[Problem Identified] Bug - Actors start floating when near/inside big cities, then they fall and die...

[Komyeta]

EDIT: Problem was identified as the mod called "Open Cities of Skyrim" for SSE
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So, this has been happening for quite a while now, ever since I started playing SSE and hopping many performance glitches would be resolved thanks to the improved engine. I was wrong.

Is becoming quite the aggravating issue, whenever I approach a big city such as Whiterun, or Solitude AFTER playing for at least 10 to 15 minutes or so(normal gameplay time) some physics for the actors seem to misbehave, Causing a few NPCs to start floatng skywards, It happens EVERY time! Then after some time the game realizes these NPCs need physics too and makes them fall to their death.

I, Just, dont, get it! I can avoid this from happening by actually saving the game once I realize it is loading the city cell, then exiting the game entirely and loading the game again from that save. I suppose what this does is it refreshes everything that need to be there, ignoring what i left behind, I think... which prevents the game from overloading or something and letting entities have propper phisics, but that only lasts for so a while. Past 10 or so minutes and isues start to present themselves once more.

But of course that isnt a good solution, its still very annoying. I have needed to use the "tcl" console commant several times to survey the area for floating npcs, find them, then using the "moveto player" command to move them to a safer place. (I was lucky to do this in time to save John Battleborn of whiterun and other npc including two guards and a friggin cow. Saddly, I wasnt so lucky to be able to save some dock workers who perished from fall damage at the Solitude docks recently.)

And who knows how many other NPCs have died because of this without me noticing? Its jsut so stupidly unfair!

Please, This happens both in Modded, and UN-modded game and I have no idea how to fix it. Yes, my FPS is capped to 60 as suggested by steam overlay so that should be out of the scope of the isue. Also "ressurect" command is a bad idea so dont ever suggest that, many scripted actions happen when a NPC dies, and ressurecting them when the game officially believes they're supposed to be dead can cause massive issues, reloading is a safer way to handle this, I know, but must I do this every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time???

Geez, even vampire attacks seem much more aggreeable than this lol...

Any help?

[Bomb Bloke]

What stance do the floating NPCs take while gravity is ignoring them? Do they appear to stand normally? Do you see them walking around in the air?

[Komyeta]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

What stance do the floating NPCs take while gravity is ignoring them? Do they appear to stand normally? Do you see them walking around in the air?

They stand normally,i havent noticed them trying to walk though. Once physics kick in, they fall normally, with propper falling animation too.

[Bomb Bloke]

Once you've rescued a given NPC once, will they move back into the sky again (even if only after you've left the area and returned), or do they stay on the ground after that?

Have you actually observed them floating skywards, or are they already up in the air when you find them? If you see them ascending, do they just keep going up until they decide to fall, or do they stop at some point and stick there for a bit?

Do you notice any issues where NPCs which should normally be hostile fail to attack you immediately?

[Komyeta]

After moving an airborne NPC to the ground, they seem to retain their glitched physics for a while longer, saving and reloading seemed to reset their physics just fine.

Yes I have observed them dirfting skywards several times, but this just depends on if I actually see them doing so. Some times I dont manage to see them rising up, but I do notice when they fall because of the sound effect.

The way to notice if the glitch has happened is Whenever the sound of "Falling stomp" is heard... it means some character out there may have fallen recently, some times its a short and harmless fall, others its the deadly on, some times the sound is heard several times and that means more than one actor is falling. This sound can be heard clearly regardless of distance. (Its the same sound your character makes when falling to the ground after a small jump)

--If you see them ascending, do they just keep going up until they decide to fall, or do they stop at some point and stick there for a bit?-- I dont know.

I dont see how your last question relates to this issue.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Komyets:

I dont see how your last question relates to this issue.

If you did, then I wouldn't need to ask it, now, would I? Surely you wouldn't've intentionally left out information you did feel was relevant. :|

I ask because it sounds like your game is post-phoning physics processing on NPCs, and an overloaded game often likewise puts off AI processing.

At this point I'm pretty well convinced that your game is spending too much time doing something else. When you say you're affected even when running an unmodded game, did you confirm that with a character who'd never been exposed to mods, or did you simply disable your mods and then load up a save that'd previously been used with them?

[Komyeta]

I get it now, maybe I was too sleepy to understand you a few hours back.

I dont remember ever seeing any hostile NPC floating as of yet, however i have noticed some normally hostile NPCs, and also followers would have their combat detection temporarily inactive immediately after loading a game save.

E.j: Saving right next to a wolf that hasnt initiated combat, loading that save would allow me to walk next to that wolf for a few seconds before it would realize it is supposed to attack me. Followers seem oblivious for that short time too. Everything goes back to normal after a few seconds though.

About Playing completely unmodded(fresh new character) I didnt test it extensively. However, my brother who also plays the game, once told me he found dead npcs in whiterun way before I started modding SSE, I havent confirmed it myself yet. :/

Thinking it may be too many actors at once(because I use Open Cities of Skyrim) I disabled Populated Cities and Towns which I did a long time ago as cleanly as I could. But it didnt resolve the issue, I also have SkyBirds, where I tweaked the number of birds that would spawn from 60(default setting) to about 16, but the floating actors still persist.

Its weird how I had all these mods behave normally in Oldrim, but the new game which is supposed to be better at handling them is actually worse at it...

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Komyets:

Its weird how I had all these mods behave normally in Oldrim, but the new game which is supposed to be better at handling them is actually worse at it...

Overall SE requires more system power. You'll get better results if you have it, but if you don't...

That isn't necessarily your problem here, though. I recommend testing further without mods on a new character - if your issue is in the scripting engine, then disabling the mods that messed things up won't otherwise help (as scripts your game runs are embedded into your saves, and removing their parent mods doesn't remove them).

I'm suspecting your brother's experience was caused by Dawnguard's vampire attacks - the corpses he found may've been red herrings.

[Komyeta]

After playing for about a week on a fresh save and without Open Cities of Skyrim, i confirmed that this keeps happening from time to time but at a greatly reduced frequency(I still hear the random "Falling Stomp/Thud" sound effect when moving through skyrim but thankfully, it happebs very, very rarely) but so far I havent found any randomly dead NPCs, sure, no more horse riding through the cyty gates or parkpuring my way in or out atop a city's walls lol but thats fine. Im just glad that NPCs now die in ways that make sense, like in a fight or through raids, instead of getting killed by bethesda's glitchy gravity.

[lordoftheapes79]

Open cities, while great in concept, is pretty buggy.
The first time I used it(shortly after release) half my riften npcs were missing. After wandering around the mostly vacant town I stumble across an activation point in town labeled "enter riften" so I clicked it. SURPRISE!!! It was a mirror universe riften with the other half of my npcs. That, however, didn't happen with this playthrough. And just turning off the mod seemed to make everything right.

[Komyeta]

Lol yeah I know about those access points, whiterun also has one right next to the city's entrance bridge. It was kinda scary at first until i figured it out.