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 "openmw --something --something-else"

--help gives a good overview of options available at launch.

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

--start="Seyda Neen" can be combined with --skip-menu to start the game at the designated starting cell.

--encoding=win125X will start the game with the appropriate localization. See --help for the available options.

--activate-dist=value allows to override the maximum activation distance for objects the player is looking at, very useful to speed up testing.

--script-run=filename 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 something=value, for example: skip-menu=1

General Commands

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

coc "Balmora, Caius <Tab> results in coc "Balmora, Caius Cosades' House"

Cells

Teleport: the commands are coc, to be used with cell names and coe for exterior cells with the provided coordinates (coc "Seyda Neen" or coc Balmora, or coe 2,3).

You can get all cells name with esmtool.

Physics

• Use the console command ToggleCollision (or the short version tcl) to toggle gravity and physics interactions.
• ToggleCollisionGrid/tcg reveals the collision grid.

Environment

You can alter global variables with console syntax of the form "set value to x" (e.g. "set timescale to 2000") 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 UESP wiki for the definition and examples.

GUI

Journal

You can populate the journal by talking to quest-offering NPCs or through the console with a command of the form Journal, A2_4_MiloGone, 10

Scripting

The current status of script commands used in OpenMW.

The complete list of console script commands used in Morrowind along with their description.

Debugger

If you are running the game with a debugger to analyze a segmentation fault you should run the game with the --no-grab argument to avoid the game locking up the mouse input when it crashes.

For example with gdb:

 gdb ./openmw
 run --no-grab

Extra Information

Here is a list of interior cell names in Morrowind that you can use to go from one place to another.

There is a test level project that is also interesting.