Respawn (if you’re actively using Undeath or plan to)
  • Violens: Turn off Kill Moves on the Player

I have only listed mods that come in Nolvus (to my recollection), so be sure to check out the actual compatibility page.

Make sure you also change your bleedout style from physics to animation to avoid any strange issues that can come from the physics ragdoll. The rest is up to your preference!

Do not merge this mod or change the FormIDs. This mod is already ESL-flagged to save you a plugin spot.

NOTE: It's harmless if initialization fails. Check the MCM and enable it again if needed.        

Respawn - Soulslike Edition

        Prerequisites: Already In Nolvus

New Game Required: No

Respawn is relatively light in its respawn mechanics; this can be used alongside Shadow of Skyrim if you disable its alternate death system and toggle a setting or two–

To Install:
Download the most recent main file into MO2:

Enable Respawn - Death Overhaul.esp, and disable or delete:

  • Respawn Rest By Campfire patch.esp
  • Respawn Campsite patch.esp

If you’d like to use Rest By Campfire, I recommend using Rest By Campfire - Base Object Swapper with the Respawn - Soulslike Edition and Rest By Campfire - Base Object Swapper Patch instead(up to you if you want the kindled version or not).

Do not download both Rest by Campfire and Rest By Campfire - Base Object Swapper.

Choose one.

The load order for these is as follows:

To set campfires as your respawn point, you only need to toggle the related setting in its mcm:

(I don’t know if it matters, but out of paranoia I also disabled quicksaving in the Save Settings section).

To use with Shadow of Skyrim, simply toggle its alternate death system:

And if you want Respawn to handle all of the item drops– so you don’t have to worry about a possible second backpack or let your nemeses put their grubby hands on your gear– uncheck these as well (and set the max chance sliders to zero below them):

Configure the rest to your preferences! If you don’t like returning to a corpse, you can check out Save our Souls - Death Alternative and follow its recommended settings.

Skyrim Save System Overhaul 3 (SSSO 3)

        Prerequisites: NL_MCM - A Modular MCM Framework (place at the bottom of 2.1 HUDS)

New Game Required: YES.

        (Discovery courtesy of Jenesis)

Everyone’s new favorite– an actual save system overhaul:

 

 

Follow the mod author’s advice in the screenshot– this means that you would no longer use F5 or the vanilla save options in the menu. Lose a little, gain Automatic Event Saves. Yep.

To install:

Download both the main file and the Go to Bed + Campfire patch. If you removed one and/or the other, you can skip it.

FOLLOW THESE STEPS CLOSELY. If you skip a step, this mod will not work as intended.

If you use non-Latin characters or characters not supported by your file system (e.g., < or >) or if the protection system still fails to validate your name after making sure there are no other errors, use the "Bypass Check" option. I’m not sure how safe this route is.

NEW: You can use this Save Monitor to update the ID for you.

  1. Enable the mod and its patch in mo2.
  2. Launch the game and start a new save.
  3. Ensure you’re in a safe area (i.e., not in combat, in a city, indoors, in a player home)
  4. Save normally (F5 or through the vanilla menu)
  5. Exit the game.

 

Find this little folder button in mo2:

  1. Click “open profile folder”
  2. Double-click on the “saves” folder.
  3. Find the save you just made (sort by date)

All the saves will have a string of numbers:

(If you select the file and hit F2, it’ll set it to rename so you can copy it to a notepad app.)

  1. Return to MO2 and locate your Save System Overhaul installation. Double click to open it, then hit “open mod in explorer”

  1. Open the "SSSOConf" folder, and find that playerid.txt (as shown in the screenshot).
  2. Duplicate it (ctrl + c then ctrl v)
  3. It’ll look like this:

 

  1. See that “notset” part? Yep. We’re putting that string of number you copied earlier in there, like so:

   

  1. Click File > Save as… then rename it to your character’s name in your save exactly as written in your game. Spaces, capitalizations, etc.
  1. For example, if you have “Ruque, Destroyer of Beaches”, it would be Ruque, Destroyer of Beaches.txt.
  1. If you need to use the "Bypass Check" option mentioned earlier, name the duplicate file "bypass.txt" instead.

When you relaunch the game, your MCM menu should look like this:

   

  1. Enable the mod as shown.
  2. Set the shortcut to something like “K” (the function keys do not seem to work for this)
  3.  Exit the mcm, wait a moment, then press that hotkey. This will ensure the mod is working properly.

The final steps will just involve a few MCM options– the Automatic Event and Immersive Manual saves can be tuned to your preferences.

Note: If you use alternate leveling the level up/skill up option, the related save options in SSSO 3 may not work as expected.

  • Enable Rotating Saves on the Main mcm page

  • Enable all options under the Save Shield section

  • Enable Show Save report after save

Congrats, you’re all done!