Pavijan357

BALANCE TWEAK PACK    
version 1.1

Author: Pavijan357

1. Description:
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This is just a small compilation of minor fixes to some "Knights Of The Old Republic 2" game balance issues and oversights.
I originally made this for my personal use, but I decided to share it anyway at the end.

All these tweaks/fixes are made to be used with TSLRCM and assume that you have TSLRCM 1.8.6 (or eventual later version) installed.
Usage of these components without TSLRCM is not tested.

2. Component list:
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This pack consists of four main components and one small extra:

Component 1 - Discple and Handmaiden Grant Both Bonuses

Bonus feat that Handmaiden grants to Exile after their sparring match on Ebon Hawk ("Battle Precognition" - adds Wisdom bonus to defense) is much better reward than Disciple’s measly increase of 10 force points to the Exile's maximum amount after their first meditation session, and is just one of the points why some people prefer having first one as a companion that the second.

This mod remedies that by having both of them grant both Battle Precognition and Maximum Force Points increase at those respective dialogue points (I even added a few lines for justifying it, sorry if you don't like them ).
I have also fixed an oversight where if you take the DS path in dialog about meditation with Disciple you don’t get a FP bonus even though in-dialogue info said that you did.

Until someone restores Disciple’s cut Holocron quest (which is highly unlikely) this will serve to bridge that only slight advantage male Exile had in combat over than the female one (not that it really matters because of extremely low general difficulty of the game, but here it is anyway...).

Component 2 - Force Crush Balance

As many of you already know, KOTOR 2 in not a challenging game, but even taking that in account, there is one Force Power that really breaks its every potential for real boss fights for the Dark Side player...
Of course I’m speaking of Force Crush, the ultimate cheese tool.

There were many mods that tried to improve KOTOR 2 boss fights, and for Light Side player they might succeed to increase the challenge, but for Dark Side one, if the boss fights you solo (Nihilus and Sion for example),  it ultimately doesn’t doesn’t matter how much you buff the stats of the bosses when you have the power that, as long as you have enough Force Points and FP regeneration, makes you able to get them to helplessly jump and down and take damage without hitting you even once!
What is the root of a problem here?

It is the fact that when opponent fails the save against the power he/she suffers the full damage amount and gets lifted and dropped down on the ground helplessly, which is cool, but even if opponent succeeds on save, he/she suffers the half of damage, but STILL gets lifted and dropped, after which you can simply cast the power again and proceed to repeat the process until the opponent is dead.

If the opponent has more Hit Points fight will only last longer and be more tedious, but not really harder in any way.
My solution for this is simple: keep the effect the same if the save fails, but in the case that save succeeds opponent still suffer the half of the full damage BUT they do not get lifted and dropped, and can therefore continue to attack you, in that round at least, and actually pose some real danger.

Component 3 - Sith Lords Improvements

Yes, I know that there are already several mods that make the Sith lord bosses tougher to beat, but some of them did not hit the right spot for me, and some of them do not even work properly for all bosses, or can create the game breaking bugs when used with TSLRCM or some other mods.
So I created this component to both get them to the challenge level worthy of the true boss status, and make it as compatible with as many other mods that I can.

I play-tested this mod with:
a) unoptimized LS melee character made by fist-time novice player from the save I found on the net – on the "Normal" game difficulty,
b) optimized DS force-focused character of mine – on the "Difficult" game difficulty.
In both cases fights were winnable but were hard and lengthy enough, and required a fair amount of usable items to be spent (stims, medipacks and shields).
Be warned, with this mod installed, you should save those consumables for these boss fights, ESPECIALLY your best shields, since you can easily get one-shotted on higher difficulty without these, but that should not be any problem to accomplish anyway since, because of the general low difficulty of the regular fights, you don't really need to use those at any non-boss fight in the game, so you should always have enough by the time you get to the final 3 bosses.

Component 4 - Disable "Droid Interface" Feat

Combat droid class (only HK-47 of all party members belongs to that class) is able to take "Droid Interface" feat on level-up, which, in both vanilla TSL and TSLRCM, does absolutely nothing.

That was most likely to be used in some cut content out of many that were planned to be at the game but were never completed by the game developers.
All you can do with this feat now is to completely waste one HK-47's feat point by taking this if you are a new player and you do not know what each feat does (or in this case - doesn't).

Because of that, this mod serves to disable this feat, so you will not be offered to take it in on HK-47's level-up screen.

M4-78EP mod, which restores the droid planet to the game, actually uses "Droid Interface" feat at some points, so you should not install this component with along with that mod if you intend to use this feat.

Extra component - Maximum Level Sith AC Bonus Fix

This is just one small bug fix for the oversight in acbonus.2da file where a lvl 50 Sith Lord and lvl 50 Sith Marauder had swapped AC values.

While it is true that no player or non-player character should reach those levels in the unmodded game without cheating, this can happen when some difficulty or experience mods are used. So I'm supplying that fix here.

3. Installation:
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Install components from this patch AFTER TSLRM is installed.

Use TSL Patcher to install each component individually.

4. Uninstallation
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Copy appropriate files from the "backup" folder to their original places.

5. Mod Compatibility:

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Detailed individual compatibility notes are listed in each component's "tslpatchdata/info.rtf" file.

Apart from that, any mod that is compatible with TSLRCM should be compatible with this Tweak Pack.

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THIS MODIFICATION IS PROVIDED AS-IS AND IS NOT SUPPORTED BY BIOWARE/OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT OR LUCASARTS OR ANY LICENSERS/SPONSORS OF THE MENTIONED COMPANIES. USE OF THIS FILE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK AND THE ABOVE-MENTIONED COMPANIES OR THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED TO YOUR COMPUTER FOR THE USAGE OF THIS FILE.

UNOFFICIAL TSLRCM (THE SITH LORDS RESTORATION MODIFICATION) TWEAK PACK
version 1.3

Author: Pavijan357

1. Description:
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As you all know, SW-KOTOR 2 : The Sith Lords is a brilliant game. Unfortunately, at the time of release, it was definitely a flawed game, because it was published in unfinished state.

Then came the people behind TSLRCM project and did what seemed impossible. After years hard work by all people involved in it, final result is here: TSLRCM 1.8.5 . KOTOR 2 is closer to its finished state and Obsidian's vision than ever before.

So, what is this than actually for? Well, the way I see it, instead of the broken, dirty gem TSL was before, now with TSLRCM, it's the large shinning diamond, just a little rough on the few edges. This is made to polish it around a little...

It's seems to me that in their vision to restore as much cut content, TSLRCM crew got a little carried away and restored even things that seem that weren't left out because of short development time, but actually CUT from game, because authors had some other and better ideas, or simple they didn't thought that those fit in the game in general way.
Now, I don't claim to know what was Obsidian's original vision better than anybody else, especially TSLRCM guys, but there are some things that bothered me during the playthrough and which seamed jarring and out of place to me, so I have made this Tweak Pack for my personal usage, and also for everyone else who feels the same way about those particular things.

Of course, this is ultimately thing of personal preference, so I have made this pack modular so you can install only things that you want and leave others as they are (modular parts are installed with TSL Patcher), but have also provided all-in-one setup for those that want it all.

2. Component list:
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This pack consists of five main components and three small extras:

Component 1 - Jorran the extortionist instead of Kaeve the thief

As you probably know, TSLRCM returned cut character of padawan Kaeve, whose laigreks stole the farming equipment from farmer Suulru on Dantoine, instead of scavenger Jorran who insisted that Suulru should give him extra money for his vaporator, which was the case in the published version of the game.

I like the general idea behind Kaeve, and voice-over done for her by Usagi was fine, but the main problem with her is that her dialogue seams, well... not well written in the first place, it feels incomplete and not well thought through. It seems to me that she was abandoned in earlier part of production and wholly discarded as an idea, and that's why Obsidian eventually recorded voice-over for Jorran's and Suulru's new lines instead of making some for Keave. Don't get me wrong, TSLRCM crew did a good job of restoring what was in the files, but it seems that there wasn't a lot of quality material to restore in the first place...

So this component returns whole Jorran/Suulru situation to what it was in published version of TSL and removes Keave from game altogether. This also returns lightsaber part to Jorran which he had originally, instead of Keave as in TSLRCM.

Component 2 - Saedhe's original head

If you played the game, you would remember Seadhe, Khoonda Militia investigator in Khoonda plains, Dantooine. In TSLRCM he is given cut unique head which was planned for him earlier, but my opinion, based on his voice in game, is that unique head was intentionally scrapped and in the published version he got that of an old black guy to fit better with that voice.
So install this component if you would like to see his originally assigned head again.

Component 3 - No Mandalore falling on Ravager bridge

In old TSLRCM versions, after you defeat Darth Nihilus and your party is leaving Ravager's command bridge, Mandalore inexplicably stood on some invisible mine and fell on the ground. This has been done to make excuse for starting Mandalore/Visas conversation. Version 1.8.3 replaced mine with much more sensible Dark Side backslash from the disappearing corpse of Nihilus, which actually looks fitting to a point, and could satisfy some people, but in case that you still want that whole part removed, like I do - this component is here.

There is also spliced part on first Mandalore/Visas conversation upon boarding Ravager ("I know what it meant for you to accompany me here...") that should also, like the post-fight conversation between them, be left for some other mod which restores Ravager part to its original concept (Mandalore and Visas go to Ravager alone, Exile joins them later) like Zbyl2's excellent "Ravager Rewrite" mod, which will, I hope, be eventually updated for TSLRCM compatibility if he finds time and still has some desire for modding after his work on M4-78EP.

So, this component removes spliced part on first Mandalore/Visas conversation and whole bridge collapse/second conversation situation after Nihilus fight, so you can wait nicely until some future version "Ravager Rewrite", or some other mod, restores those lines more fittingly.

Component 4 - Atton’s ending dialogue

After you defeat final boss, in TSLRCM you (depending on your choices) get a few final conversations with some of your crew mates. Atton is one of them, and his conversations (in both possible versions) are great and emotionally satisfying. But they seem written only for light-side character and don't fit at all for the cold-blooded bastard that you may have turned your Exile into!

Because of that, this component inserts extra requirements for this dialogs to happen: Exile must be light-side, neutral, or mildly dark-side with high influence with Atton (high requirement for influence is only for slightly dark-side chars to reflect the situation when player is not entirely insensitive to suffering of those close to him and he got along with Atton nicely). So if your Exile matches any of those requirements you will get the dialogue as it has been until now, and if he/she doesn't - you will not be bothered with it.

Component 5 - Kreia-Atris dialogue tweak

During Kreia's visit to Atis on Telos, dialogue between those two is one of the more important ones in the whole game because it gives lots of exposition on Kreia's motivation. TSLRCM added a few restored lines of dialogue to that scene that do not seem to fit the story in it's final form.

Those are the lines that reference that Kreia was there during Exile's trial, and more important, that she was the one who asked for her/him to be exiled. Which doesn't fit at all, because she was presumed dead since Mandalorian Wars by the Jedi Order at that time, and because of that she couldn't have asked that of the Jedi Council when (as we see in dialogue between them near the end) they weren't even aware that she survived! This seems to be a remnant of some old plot version that was abandoned during the production.

Thus, this component removes that group of added lines from that dialogue (but keeps other ones that are not related to this issue).
Thanks to Markus Ramikin who has noticed this issue and informed me of it.

Component 6 - Tweak for Exile-Mandalore dialogue in Trayus academy

From the first time I saw it, I was not fond at all of the Player responses in the Exile-Mandalore conversation that happens in the Trays academy if you save your party. They consist of pairs of almost identical responses with just several words changed and do not seem like anything that would normally be found anywhere in the game and therefore they really stick out as "modded content".

This component of TSLRCM Tweak Pack will alter the player responses to something that (at least in my opinion) fits better with the rest of the dialogue found in the game. Mandalore's lines are not altered.

Extra components:

These small tweaks are separated as extras because they are not based on restorations or anything other than some thoughts of mine, or are probably insignificant to majority of players and made mostly for extra nit-picky crazies like myself.

Extra 1 - Trayus Sith Lords unified

This takes care of the small thing that caught my eye - that Sith Lords in the left part of Trayus Academy have their masks on, but those in the right part don't. This was probably done intentionally, possibly to provide more diversity, but what bothered me is that those without masks share the same head with Sith apprentices which are at few places found at the very same room (Yes, it bothers me,  I'm that kind of guy [:p] ).
So, this only gives those few Sith Lords in Trays Ac. the same masks that their "colleagues" in the other part have. Simply as that.

Extra 2 - Lower Awareness requirement for "Gand Warrior" quest

This lowers required Awareness skill level for solving the quest given by Suulustan in Jekk Jekk Tarr cantina, on Nar Shadaa, to 4 instead of 16. Why so low? Because I think that 16 is really too much for such a trivial quest, and by making it as low as 4 it can be solved even by players who didn't focus on developing their Exile's Awareness, simply by equipping a few of skill boosting items, and maybe also casting Valor if needed.

3. Installation:

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To install this Tweak Pack, TSLRCM 1.8.3 or newer version, MUST be installed. It is made for TSLRCM and without it, it has no point.

1) If you're planning to install the complete installer version, just run its URCMTP.exe and follow instructions. It's advisable to do it IMMEDIATELY after TSLRCM installation. In that case if you plan to install some other mods after TSLRCM they won't be overwritten, and maximum compatibility is assured.

2) If you're planning to install any of modular parts just run U_TSLRCM_TP_IND.exe and follow instructions. You need to run U_TSLRCM_TP_IND.exe once for each component you have to install.
For Component 1 (Kaeve removal) BOTH parts must be installed for it to work properly.
Any component can be installed any time after TSLRCM installation.

4. Uninstallation
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Copy appropriate files from the "backup" folder to their original places.

5. Mod Compatibility:
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Any mod that is compatible with TSLRCM is compatible with this Tweak Pack.

For full compatibility with "Fixed Hologram Models and Admiralty Redux for TSLRCM" by DarthParametric and M4-78EP, use the the Individual component installer for this pack, and install it AFTER those mods.

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Thanks to Fair Strides for creating and updating the TSL Patcher version of the installer.

Special thanks to Zbyl2, DarthStoney, VarsityPuppet, Hassat Hunter, and everybody else who was involved with TSLCRM during its long years of making, for all that they have given us...

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THIS MODIFICATION IS PROVIDED AS-IS AND IS NOT SUPPORTED BY BIOWARE/OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT OR LUCASARTS OR ANY LICENSERS/SPONSORS OF THE MENTIONED COMPANIES. USE OF THIS FILE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK AND THE ABOVE-MENTIONED COMPANIES OR THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED TO YOUR COMPUTER FOR THE USAGE OF THIS FILE.