Morrowind Mod:Morrowind Modding Wiki/Construction Set

It has been suggested that this article be merged with Morrowind Mod:Construction Set. (Discuss)

The Construction Set (abbreviated CS) is the software development kit (SDK) that was shipped with Morrowind on a second disk. It is the same tool used by Bethesda to develop the game, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, and the official plugins.

The CS can be used to change everything in the game that is not hardcoded, including items, new lands, interiors, and scripts. It saves changes in the .esp format, which is a proprietary format use by Bethesda for their Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. The .esm file format can also be loaded by the CS; however, it cannot save in the format. Modders have created tools to allow them this functionality. The Construction Set is not an easy tool to learn to use, with many pitfalls and issues to avoid. Fortunately, since the game's release, the community has created countless tutorials and guides to help both new and veteran modders create high-quality mods with ease.

GMST Contamination

Main article: GMST Contamination

GMST Contamination is what happens when the CS automatically adds 72 Game Settings (GMSTs) to a mod. This only happens with the updated CS for Tribunal and Bloodmoon. If a mod does not have either Tribunal or Bloodmoon as one of its parent files, then the 72 GMSTs will be added. This behavior wouldn't be a problem if the values for the GMSTs were not incorrect. As such, using a contaminated mod may cause issues and strange behavior with a player's game. Because of this, it is recommended that modders always check for contamination before releasing their mod. While it is recommended for players to also check the mods that they download.

Many modding tools have the ability to clean mods:

• GMST Cleaner
• Enchanted Editor
• TESTool
• TESAME
• Tes3cmd

Steam Version

Unfortunately, the Construction Set was not included with the Morrowind Steam GOTY version (with patch 1.6.1820). This is the same regardless of whether the physical disk was bought or if it was bought straight from the Steam Store. To fix this, you can download the necessary files from Morrowind Nexus.

Once downloaded, you will need to extract the files into your main SteamApps\common\Morrowind folder.