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Feature. Time for a leak for the Heart of Beskar mod! Thus far, most of my NPC Overhaul mods have been "very basic" or "minimum effort". What do I mean by this? Well, the NPC Diversity Pack is made using only what is available to me in the vanilla game. I only use vanilla appearances on the vanilla appearance.2da file and I only use vanilla clothing/armor to make my unique NPCs, by only using the vanilla assets this mod is compatible with most other mods and thus is considered "very basic". Other mods in the NPC Overhaul Series are "minimum effort" such as Onderon Fashion or Smuggler's Deluxe which either take a vanilla body model like the smugglers jacket or ports a K2 body model like Onderon Clothing and makes new NPC variants out of those body models to create further outfit diversity in the game... I consider these mods "minimum effort" as they were somewhat easy to make (in my opinion) though they're not all compatible with other mods like the NPC Diversity Pack is. For example, the standard quality smuggler's jackets of Smuggler's Deluxe would look strange next to AI Upscale texture packs or the AI Upscaled Onderon Clothing by Effix in Onderon Fashion would look strange next to Dark Hope's texture packs. But this mod, Hearts of Beskar, is something I'd consider a "complex mod", a mod that was harder to make which might not be compatible with some mods, and I have a few complex mods in planning... though for now Heart of Beskar is the one we shall focus on today! Heart of Beskar requires Duros: Armed & Ready to be installed beforehand, and as with my other NPC Overhaul mods, this mod shall require the K1 Community Patch to work as well! This mod is a total NPC Overhaul of ALL Mandalorian NPCs in the game, you might notice how my other NPC Overhaul seemingly randomizes NPC appearances to prevent the 'clone affect'... but since Mandalorians all wear identical armor you might ask "well how would you Overhaul the Mandalorians?" to which I answer: With New Mandalorian Ranks! 1) The Mandalorian Recruit: 2) The Mandalorian Initiate: 3) The Mandorian Trooper: The Mandalorian Trooper is the classic blue Mandalorian, there's nothing to show here. 4) The Mandalorian Scout: 5) The Mandalorian Marauder: 6) The Mandalorian Heavy Trooper: That's all for the Mandalorian ranks of the Dantooine Mandalorians, in my next leak of the Kashyyyk Mandalorians I shall reveal additional ranks that have yet to be implemented. The Heart of Beskar mod is not just limited to new Mandalorian ranks, however, it also adds the following: Helmetless Mandalorians for additional diversity: Alien Mandalorians for additional varity: The long awaited Female Mandalorian, who can appear with all the previously mentioned ranks (For example, a female Mandalorian Scout can be encountered!) This mod uses the models from Female Mandalorians by Inyri Forge, whilst the main page makes no mention of permission the readme in the downloaded mod does and it reads as follows: Inyri Forge has not been an active member of the community for a very long time, not posting since 2015. I once asked them permission years ago to use these same models for my now removed "N-DReW's K1 Gameplay Improvement" mod for the same thing I've done in Hearts of Beskar via email and they did in-fact give permission. Should my previously granted permission for the now removed K1GI not apply for Hearts of Beskar, I did in-fact make a reasonable effort to contact the author before altering their mod and Inyri is still an inactive user making them unreachable. As of right now, there seems to be a weird bug with Inyri's original female Mandalorian model. When a female Mandalorian is in the same module as a male Mandalorian the male Mandalorian shall instead use the female Mandalorian model instead of his default male model. This has created the cursed Sherruk with big titties bug! What other features shall Hearts of Beskar have? Well, this mod contains Mandalorian Iron... or Beskar if you're a fan of Disney's "The Mandalorian"! What does that mean? Well, most Mandalorian armors found in this mod shall contain Beskar in their metal chassis thus making it resistant to energy based damage. Now this mod won't turn every Mandalorian into DIn Djarin with his literal plot armor, but it will give the Mandalorians a buff against you when you fight them. For example, the armor of the Mandalorian Trooper was Mandalorian Battle Armor which had a Defense Bonus of 11 with 25 resistance to electricty damage. In Hearts of Beskar, the Mandalorian Battle Armor shall be renamed to "Mandalorian Light Armor" and shall instead have a Defense Bonus of 9 with 5% immunity to energy damage. This 5% immunity is caused by the Beskar, a material which is highly resistant to blaster bolts and lightsaber blades. The extremely rare "pure beskar" would make a wearer impervious to oncoming blaster shots and lightsaber strikes, Din Djarin of the Mandalorian wears (plot) armor forged from pure beskar. So Din Djarin can get shot and not take any damage because of pure Beskar, so why do other Mandalorian NPCs die in one hit like Storm Troopers? That is because those Mandalorians are wearing armor made from "Beskar Alloy", since Beskar is a rare material the mass production of Mandalorian armor is done via mixing what little pure beskar they can muster with other metals like Durasteel thus turning small amounts of pure Beskar into large amounts of weaker Beskar Alloy which can be used to forge the armor of the Mandalorian army. The Mandalorian Light Armor I used as an example is forged with Beskar Alloy, thus the 5% Immunity... though the next rank after Mandalorian Trooper, the Mandalorian Heavy Trooper, has a Defense Bonus of 10, immunity to mind-affecting, 10% immunity to energy damage and 5% immunity to fire damage. It's a pattern, with each rank that goes higher so too does the Beskar alloy become purer thus making the armor stronger and the Mandalorian NPC harder to defeat. An energy immunity of 100%, like Din Djarin, would make the Mandalorian wearing that overpowered armor almost invincible to all incoming damage. Even if the party can kill that Mandalorian with other damage types, I'm certain unsuspecting players would get their butts kicked trying to take him or her down. As of right now, an energy immunity of 90% is the highest thus far and it belongs to Cassus Fett's Battle Armor though I assure you this mod shall be play tested with a vanilla build and weapons to ensure that they can be defeated. If need be the armors offered shall be nerfed, though do expect the strongest Mandalorian Armors to have a high energy immunity. The new Mandalorian armors shall be scattered throughout the game as either loot dropped by enemies, loot found in objects or items to be bought from merchants. I do want to note that I really don't want Cassus Fett's Battle Armor, the strongest armor, sold on Dantooine by Adum Larp. I'm thinking of moving that armor to Mika Dorin on Korriban, a merchant restricted to post-Leviathan part of the game, or from the loot of the Mandalorian leader of Lehon as an end game reward. Thus far, that's what Hearts of Beskar has to offer on Dantooine! Stay tuned for future leaks regarding Kashyyyk, Lehon and any of your suggestions I may implement... and before you ask, this mod shall contain new Mandalorian items and weapons though those shall come in an update after the first release containing new Mandalorian ranks and armor. Feel free to leave feedback, suggestions, criticisms and recommendations! "This is the way!"

I'm definitely looking forward to the Mandalorian update! The faction had a lot of coverage in the game, but the original 3 or so variations were so visually limiting. (BTW, as a minor aside, Beskar or "Beskar Gam" wasn't invented by Disney, but was an invention of Karen Traviss in her Republic Commando books and then backported into the Disney canon via Filoni. Humorously, her books had so many parts canonized that she should probably be credited at least partially with the show. )

Here it is: The audio was made using a premade preset found on the Eleven Labs website (for this mod I specifically used the premade "Eli" sample as seen on the website) Special thanks to @EpicStoffer for pointing this website out in the Rukil thread.

It is time for me to give you all a preview at the Black Vulkar centered update! One of the most glaring issues with the Black Vulkar Gang on Taris is that the demographics of the Vulkars in Kotor are 90% Nikto, 7% Twi'lek, 1% Human and 100% male. During my changes of the Black Vulkars, I made sure that you still saw the 5 different Nikto NPC variants per module. This ensures that the Nikto population of the gang are still a large majority, however, players will definitely notice other aliens pop up from time to time! Just about every species of sentient alien can be found amongst the ranks of the Black Vulkars from Duros to Gamorreans (Do keep in mind that Quarren and Gran, whilst being in Kotor 1, aren't used here as I seek to give them their own special mod.). Humans can also be found amongst the Black Vulkars, if they can be led by a human like Brejik then no doubt the Vulkars would accept humans into their ranks. Droids have also replaced some of the Vulkars, here is but a small taste of the Droids you shall encounter in the Lower City. This update is currently unfinished, though let's keep our fingers crossed that I'll have this update ready for the public soon! After seeing my screenshots, you might be wondering "Well, surely you can do more with the Black Vulkars than just this, right?"... to which I say: yes, I can do a LOT more with the Black Vulkars than this, however, I would need to add custom content to achieve that. As you can probably guess, this is an update for the NPC Diversity Pack mod which only relies on vanilla assets to achieve it's NPC Overhaul, should I ever come back and make my very own dedicated Black Vulkar NPC Overhaul mod then it would be released separately like the previously mentioned Smuggler's Deluxe. I should probably remind everyone that I personally advise player's install the K1CP mod first, the NPC Diversity Pack mod afterwards and any other NPC mods you may have after that... as you can see by the next screenshot the NPC Diversity Pack will swap Kandon Ark's head. As an example, if you wanted to use Leilukin's KotOR 1 Twi'lek Male NPC Diversity mod alongside my mod you'll have to install her mod after mine to get the full effects of her mod and my mod without a mod conflict.

Ah yes! There are quite a few differences between my mod and the original NPC Overhaul mod by Kainzorous Prime, here are some of the differences: 1) Installation: The NPC Overhaul by Kain utilizes .MOD files which makes it totally incompatible with K1R and the K1CP mod. My mod, on the other hand, modifies the NPC's UTC file directly inside their .MOD files (as provided by K1CP as it is a requirement before installing my mod) without the need to hard overwrite .MOD files or .UTC files inside said .MOD files! 2) No unique items: NPC Overhaul notoriously (at least in my opinion) uses 'unique armor' for NPCs. For example, on the mod page it shows the merchant Eli Gand wearing Exar Kun's Battle Armor. I find things like this lore breaking as Exar Kun's Battle Armor is supposed to be just one item whereas a Combat Suit, for example, is mass produced. It is for this same reason why I dislike Inyri Forge's Enhanced Merchant mod as it does the same thing with unique items (I believe Adum Larp sells up to 4 Naga Sadow Poison Blades on Dantooine for example). This screenshot is but one example of how Kainzorous has used unique items on NPCs, from memory I believe some Black Vulkars have Baragwin Armor, Redros the Vulkar Swoop Racer has Jurgan Kalta's Power Suit, Davik's Armor was removed to make way for Verpine Zal Alloy Mesh and so on. 3) Loot: This part is actually notorious in TSL's NPC Overhaul but in the K1 NPC Overhaul I do know it's possible to leave Taris with Eriadu Prototype Armor and Verpine Zal Alloy Mesh. And in K2 it's possible to get some high quality/end game tier gear as guaranteed loot from the Citadel Hangar Assassins, no need to save up to buy from a merchant or rely on random loot drops with TSL NPC Overhaul you'll get half of the overpowered items from the end game at the start! My mod does not touch loot, at all! The only thing this mod will do is touch up the clothing, armor and appearances of the NPCs you find in the game in a lore-friendly manner. 4) Bonuses: The original NPC Overhauls for both games come with bonus content that aren't necessarily related to NPC diversity, the most glaring of these 'bonuses' is obviously the new Imperial Officer uniforms: Now let's compare Kain's work to mine: My mod doesn't add anything new, that means players can install their own Officer reskins and the like and my mod won't break it whereas with Kain's mod it kind of forces you to play with his new Imperial uniforms unless you know how to personally remove the associated files. As I'm sure we can see from my screenshots and the original NPC Overhaul mod found here I've definitely taken my own unique take on all of the NPC appearances to offer a different experience than the one offered in Kain's NPC Overhaul mod. Plus, this mod isn't necessarily meant to be stand alone... in the spoiler in the very first post of this thread I've made a list of other mods which will be made after this mod, this ranges from a Twi'lek specific NPC Overhaul, a mod which adds more fat commoners to the game, a mod which adds Onderon style commoners to the game and so on. With your experience with NPCs in mind, did you ever encounter the 1st bug I mentioned in the 2nd post? And if so how did you manage to fix it?