Does using mods and console corrupt/ glitch the game or how do they affect gameplay? I imagine a game chock full of glitches and bugs would glitch even more when modding or using console commands...giving yourself weapons before their quests or using shouts that are dragon unique must have some sort of negative effects on the game

Whats your experiences?

A badly constructed mod can introduce problems, and you can also have problems depending on the mod load order - sometimes loading a particular mod before another can break one or both of them. However with some care you don't need to be concerned.

Console commands shouldn't make the game glitchy, although if you attempt to reverse an action that's caused problems it won't necessarily work. For example, if you kill and NPC and screw up a bunch of scripts adding a new copy of that NPC may not repair all of those problems.

i can change my character into naked. I have sixy whiterun and brasillian sun and stuff like that installed.
I made a npc availeble tom e that was not possible before./ I changed feandal's face with the npc editor.
So far no glitches i'm in 100 hours....

I use the console/commands a lot, and never have had any problems.

Hungry Donner's example is not that good, because instead of adding another copy of the NPC, you can just resurrect the dead one, and that's not a problem - I've resurrected several NPCs, including followers.

But the gist of his statement is correct - so, Game On.

Not necessarily. Mods can make the game work better. The unofficial patches are the obvious example, but there are others like SkyBoost, plugins for OBSE that reduced stutter, etc. Of course, badly-made or conflicting mods can utterly destroy your game. You have to pay some attention to what you're installing and how you use the things you add.

The same goes for console commands. Using dragon-specific shouts probably won't hurt anything, but you can wreck your game beyond repair with the console depending on what you do with it. On the other hand, you can do things like fix progression on broken quests.

Modding a game is like modifying anything; it always requires you pay more attention and probably also learn more than just using a product as provided.

what happens if you install a mod that "breaks" the game, would you simply uninstall the mod to fix it or would you have to uninstall the game and start fresh? Say you use a mod, save your game and then realize the save file is corrupted by the mod..what would you do?

I'm just trying to get a better understanding how mods affect your game and it's files and if a bad mod can mess with your pc itself. Obviously virus' are always a risk but i'm talking about effects of bad mods and the damage they can do

If it actually corrupts your save file as in make it unable to load then you're screwed. The chances of that happening are incredibly small however. More likely you will notice CTD's and stuff like that, then it's simply of matter of turning of the mod.

You will get a warning saying the save might rely on content no longer there, you simply ignore it and continue.

Keep in mind though, that certain mods like weapons, armor, houses, locations and what not actually add content. Removing those mods will make that content dissapear as well, along with everything in it. So for instance you have a housing mod, you notice it causes CTD's, you want to remove it. The first thing you should then do is remove all your stuff from inside that house, deactive the mod and then start the game again.

Console commands don't cause problems unless you start giving strange commands. Like setting quest stages way beyond where they should be, or killing unkillable NPC's.

I've used quite a few console commands and I have never had any issues with the games or my saves. I've not used any mods so far.

Never had a problem with console commands. However with mods it is best to have a good character already so you can test them as you put them into the game. Sometimes I have had errors and went back into the CK and fixed it myself.

Keep in mind that mods do not overwritte original game files, or at least most of them.

They are installed as a "plugin" file, that the game loads and runs. Also, files are deployed into the game's data folder. For instance, if you install a mod that changes the female plate armor, you would have to put a file similar to this one: "femaleplate.ext". The game will have it's own "femaleplate.ext" file, but if it finds this additional file in the data folder, it uses that instead.

This means that even if you load your game and find the armor bugged, with clipping effects or even that crashes your game, its as easy as uninstalling the mod (deleting the file you just installed).

There can be, anyway, mods that "patch" the official file. With these you should be more careful. Anyway I have installed dozens of mods and still didn't find one that does that... I have mods that use a different body model, different textures for faces, eyes, lips, hands, some of the weapons, retextures for items and the world, etc... and all are just additions in the "data" folder.

Anyway, don't worry, with the Steam Workshop you will be able to enable or disable mods, and I'm pretty sure it will be safe.

And anyway if you are not sure, just make a copy of the Skyrim folder completely and if something goes terribly wrong, you can always overwrite it again (or redownload from Steam in the worst case...).

As an additional note. It happened to me that I uninstalled a mod, and when going to load a saved game, I get a message telling me: "This save game relies on items that no longer exist. Load anyway?". So unless something too bad happens, it wont crash.

If the mod is made by an ape then yeah they will screw up your game. Just choose mods which have been made by the pros. Some pro mod creators do a better job than the actual designers. Check out http://www.sureai.de/ (might need to translate) or search "Cube Experimental Fallout 3" to see what I am talking about. That mod was incredible; it puts Bethesda DLC to shame.

I've seen and heard about some impressive mods that have me seriously considering switchin to pc...I remember seeing a mod for oblivion where someone created their own expansion and the detail and features created were amazing (put shivering isles to shame).

Thanks for the advice here as I was under the impression that some mods change game files or replace certain folders and lose the original data in the process...my only experience with mods and modding was for the age of mythology and that was many moons ago.

While on the subject of mods, how does steam affect them? I hear people here knocking steam, saying that it messes with their games in some way....is this mod related or should i find or start another thread about steam issues?

Most of the game files are packaged in .bsa archives, its a little like a .zip file. When you install a mod, its files are typically loose (not zipped up) so they take precedence over the original archived files, without actually overwriting them. All you need to do is delete the new files and you'll go back to the originals. Most mod managers include an uninstall or deactivate button that does this for you. Still, its a good idea to backup your /data directory to make it easier to go back to a clean slate.

Steam doesn't interfere with mods in any way, they've even been really accommodating to the script extender team.

I had one problem in Oblivion which may have been caused by a console command, I'm not really sure. All my imps in the game, the regular ones not those belonging to a mage, are still alive. If you hit them with a sword they scream and can be killed and then looted. But they don't move. They are all laying on the ground. Never figured out what caused it or how to fix it.

I've had to use the console more than once to fix something broken in the game.

To have a brasilian sun you need a mod that melt away all the snow in Skyrim, blind you for 30secs if you dare to look at the sun and tan everyone in the world. It's too damn hot in here!

Back on topic. Yes, mods and console commands can cause problems if the mod has problems or if you use commands like showracemenu inadvertedly. If you do some research before downloading and installing mods and using console commands, these problems should be minimized.

that's one of the greatest appeals for pc to me as so many things are broken in my game that i know console commands would fix.

what about lag? do mods or console commands cause lag if there was previously no lag issues?
I have to say thats 1 perk to playing on 360, i have no lag and don't have to adjust settings to ensure smooth playing

Just don't touch quest stage commands. They're really the only thing that can seriously mess up your save.

Also, don't do Player.MarkForDelete. That doesn't go down too well either.

In terms of mods, a poorly made mod can have effects on vanilla content, and can break your save. It can happen. But just be a bit cautious, test out new mods from unknown authors for a little while before overwiting saves. Mods can't break your game.

Only thing that i've ever ran across was texture mods and I don't use many of them anyways. NPCs can bog down the game, I found that out with morrowind I had to tweak some mods i created, and why you don't see skyrim heavily populated. retexture mods can hammer a system if its not up to snuff, i have about 30 mods running on oblivion and around 60 for morrowind. It all depends on what the mod does or adds to the game.

Yes, you just have to be careful but its not that bad. A mod can pose the most danger, but you can research a mod pretty good before using it. Some console commands like making multiple clones of your self can glitch a game, nothing that a restart cant fix though as long as you dont save.

If you create clones of yourself does it create a voodoo-doll effect like in DOOM?

As for mods lagging the game, sure they can. Cats & Rats was bad for that. Far too many AI scripts running at once in the IC brought Oblivion to a slideshow for me. I was running on a computer that could only be claimed to be maybe on the margin of meeting the minimum specs for the game. Quarl's texture pack brought a much more powerful machine to a crawl for me. That mod has since been optimized better and my current computer is again much newer, so it wouldn't be a problem now. Laggy mods aren't a problem though; if the game lags either remove the mod or change settings until it works.

Mods generally will not break the game, however you should always check the contents of a mod before downloading it; some of the more comprehensive ones change a lot of things, and you may want to keep some of them as-is instead. In addition, some 'fix' mods are for specific issues with specific quests, and should only be used when/if needed. Texture, body, etc. mods will generally not be a problem, although some graphics cards will gag trying to run them.

Console commands are also generally safe to use, however quest stages should only be forced if nothing else works, as doing so can screw up the script by bypassing a trigger it needs to progress properly. Commands that clone NPCs/critters or spawn lots of items should be used sparingly, as they can cause the game to crash if used to excess, but you generally have to go way overboard to reach that point so can do a fair bit of it with no problems unless you have a low-end machine.