Testing

For anyone who wants to give OpenMW a try, this will get you started in testing things out.

Game Arguments
The game has terminal/command line arguments available when you run it through the executable that are can be added with the form. More specifically:

gives a good overview of options available at launch.

skips the introduction tutorial and generates a default character at a default cell.

can be combined with  to start the game at the designated starting cell.

allows you to override the maximum activation distance for objects the player is looking at. The normal value is the GMST iMaxActivateDist ( 192 by default). Increasing this value can speed up testing.

will execute all console commands in the specified file upon starting a game. Applies to regular, newly started games, but also when using the --skip-menu argument. For example, this can be used to set up your new testing characters with items, spells, etc.

Arguments can also be added to the user's openmw.cfg (See Paths), in the form of, for example: , or

On Mac OS, these commands must be run like this:

General Commands
UESPwiki has and  of console commands. For the current implementation status of these commands in OpenMW, see Scripting (status).

Note that OpenMW's console supports tab completion, so in most cases you don't have to fully type a command / name. For example, entering  results in

To obtain all valid IDs for a particular command, you can use ESMTool or OpenMW-CS (OpenCS), both included in the OpenMW repository.

Extended Tooltips
The TFH ( ToggleFullHelp ) command will reveal more information in item tooltips, such as the owner of the item and the script attached to it, if any.

Cells
Teleporting commands are:
 * COC ( CenterOnCell ), to be used with cell names (interior or exterior), e.g.:  or
 * COE ( CenterOnExterior ) for world-map x,y coordinates for exterior cells, e.g.:

Physics

 * Use the console command TCL ( ToggleCollision ) to toggle gravity and physics interactions (i.e., clipping – you can fly through walls, floors, etc.).
 * TCG ( ToggleCollisionGrid ) reveals the collision geometry.

Environment
You can alter global variables with console syntax of the form  (e.g.,  ) and reveal their current value by typing their name. Interesting global variables to tinker with are timescale for the game speed (default is 30) and gamehour for the game hour.

ChangeWeather sets the weather in a certain region. Look it up in the for the definition and examples.

Journal
You can populate the journal by talking to quest-offering NPCs or through the console with a command of the form  (i.e.,  ).

Debugger
If you are running the game with a debugger to analyze a segmentation fault you should run the game with the  argument (or equivalent) to avoid the game locking up the mouse input when it crashes.

For example, with gdb: