Normally, crashing when talking to NPCs has to do with a pretty badly broken Dialogue Package. Is it the same NPC (repeatable) or is it just random NPCs? Do you know the name of the NPC or is it a random "filler" (generic) NPC? If they're named, it could be a thing I need to patch. Screenshots can help too.

Since you followed all the other steps, I won't go into it too much, but another thing to keep in mind is it could be "Corrupted Zone Data", which is usually because of just bad data getting saved to a specific area. You can more than likely fix it with an Import.

If the Zone Data is severely corrupted, you might have to refer to this guide by Shidan.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2789171241

Ideally, you shouldn't do Quick Loading while already in game. This can *for sure* cause corrupted data (ironically lol) because of the way the game was created. It's worse with a bunch of mods, but it is a vanilla bug as well. Essentially, if you need to reload, quit out entirely and go from there.

If you Quick Load while already in game, it can spawn bad data (because of the way it streams data in/out) which then gets saved with an auto/quick save, then if you QL again, save again, etc. it will be kinda difficult to fix (the guide tells you how to fix various levels of corrupt data, although Importing fixes it a majority of the time).

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Try Importing first, then try talking to the same NPC if possible. If that happens, we can kinda trouble shoot from there. I don't think it's a broken dialogue package (hopefully lol, otherwise I'll need to track it down to the specific NPCs and see what is happening), so it may just be a local issue. Upload some screenshots or tell me the location/person and I can try to find them in the mod tools.

I think it's random NPCs and not a specific one, since it happened with the Bartender, the Plastic Surgeon, a random Drifter, Lost Knight, and a random Paladin from the Holy Nation. It's very likely that the issue was data corruption, as I had autosave enabled every 5 minutes and quicksaved every time my character took two steps. That would also explain why the game started crashing more frequently the longer I played. When I imported the game, the crashes persisted, but when I started a new game and spoke to every NPC in the city (Stack), there were no problems. Honestly, I don't mind starting a new game, so I'll just try to kick my habit of hitting F5 every five seconds lol. Thanks a lot for the help Igor.

No problem, you can probably fix the current save if you wanted to by following the guide I linked. The quick saving isn't really an issue, it's mostly just reloading *while* currently in game. It can cause weird issues with just about everything in game lol. Half of the reports I get tend to be because of corrupted data.

There's also a folder you can try deleting which would regenerate next time you play. Follow the guide under the following sections:

Removing the Corruption

So at this point you should have run the tests above, and if you've determined that your issue is actually zone corruption, you should proceed from here.

You can try a few different things, really. Although yeah, a New Game would resolve the issue entirely. I'd feel bad if you lost a save though lol.