Back-up saves: How to and under what circumstances?

[Jonocat25]

So I've seen postscripts in workshop pages reminding players to make back-up saves before trying new mods. I've even haerd some horror stories of 200 hour plus games lost to sound/graphics mods. My questions are:
Is a back-up save something special, or just an additional save in the regular manner?
and
What sort of mods should I create back-up saves before implementing (graphics? Huge filesize? City-improvement mods? ect)?

Any advice would be appreaciated. I am just now venturing into the amazing world of graphics improvement and immersion mods.

[[RvB] RedArmyGrif]

It's like when you back-up a game prior to installling a patch. It gives you something to fall back on incase things get insane.

Usually you should make a back-up for large script mods such as Frostfall and SkyRe that add and change major portions of the game.

[OutsidR]

Easiest way I know... requires you to use Windows Explorer. locate your 'Documents' folder and open it up. Look for 'My games' and open it up. There should be a folder 'Skrim'. When you open it up, there is a folder 'Saves'.
Well, under 'Skrim', create a new folder and name it 'Savedsaves' or something like that. Then just copy your 'Saves' files to the new folder you made. No matter what you do to Skyrim then, the saved files should be there untouched. When you want to use them again, just copy them back to the 'Saves' folder. Sounds like a lot to do, but not really. But you need to know a little about working with Windows Explorer.

[Jonocat25]

Don't you mean File Explorer?

[Bomb Bloke]

That depends on the version of Windows you're using. Same thing, regardless of the name.

A "backup save" is simply a save game that you don't save over. This might be achieved by copying/moving it out of your save folder. This might be achieved by simply remembering that the save's important, and not overwriting it. Doesn't matter so long as you don't lose that save until you're absolutely certain you'll never want to go back to it.

Good rule of thumb is at the very least ten hours of real-time gameplay before you can assume you're safe. Though with modern-day storage limits, there's little reason not to keep your backup saves around until you're ready to uninstall the game.

The most "dangerous" mods are those which include scripts - the size of the mod and the amount of content it adds is pretty much irrelevant. But scripts get embedded into any saves you make while they're active - and if they malfunction, they can be pretty difficult to get rid of (hence why you'll want to keep a save from before the time you installed a given mod - because it won't have that mod's scripts in it!). A good way to make a script "malfunction" is to disable the mod it comes from: this doesn't remove the scripts from your saves, and they'll likely go haywire when they try to act on content which no longer exists in your game!

Thus if a mod breaks, removing it may simply make mattes worse... unless you have an old save to go back to, one from before the time when the mod was installed in the first place.

Personally, I always keep my last dozen saves on file (overwriting the oldest of the set with each new save).

[Jonocat25]

Are there any applications to harrow out foreign scripts? I imagine they'd remove any installed mods though.

[Jynx]

Back ups are nothing special, just go to 'My Games' under documents and go into Skyrim and than Saves. Those files are your save games. I would recomend backing up regualrly just into another file on your computer, but you really need to do it whene installing mods that change your world in some way. Installing mods that add weapons or armor usually won't screwup your game but things that change the world can.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Jonocat25:

Are there any applications to harrow out foreign scripts? I imagine they'd remove any installed mods though.

Yes, but last I tried 'em, they took out a lot more scripts than they needed to, meaning my game was still quite broken.

Make backups, dude.