About This File
Based on this request thread, this mod attempts to inject a bit of extra variety into one of the minor elements of KOTOR. It makes some changes to the locked kolto tank room in Zelka Forn’s medical clinic in Upper City South on Taris.
In the vanilla version of the game, the room has two placeable square kolto tanks, the floating bodies in which both use the PMHC04 (“Mullet Man”) head. For this mod, those were removed and the room model was edited to add two additional round kolto tanks, which match the ones along each side of the room. Additionally, the glass of the tanks had its texture replaced with one of the other variants in the game that is a bit darker and uses an environment/cube map for a hint of reflection. The empty tanks in the preceding room (behind Zelka Forn) were also edited for consistency. For the sanity of those with OCD, the position of the wall light at the back of the tank room was adjusted so it aligns with the centreline of the room.
The floating body model from the kolto placeable was replaced with a new one with clean geometry at the neck join to facilitate using any player or NPC head. Additionally, an all-new female body variant was added, posed to roughly match that of the original male version. Two of these new body variants replaced the original two at the end of the room, with a number of additional bodies placed in the tanks along each side of the room. Zelka Forn’s dialogue when you enter the room for the first time seems to indicate that there should be more present than just the two originally depicted in the vanilla game. Due to limitations on the number of possible placeables K1 can deal with, outlined here by ndix UR, the floating bodies are now part of the room model.
Installation:
- The mod includes a TSLPatcher installer for Windows users. Those on Linux or Mac should replace it with the appropriate HoloPatcher version which will run natively on their OS.
Known Issues:
- This mod relies on editing the Taris Upper City South module's GIT (tar_m02ac). As such, it will not be compatible with any save in which you have previously entered the Upper City South level. Given that is the very first level you enter after leaving the starting apartment on Taris, that means you'll typically need to start a new game to utilise this mod.
- Per some of my posts in the original request thread, I initially experienced some issues with the tank’s glass texture affecting lighting on the body models (and even outright visibility in one instance) depending on the player’s viewing angle. I believe this has been resolved, but it’s possible the problem may still occur on hardware/OS combinations that I have no way of testing.
- The floating bodies use these player head models. There is no provision for dealing with a clone of the head the player is using now that the mod has switched to incorporating the bodies into the room model. A future update may replace these heads with NPC heads instead.
Compatibility:
- Edited versions of both room models for the medical facility (M02AC_02G & M02AC_02H) are required for this mod, so will not be compatible with any other mod that edits those models. They still use vanilla textures however, so they will be compatible with texture mods.
- The mod will not be compatible with any mod that edits the two entries for the original tank placeables in the module’s GIT (Placeable List entries 0 and 22). It should otherwise be compatible with other mods that alter the Upper City South module, as long as they utilise a properly set up TSLPatcher configuration.
- Since it has come up in the comments, Kainzorus Prime's NPC Overhaul Mod is compatible, but ONLY if you install it before installing this mod (KP's mod will forcibly overwrite any and all module files, so install it before anything).
Acknowledgements:
- Thanks to bead-v for KOTORMax and MDLEdit, and ndix UR for MDLOps 2K18 Edition, all of which were required at various points to get this to work.
- Thanks to ndix UR for many and various discussions and troubleshooting regarding models, compiling, textures, etc.
- Thanks to Dark Hope for the suggestion to change the bubble VFX.
What's New in Version 1.4 See changelog
Released
- Replaced the tank glass envmap with something less jarring
- Switched the soldiers to use the "crispy" body textures from my Diversified Jedi Captives on the Star Forge mod, added matching head textures
- Replaced the weird looking bubble VFX with the one from the underwater suit (thanks to Dark Hope for the suggestion)
