How bad it is to lose the .skse file?

[Wang Sir]

When I was switching steam accounts, my skyrim se save folder got overwritten by steam clouds. I have most of my skyrim se plays on another account, so I switched back and re-overwrite the save folder with steam clouds, then I realize all the .skse files of my recent saves are missing. It seems steam cloud only keeps the ess file.

Before judging how stupid I am, how f**ked are my saves? I can load the co-save-less saves, no ctd, only thing that's apparent to me is SOS and sexlab fame mod giving me warnings, and I lost all my sexual fames. Checked some (about 5 out of 50 or something) MCM pages and nothing seems to be missing. Is it safe to keep playing the same save? What are some big mods that relies on the .skse file?

[traison]

Never looked into it, other than that it's a binary file and would require some effort to figure out. I suppose it depends on what mods you use, but I'd say if you're running any decently modded Skyrim its a bad thing. As you already discovered, your mods have lost some of their state information. I wouldn't bet on any vanilla quests being broken because of this, but I also wouldn't bet on any 3rd party mods working as they should either.

 

If I had to guess what the skse save file contains, it's the metadata associated with forms (was this from StorageUtil?), and script event info among other things. I recall events in vanilla papyrus do not register themselves automatically after the game is restarted, and you have to do this yourself. The metadata is why your mods are confused, and the event data being lost probably means no mod that depends on SKSE renewing the events for them no longer receive events.

 

I'd say your saves are totally f**ked, but obviously you can test all this yourself. You know how your mods are supposed to work, can you solve issues for instance by restarting the mods that have this capability (typically a button in MCM)?

[Wang Sir]

2 hours ago, traison said:

Never looked into it, other than that it's a binary file and would require some effort to figure out. I suppose it depends on what mods you use, but I'd say if you're running any decently modded Skyrim its a bad thing. As you already discovered, your mods have lost some of their state information. I wouldn't bet on any vanilla quests being broken because of this, but I also wouldn't bet on any 3rd party mods working as they should either.

 

If I had to guess what the skse save file contains, it's the metadata associated with forms (was this from StorageUtil?), and script event info among other things. I recall events in vanilla papyrus do not register themselves automatically after the game is restarted, and you have to do this yourself. The metadata is why your mods are confused, and the event data being lost probably means no mod that depends on SKSE renewing the events for them no longer receive events.

 

I'd say your saves are totally f**ked, but obviously you can test all this yourself. You know how your mods are supposed to work, can you solve issues for instance by restarting the mods that have this capability (typically a button in MCM)?

Thanks for the reply! It's hard to tell anything useful from my description but you still give me a long tip, I own you a big thanks.

And yeah, I guess go on and check all the mods with MCM is the safest thing (and probably the only thing) I can do now. 

I hope I (and my save) are less f**ked than you suspect  It's not easy to abandon a 60 hour save

[Wang Sir]

Apparently I lost all the registered animation for SL and records for the dragonborn's sexlife. I guess I won't start a new save for now (and I'll remember to keep a backup save around)