OpenMW 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

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Enkida
Posts: 51
Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 20:57

OpenMW 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by Enkida »

I spent about a week building this, and it was my first experience with OpenMW. First of all, I have to say, this guide was exceedingly helpful, I used the "total overhaul" option as a baseline for modding my game. Second of all, the next best resources I found were on OpenMW wiki pages, particularly the list of catologued mods that work, as well as Darklocq's list of mods in testing. Another big help was the timely release of the non-openMW 2019 pastebin guide by Thastus. And last but not least, just googling, reddit, and abot's pages in general have always helped me pick my way through the thorny path that is modding Morrowind in any form.

I have to say OpenMW is more stable than any other MW I've modded before. This may be because I upgraded my computer for the first time in 8 years a month ago, and before then, whenever I modded MW, I had to work extra hard to *downgrade* the modder graphics to work on my old computer. But, those experiences made it easier to move upwards this time, I suppose. It also helps that never having the hardward able to run an ENB shader on my old computer makes me not miss it at all in OpenMW, graphically. I may, at some masochistic future point in time, try modding vanilla MW to see how it compares, but... not this week, haha.

Anyway, after doing all the preliminary bugtesting in 0.44, I switched up to the release candidate of 0.45 because I extrapolated that at least one of the bugfixes would solve a problem with an otherwise broken mod I liked to use (Piratelord's creatures and their missing collision boxes). So far it's been a fun experience, and I thought I'd share it with you guys here, since trawling this forum for bugfixes and issues was one of the many things I spent doing last week. Thanks for everyone who bothered to report them, btw.

Here's my list of mods that I'm using currently. I don't plan on adding any more unless something fantastic that I forgot I needed rolls around.

!! Patch for Purists updated to version 3.0 on December 13th, 2018 !!
As it's highly recommended to scrap your old save game and start a new one rather than switch patches halfway through a playthrough, I am not using it. 2.9.3 has been tested in OpenMW, but 3.0 hasn't yet, so be aware if you get the more recent version, I'm not sure if everything works or not. (It probably does, but I'm just warning folks.)

309 mods + lots of splashscreen mods
Spoiler: Show
ESM / ESP list. Count: 213 so far
Spoiler: Show
One sore point: I did want to use the Twin Lamps & Slave Hunters mod, and I did figure out how to make it work, but that stupid ampersand in the .esp name made it unusable with the compatibility patch it would require for the Rise of House Telvanni mod, and fixing it would make it just a step more difficult than I was willing to commit to. So... if anyone ever fixes the Rise of House Telvanni compatiblity patch for the Twin Lamps and Slave Hunters mod, please tell me about it, haha. Ampersands read just fine in 0.45 RC, using it!

Other notes of interest: Guar Travel and Starfire's NPC mods throw script errors that don't break anything, so I kept them in there. The OMW log file is not happy about them when they show up though. Also, so many of the meshes I stripped (mostly from UC: Nature Compliation, I think) of normal mapping in NifSkope now throw back "The mesh references a texture in layer 5 that's not used" errors that don't seem to bother anything while the game is running, so I left those in too.

Also, if anyone notices something broken in my load order, or knows that a mod is broken in this list, please let me know. I've hunted down every fix on the internet and scoured every readme I could find, so a lot of these I patched up myself, but you never know... and some of these are untested, I think.

Anyway, on to the point of this thread... I thought I'd share screenshots of my experiences as I play bit by bit. I hope you guys enjoy looking at this pretty stuff as much as I do. ;-) Cheers, and thank you to the OpenMW team and the entire MW modding community!

This is to showcase Ozzy's grass in Seyda need, as well as the Better Bodies 3.0 improved hand textures / meshes (Russian mod, but usable in English. There's no English readme, but the "extra" folder is the one with the non-nude meshes and textures.) Fingernails! They exist!
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Adventurer's Backpacks! You absolutely have to install this one AFTER the Travelling Merchants 2.3 esp, or the size of the backpacks will explode in a most unpleasant way.
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Scum retexture option... not the lily pad or bubble one. Also, 3D lily pads.
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Better robes (for the boobs), HD vanilla robe retexture (using this alone will not get you boobed women), and an obscure mod to take out the annoying glowing jewels that come with the retexture. Face is simply races redone, I think that's Mackom's Head there.
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And just a nice shot of the Bitter Coast.
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I'll try to post more of these screenshots with commentary as I play along, unless that's not wanted here -- but just let me know if that's the case.

Cheers!
Last edited by Enkida on 13 Dec 2018, 23:17, edited 7 times in total.
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lysol
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Location: Sweden

Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by lysol »

Nice screenshots! I like that you demonstrate one really important feature of OpenMW: Over 255 mods! This is cool. I can't remember anyone tried that before.
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AnyOldName3
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Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by AnyOldName3 »

One sore point: I did want to use the Twin Lamps & Slave Hunters mod, and I did figure out how to make it work, but that stupid ampersand in the .esp name made it unusable with the compatibility patch it would require for the Rise of House Telvanni mod, and fixing it would make it just a step more difficult than I was willing to commit to. So... if anyone ever fixes the Rise of House Telvanni compatiblity patch for the Twin Lamps and Slave Hunters mod, please tell me about it, haha.
What's the precise issue caused by there being an ampersand in the mod name? Before I started working on big things like shadows, ampersands in mod names were one of the main things I dealt with. I might be able to point you in the right direction (or fix a bug if it turns out my old nemesis has returned).
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Enkida
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Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 20:57

Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by Enkida »

lysol wrote: 08 Dec 2018, 00:26 Nice screenshots! I like that you demonstrate one really important feature of OpenMW: Over 255 mods! This is cool. I can't remember anyone tried that before.


To be honest I haven‘t counted how many of the mods have .esp files, so technically I may not have hit the 255 esp border of vanilla yet. I certainly have in the past though and wouldn‘t be surprised if I did here. I really like that I don‘t have to count and merge, though. I also like that I can have a billionty load screens in 500kb jpeg format instead of 6MB tga format, LOL.
AnyOldName3 wrote: 08 Dec 2018, 00:31 What's the precise issue caused by there being an ampersand in the mod name? Before I started working on big things like shadows, ampersands in mod names were one of the main things I dealt with. I might be able to point you in the right direction (or fix a bug if it turns out my old nemesis has returned).
To be exact, it‘s a messy fix: the original mod name (on my mobile device, so this is not exact) is something like „Levana‘s Twin Lamps & Slave Hunters.esp“. The easy fix is of course to rename it, problem solved. However, this mod conflicts with Rise of House Telvanni. The author of RoHT made a compatibility patch for TL&SH that requires the original TL&SH as a prerequisite, still using the original esp name with the ampersand in it. To fix it, one would have to open up the patch.esp from Rise of House Telvanni in the construction set, find the ampersand reference, and replace it with a safe character, then rename the TL&SH esp file accordingly.

I just hate diving into the construction set, that‘s a level of bugfixing too deep for me.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by AnyOldName3 »

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to load an ESP with an ampersand in the name. I know that because I've done it.
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Enkida
Posts: 51
Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 20:57

Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by Enkida »

Hmm, I‘ll try it again tomorrow, but I remember that it didn‘t work in 0.44. It choked on the original mod until I renamed the esp, then it choked on the RoHT patch becuase I had taken away the dependent file by renaming it. I did read there‘s a way to Ioad around the ampersand by using another ampersand and semicolon somewhere, but I didn‘t try it then. Will report back in the future with my findings after I test it here.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by AnyOldName3 »

If you're not sure what to do, you can always take a look at the OpenMW.cfg generated by https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45642. If you install Mod Organizer, install that plugin, and install the mod into Mod Organizer, it should put exactly the right thing into OpenMW.cfg and then you can copy the relevant lines into your main OpenMW.cfg.
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Enkida
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Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 20:57

Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by Enkida »

Installing the mod worked flawlessly this time! It didn't on 0.44 for whatever reason, so I guess this is another reason to be happy to have upgraded? Regardless, I am a happy camper and will update my modlist to include 1 more ;-)

Notes to self: I would like to find magic casting sparkles and blood-cloud-on-hit retexture mods if possible. I remember a magic casting sparkle mod exists out there somewhere, but if anyone has recs shoot them my way.

Onto the fun stuff:

One of Piratelord's more pacifistic creature additions, the Blue Beetle, and Apel's fire retex:
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Sky UI. 0 weight is caused by stacking the backpack (50 pts feather) with the BAMF(Birthsigns) mod (Thief - Hidden Pockets: 80 pts feather) alongside of carrying next to nothing. Which I will come to regret shortly a few screenshots later.
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Took a nap on a cot (No resting in the wilderness, cot version), woke up to a Nix-Hound and her Nix-Pup trying to eat me. Thanks for the warning, Blue Beetle... Bound dagger is a daderic skin, which is also a retex. Don't ask me which one, all the armor and weapons retexes I have go fuzzy in my mind.
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I think this is the Animation Compilation Almalexia cast:
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Mating Kagouti won't leave me in peace. May be a Darknut retex here.
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I think this is Ramiro's sand retex.
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Hardworking farmer:
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I will not lie, this ugly bastard scared me when it sneak attacked. Not sure if this is just a slaughterfish retex or an R-Zero waterlife creature add-in because I ran! Or more correctly water walked...
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... straight into this "Scoundrel" from the Thugs and Louts mod. Make sure you only install V2Morrowind, or you'll have overpowered weapon and armor drops from them. You'll get OP armor and weapon drops from them anyway after lvl20, so some self-control will be needed if you want to use this mod to add random encounters. I like the lore-friendly encounters better than the stupid random OP MCA ones though.
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Justice served... after a painful 5 or so minutes of fighting. Magicians without mana can't hit for shet! They can outheal the competition though (with the OMW better regen mod). Also, iron dagger retex.
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Guar Taxi Service, which works fine.
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Them's fightin' words, Farynth Ahjani!!!!
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Enkida
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Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by Enkida »

I found a new magic retexture mod called "Magic Diversity Complete" -- and promptly installed the minimal shield meshes / textures folder because I'm not playing Final Fantasy 10. I also installed the Vanilla Sounds option, then made sure to place it in the load order before Better Sounds so it would be ovewritten. Result looks pretty good, I think:

Bound Weapon
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Frostbite
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Water Walking
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Chameleon
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I also installed the Dialogue-only LGNPC mods because I hadn't realize they'd made openMW compatible versions of them.

Misc Screenshots of further problem-free no-crash gameplay. I really am enjoying the lack of crashes on the OpenMW engine with this many mods.

A Strange Plant mod - high quality, as expected from Peter Bitt
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Glowing fish - I think this is R-Zero's Underwater Life again
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Imperals Go Home! mod, because IMPERIALS EUNT DOMUS
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Relatively unknown small dwemer cog retex mod
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Atahualpa
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Re: Open Morrowind 0.45 RC for Win 10 64bit and 300+ mods

Post by Atahualpa »

Nice stuff, Enkida! :) Looks like not all mods are incompatible with OpenMW after all. *cough*
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