Oldrim Form Type 43 Plugins in SSE

[Vyxenne]

I just this week read a post by a prominent mod author* saying if Blacktree Gaming didn't "fix" Vortex to make it stop throwing mod incompatibility warnings based solely on the Oldrim plugin's Form Type 43, he would stop "supporting Vortex" with his mod(s), whatever that means- removing the "Download with Manager" button? He even went so far as to state that those who claimed that Form Type 43 plugins might be harmful in SSE simply don't understand how Formlists work, which seems odd to me because I thought the plugin's Form Type had to do with its internal structure (format) and not Formlists. My point is that this mod author (and others) clearly believe that no harm whatsoever can come from installing Form Type 43 Oldrim plugins in SSE.

 

On the other hand, back when Oldrim > Newrim mod ports were becoming more commonplace (2017-2018), I saw several posts, two allegedly by Bethesda devs, stating that even though Form Type 43 plugins might "seem to work fine" when installed in SSE, there is a strong likelihood that they will inflict undetected cumulative damage (presumably to savegames) that will only manifest itself (CTD, ILS, etc.) days, weeks or months later, by which time there will be no way to trace the cause of the damage back to the plugin that caused it, so converting Oldrim plugins to Form Type 44 was necessary, or at least a wise precaution.

 

I make no pretense of having a definitive answer to this, but it's so easy to resave a plugin in the CK that I don't understand why anyone would want to release an LE > SE mod port without having done it- just to shut users up about it if for no other reason! Likewise, I don't understand why any user would knowingly play the game with an Oldrim-spec plugin and risk the entire playthrough rather than simply updating the plugin to Form Type 44.

 

Can anyone shine the flashlight of actual knowledge into this dark, murky corner?

• Is it really irrelevant whether a plugin in SSE is Form Type 43 or 44? If so, why would Tannin, the creator of MO as well as Vortex, establish a Form Type check in Vortex and throw an incompatibility warning if it is installing into SSE and the plugin Form Type isn't 44?
• Do Form Type 43 plugins really pose any danger when installed in SSE? If so, why would a well-known mod author state, or at least imply, that it doesn't matter? Why would mod ports continue to be released 4 years after SSE launch without updating plugins to Type 44?

 

Thanks in advance for any knowledgeable responses.

 

* I don't remember which SSE Nexus mod page I saw this on, or the author's name, but I'll see it again and edit this post with those details.

[Just Don't]

Just to start by roasting Bethesda, I would take any advice from them with a huge pinch of salt. And I'm just half joking here. But true is, I've been following this trend of topics for several months. The first topics about this have a good 2-3 years old, with people like Arthmoor stating time and time again that form43 would cause a huge array of issues, never giving any solid proof of his claims. Another mod author, Mator, gave a good explanation about the record differences of form 44 and how it would affect unconverted plugins.

 

But later, I found this comment from Mator himself in a reddit thread about rumors people believe that aren't true. So it seems like after years of testing and getting to know how Skyrim SE behaves in practice, things have changed, right?

 

Now, on top of the information you could get from the comments linked above, the issue with converting plugins is that sometimes mod features will break because of a quick re-save in the CK. Or at least that's what several people report in places like the Conversion Tracking thread, when people complain about certain ports not working properly. This leads me to think that some (old, unconventional complex? no idea really) mods may require additional steps or even an entire remake of the plugin to work properly. And this is why instead of "taking sides" here, I just let the debate to others, try to keep informed as much as I can (and recommend people to disable the form43 check in MO because it's really awful to have a constant warning, feels really bad).

[Vyxenne]

Just spent the past 2 hours reading the info you linked, plus additional info linked from there (linked links? ) and it seems that Zilav (author of xEdit) sums it up best for me:

• The SSE engine handles Form Types 40 and above by default, without any known issues. Even SSE's Skyrim.esm and DLCs have many <Type 44 records 
• Even so, authors and users should update older plugins to 44 as Beth recommends to handle any unknown issues

Then we have Arthmoor, who apparently still maintains that there are issues and updating to 44 is mandatory, and Mator, whose opinion has changed 180 degrees since he first said updating was mandatory and who now believes it is as Zilav states- almost certainly inconsequential, but nonetheless a good idea "just in case."

 

Thanks for the links- I had seen 2 of them, but not all.

[GenioMaestro]

Read my opinion and a bit of technical data from my posts.

https://www.loverslab.com/topic/94228-sse-conversion-tracking-feb-2-4577/?do=findComment&comment=2898293

https://www.loverslab.com/topic/94228-sse-conversion-tracking-feb-2-4577/?do=findComment&comment=2899222

 

Why do you think a lot of people have problems converting mods to SE?

Why do you think an expert like Mathor can change their idea in that way?

 

Because that people not know what are making, what make the conversion to form 44 and not know why have the problems. Mathor has learned that the form 44 is fully supported in SE and can not cause any problem of any kind.

[Uncle64]

I think you can debate this until death.

Why not use CK and convert it instead of this? Better to be safe then sorrow?

 

[GenioMaestro]

2 minutes ago, Uncle64 said:

I think you can debate this until death.

Why not use CK and convert it instead of this? Better to be safe then sorrow?

Can i know what problems do you have in your game when use plugings in form 43?

Are you totally sure, at 100%, that your problems are caused by the form 43?

Have you make detailed and exaustive test to demostrate that the form 43 cause problems?

 

Make a test in your game, please. Add to your current game as many ESP's in form 43 that you can.

But add, only and exclusively, the ESP's and remove any other file like, bsa's, mesh, textures... all files.

Left the scripts, if you want, but none other file and, of course, enable all the ESP's that you add.

 

Open your game and play it all the time that you want. Save it and open the savegame with ReSaver.

Look the pluging list and see how the game read and process every ESP and execute any related script.

Do you have any CTD? Any problem? No?

Because the ESP can not cause CTD in any way. The form 43 is fully supported by SE.

All the problems come from files externals to the ESP like bsa's, meshs, textures, HDT...

The problems never, absolutelly never, can come from the ESP.

[Uncle64]

Genio....... Serius..... Stop.....

We all know that CK have changed, there is other changes in the game that you can se.

And dont quote your own posts please.

 

Your own posts dont prove anything.

 

You dont need CTD for having issues in your game. IT only takes 1 keyword that is wrong to make issues.

And that comes from bad converted mods, that dont have been converted properly since some do think that it is only meshes that needs to be converted, they dont understand that you need to check scripts and so on.

 

I cant tell how many bad converted mods I have run in to, including mods from here where the OP is insisting that all works fine.

 

SO stop.

[Guest]

Wrye warnings in my SSE installation:

 

 

 

All working normally here. No save file corruption.