Super slow when loading saved game

[TazManIam2]

I have played Starfield now to level 48. But I am coming to the hard decision to stop until this most annoying problem can be fixed.

From fairly early on in my play, I decided to get my outposts producing raw materials to accumulate and to sell. I have ten outposts built out for extraction and storage. I have the links working well, to be able to have materials transported to my main outpost. I've run into the build limits on a few of these outposts, and could easily limit out on all of them.

Three weeks ago, I noticed that loading a save was taking longer, and longer. It went from a few seconds to eight minutes as of today. This is not a big deal, if it is once in a play session (like once a day). But I want to pursue some of the main story line and quests that I have ignored from early-on. However, getting killed means I have an eight minute wait to resume play.

This very long wait was not a great problem for the last few weeks, because my character doesn't die while building outposts. But I have Coe's Lillian on my ship now, and when jumping to a star system to look for something on a pirate ship, my ship is way outclassed, so I get destroyed in a few seconds, before I can even answer the hail to be boarded.

I went back to building outposts. But I want to play for some excitement for awhile now. Any quests will have a good chance of meeting death... and another eight minutes load time. Since the load time gets longer with each outpost, this will not improve.

I considered starting over, but I am just not interested in doing again, everything I have already done. Also, I have little doubt that building outposts will come to the same problem.

My PC is not the problem: RTX4080 Super, AMD 7900X, M.2 SSD, 64GB RAM.

I looked for fixes on Nexusmods. I activated Arthmoor's USFP. I tried Clear Imagespace Modifiers by console, and by batch. No other mods at all. I verified the game files. I installed the latest Nvidia drivers. Nothing helps. I restored a save from three weeks ago. This had a load time of over three minutes. I deleted an outpost. This reduced the load time for saves. I deleted a couple more outposts, this reduced the load time. I deleted another outpost. This reduced the load time to 18 seconds. I could live with 18 seconds. But I don't want to live without outposts. It makes me want to go back to Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, or Baldur's Gate 3. Maybe I should play Red Dead Redemption 2, which I have started three times, but never kept going.

There seems to be a lot of potential for Starfield, if modding goes anything at all like Skyrim. With a galaxy of star systems to explore, modders could come up with some great stuff. I had hoped that Bethesda would have made Starfield a great platform for unlimited modding, but if I can't play vanilla, staying within limits, and have a reasonable load time for save games after experiencing death, then it would seem to not that platform.

My largest save files are 17 MB. That is nothing... but EIGHT MINUTES to load? Nuts.

This is a rant, but if there are any solutions, I am listening. I want to like this game.

[Langkard]

Do you have a bunch of saves? I routinely delete anything I don't play to use because very early on there was some kind of bug with having too many saves. It might have been fixed, but it made me paranoid. Worth trying as a fix.

[TazManIam2]

Three weeks ago, when loading saves took over three minutes, I deleted all but the last five saves. Today, I zipped up all but the last few saves, and deleted them from the saves folder. So, I have less than ten saves right now, and it is still the same eight minutes to load last night's save.

[Langkard]

Well, it's not much but it eliminates one possibility.

[utahcowboy]

OP, I'm so sorry, that sounds really frustrating. I can't say I've run into that issue, but I also haven't gone hog wild with outposts. Have you seen anyone else on the interwebs having the same issue? I think this is the first time I've seen it.

Have you reported it on Bethesda's discord?

[momopovich]

How old is your save ? Some problems related to FormId were fixed early this year but they might not be completely retroactive for older saves.

Have you tried deleting all outposts on a clone save and see it fixes the issue ?

[TazManIam2]

Originally posted by utahcowboy:

Have you reported it on Bethesda's discord?

Have not reported it. Have seen things from others reporting same or similar things. What worked for them didn't work for me. Adding outposts makes it worse. Deleting outposts makes it better.

[TazManIam2]

Originally posted by momopovich:

How old is your save ? Some problems related to FormId were fixed early this year but they might not be completely retroactive for older saves.

Have you tried deleting all outposts on a clone save and see it fixes the issue ?

This playthrough started in April on a fully updated system. Deleting outpost works. But building outposts makes it worse.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by TazManIam2:

Deleting outpost works. But building outposts makes it worse.

So it seems outpost extractors and cargo links are causing the issue

You can experiment with less cargo links, extractors etc to identify the culprit. But i doubt you can fix it and keep the same amount of outpost buildings.

[TazManIam2]

Originally posted by momopovich:

Originally posted by TazManIam2:

Deleting outpost works. But building outposts makes it worse.

So it seems outpost extractors and cargo links are causing the issue

You can experiment with less cargo links, extractors etc to identify the culprit. But i doubt you can fix it and keep the same amount of outpost buildings.

What I built is all within the limits - no mods installed to go unlimited. My skill points are mostly in outpost engineering and planetary habitation. Should the game work OK for this? I was going to setup fabrication facililities next. But eight minutes, and longer, to load a save is toomuch. I've seen others report even as long as 40 minutes load time. I'm just stopping now, until a solution is found, because getting longer and longer wait times would be too frustrating, especially since it effectively stops pursuing quests for fear of dieing, and having to load a save game.

[Vlad 254]

Try turning off Cloud saves.

[TazManIam2]

Originally posted by Vlad 254:

Try turning off Cloud saves.

Will check on that, but I am sure I disabled cloud saves when I first started the game. It wouldn't be reenabled when Bethesda makes an update... would it?

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by TazManIam2:

Three weeks ago, when loading saves took over three minutes, I deleted all but the last five saves. Today, I zipped up all but the last few saves, and deleted them from the saves folder. So, I have less than ten saves right now, and it is still the same eight minutes to load last night's save.

So when you load older saves you see gradually load time is faster?

For me there's been a change point, before fast loading, after a bit slow but far from any 8mn. But it didn't aggravated further a change point.

You are missing one of the best part of the game, replay with a deeply different build.

You love work on outposts, try rush your skills to it and still progress in game, probably my future 4rth play in some time, a planet engineer run.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by TazManIam2:

What I built is all within the limits - no mods installed to go unlimited. My skill points are mostly in outpost engineering and planetary habitation. Should the game work OK for this?

Every game with a building system that I know off starts breaking if you go overboard, even within the limits. They're often not really optimized to support extreme builds.

I'd speculate that you just put too many parts. Definitely report that to BGS and put your savefile as well.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by TazManIam2:

It wouldn't be reenabled when Bethesda makes an update... would it?

Hasnt been the case for me at all.

[TazManIam2]

Originally posted by Jarsonne:

So when you load older saves you see gradually load time is faster?

For me there's been a change point, before fast loading, after a bit slow but far from any 8mn. But it didn't aggravated further a change point.

You are missing one of the best part of the game, replay with a deeply different build.

You love work on outposts, try rush your skills to it and still progress in game, probably my future 4rth play in some time, a planet engineer run.

Three weeks ago with fewer outposts, and not as built out, it took 3.5 minutes to load the save game. With ten outposts today, pretty well kitted out, it takes 8 minutes. Since my current limit is 24 outposts, I can guess at how much time it would take to load. To do anything that could result in death (forcing load from save) is just a game stopper.
As for replaying, that is a possibility, but I am loathe to repeat quests that I have already done.