Question of midgame ESP and to ESP-FE

[hotrack]

I changed Environs - Abandoned Abodes from its original esp-fe to a full esp in order to use the outdated (but vital for my load order as I've pretty much used it from LE) Visual NPC Transfer Tool xEdit script [which can't handle esp-fes and esls even if its loaded in xEdit] to change the appearance of some of its NPCs. Along the way, there was an update on Environs - Abandoned Abode and I blithely updated without realising the espfe to esp change. Only when I was about to change another NPC visuals unrelated to Environs did I discover my oversight. By then, I had a few gamesaves already through this unplanned change.

 

My question is, what effect does a change from a [no change to formIDs, as it was an originally a esp-fe] from-the-game-start esp, to a mid-game esp-fe?

[Tlam99]

If the fe was last, should be ok.

Middle in lo, probably a mess, if scripted fe followed.

Not scripted fe folloed, all id's are wrong. As long as you did not use items, ok.

If id's in save, lots of wrong references in save, can cause ctd's sooner or later.

All in all, middle in order change, start new game recommended.

 

FE's are registerd in a table. So all following fe got invalid references because they are shifted one place.

 

[hotrack]

Had a check through ReSaver but didn't find anything amiss.. yet. I can't say I noticed anything wrong, yet as well. Since Environs kind of runs its stuff based on quest stages [I think], I should be safe as there weren't anything in the middle of being triggered/quest-managed as I recall.

 

I really need an alternative to Visual NPC Transfer Tool but it's been the one I like using since it's xEdit-based.