Originally posted by C4pM:

My game is only 20 odd hours in - so barely noticeable (a micro stutter). Can see it could get worse in a very large settlement, but with the game being so small, have you tried moving it to an SSD (assuming it's installed on HDD)? Maybe that could help?

Both my game and the save files are installed to a drive that's literally as fast as a RAM drive. After ~200 hours of playing (mostly normal stuff, exploring, a little building), saving is taking >2.5 seconds on it now. I think it outputs the -entire- world every time it saves, instead of just changed areas. Definitely room for improvement, but even the fastest drive known to mankind won't change it once you get deep into a game. Even a dedicated server has to save regularly, so while players connected don't see it, it's pausing for a good chunk of time behind the scenes.