Oblivion:Quicksave Activation Transfer
Category: Misc
| v1.0 | v1.1.511 | v1.20214 | v1.2.0416 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ? | ? | ? | ✔ |
Required DLC Images will go here.
| Found By: | Protoshy |
|---|---|
| Date Found: | 03/14/2025 |
| Archaeologist: | N/A |
| Date Recovered: | N/A |
| Original Source: | Link |
Quicksave Activation Transfer, or QuAT, is a glitch where activating an object before loading a quicksave can activate that object in the new save. This can be used to do some actions at a distance like opening containers or even talking to NPCs in unloaded cells. Virtually every single object that can be interacted with can be used, to varying effect.
Instructions
- Like load warping, most useful applications of this glitch will require setting up a donor save in advance, with the object you wish to interact with later located nearby.
- Create a quicksave, usually F5.
- Load your donor save
- Simultaneously activate the object, usually space, and load your quicksave, usually F9.
- If done correctly, the glitch should now be activated.
Additional Notes
- This glitch can be performed without a donor save by simply skipping steps 1 and 3. Naturally this further limits your options and the usefulness of the glitch.
- Importantly, this glitch seems to be solely capable of inducing a REMOTE ACTIVATION, the effects of this activation seem to be based entirely on the status of the quicksave, not the donor save. For instance a dead NPC in the quicksave will be looted if they are alive and talked to in the donor save.
Mechanics
This glitch requires further research to fully understand its mechanics. Some information in this section is currently speculation.
- Can be used to activate certain objects through cells in a quicksave by activating the object the frame the save is loaded.
- Can be used to activate seemingly any object at a distance as long as it is in the same cell as the quicksave.
- Horses crash the game, unsurprisingly, when activating through cells.
- Beds can be slept in through unloaded cells.
- NPCs can be talked to or stolen from through unloaded cells.
- Persuasion minigame will crash to desktop.
- Merchants will not have access to items that are not in their merchant chest (i.e. in display cases or placed around the shop).
- Whether the NPC is talked to or stolen from depends on the crouch state of the quicksave save, not the donor.
- Spellmaking altars but not enchanting altars can be activated through cells.
- Containers cannot be activated through cells.
- Dropped items cannot be activated through cells.
- Wanted posters cannot be activated through cells
- Doors can be activated through cells, making a kind of useless, impromptu loadwarp.
- Sigil stones can be activated through cells, adding the stone to your inventory and keeping the the gate open until the Sigillum Sanguis is reentered, at which point the gate closes immediately, placing the player back outside and skipping the gate closing animation for a small time save.
- Daedric statues can be activated through unloaded cells. This could potentially allow for multiple daedric cutscenes to play simultaneously, however…
- When quickloading causes the game to do a loading screen, QuAT does not seem to work at all.
- When activating something within the cell, it acts more like a long range activation than anything else. You’ll teleport to a chair or horse, your camera will zoom to talk to an NPC, and unfortunately you will still pick up items when adding them to your inventory
- Some chairs can be slept on like any bed when activated from another cell, others will do nothing.
Loading Screens
Seeing as how any time a loading screen appears this glitch stops working, it may be helpful to understand how to avoid causing them. Unfortunately we do not fully understand how the game works under the hood, but it can be assumed that there is a cache of loaded cells and various assets that appear in them. Even if the player is not already in a cell, if it is present in the cache, attempting to load a save in that cell will be instantaneous, thus no load screen.
Below is some information on how to avoid causing a loading screen:
- Fast travel seems to clear overworld cells you have loaded from the cache.
- Though it's not infinitely effective you can avoid unloading a cell from the cache by simply walking to the desired activation object. This works for short distances.
- You may fast travel after leaving an interior cell, the interior seems to remain in cache no matter how far you have traveled.
- Loading saves seems to clear all cells from your cache.
- You may effectively inject a cell back into the cache by entering it at any point after you load a save.
- A cell can remain in the cache even if it's not the most recently loaded cell. You can reliably load an additional 2 or 3 cells before it will clear out a cell from the cache, though this number may be more or less.
Related Glitches
- Maybe nothing.