About Starfield Save Cleaner:

Highly experimental Save Game cleaner tool. It is a separate SFSE plugin, not intergated into the Starfield Engine Fixes plugin.

Its purpose is to reduce the traversal stutter and the lags in cities caused by accumulated save game data ("save game bloat").

It can reduce a save's size by ~40-42% (depending on the save) by erasing a vast amount of runtime generated save game data.



Warning:

The Save Cleaner is definitely not a safe way to "fix" save bloat.

It is highly experimental and intended for advanced users who experience constant/frequent stuttering due to accumulated save game data despite having a computer capable to run Starfield smoothly on a new game.

(Note: not necessarily all large saves are bloated but the bloated ones are probably larger than 40 megabytes).


Please read carefully:

To be clear, I'm releasing it only for those who:

- prefer erasing even ten thousands saved records over entering Unity

- would like to keep only and only the most essential gameplay data
  (e.g. quest progress, outposts, companion affinity, ships, cars, inventories, planet surveys, discovered traits)

- doesn't care if most procedurally generated POIs and nearly all templated instances of actors/objects disappear
  (e.g. Landing Overlays, non quest related templated references and actors such as most leveled enemies and LIST settlers, random POIs)

- can accept a "cleaned" save cannot be considered undoubtedly stable even if the cleaning procedure is successful


The Save Cleaner removes various runtime generated objects which are either presumably won't be used by the game or they will be regenerated by the vanilla code.

The Save Cleaner is not meant to debug an already corrupted save that cannot be loaded.


Precautions:

Recommended to not have open quests that take place in procedurally generated areas in case the random quest target location disappears, preventing the quest to advance without the use of the Console (e.g. Vanguard: Bug Hunt, eliminate a Terrormorph at a random planet given by Commander Tuala).

The best if the main quest line has already been completed to ensure it doesn't break.

While the Save Cleaner itself doesn't actually overwrite any save game, it is highly recommended to keep a backup of your vanilla saves.


Procedure:

1. Open Starfield before installing Save Cleaner, travel to a procedurally generated exterior location
    (e.g. land somewhere in the forest on Tirna II.), then create a Save Game

1.1.: recommended to make a hard (i.e. not "quick") save

2. Exit the game and place the contents of the Starfield Save Cleaner's .zip to your SFSE\Plugins folder:

2.1.: extract both StarfieldSaveCleaner.dll and StarfieldSaveCleaner.ini to ..\Starfield\Data\SFSE\Plugins

3. About StarfieldSaveCleaner.ini:

3.1.: contains the settings

3.2.: bPluginActive

3.2.1.: 0 = Save Cleaner is inactive (default)

3.2.1.: 1 = Save Cleaner is active

3.3.: bEraseOutposts

3.3.1.: 0 = Outposts will not be removed during the erase (default)

3.3.1.: 1 = All Outposts will be removed

3.4: bEraseTemples

3.4.1.: 0 = Starborn Temples will not be removed during the erase (default)

3.4.1.: 1 = All Starborn Temples will be removed

4. Activate Starfield Save Cleaner in the StarfieldSaveCleaner.ini:

4.1.: change "bPluginActive=0" to "bPluginActive=1"

5. Open Starfield; you should see a messagebox immediately about "Starfield Save Cleaner is being active"

5.1.: the messagebox also tells the next step (6.)

6. Load the Save Game you made in (1.)

7. Once the save is fully loaded and you're in game, another messagebox opens "The first Save Game cleaning phase is complete."

7.1.: the messagebox also tells the next step (8.)

7.2.: if the save is created on a procedurally generated terrain, type "TCL" in the Console to turn off collision globally to prevent falling off
(in case the terrain changes when you load this save)

7.3.: if the game freezes before the cleaning process is complete, close it and try to load the save you made in step (1.) (leave bPluginActive active)

7.4.: if the game frezes the second time, you may need to start over and choose another planet

8. Close the messagebox that opened in (7.), then create a new Save Game

8.1.: do not open menus or start traveling: create the save as soon as possible

8.2.: if the game freezes before the save gets created, close it and try to load the save you made in step (1.) (leave bPluginActive active)

8.3.: if the game frezes the second time, you may need to start over and choose another planet

9. Reload the Save Game you just made in step (8.)

10. Once the save is fully loaded, another messagebox opens "The second Save Game cleaning phase is complete."

10.1.: the messagebox also tells the next step (11.)

10.2.: the messagebox also warns about "the plugin now resets 'bPluginActive' in StarfieldSaveCleaner.ini to deactivate itself"

10.2.1: this is normal, the Save Cleaner shouldn't be active after the second cleaning phase is complete

10.3.: if the game freezes before the cleaning process is complete, close it and try to load the save you made in step (8.) (leave bPluginActive active)

10.4.: if the game frezes the second time, you may need to start over and choose another planet

11. Close the messagebox that opened in (10.), then create a new Save Game

11.1.: do not open menus or start traveling: create the save as soon as possible

11.2.: if the game freezes before the save gets created, close it and try to load the save you made in step (8.) (leave bPluginActive active)

11.3.: if the game frezes the second time, you may need to start over and choose another planet

12. Exit the game; verify bPluginActive is undoubtedly inactive (bPluginActive=0) in StarfieldSaveCleaner.ini

13. Open Starfield and load the save you created in step (11.)

13.1.: this (so the save after the second cleaning phase) is the "cleaned" save

13.2.: please test it thoroughly:

13.2.1.: verify your Outposts didn't disappear (unless you set bEraseOutposts=1)

13.2.2.: verify your spaceships and active quest locations didn't disappear

13.2.3.: travel to a few planets; check important NPCs didn't disappear

13.3.: make sure to keep your vanilla Save Games and do not overwrite them with the "cleaned" ones by accident

14. Stuttering on the "cleaned" save should be greatly reduced

15. You may notice the next one or two saves are even smaller than the "cleaned" save; this is normal