DarthErdan

Hello all. I am a new modder compared to most of the community, who has ambitious ideas and projects in mind for the KOTOR games, specifically KOTOR II given its rushed development and lots of cut content. We thankfully got the Sith Lords Restored Content Mod that restores or adapts many cut content into a playable platform for the game, and most of the time the cut content in the Restored Content mod is spot on. However, there are a few things in TSLRCM that are kind of put in a way that makes it look incomplete, rushed, or forcibly put in. The extra content between Mandalore the Preserver, (Canderous Ordo), and Visas Marr is one of them, (other than the inclusion of Kaeve of course). I will argue this: The whole Ravager level itself is pretty weird. I am not just saying this for TSLRCM, but the vanilla game as well. Let us explore the problems with the Ravager level near the endgame of KOTOR II. Let us start with the first thing we need to address: Mandalore and Visas’s dialogue. In the original game dialogues, we have a dialogue called “852mand.dlg”. The dialogue, as written by one of the original game devs, has a note saying that Canderous/Mandalore is lying injured on the ground, and Visas Marr walks up to him and heals him with the Force. As Visas says these words, it reminds Mandalore of Revan, and he goes up to his feet to explain the hidden war and threat Revan learned of in the Unknown Regions that Mandalore knows of. The dialogue is kind of different depending on whether the player decides for the story Revan was male or female, light or dark, but overall, the context is the same. In TSLRCM, Mandalore the Preserver, (Canderous Ordo) steps on a random invisible mine that injures him right as he, alongside Visas Marr and the Exile, leave the bridge. That is how his injury is portrayed in TSRLCM initially, and then Visas walks over and heals him through the Force, and they exchange dialogue about Revan. In later revisions, and in the latest revision of TSLRCM, Mandalore stepping on a mine was revised in favor of something that makes more sense. The mine made no sense whatsoever, so later on it was changed to this: When the trio try to run out of the bridge, Darth Nihilus’s body erupts into dark side energies and fades away in it, (just like in the vanilla game and in earlier TSLRCM versions when Canderous gets injured), only except this time, the dark energies emit lightning at the trio, and zaps them all and seems to have hurt Mandalore the most, causing him to be injured and the whole scenario plays out the same again. I would like to state my problems here. Though the newest revised version of the Mandalore and Visas scene on the Ravager makes hundreds of times more sense than some random invisible mine, it still feels forced for many reasons. The first one is perhaps this: If Visas is still alive and wants to look at the fallen Nihilus, Mandalore says: "What the hell are you doing up there? WE NEED TO GET OFF THIS SHIP. NOW." Mandalore suddenly having a conversation with Visas right afterwards seem out of place to me. Now, I could be wrong: But isn't it stated that the Ravager is held by Nihilus's will? If Nihilus is dead, then either the ship will fall apart, (a thing that for a curious reason doesn't even happen in the vanilla game), or it will be disabled and then crash into Citadel Station. Even if none of that is true, they still need to blow up the Ravager in order for the Sith invasion of Telos to be over. Of course, I can be looking too much into small details like these, but it is worth noting. Plus, the lightning attack, while making some sense, seems to be like an active deliberate entity that injured Canderous, and that can mistake players and make them wonder if Nihilus somehow transferred into the trio or that Nihilus still exists in some form elsewhere and that is certainly not the case. We also have to consider that in the dark side alternate path where you choose to sacrifice Visas, Nihilus combusts into dark side energy but there is no “lightning side-effect attack” happening, which would make this even more out of place. Also, how would the lightning wound Mandalore and not the player and Visas? One could say it is because Mandalore is not Force-sensitive, but…I don't know, it still sounds weird to me. Most of all though....the whole scene looks a little forced. I appreciate the effort into trying to make sense of and trying to adapt it into TSLRCM, but personally it is one of those few things that don't fit well with me. It looks kind of out of place and is just...there. There is also the fact that the context is weird too. Not only is the player, the Jedi Exile, just standing there while Mandalore and Visas talk as if there is just the two of them, but the whole scene, (and the original dialogue files that were cut off the game that the scene was loosely based off of), imply that the Exile isn't there at all. Probably the weirdest thing surrounding the conversation is the lack of the Exile/player’s involvement. They are just standing there and Visas and Mandalore’s dialogue, based on the situation and wording, makes it seem like there are just two of them. This leads me to the next big problem, not just for TSLRCM, but the vanilla game as well: The player’s weird role in the Ravager level. Back at the Battle for Citadel Station, Mandalore tells you that he will have to leave for some time to gather the Mandalorian clans and forces to help him and you infiltrate the Ravager ship, and he even says he will rejoin you on the way to the Ravager or something like that. When you go to the place where a shuttle will take you to the Ravager, Mandalore and his forces appear and say they will join with you on the Ravager, and Visas Marr says she will come with the Exile. The shuttle then goes to the Ravager, and then the three of the characters are on the Ravager. I went to an old message discussion on the DeadlyStream Discord and according to memory, the shuttle's very flight and how the trio got onto the Ravager seems a little off, but let's put that aside for now, as it is the least of my concerns right now. What is perhaps really weird is that sometimes, the Exile seems to be actually legit with Mandalore and Visas, while other times, it just seems to be Visas and Mandalore or maybe even just Mandalore. For example, when the Mandalorians first attack the Sith troopers in a way that is similar to the Stormtrooper attack at the beginning of A New Hope, the Mandalorians, (was it Zuka or Kelborn? Can’t remember) talk to Mandalore about the ship and all but it seems like Mandalore is the only one there. They talk about how the Ravager is from Malachor and all, and Mandalore seems to imply based off of his dialogue with that he wants to remind the galaxy or the Republic of Malachor by blowing up the Ravager and he even doesn’t want the Republic fleet to detect or know of the proton cores that he and the Mandalorians have shipped aboard. This implies that Mandalore came to the Ravager for a different reason. Now, I again could be looking too much into this, but this is something worth noting in my opinion as well. Then there is the fact that Visas Marr, (who apparently pops out of nowhere and the player/Exile is nowhere present), asks Mandalore what he was talking about, in which he replies, “Nothing you need to worry about Sith” and in TSLRCM, they threaten to kill each other if they pose a threat to each other, (I don’t know if the dialogue and how it is presented in the restored content is chronological or something else, I swear I heard somewhere that the dialogue was meshed together). The 851NIH module in the Ravager in general seems to be about just Mandalore and perhaps Visas Marr with him. Whenever the player plants a proton core bomb in certain sections of the Ravager, Zuka always addresses the player as "Mandalore" and the responses the player gives to the Mandalorian is akin to something Mandalore would say and command. Despite them calling for Mandalore, it is the Exile that is talking back to them. Strange. This is evident in the part where Zuka adresses the player as Mandalore and says that Sith troops are coming in, and the player responds back to them, but Zuka is supposed to be talking to Mandalore! Again, I am kind of repeating myself, but there are some legit scenes that cannot make sense without the Exile, (such as Colonel Tobin's scene or Visas Marr's mdeitation chamber scene). And again, there is a lot that just is off in the Ravager, mostly TSLRCM but still obvious in vanilla too. There are even more problems that I notice, but let's leave it there for now and focus on the core problems for now. I know there is the Unofficial TSLRCM Tweak Pack that makes it behave like the vanilla game and omits the "out of place" elements, but I want to make the cut content implemented and most likely adapted in some way, shape, or form that makes the Ravager level feel more “complete” and feel like the situations in them are logical and rational. I know there is a mod by Zbyl2 called “Ravager Rewrite” that makes much more sense, but honestly, I want to make my own version where these core things are kept: 1: Mandalore gets injured by someone or something, and Visas Marr heals him and they have their talk. I want this scene to happen BEFORE the bridge confronting Nihilus, whether it is 852NIH or 851NIH, (maybe it could differ depending on your choices?) and the player is not present for this. I would like to even propose that perhaps this whole scene and conversation is not even a mandatory event to happen in the level/story, and that this could be a result of one of the alternate paths the player could choose. 2: I want the placing of the proton cores quest just be for Mandalore and perhaps even Visas Marr with him, but no Exile/player. How this works and all is unknown to me. 3: Mandalore and Visas Marr and the Exile could be involved in these possible ways: Either Mandalore and Visas go to the Ravager first and the Exile joins later, (perhaps as a result of the circumstance or choice the Exile/player goes through), or the three go there, but something splits them, or maybe a hybrid combination of elements from both, (again, could be because of the player's choices and alternate paths). 4: I want all three to be in the Darth Nihilus fight, hence why Mandalore could say: “What the hell are you doing up there? We need to get off this ship now!” At some point in the Ravager level, I want all three people to be in the fight on the bridge of 852NIH. 5: If it is possible, I want to make this mod compatible with TSLRCM, not as a true update to TSLRCM itself of course, but as a mod that can be compatible with TSLRCM, (maybe even make TSLRCM required for the mod to work). How to make that work is a difficult question, (at least for me, haha. I am bad of a modder when it comes to compatibility). Maybe I can make it that the “Unofficial Tweak Pack” that removes the Mandalore and Visas changes from TSLRCM are required for this mod to work? I don't know. So, with all that said: This mod is definetly greenlit. I havn't begun official development and production yet because the one thing that is holding me back is how The Ravager: Expanded Edition mod will even work story-wise. That is why I wanted to bring it up here, (if it is alright to), and open to brainstorming and discusion on how to make this mod work, (and if anyone is up for it, perhaps maybe collaborate with me on this project.) (MPORTANT NOTE: This story expanded mod for the Ravager plot is very most likely going to be fan-written, and fanon driven in terms of story. In other words, it is not going to be true restored content that is trying to be faithful to the original intention. The reason why is because just like the GenoHaradan sub-plot, there is little to no information we can get off of to make a cohesive faithful recreation of whatever slightly expanded role The Ravager is or was going to get, hence why this greenlit mod will take creative liberties and custom ideas. The core motive here is to not restore faithful cut content, but rather adapt elements of the cut content and make it logically and rationally make more sense with the game we got.)

To clarify what I mean here I said that Darth Nihilus in my weird head-canon/fanfic was originally Mandalore the Ultimate BEFORE he became Darth Nihilus, the leader of the Mandos that started the Mandalorian Wars, and I am trying to apply logic to that. As for your idea though, I always wondered if Nihilus can and have lived on in his mask and possess people like Momin, (the Sith you mentioned), from the New Canon, or if there is something else going on. There is a Tabletop book called "Unknown Regions" and one of its mini-adventures is called the "Mask of Darth Nihilus". In that mini-adventure, it has interesting lore bits on Nihilus's mask, but it doesn't seem like he outright possesses people, at least from what I have gotten from it, but who knows. Regardless though, this is a headcanon and theory thread so talking about what seems "official" or not is irrelvant to the topic of the post, (especially since Mandalore the Ultimate is for sure not Nihilus in the real KOTOR lore but he is in one of my fanfic/headcanon idea story).

Kind of a weird head-canon/fanfic idea, but Mandalore the Ultimate is the future Darth Nihilus. I have no idea how to make that work though, haha.

Okay, I learned some new information. First of all, it seems like both TSLRCM and vanilla TSL in KOTOR II have the fadeout transparent effect. I have seen some playthroughs for both versions on YouTube where the transparent fadeout happens. It seems like all of the YouTube playthroughs that DO have the transparent fadeout effect are Xbox or older PC. It seems like PC playtrhough videos from 7 years ago to now seem to have what I have: The solid "DestroyObject" effect. I set the script to both "TRUE" or "FALSE", and even used the "DelayCommand" for DestroyObject, and no fadeout. I then came to the conclusion that it was a video card rendering and/or graphics issue. I tried changing the graphics in a variety of ways, both in-game and in AMD settings, but it doesn't do anything rather than change the "sithritual001" cloud effect's texture. I shared the savegame with a modder on the OpenKOTOR Discord, and it seem like in their playthrough of that save, which is Steam version, specifically Steam Proton Linux, there is no fadeout either. Regardless of what graphics or anything that I do, whether it is edited or default, the fadeout doesn't happen, but it works for Darth Sion and even Darth Traya. Is there something "broken" about PCs to render this properly, or is it perhaps not a graphics thing either and is another issue entirely?

Hello. So a while back, I made a post called "Dumb question, but what graphics are required for a smooth dissaperance in a cutscene?". The post basically was about the way Darth Nihilus fades away as he dissolves into a red "cloud" of dark side energy. Back then, I didn't have the game yet, and now I do. There are some playtrhough videos on YouTube of KOTOR II, both TSLRCM and TSL vanilla, that have Darth Nihilus fade away gradually and become transparent before completely vanishing in the red cloud. The way he vanishes into the scarlet red dark side "smoke" looks super clean and transitions nicely, his model fades and becomes more transparent as he fades away in the cloud. However, there are other playthroughs of the game, both vanilla and TSLRCM, in which he doesn't vanish the same way as others. Instead, he just glitches out of existence after the dark side energies combust out of him without fading gradually and becoming more transparent. His model just stays the same before he just pops out of existence in the cloud. I really like the effect where his model becomes transparent and fades away in the cloud, as it looks more realistic and looks like a visually stunning effect, but in my own personal playthrough of the game, my fear was true. He just glitches out of existence, the one where he doesn't become transparent. I made a video of what I want the death of Nihilus to look like vs what I have in my actual game. I want to make him become transparent and fade out gradually, but I don't know if it is graphic or resolution issues or a script thing. To give you more context, here is what I have on my game. I have the GOG version of the game, (Good Old Games), specifically the GOG Galaxy version of the game. I am running this on a Nimo Gaming laptop. I had installed TSLRCM to my computer, then I installed the Unofficial TSLRCM Tweak Pack, specifically the tweak that removes the Visas Marr and Mandalore conversation on the Ravager and makes the cutscenes run like in the vanilla game. The footage you see is from my game with those mods installed. I then began to wonder if this was a product of the Tweak Pack and/or TSLRCM, so I uninstalled those mods and played the save game of that level vanilla, but same result, (to be fair though, I was playing from the same save after I uninstalled the mods, so I dunno). This is all REALLY weird because I myself am making a mod where I use the sithritual001 effect on Darth Sion in the final battle level with him on Malachor V, and he has the transparent gradual fadeout but somehow Nihilus doesn't. You can see a snippet of my "earlier revision" of the Darth Sion mod here, where he is seen fading out and becoming transparent. I want to find the root of this problem, mind if anyone helps me please? Help would be greatly appreciated. Darth Nihilus fadeout.mp4 Video Project 4.mp4

Okay, given I am a beginner to modding, I guess I am going to do an easier way for now until I get better. (I am still trying to get the gist of things). My simpler new plan for now is to make Darth Sion collapse to the floor dead and have the "sithritual001" effect play out and dissolve his body, but I am okay if the cutscene ends when Sion falls to the floor and it goes to gameplay mode. My problem is how do I destroy his body, which is tagged "remains"?

Okay, thanks. So what I did in detail was this: I created an all new script. I called it "a_sion_effect" and put it in "script 2" that is underneath "script 1" in the node where Sion's death animation plays, (which is a_sion), and that is where I ended up. The part of the dialogue editor I made can be viewed in this screenshot below... As for what I out in the "a_sion_effect" script, I basically put it like this: void main() { object oDarthSion = GetObjectByTag("DarthSion", 0); location lSion = GetLocation(oDarthSion); AssignCommand(GetModule(), DelayCommand(3.0, AssignCommand(GetFirstPC(), PlaySound("v_pro_lightning")))); AssignCommand(GetModule(), DelayCommand(3.0, CreateObject(64, "sithritual001", lSion, 0))); AssignCommand(GetModule(), DelayCommand(3.5, DestroyObject(oDarthSion, 0.0, 0, 0.1, 0))); AssignCommand(GetModule(), DelayCommand(6.5, DestroyObject(GetObjectByTag("SithRitualEffect", 0), 0.0, 0, 0.0, 0))); } So yeah, that is how I got to where I was. Thanks for the advice. I am trying to learn how to apply new camera shots and make new cameras, but I will try to do so. So, for clarification, do I do this in a script or do I actually have to do module editing to do it efficiently? Like editing the GIT file or something like that?

To clarify, let me explain my background on this topic and my problems here. So, a while back, I made this post in "mod requests" where I asked for a mod with new content and effects to be made. I don't need to worry about the new cutscenes and all of that, as I learned now the basic common sense of mod compatibility. (A lot of the things I requested for on that post back then I don't need to do now, I can simply make Extended Enclave and the Unofficial TSLRCM Tweak Pack compatible with my game, so no problem with that). There was one final thing I requested in that post though. What I requested was that Darth Sion and Darth Traya at the end of the game of KOTOR II dissolve into dark side energy in the same effect and style as Darth Nihilus. After a bit of consideration, I decided to make the mod where Sion and Traya die this way myself. I have experimented a lot throughout the months, and have learned much. However, there are a few frustrating things about my experimentations. My main modding tool I am using most of the time is Holocron Toolset, (because I am a noobie beginner). The main reason why I want to do the "dark side death effect" for Sion in this mod is mostly because I think the effect is cool, (and for Sion's case, was inspired by his death scene in KOTOR fan-film YouTuber DarthYcey's version of his death). In the vanilla game, after Sion says his last words of dialogue: "I am glad to leave this place, at last.", he lets himself die for good and falls to the floor. During this whole process, once Sion starts falling dead and before he even finishes falling to the floor, the mode of the game reverts from cutscene mode to gameplay mode. After he dies, you can loot his body which is tagged "remains" in gameplay. For my mod, my plan is to have Sion collapse and fall to the floor dead like in the actual game, but once he is fully dead on the floor, (or perhaps when he is right going to be), he suddenly emits a cloud of dark side energy that looks like Darth Nihilus's dark side cloud, and he fades away and vanishes in the cloud. The whole time this process plays out, it is in cutscene mode. So yeah. I found the script for the effect, and I found the placeable for the effect, (sithritual001), and I managed to suceed in my effect, (to an extent). The problem is that I don't know how to pause or extend the duration of a cutscene and let the effect happen. Whenever I let the scene play out, it either results in the cutscene mode reverting to gameplay mode in the middle of this effect happening and Sion leaving "remains" behind after the effect finishes. I will attach a recorded video snippet from my tested gameplay to show you visually. Star Wars_ Knights of the Old Republic II_ The Sith Lords 2026-04-27 16-00-40.mp4 So yeah, there is my problem. I don't know what to do. I kind of want him to fully collapse to the floor then have the "sithritual001" placeable effect and script playing. I also want to make that whole effect, (Sion collapsing to the floor, go through "DestroyObject" by sithritual001 and leave no remains) in cutscene mode, so that is why I asked to extend the duration of the cutscene. (P.S., the mod I planned for this mod is planned to be a private one, as I don't think that anyone would want this mod anyways if it were public. Just to let you know).

Sorry, thanks for letting me know!

That custom model is so awesome! What programs and/or tools did you use?