Hotloading Your Plugin

Hot-what now?

Skyrim has functionality to "hotload" a plugin -- that is, to reload the plugin while the game is still running, instead of having to close and re-open the game.

You can use this during development to save time.

How do I do it?

• Force-close files in-game using the console command fcf.

• Save your plugin if you haven't already. In Oldrim, it was necessary to force-close files before saving changes, but that should no longer be the case.

• Hot-load the plugin with the console command hlp mypluginfilename to make the game reload the plugin without quitting.

  • Use the full ESP filename, but without the .esp file extension.

• If you've changed scripts, use the console command reloadscript myscriptname to reload it.

What's the catch?

It's not perfect:

• There's a risk of crashing to desktop.

• Some cells will re-lock the plugin files on load, and you'll have to fcf again.

• Any quests that were running and got modified will be stopped.

• New saves can be unstable.