Tips: Customizing Mod Lists

Prerequisites

The instructions on this page assume you've followed our Automatic Installation Guide and successfully installed at least one mod list that way.

We do not recommend using a load order sorting tool such as PLOX to sort your customized mod list. Such tooling is known to break our carefully-sorted load order and should not be used!

Installing custom mods with umo

The umo mod installation tool supports two ways of installing mods that aren't on a mod list:

1. Mods not found on nexusmods.com (or mods that are not primarily linked to on Nexus) but listed on this website can be added to umo's "custom" list by clicking the "Install with umo" button which can be found on mod detail pages for qualifying mods, for example Abandoned Flat V2
   • Mods installed this way will be placed into the custom directory under your mod base directory. For example, Abandoned Flat V2 would be under mod_base_dir/custom/PlayerHomes/AbandonedFlatV2
2. Mods found on nexusmods.com can be added to umo's "custom" list by clicking on the "Mod Manager Download" button for the mod file you wish to add. For example, (OpenMW) Hit and Miss Percentage Indicators for Combat - click the "Files" tab, then click on the "Mod Manager Download" button. That will open a new page, from there click "Download" to add the mod to umo's custom list.
   • Once you've used the "Mod Manager Download" button, open the terminal of your choice in your tools folder, for example Powershell.
   • Run umo install --sync custom. This will download and extract the mods.
   • Mods installed this way will be placed into the custom/umo directory under your base mods directory, they will not be under a category subdirectory as non-Nexus mods are.

Adding custom mods to your load order with MOMW Configurator

The MOMW Configurator tool allows you to define mod list customization rules in a text file, allowing for changes to our mod lists in the form of:

• Insertions
• Replacements
• Removals

These rules should be defined in a file called momw-customizations.toml in the same folder as your openmw.cfg and momw-configurator.toml files. If that file does not already exist, simply create it. Open the momw-customizations.toml file in any text editor. On Windows it's a good idea to use an editor like VSCode which has plugins for TOML files which alert you if you make some mistakes.

The MOMW Configurator README fully describes all customization options, but we'll show a few examples below.

Insertions

At the top of your customization rules you will need a section that tells the momw-configurator which mod list you want to customize, ie:

[[Customizations]]
listName = "just-good-morrowind"

This only needs to be in the file once for each list you want to customize, at the top of the section where you're adding customization rules for that mod list.

You can insert a single line like this:

[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = """C:\games\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GoHome"""
after = """NaturalCharacterGrowth\00 Core"""

Or a block of lines like this:

[[Customizations.insert]]
insertBlock = """
go-home.omwscripts
go-home.omwaddon
"""
before = "ncg.omwaddon"

Note the usage of triple double-quotes ("""). Triple double-quotes are mandatory when doing block insertions, and on Windows can be very useful for all data path insertions due to the way TOML parses syntax between quotes.

The input you provide for insert fields needs to be the folder path the mods are located in. These are the folders which contain any content files you want to load (.esp, .omwaddon, etc.) as well as any asset folders (scripts, textures, meshes, etc.).

The input you provide for after or before fields can be any unique string found in your openmw.cfg file. For example, for data paths 00 Core would not be specific enough since there are many individual folders with that name, but WaresUltimate\00 Core would be specific enough.

If you want to add a mod that has one or more content files, you will have to insert both its data paths and its content files via separate inserts.

Example - One data path and one plugin: To add the Expansion Delay mod to I Heart Vanilla, add the following to your momw-customizations.toml file, replacing the input for the data path insert field with the folder path where the mod actually is on your computer:

[[Customizations]]
listName = "i-heart-vanilla"
[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = """C:\games\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\ExpansionDelay"""
after = """CantonsontheGlobalMap"""
[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = "Expansion Delay.ESP"
after = "Cantons_on_the_Global_Map_v1.1.esp"

Example - Multiple data paths and one plugin: To add the Greymarch Dawn - Whispers of Jyggalag mod to Just Beautiful Morrowind, add the following to your momw-customizations.toml file, replacing the input for the data path insert fields with the folder path where the mod actually is on your computer:

[[Customizations]]
listName = "just-beautiful-morrowind"
[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = """C:\games\OpenMWMods\Quests\GreymarchDawnWhispersofJyggalag\00 Core"""
after = """RedWisdomAnAshlanderProphecy\02 OpenMW Add-Ons"""
[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = """C:\games\OpenMWMods\Quests\GreymarchDawnWhispersofJyggalag\01 HD Textures"""
after = """GreymarchDawnWhispersofJyggalag\00 Core"""
[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = """C:\games\OpenMWMods\Quests\GreymarchDawnWhispersofJyggalag\06 OpenMW Normal Maps"""
after = """GreymarchDawnWhispersofJyggalag\01 HD Textures"""
[[Customizations.insert]]
insert = "GreymarchDawn.esp"
after = "Red Wisdom.esp"

Replacements

You can replace lines like this:

[[Customizations.replace]]
source = """InterfaceReimaginedforOpenMW"""
dest = """C:\games\OpenMWMods\UserInterface\ChocolateUI"""

This will replace the data path for Interface Reimagined with the data path for ChocolateUI. For data paths, the input you provide for source fields is much like before and after fields for insertions where you only need to provide a unique string found on the line you want to replace, but the input you provide for dest fields must be the folder path for the mod you want to replace with.

Removals

First example: to remove the Bethesda and intro videos (the ones that play before the main menu) from Total Overhaul, add the following to your momw-customizations.toml file under the section where you're declaring the list you want to customize:

[[Customizations]]
listName = "total-overhaul"
removeFallback = [
  "Movies_Company_Logo,bethesda logo.bik",
  "Movies_Morrowind_Logo,mw_logo.bik",
]

Second example: to remove the Alchemical Hustle mod from Total Overhaul, add the following to your momw-customizations.toml file:

[[Customizations]]
listName = "total-overhaul"
removeData = [
  """Alchemical Hustle\Modular""",
  """Alchemical Hustle\TR add-on""",
]
removeContent = [
  "AH_GMSTs.ESP",
  "AH_Ingredients.ESP",
  "AH_Magic.ESP",
  "AH_Potions.ESP",
  "AH_Ingredients_TR.ESP",
  "AH_Potions_TR.ESP",
]

Apply Your Customizations

Once you've written customization rules into your momw-customizations.toml file, you can now apply them by running the momw-configurator as you did when you installed the mod list:

.\momw-configurator config -v --run-validator i-heart-vanilla
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Welcome to MOMW Configurator v1.8
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Configurating mod list: i-heart-vanilla
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Fetching mod list configs
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Running: openmw-iniimporter
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Writing mod list load order to openmw.cfg
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Applying customizations
2024/11/16 18:55:51 Ensuring recommended values are set in your settings.cfg file
2024/11/16 18:55:51 MOMW Configurator completed: i-heart-vanilla

The Applying customizations part of the log output indicates that your customizations are being used. You can always skip that by using the --no-customizations argument.

Things To Remember

• Customizations for each mod list should go under a top-level [[Customizations]] section, a listName definition is required under each such top-level section
• You should not include prefixes such as fallback=, data=, or content= when specifying lines to customize
• When specifying a line to insert before or after, or a source line to replace, you need not list the entire line but you will need to add enough of it such that it can be found (in the case of lines that contain similar text strings e.g., 00 Core)
• If in doubt about a feature or how to do something, please consult The MOMW Configurator README. If that still doesn't explain things or you still have questions, please ask for help in our Discord channel on the OpenMW server. We can only help with the overall customization workflow, we cannot help with ensuring your customizations are valid and don't cause conflicts or other problems.

Manual Installation

If you don't want to bother setting up customization rules, but still want to make changes to your mod list it's still important to run the momw-configurator once you've made your changes so that the required tools can be run for your mod list. In order to use the momw-configurator while still retaining your manual changes use the additional --only-tools parameter when running .\momw-configurator config. This parameter will tell the momw-configurator to not overwrite your manual changes, and will instead only run the required tooling.