Mod Build Request Thread - KOTOR 2

[Snigaroo 133]

A companion to the KOTOR Mod Build Request Thread for requesting specific content for potential integration into the mod builds. Please see the KOTOR 1 thread for a (very) detailed breakdown about what the purpose of these requests are, and why I'm choosing to do them now.

There is one part I would like to renewedly stress: completion of any of the below does not guarantee inclusion in the mod builds. Which is a bit of a pain in the ass, I know, but if I requested a lightsaber mod and you made one but each lightsaber had +10 STR and +20 ATK, that might be a bit imbalanced. That's an extreme example, but I hope you all follow what I mean: the more complex the mod is the more scrutiny I'll have to put it under to ensure it meets the builds' content standards. That means it might be of benefit to you to communicate with me during the development process, either here or on the Discord, to make sure that the mod as you're producing it fits the build standard, OR that we can setup an alternate install option with a different setup that does.

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A Brief Breakdown:

The mod requests below are split into several categories based on the type of each request, such as Bugfixes and Quest Mods. Within each of these categories, requests are ordered based upon the assumed difficulty-to-complete of each request.

Many of these requests will be discussed in the comments, and I recommend reading through the thread if you're just stumbling on it to get an idea of my discussions with other modders, as there are usually some good ideas circulating around how to implement some of these.

As I mentioned previously, this list is never going to be exhaustive. If you have an idea for a mod that you think would fit into the builds well, feel free to reach out to me and discuss it, as long as you're comfortable with me giving you pre-release feedback. I'm happy to do so, but as I said I don't want to presume and initiate such a conversation on my own.

Whenever a mod request is completed and I have tested and confirmed I would like to use it in the builds, I will remove it from this list. Whenever I come up with a new idea I will edit it into this OP as well as posting a comment talking about the new request.

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Mod Requests:

 

Balance:

 No Class Skills, Only Cross-Class Feats

Spoiler

This might seem like a bit of a weird suggestion, but I think there's a lot of potential here. Rather than each class having class skills, no classes would have any skills, and each player and party member would come with a unique selection of cross-class feats already enabled, to represent their areas of expertise and training. More could be gained either by taking the relevant cross-class feats at level-up, or through a variety of other mechanisms: quest completions, companion interactions, when the Exile trains her Jedi companions, and so on. Thus, over the course of the game, the player and party's proficiencies would gradually grow as they become more experienced and more quests were completed.

This could even be used to make certain currently sub-par routes more viable, such as if, for example, siding with Czerka on Citadel Station were to give a cross-class proficiency. Currently Czerka is almost criminally sub-par compared to the Ithorian route, but a free feat would make them much more interesting (though obviously this is only an example, and a good reason why they would give a feat like this would need to be identified).

 

Room Alignment Sanity Patch

Spoiler

KOTOR 2 has a very nice feature: room alignments, which gives certain modules an inherent alignment that buff characters that match the alignment and debuff those who don't. Except it's only used in two places: once in Ludo Kressh's tomb, a -100 alignment that makes all LS characters within it worthless, and the Korriban academy, which is "only" 30, making all Sith occupants thereof virtually immune to Force powers.

I'd very, VERY much like a saner version of this, one which takes a variety of modules into account: the Dantooine ruins should be LS-aligned; Malachor should be more DS-aligned than Korriban, things like that. And preferably nothing but Ludo Kressh's tomb being more heavily aligned than +-15 (even that might be too much). This would require a lot of extensive testing to make sure that Jedi could still function in areas where their potential enemies might have significant saving throw bonuses due to the alignment changes.

 

Base Attack Bonus Alterations

Spoiler

Recently some users have been pointing out that the different Jedi classes in KOTOR 2 feel unpleasantly similar, because their Base Attack Bonus is all the same. This is something I'd very much like to have rectified, both across the starting classes and the prestige classes, but doing so would require significant testing of how Sentinel and Consular classes behave on Peragus and Telos at higher difficulties. I think we can safely say that the difficulty of KOTOR 2 becomes trivial after Telos no matter what you do, so rigorous testing beyond that probably isn't critical, but NPC tuning might be required on Telos and Peragus to make Sentinel/Consular classes with lower BAB viable.

 

Artillery Kreia

Spoiler

Now I know that sounds weird, bear with me.

Right now Kreia isn't much of a threat in her final fight, and in my opinion that's okay. She's an old woman, and her triple lightsaber thing is really cool and honestly the meat of the fight anyway.

But it's also kinda stupid you can just attack Kreia directly to end the fight and do so broadly with impunity, only having to survive the sabers while you do. I do want to retain the option to take Kreia out directly, because for some players' builds beating the sabers on their own might be difficult, but I also don't want it to feel too easy; right now you can just run from the sabers to a far part of the arena, then use Speed and run back to hit Kreia while the sabers are far away.

I'd like it if Kreia was somehow locked in place during this period, totally unable to move, but still able to use Force powers if the Exile is nearby. This would incentivize the player to run away from the center of the core and fight the lightsabers further out, and make attacking Kreia directly possible, but risky.

 

Czerka Mercenary Placement Tweaks

Spoiler

The mercenaries outside the abandoned military facility are dispersed in a way which is deeply unfun for the player, where your companions just latch on to them and keep constantly running deeper into the gauntlet of opponents. This is extremely challenging even much later in the game on Nar Shaddaa for instance, and here it's patent torture. It'd be nice if the mercenaries' positions could be nudged a bit so your party can take a breather after the first group near the speeders, re-buff and then assault the rest of the base.

 

Kressh's Tomb Gated by Prestige, Not Alignment

Spoiler

It never really made much sense to me that access to Kressh's tomb was gated by alignment. I am not a huge fan of those who try to play as Grey Jedi, but the game does allow for it (and even have items specifically tailored for it), so it shouldn't be punished. It seems pretty obvious to me that it would make more sense for the tomb to be gated behind having a prestige class rather than by deep alignment, so a player only needs to get a prestige class and then they can do what they want from there and still access the tomb.

 

Improved Throw Lightsaber

Spoiler

Throw Lightsaber kinda sucks, and I'd very much like it to at least suck less. For the original game I use @uwadmin12's Saber Throw Knockdown Effect, but as far as I'm aware that mod can't be applied directly to K2. I'd very much like a mod that does the same thing--something small, admittedly, but which makes the power just that little bit more viable.

 

Canderous Doesn't Face Nihilus

Spoiler

I mean let's be realistic, the fight is a bit out of his league. Keeping Canderous out of it makes sense--he couldn't possibly stand up to Nihilus, and unlike Visas or the Exile has the potential to be consumed almost immediately--and also has the knock-on benefit of making the fight against Nihilus tougher, which is welcome indeed.

Spliced dialogue would probably suffice here, with the PC explaining the situation and Canderous just doing brief interjections with "But--" "I--" and the like and getting interrupted. The Nihilus fight would just be Visas and the Exile, with Canderous walking on to the bridge after Nihilus dies--his arrival would be what triggers the blastback from Nihilus's dissolution, and then the TSLRCM scene between he and Visas would play as normal.

 

Buffed "True Lesson of Strength"

Spoiler

I really, really love the concept of the true lesson of strength: it's power you only gain through denying power, something that virtually no RPG player would ever actually do. You have to actually pay attention to the game and recognize its conceits to even realize you may be rewarded for choosing to deny Hanharr's power, and even then it's still a huge gamble. It is unironically one of my favorite parts of the game.

Unfortunately, it kind of sucks. Accepting Hanharr's strength gives you +2STR/+1 CON, whereas the "true" lesson only gives +2 WIS. Either the true lesson should give +4 WIS, or (and I would prefer this), starting on Telos during the endgame the Exile loses the bonus of Hanharr's strength and gains an additional malus (-1 STR -1 CON) for Hanharr not being present when they have grown accustomed to him.

 

Fury Foils Force

Spoiler

The use of Fury should give a DC malus to the player's Force abilities, getting increasingly worse through Fury's tiers; utilizing the Force offensively in a blind rage isn't really practical, after all. Fury should be an either/or, where engaging the power essentially commits you to melee offense for its duration.

As a bonus, I'd like it if Fury gave the speed effect (moving more quickly) without actually giving any of the rest of Force Speed's benefits (that it doesn't already give, that is). It's just annoying for a DS player to want to use Fury for offense but still need to cast Speed if they want to move quickly.

 

Malachor is Toxic - Fulfilled by Thor here, not yet tested for integration

Spoiler

Outside the Trayus, anyway. This would give another zone where Breath Control is useful, which makes it feel less like a one-trick pony, and would also contribute to the otherworldly and dangerous feeling of the planet as a whole. The gas mines that sit on the vents can be replaced with plasma mines instead, which will also ramp up the difficulty.

 

 Give Gand Guns

Spoiler

Or weapons in general. Few of the Gand in the Jek'Jek'Tarr have ranged weapons, and even fewer have melee; most attack with their fists. They should at least have Gand Silencers. As a bonus for this module, Osslusk's stats should be boosted further, since he is the only Gand we know of who is an individual.

 

Esok Isn't Worthless

Spoiler

The Mandalorian Esok attacks Canderous with no equipment at all. He should have a weapon of some variety at a minimum, and probably a relatively decent one given his superior status within the Dantooine clan. Preferably non-droppable so it doesn't boost the party's strength.

 

Batu Rem Only Attacks the PC

Spoiler

The assassin masquerading as Batu Rem insists that he will kill the PC first, then kill Kreia and Atton. Yet he releases them all from their force cages at the same time--instead, he should fight the PC one-on-one.

 

Vibrocutter-B-Gone

Spoiler

The moment you get out of the Peragus medical bay there's a vibrocutter on the corpse immediately outside. This always felt a bit too easy to me--yes, this is a tutorial, but it's just unimmersively convenient. I'd like for the vibrocutter to be moved to one of the bodies in the security room, forcing players to use the plasma torch (or their bare hands) in combat for at least one room, to make picking the torch up feel less useless (and the vibrocutter less convenient).

 

Bugs, Oversights & Immersion:

Zuka Swap

Spoiler

The Mandalorian Patrol Captain says that Zuka is on the east side of the camp "near the hangars," and Zuka himself says that the relay dish is "right behind him." It seems clear that he was originally meant to be on the other side of the camp but was moved, likely due to concerns that his generator platform was crowding the hangar entrances. I'd like to see him moved back to where his dialogue indicates he should be, provided it can be done in a reasonable way that doesn't interrupt movement in and around the hangar area. Failing this, it would be nice to use some AI, if possible, to adjust the lines of the patrol captain and Zuka to fit his new position.

 

The Exile's Impassioned Defense

Spoiler

Despite Atris saying at their trial the Exile was an overwhelming presence who was so convinced of their rightness that they made even her question herself, the Exile can speak a grand total of uhhh TWO lines in the playback of the trial. This desperately needs another look, allowing the Exile to elaborate on their position at more length and defend themselves more completely, enough to truly surprise the Jedi with the depth of their conviction. Obviously this would require AI VO to complete.

 

HK-50 is Clearly Guilty

Spoiler

I mean, come on. It's obvious enough that even ingame you can accuse HK-50 of being behind the crisis on Peragus, and he just says "teehee nuh-uh".

I'd like to be able to not just accuse HK-50, but, if you acquire enough evidence, to try to fight him early. The player would have to be able to accuse him of causing the situation while also having found T3 in the fuel line (by examining the video feed) and confronting him about it; discovering the terminal used to kill the medbay miners; and having already opened the airlock through another means (bashing the terminal or combining the pieces of the voiceprint). In those circumstances I think the player should be able to insist that HK-50 is the culprit and fight him regardless of his protests, in the process gaining extra XP for discovering the truth and perhaps reducing the amount of droids present in the dormitory section as a reward, making the fight there easier (after all, HK is no longer around to coordinate their actions).

 

 Manning Turrets Isn't Useless

Spoiler

Presently, if you fight the Onderonian fighters that ambush you above Dxun OR fight the enemy fighters above the Sky Ramp, you get nothing at all. That is extremely annoying. You should either get XP or, ideally, if you don't destroy the fighters above the sky ramp they should bomb you on the approach to the palace. I don't know how to implement that realistically, but if it could be done it would be very nice. Maybe something akin to the orbital lasers that come down in Davik's hangar on Taris?

 

Ritual, What Ritual?

Spoiler

People (me included, when I was younger) sometimes have gone years without realizing that the Sith Lords in the tomb on Dxun were doing a ritual to control the beasts on Onderon, and that the breaking of that ritual causes the beast on Onderon to go mad. I think it would be pretty easy to convey that, as simple as having a brief vision of beasts elsewhere in the tomb suddenly start to rage and attack their handlers when the ritual is broken. That should help convey that the ritual was what allowed the control of the beasts, and explain how important the tomb mission really was.

I think it would also help if this same mod forced the player to flip the levers in both of the rooms adjacent to the central door deeper in the tomb, as one of the Sith in the right-side hallway (facing the door) talks about how their masters are controlling the beasts, but none in the left-side hallway do. Presently only needing to pull one lever makes it much easier to miss critical context about what's happening in the tomb.

 

Mandalorian Strength Impacts the Ravager Sequence

Spoiler

Logically strengthening the Mandalorians should impact how much force they can bring to bear on the Ravager, but presently aside from influence with Canderous uniting the clans does nothing. I think if the Mandalorians are maximally strengthened (Mandalorian guards to the camp aren't slain; Davrel and Kumus are spared; all clans united) the Mandalorian contingent on the Ravager should be strengthened, giving you NPC allies to assist and preventing the Mandalorian with the final proton charge from being killed.

 

Consistent Bastila Recognition

Spoiler

Presently, the exile DOES recognize Bastila in the visions she sees in Ludo Kressh's tomb on Korriban, but does NOT recognize Bastila in T3's holo-recording. The Exile should either recognize both or neither, and I think logically it makes sense for her to recognize both--this is also the easier option, since all that would need to be changed is unvoiced dialogue between the Exile and T3 to make it clear the Exile does know who Bastila is when T3 shows her the holo-recording.

 

Telos Mercenaries & Sullustan

Spoiler

If you decide to fight the mercenaries outside the cantina on Citadel Station to save the Sullustan, the TSF will fight the mercenaries with you. But if you decide to kill the Sullustan after that, the TSF won't raise a hand to stop you. It's a ridiculous situation; you shouldn't be able to kill the Sullustan without the nearby TSF agents also turning hostile.

Ideally this should also have some form of longer-term consequence due to the TSF identifying that you murdered some of their people in the open mere minutes after being removed from house arrest. But because it's extremely difficult to do that in the context of the story, it might be better to make the Sullustan simply run away if you threaten to kill him, and alter the party's influence dialogue there accordingly.

It's also unrealistic for the TSF to not try to stop the mercenaries if you simply choose to not interfere though, for what that's worth, which would still be a difficult thing to try to properly contextualize. Maybe the mercenaries could shoot the Sullustan, the TSF could be alerted and rush over to try to stop them and the mercenaries could simply do the laugh animation and run away? That would also contextualize how tenuous the TSF's control of the station is.

 

Poorly-Acted Sith Soldier

Spoiler

There is a hilariously badly-acted line in the DS Onderon path where a soldier confronts the Sith and says something like "WHYYYY DO THE BEASTS TURN ON UUUS master", with the most weird inflection and emphasis I've ever heard (you can hear it at this timestamp). I would not at all be surprised to learn this is fan-acted content put in by TSLRCM and I'm gaslighting myself thinking this is vanilla. I would love for this to be revoiced.

 

I'm Right Here Kreia

Spoiler

Presently, when Kreia interjects to talk to the player about the crystals in Dantooine's crystal cave she always has the "in your head" voice effect applied, even if she's actively in your party and standing next to you. The same is true for Nar Shaddaa when you "listen" to the planet, but that's more understandable since you two are actively talking about a Force phenomenon, and speech might be distracting. The same isn't true in the crystal cave, and it'd be nice if the voice effect could be removed. I'd rather keep the original lines than have AI re-voice it, however, if it proves impossible to cleanly remove the filter.

 

Handmaiden Fight Buff Resetting

Spoiler

I'm not sure of the mechanisms behind why this occurs, but in the fight with the Handmaidens in the Polar Academy, when it's two-on-one or five-on-one, for each of the Handmaidens that are knocked out your buffs reset. That's extremely annoying and makes it unnecessarily difficult for a Consular Jedi to win the encounter since their buffs are resetting constantly. I'd like it fixed if possible.

 

Ramana & Red Eclipse Debt Reset

Spoiler

Presently, if the player owns Ramana and/or demands the fealty of the Red Eclipse, either will break as soon as the player prestiges, recognizing only their starting class (or perhaps highest-leveled class?) as their current level and refusing to pay more credits as the player continues to level up. This makes the Red Eclipse in particular virtually useless, as it is almost impossible to get them to swear fealty to you earlier than level 15.

I would like this to be fixed, but I would also (if possible) like the rewards given by either party per-level to be disassociated from the player's level. They shouldn't give more and more money each level, but a consistent amount each level-up: Ramana 500 credits per level-up and the Red Eclipse 1000. Or, alternately, to represent the vagaries of the slave trade and ups and downs of business, the amount that the Red Eclipse gives could be randomized, from 1 credit up to a max of 2500.

Finally: have these people not fucking invented banking? It's an utter waste of time and devastation of immersion that you have to fly halfway across the galaxy and talk to a random guy to pick up your $50. There should be some sort of mechanism (perhaps by interacting with the security computer on the Ebon Hawk?) where you can remotely demand the credits be deposited to your account and they will do so if you qualify, regardless of where you are presently.

 

 Jek'Jek'Tarr and Suits

Spoiler

The Weequay you can speak to in the Jek'Jek'Tarr to reveal the room in the bar where the captain of the Lunar Shadow is located says he would puncture your suit if he weren't in a good mood. But if you speak to him before Mira takes your suit and enters the JJT you're not in a suit--his dialogue should be changed. Maybe "puncture your flesh-suit" would be okay.

And also, if you've gone to the Jek'Jek'Tarr prior to the call from Visquis, the dialogue between Atton and yourself about where the bar is and its gaseous environments should be altered and just focused down on the need for an environment suit, preferably with a bit of AI VO to let Atton comment about how you know how dangerous it is in there and how it'd be safer to take a suit this time.

 

Jailed Lorso

Spoiler

For both outcomes--Czerka or Ithorian--the conclusion of the Citadel Station chain is a bit lackluster. For the Ithorians, though, I think a simple and effective capstone would be showing TSF personnel entering the Czerka module and arresting Lorso in the aftermath of the mercenary assault on the Ithorian compound.

 

Bao-Dur's Peaceful Beach Conversation

Spoiler

On Telos's surface, if the player has Bao-Dur (and maybe Kreia?) in the party at the same time, Bao-Dur will strike up a conversation about how peaceful he feels on the beach, and Kreia will ask the Exile if she can feel the Force there. This conversation can be (and often is) interrupted by hostile Cannok nearby; whether by placing the enemies further away or some other scripting means, it should be altered so as to ensure the dialogue plays properly.

 

Fast-Travel from Ravager Bridge

Spoiler

It's a bit weird you have to walk the whole way from the Ravager bridge down to the escape shuttle. You should get the option after killing Nihilus and hearing Canderous's conversation with Visas to just fast-travel down to the shuttle.

 

Trayus "Kneeling Sith" Sense Check

Spoiler

The Trayus "kneeling Sith" entrance only really works for DS players who view themselves as "coming home" and getting ready to take the mantle of Dark Lord. For LS players at a bare minimum when the first Sith appears they should activate their lightsabers, and look confused when they don't attack.

 

I Love Plants

Spoiler

The Vivarium Ithorian is like that kid who's obsessed with trains: it's the middle of a mercenary attack and all he can talk about is his plants. I'd like him to be a bit more, uh, reactive to the situation around him. Maybe talk about how worried he is for his plants, since there are armed mercenaries all around killing his herdmates.

 

And The Next Two Numbers Are--

Spoiler

Who the hell stops in the middle of a sequence of five numbers to interject "AND THE NEXT TWO NUMBERS ARE--"? Whenever I listen to the mining administrator's holo-log I cringe into the stratosphere, it's such an obviously manufactured piece of writing. I'd like for the voice line to be cut down so the medical officer just interrupts him in the middle of the sequence of three numbers, before he can finish.

 

Pato Ado Short-Term Memory Fix

Spoiler

If you ask the Ithorian Pato Ado on Dantooine to change his betting stakes then exit his conversation before starting a new game of Pazaak, his stakes will not alter. If at all possible I'd like the stake level to be set on choosing the dialogue, regardless of whether the conversation is exited before a new Pazaak game is begun.

 

Onderonian News Anchor Slip-Up

Spoiler

One of the news holograms on Onderon has a piece about Telos, and in it she says the "Peragus project requires constant fuel". Clearly she meant Telos in context but her dialogue was either written improperly or she misspoke; since the subtitles themselves list Peragus, this was probably an error on Obsidian's end. A quick splice might be all that's needed to fix this, as she says Telos at least twice in the same bulletin.

 

Vaklu Repeats Himself

Spoiler

When meeting with Vaklu in the Onderon market just before the assault on the Sky Ramp, he says two virtually identical lines (you can see what I mean at this timestamp). Both lines are good, but since they're saying the same basic thing it's very jarring to have both, and I personally would prefer the second be removed.

 

I Didn't Use the Force You Old Bat

Spoiler

If you successfully persuade Captain Riiken to come clean with his feelings about Vaklu without Force Persuading him, if Kreia is in the party she will still chastise you about using the Force as a crutch, even though you didn't. It seems as simple as just removing her interjection in this case with no other action needed.

 

Exile-Nihilus Dialogue Adjustment

Spoiler

Sometimes when Nihilus attempts to feed on the Exile during their encounter the Exile responds in a way which is helpful for the player's understanding, clarifying that they live "without the Force" and that Nihilus can't hurt them, and indeed harms himself by trying to feed on them. But some of the options when meeting Nihilus on the bridge don't clarify that for the player at all, Nihilus just tries to feed on them and then gets angy and attacks without any clarification. For the sake of making sure players understand exactly what's going on there, I'd like every possible interaction with Nihilus to at least have one line from the Exile which makes it clear she's basically his kryptonite: someone without the Force whom he can't consume or destroy like he can everyone else.

 

I Didn't Mean to Kill Them, I Swear!

Spoiler

If you kill only some of the Masters and the remainder determine to fight you at the restored enclave, you should have a dialogue option to insist that you don't want to fight them and that the death of the other(s) was an accident. The fight should, however, still be inevitable; this is just an immersion choice, mainly intended for players who may have sided with Vaklu and found themselves forced to kill Kavar.

 

Berun Blight DS Points

Spoiler

If the player says "The Jedi are a blight, and their time is over" to Berun Modrul, they don't gain DS points. That's a very DS thing to say, and should probably count for a DS shift.

 

Lunar Shadow Positioning Adjustment

Spoiler

The Lunar Shadow crew is positioned oddly in their room on the docks, with the only member who will speak to you furthest in the back, surrounded by his compatriots and harder to see. It'd be nice if he were in front, to make it more obvious to the player there's someone there they can speak to.

 

More Than Four

Spoiler

Presently, when the Exile speaks to HK-47 about the HK-50 units, she says that "at least four" copies are ruined, but this always struck me as a weirdly specific affectation, especially since the player has likely destroyed many more than that by the time they're able to repair HK. I'd like the dialogue here to be switched to refer to "several" copies without providing a specific number.

 

Properly Gating HK's HK-50 Dialogue

Spoiler

If you choose "you look a lot like a series of droids that have attacked me" when speaking to HK-47 and then back out of the conversation subsequently, HK's dialogue for the HK-50s is unlocked even though you haven't yet proven to him they exist. You should be forced to finish this dialogue chain to get the HK-50 dialogues unlocked.

 

Companions & Influence Mechanics:

 

 

 

 

  Recast Mira

Spoiler

Probably among the hardest mods here to accomplish simply because it would need to be done without AI and probably at monetary cost. I think most of us can agree that Mira's VA sounded like she was phoning in her performance. There's very little passion, emotion or energy in her acting, and it makes what could conceptually be a very strong and intriguing character less interesting than her growling carpet counterpart.

Pipedream though it may be, I would very much like to eventually see a 100% dialogue replacement of Mira's VO with that of a new actress who can actually give some emotion to the performance.

 

Negative Influence, Negative Consequences

Spoiler

Presently, in the dumbest design decision known to man, maximum influence causes companions to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets, while minimum influence causes them to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets while opposing everything you stand for. Say what now.

Harshly negative influence should cause companions to reveal unique things to the player that positive influence doesn’t (though writing would need to be careful here not to characterize the characters or their pasts in ways which we don't know for certain are true), but should ultimately be a more destructive route that results in hatred, betrayals and a denial of the Exile, instead of merely following the opposing path while still remaining by her. They should be more curt, dismissive and less willing to communicate with an Exile they hate, similar to a less extreme version of how the Handmaiden currently behaves if she grows jealous of Visas. Some, like G0-T0 or HK-47 (after he interrogates all the HK-50 units he wants to, anyway) might choose to abandon the Exile entirely if their influence is toi low.

And, even for those who feel obliged to remain, the consequences for being despised might be significant. An Exile who’s hated by the Handmaiden shouldn’t be able to count on her support when arriving at Telos, for example; the Handmaiden should side against the Exile, even if Atris betrays her. A Visas who hates the Exile (if that's even possible) should refuse to stand against Nihilus and choose to fight with him against the Exile.

Obviously this would take a whole lot of AI VO to do, the complexity and story implications aside.

 

Influence that Actually Influences

Spoiler

Related in scope to the above, I have never ceased being annoyed that you can have fully corrupted the Handmaiden, for example, and turned her against Atris, yet if you walk up to a beggar and cut his limbs off she scolds you for your cruelty. Lady you are in all black and your face looks like the grand canyon, get off your high horse.

I suspect that this will be quite difficult to do, not just because of scope but also because it would need to take many variables into account, but I would very much like a mod which realistically deals with corruption and redemption. If you corrupt the Handmaiden, she should think like a Sith and behave like a Sith, and that extends beyond just dialogue but to influence opportunities as well, such that she should grow to despise the LS actions she would initially support, and only gain influence from cruelty.

Bonus points on this request if it took into account the present alignment of a character when considering how they respond to questions. For instance, Canderous could say the same thing, but his rationale behind it might be different if the Exile has high influence with him and, thus, he is presently leaning into the Light. I feel like this in particular could lead to some fascinating dialogues that I would be interested in helping out with personally, especially for characters like Hanharr, when they try to justify their beliefs through an entirely different perspective.

This would require AI VO to do, naturally.

 

Expanded Jedi Training

Spoiler

For being a game one of the main foci of which is finding the hidden Jedi, training them is an incredibly minor, tangential, and even largely useless part of the experience, even with TSLRCM. It should be possible for the Exile to have a much greater influence in how the Jedi who have never before utilized the Force develop. This doesn't necessarily need to be handled in gameplay or mechanical terms, although expanded sequences of the Exile making choices about what to train her apprentices in and what methods to use in that training would be very welcome (as opposed to TSLRCM's current "press button learn feat" method, which is better than nothing but certainly leaves much to be desired). My main hope, however, would be to just have a few flavor scenes with each companion where they can sit down and talk with the Exile about the Force and their perspectives, thereby giving the player the ability not just to see some additional depth from the companions, but also to give their Exile further characterization based upon how they choose to answer those questions and train their Padawan.

This would, of course, require AI VO.

 

Exile Influencing Influence

Spoiler

Are you sensing a pattern with these requests yet?

One of the other criticisms I have of influence is its nature as a limited resource. On the one hand, it needs to be. Yet, on the other, its limited nature pidgeonholes the player into taking specific companions to certain areas because they simply won't be able to achieve their influence goals if they don't do so, and this significantly damages the game's variability. If I always take HK to the Refugee Sector because I need to get influence with him there, I'm going to always miss the unique dialogue other companions would have had in that zone. Worse still, the complex and limited nature of influence virtually guarantees that new players are going to struggle to properly influence their companions, and many are never going to be able to unlock their full dialogue trees at all.

Yet the whole game we hear that the Exile is tugging on her companions, SUBTLY influencing their actions and beliefs. Why does influence only need to come from the things your companions see you do firsthand, or what you speak to them about directly? You have a Force bond with every single one of them (except the droids, anyway); you should be able to tug on that bond and nudge them in the direction you like.

I do have some firm ideas about this one, simply because I've thought about it at length. This system can't be too strong or else it will trivialize influence, nor should it be without consequences. I propose that, starting after the Exile attains their prestige class, they should unlock the ability to 'tug' on any given organic companion, pulling their influence either up or down, one time for each companion. The strength of the pull the Exile applies to the bond would determine the outcome, with more extreme force resulting in more extreme consequences, but even the smallest pull should have downsides, as the Exile is sublimating the will of the companion to their own. Each instance of 'tugging' should give DS points proportional to how hard the Exile 'pulled', and the 'pull' should have negative consequences to the subject's attributes, to represent the physiological consequences of the Exile's forcible, damaging influence against them. I we're spitballing a system of Low/Medium/High 'pulling' with each corresponding to 8/16/24 Influence, I would say that the attribute penalties should roughly map to -1/-2/-4, of course focusing on that character's most critical attribute. The consequences for using this system should be quite significant, but it should be an option to the player.

 

More Companion Activities During Endgame

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This is necessarily vague and I leave much of this up to modder's discretion, but right now the endgame (especially post-Ravager) is just a graveyard in terms of companions having anything to do. I know that the party is supposed to be locked up on the Trayus for much of that time, but the thing is that you only see their capture when the Exile first reaches the Trayus; you never see what your party was doing before that, the dangerous steps they took to get to the Core to confront Kreia alone to begin with, or for that matter why the Exile was left alone at the ship (presumably with T3) while the rest of the party ventured out. It'd be nice to have answers to some of these questions: maybe a party meeting after the crash, with the Exile incapacitated and left in T3's care while the party determines to take on Kreia on their own, with some snippets of the fights and subterfuge they engaged in along the way, letting most of the party members have a minute in the sun and making it clear that they all had a role to play in the attempt--even though it failed--to kill Kreia on their own.

 

Delayed Companion Dialogue

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One of the biggest problems of KOTOR 2's pacing, in my mind, is best explained with the case of the Disciple: you can get him in your party, talk to him on the ship a single time, and if you pick all the correct options he will instantly reveal all of his secrets to you and you won't ever need to speak to him again. And he's not the only one guilty of this; G0-T0, Visas and Mira all are as well, in addition to Bao-Dur if you get his two TSLRCM influence checks before getting the ship back, and even T3 if you have high enough repair/computer use by the time you first speak to him. It is comically easy to get everything you could want out of your companions and then simply ignore them henceforth.

To counteract this trend, I'd actually like to bring a bit of the original game into KOTOR 2: locking dialogue behind a combination of influence and main quest completion/character level, such that some dialogue will not unlock until you are at least a certain level and/or have found a minimum number of Jedi, and then you must also meet the influence requirement in order to make your companion talk about the newly-unlocked topic. This would encourage players to keep checking in with their companions over the course of the game, and for new players would help encourage a sense of discovery as their companions open up about themselves more naturally over time.

 

G0-T0's Plan Does Something

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Presently, if HK-47 exists at all then G0-T0's plan to take control of the Mass Shadow Generator is foiled--this is something to be addressed, and you can see the request for integration between Kex's Visually Repair HK mod and this sequence under the Patches section. But the reality is that even if HK-47 isn't repaired at all and G0-T0 successfully takes control of the MSG... nothing happens. The game just ends based on the player's alignment, without G0-T0's control meaning anything.

I'm not entirely sure how it should be done, but G0-T0's plan here should matter; his success, if the player is LS, should lead to Malachor not being destroyed despite what the player would inevitably desire, either forcing a DS ending or forcing the player to fight one last battle against G0-T0 and a squad of HK-50s in order to save the Remote and destroy the planet once and for all.

 

Atton the Savior

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If Atton is LS-aligned (regardless of the player's alignment) and he wins the duel with Sion he should free the player's companions even if you choose to abandon or ignore them. The only way that the player could kill their companions in the event that Atton wins and is LS is if they purposefully go to the Crescent themselves to kill them, and if the player tries Atton should interrupt them and try to kill them, forcing the player to slay Atton themselves before they can execute their party.

Additionally, executing the party should result in turning the player to max DS, regardless of their previous alignment. These were people the Exile was directly bonded with, and slaying them outright is like murdering parts of herself. It would like purposefully reliving Malachor; the actions of a madwoman.

 

Another Mandalorian Squad

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Frankly, it's a bit odd there are only two Mandalorian groups. Three is the golden number in terms of specially-designed mechanics, and I am virtually positive that three Mandalorian groups were intended to be available in the game. Why the third was absent I'm not sure; perhaps it was meant to be on M4-78 before that was cut. Either way, I think having a third group makes a ton of sense.

Normally I'd leave the details to the modder, and I am certainly still amenable to hearing suggestions, but I have a fairly good idea for this one--the squad could be in the upper portion of the refugee quad near the Serroco, which right now is notoriously empty. I would reason that the squad is hired by the Serroco as muscle, and will run down to intervene if the Serroco are threatened. That would fit with how far the Mandalorians are supposed to have fallen, and would also lead to potential tension with Canderous, where attempting to fight the Serroco before recruiting the Mandalorians would lead to them being slaughtered, and Canderous being furious.

This would require AI VO for Canderous, both for the squad's recruitment and to account for if he is present when the Serroco fight happens and the Mandalorians are slaughtered as a result, but I think it's a worthwhile inclusion.

 

How Does Canderous Know Dhagon?

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If you ask Dhagon Ghent how he knows Canderous, he says they go way back, but to ask Canderous for details. But you can't ask him about anything--I'd like for some dialogue to be added about this. Nothing fancy, just a brief story about Canderous meeting Dhagon when he needed a doctor during the Mandalorian occupation of Onderon or something, a little bit of reactivity that makes Dhagon's presence in the story less in-and-out.

 

T3 Actually Breaks

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When Kreia screams "Betrayal!" and electrocutes T3, there's a subsequent dialogue option with her where you can ask how T3 was broken and she brushes you off brusquely. But T3 isn't actually broken, except for that one brief cutscene; he's perfectly fine.

Ideally I'd like it if her actions resulted in T3 actually being broken, unusable for the player until he's repaired (either through the player's own skills or by asking Bao-Dur). If that's impractical, however, then his health being reduced to 1 and the player being able to speak to him and "fix him" to max HP at the cost of one repair kit would be nice--just something to make it explicitly clear that there was actual lasting damage that the player had to intervene to fix.

 

Speedy Bao-Dur

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I really, honest to god want a version of Force Speed which doesn't actually give any combat benefits but does let you move faster, granted to Bao-Dur as soon as he becomes a Jedi and unrestricted by armor. I just wanna go fast. Bao-Dur not having speed breaks me every time I use him for Nadd's tomb.

 

Visas is Quick, but not That Quick

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When does Visas have time to knock out your other companions when she ambushes you on the 'Hawk? They're knocked out in an entirely different room on the other side of the ship, even if you just entered the ship with them! She should pull a Juhani instead--if you entered the ship with any party members they should come with you to fight her and she should stun them before the fight initiates, so it's still just you and her.

 

Hanharr Recruited in the Tunnels

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There's no reason the Hanharr party recruitment scene happens in the arena, except because Kreia's recruitment of him as her servant when the player is LS happens there. If the player is DS or takes Hanharr via "Choose Mira or Hanharr," Kreia should merely save Hanharr from Zez in the tunnels and demand his life-debt right there. It makes much more sense than a frail old woman dragging an eight-foot-tall Wookiee a hundred feet.

 

Old War Buddies

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If you're not aware, there's unique dialogue if you take Bao-Dur to see Tienn Tubb where they talk about the war--it's really neat actually, and you should check it out if you haven't heard it before. Bao-Dur says that they're in a grave fight and need help, and Tienn says it's hard for him to refuse when the war is brought up. But then... nothing happens. You don't get anything despite having someone Tienn trusts so much with you. I'd like it if Tienn offers you a discount if he and Bao-Dur speak. But, in turn, Bao-Dur should interfere and try to stop the player if they attempt to extort parts from Tubb's droid TT-32

 

Delayed Companion Alignment Dialogues

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Many companions have multiple dialogues about the player's alignment, light and dark; Mira and Atton both do, for example. Thing is, it's entirely possible to get these to play back-to-back: both LS dialogues or both DS dialogues for the player being too far LS or too far DS.

I'd very much like a mod that prevents both dialogues from playing back-to-back on the same module load, if possible.

 

Kreia is a Sadist, but Not Like That

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If you enter the Jek'Jek'Tarr before the quest requirement to enter, Kreia is perfectly content to let you suffocate the entire time. Why, exactly? You should learn Breath Control the first time you enter, not only when you begin the hunt for Visquis.

 

Kreia is a Historian

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She should act like it. The player should gain a single round of influence with Kreia if they listen to all the histories of the Valley of the Sith Lords without interrupting or disparaging the lessons.

 

Handmaiden Sister Showdown Knockdown

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Even if you attempt to kill all the Handmaiden sisters as Brianna, you can knock the final one out instead. This is acceptable, but when knocked out they should be knocked to the ground, because otherwise they'll just be standing there during the confrontation between the Handmaiden and Atris.

 

Remove Visas's Superfluous Peragus Dialogue

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The two questions about Peragus you can ask her prompt nearly identical responses, and while there's a slightly different intro to the second, on the whole it's meaningless to have. I'd prefer it be removed entirely so you can only ask her about it via one method.

 

Yes, I Know Others May Come With Time, With Experience. Thanks.

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Kreia says this line Every. Single. Time. at the end of her dialogue whenever you ask her about a Force or lightsaber form. I'd like it removed entirely from these sequences--she already says it when talking about the forms more generally, and it doesn't need to be repeated here.

 

Immersive Ingame Influence

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Users want to be able to see their influence level with companions ingame, but the only mod I'm aware of which presently allows for this is Remote Tells Influence, which, to put it lightly, leaves a little something to be desired. Saying "you're perceptive, what do my companions think of me?" and having a glorified sensor ball spit numeric values at you is not precisely immersive.

I would very much like to have an improved version of this mod, possibly using T3 instead of the Remote, or even an entirely different companion using AI VO, and replacing the immersion-breaking numeric readout with text values (for instance, "Atton isn't sure what to think about you" for a value between 50-60, then it might move to "Atton is beginning to trust you" from 61-70).

 

Combat Bark Sanity Patch

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KOTOR 2 has some uniquely bad combat barks. Sure, "Down you go!" is a meme, but Kreia saying FALLEN every second is no less frustrating. No, it's actually more frustrating.

I'd like three things here:

1. Remove Kreia's "Fallen!" bark (it makes no sense anyway) and replace it with something more sensible.

2. Add additional variation to combat barks (if possible) so companions don't just repeat the same things over and over again.

3. Make the barks used by companions different based upon whether they are LS- or DS-aligned (again, if possible).

 

Equipment:

Wearable Nihilus Mask

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It is one of the greatest crimes in the history of videogaming that you can get his mask but can't wear it. All the mods that currently let you do so implement this in a not very visually appealing way, however. I'd really adore a mod that looks good, with a quality model and texture.

 

Unique Gear Usable by Jedi Classes

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It always made me a bit sad when I got Nikto Soldier Gloves or Kubaz Scoundrel Gloves and couldn't use them on the PC. I think it'd be nice if Nikto gloves were equippable to Soldiers or Guardians, while Kubaz Scoundrel Gloves were equippable to Scoundrels or Sentinels. Of course this would mean there would need to be a new "tier 3" WIS/CHA glove set that's locked to Scout/Consular as well, to make sure they get a unique pair.

 

Proper Jedi Master Sabers

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I would prefer this to be completed as part of the request for a comprehensive lightsaber mod, but as an intermediary step it can function as a standalone. Presently, if the Masters are killed you get a seemingly random saber. I'd like a mod that fixes this, so that the Jedi Masters drop their proper lightsabers (right color, right style--and right number, in Kavar's case) or give a lightsaber component if you don't have a lightsaber yet. If you don't kill them, you get nothing from them at all.

 

Miscellaneous:

Choppy Malachor Scene Transitions

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The scene transition between Sion losing the fight against Atton, then summoning the Sith to welcome the Exile is weird and jarring. There's a load screen immediately after Atton runs off (which is somewhat understandable but unfortunate), but without Atton running off being addressed: the Sith just show up and Sion stands there aimlessly. I think the load there isn't necessary since both scenes should be possible within the same stunt module--just instead of the camera cutting to the Exile then back to Sion keep the focus entirely on Sion in the stunt module, and only load to the Exile and the main room after the sequence is ended. I think it would also make more sense if the Sith who were summoned were sent chasing after Atton if Atton wins, and otherwise take their orders from Sion while Atton is knocked out at his feet, making it clear that Atton is being tortured.

 

Corpse Misalignment

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The corpses in the Peragus dormitory module, including Coorta's crew in the turbolift room, are misaligned with the positions they fell in during the holo-recordings.

 

Models, Textures & Visuals:

 

 

 Mod Build-Aligned Comprehensive AI Upscale

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I should start out on this one by saying I would, of course, prefer handmade textures. But the reality is that that's a ton of work, and even for a game of KOTOR's size it's unrealistic to get that. AI makes upscaling the game's environments feasible, but there are problems with this--principally that almost all AI upscales out there today are either poor quality, completely butcher textures' alpha channels, are far larger than they need to be to the extent that it exacerbates the game's memory leak, or an unholy combination of all three.

I would desperately like to work with someone who could coordinate with me on making an AI upscale for the basegame which is aligned with the mod builds--that is to say one which values the vanilla design; is double-checked by hand to ensure that alpha channels on each texture are handled properly after the upscale; and which specifically includes compatibility patches for several of the texture/model mods which the mod builds already include. This is naturally going to be a large amount of work, as each time the builds undergo a Revision new compatches would need to be made, but the most significant time and labor investment would be for the first version, and after that only a few texture mods would need to be taken into account for each new Revision.

 

Repair the Ebon Hawk

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It always struck me as slightly unbelievable that, over the whole course of the game, Bao-Dur the legendary mechanic couldn't remove a piece of scaffolding on the Ebon Hawk. I mean come on, is he even trying?

I think it would be nice to have an Ebon Hawk which is actually more damaged than before when you fly it out of Peragus: barely holding together with large segments that are just bare metal, thrown together by the Peragus mining droids which weren't programmed for such delicate work. Then, over the course of the game, the interior of the ship could gradually be repaired and improved by Bao-Dur and the rest of the crew, until by endgame it's in top condition--just in time to crash into Malachor.

This would likely require a huge variety of different stunt modules to account for all the various stunt scenes which can take place in the ship, and so is perhaps a pipedream request. Just in case anyone can think of a really elegant way to do this, though, I'm putting it up here anyway.

 

Comprehensive Lightsaber Mod

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Think USM, but with better balance, consistency, and less bloat. I would love to see a comprehensive take on a lightsaber mod which includes proper unique hilts for the game's most important Jedi and Sith, while also including a variety of unique hilts that the player can find, craft and/or modify. The landscape for hilt mods has been far too limited to this point, I feel, with much of the focus either being solely on unique hilts for NPCs or tying redesigns to color crystals, rather than a comprehensive joining of both concepts. And, of course, most mods are old enough that they didn't have the opportunity to take advantage of @Crazy34's excellent saber lighting.

@JCarter426 is cooking something here and could use help, but with no disrespect intended to my co-author I'm not fully wedded to his concept. I think there are multiple ways to do a good saber mod, and whether in the form of assistance to JC or a standalone shot at it I would love to see some attempts made.

 

NPC Overhaul

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Similar to what Drew's doing with his K1 NPC Diversity Pack, although perhaps with less changes to "face" characters (characters who directly speak to the player). I like most of his changes and definitely love the concept, though, and would love to see something similar for K2.

 

Ludo Kressh's Tomb Unique Zones

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JC and I discussed how interesting it might be to have the various areas of Ludo Kressh's tomb where you see the apparitions appear as akin to the places where the memories actually took place: Malak proselytizing to the Jedi looks like it's in the Dantooine Academy, the Republic captain and troops who fight the Mandalorians over the chasm are in a room that look of Dxun, Kreia and the party look like they're in a hold of the Ebon Hawk. Obviously none of these could be exact, nor should they be--it would just be a sort of vague visual impression, if achievable.

 

Damaged Ebon Hawk Retexture

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I've never found a suitable retexture for the Ebon Hawk's exterior in KOTOR 2: they're usually all super high-fidelity but also ludicrously clean, not reflecting the absolute battering the ship took before the events of the game. I'd love to see a reasonably grimy, damaged and carbon-scored interpretation of the texture, one that shows how much the little ship that could has been through.

 

Onderon Uniform Reformation

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Very much inspired by @heyorange's Sith Uniform Reformation, I would absolutely love to see something equivalent for the Onderonian military, realistically portraying the various ranks of their officers and enlisted personnel. Obviously we don't see as much of the Onderonian military as we do the Sith in the original game, but I do think we see enough to make this worth it.

 

Comprehensive Melee Model/Texture Improvement

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We have SithSpecter's incredible HQ Blasters, and about a billion lightsaber mods of every variety. We have AI upscales of every area in the game (of dubious quality though many are), and almost all the characters. What we most decidedly do not have is a comprehensive and high-quality texture (and, if necessary, model) improvement package for melee weapons, which seem to languish. At best there are a handful of standalones, but oftentimes these standalones aren't broadly respectful of the aesthetic design of the vanilla weapons, and even those that are only cover a small proportion of the weapons available ingame. This would be a major visual consistency improvement.

To be clear, I am generally not looking for AI work in this request (such projects already exist). I'm also not asking for SithSpecter quality here, because his blaster mod is hard to top; just a human touch which enhances the visuals of each weapon while preserving their general appearance. I say human touch specifically because, since many of these weapons are very low-res, a direct AI upscale would probably just make them look like garbage, with garish colors or patterns. A human eye will translate the underlying intent of the design without making it look terrible, I feel.

 

Fixed Post-Telos Ebon Hawk Lightmaps

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Presently, the stunt module which is used for the post-Telos cutscene with the party has completely busted lightmaps: the hallways are black voids, which is glaringly obvious with the camera angles used in the cutscene. Either the camera angles need to be shifted or the lightmaps need to be fixed.

 

Hole in the Floor of G0-T0's Yacht & Nar Shaddaa Entertainment Module

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There's a large hole in the floor of the bridge of G0-T0's yacht right next to where the plasteel cylinder is, and also on the opposite side of the bridge near the other bridge entrance.

There's also a gap immediately on entering the Nar Shaddaa entertainment module, on the left, between the wall and floor.

 

AD Towers Need Bore Holes

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Onderon AD towers, especially those you see up close in the Iziz spaceport, have barrels which are just solid cylinders with no bore holes. It probably didn't look that bad on Xbox, but these days it's very noticeable and immersion-breaking. Should hopefully be a simple fix.

 

Carbon Scoring on Tienn Tubb's Walls

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Tubb's droid TT-32 says that Tienn Tubb's walls have carbon scoring on them, but they don't--just the floor and the workstations. This is an incredibly pedantic request, but there you are.

 

Dhagon Ghent's Pale Mouth

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The interior of Dhagon's mouth is a very pale pink, enough so that it seems unnatural and unintended to me--it should be darkened to a more natural color.

 

Low-Poly Quarren Fix

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There's a Quarren in the Nar Shaddaa entertainment module who uses the low-poly Quarren model from the original game, likely intentionally as a point of differentiation from the aliens around him, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be nice if alternate Quarren textures could be made that could then be situationally mapped to Quarren, allowing them all to use the higher-poly model but appear more consistently visually distinct.

 

Damaged Starboard Engine Improved Texture

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I know a lot of people don't play the prologue at all, but the starboard engine's damaged texture is just flashing yellow light. It's awful, and really needs a retool.

 

Overhauls & New Planets:

 Restored Mentor Atris

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Talk about the pipedream of all pipedreams, but yes, I am putting this up here. I think the potential afforded by allowing either Atris or Kreia to act as your mentor is tremendous, and not merely from the alternate perspectives that Atris would provide via-a-vis Kreia; Kreia is so integrated into various companion interactions and dialogues that, even if Atris was only ever hooked into half as much as Kreia was, it would allow for an unbelievably varied amount of new interactions, tremendously facilitating the game's replayability. Instead of a primarily LS/DS binary on replayability as we have now, where you only see significantly new content based on alignment, implementing Atris as an alternate mentor would allow for four major replayable routes, based on a combination of alignment and mentor.

Obviously the work that would be required for this is bluntly incomparable, probably difficult enough to make TSLRCM look like grade school homework by comparison. Even with the assistance of AI VO so little is left of Atris's mentor route that most all of her interactions would need to be planned out and written by the mod team, not to mention actually being integrated and tested, and it's not made any easier by needing to be compatible with the mod builds. But I really would love to see this restored, and would be happy to help with design ideas and writing.

 

Malachor V Redux

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Malachor is stunning in its design intent, and a wet fart in its execution. I have this mental image of Avellone high as a kite, glassy-eyed and joyously ranting about how Malachor will have abrupt cliff faces, lava floes, jagged mountaintops and deep canyons and the design crew looking on in abject horror.

I think there's a lot of potential in the concept of Malachor, but its execution has got to be reworked. The thing is, broadly speaking I agree with the idea of Malachor having huge caverns to disorient and tight lava vents that box the player in to narrow passageways; huge canyons that the player has to cross at specific points and jagged mountains that rise seemingly from nowhere where the planet's plates collided violently. The issue is that, presently, the textures on Malachor are virtually identical and do little to accentuate the different biomes which would have comprised these areas prior to the cataclysm, and oftentimes--either due to laziness, miscommunication or simple limitations in modeling tools--the planet just wound up having little spikes everywhere and some small fissures in the ground that give off green light. That's not aesthetically appealing or interesting, and I'd go so far as to say the stupid green backlighting actually takes the player out of the experience of the planet as an object of suffering and serves to help them ignore the implications of what they're seeing.

Ships being stuck inside Malachor’s surface is a nice touch and should remain, but I think many surfaces should look more gentle and molded, like molten rock flowed over them after the cataclysm, with only a few zones where there’s a lot of jagged and impossible combinations of rock, making it clear those zones are where parts of the planet were forcibly pushed into one another when the Mass Shadow Generator activated. Malachor should be less about running around a twisted and twisting landscape to get to the core and more about traversing the geological formations themselves, on your way down (such as, for example, running down a lava flow to the level below, then being forced to use a crashed ship as a bridge over a chasm, then climbing through a lava duct to get to an open plain). In short, it should be about designing the aesthetic not to make the planet look like hell on earth, but to make it clear that this used to be a pristine, beautiful world, and to bring home the cost by showing just how utterly devastated this once-verdant planet’s surface was when the cataclysm took place.

That's not everything, though. To cap all the problems off, Malachor suffers from the cardinal sin of not focusing on the Exile's experience of the planet. Even Dxun does a better job of showing the consequences of the Exile's past on the world, and implying the sorts of feelings she might have to walk its surface again. Malachor should be not just a visually but also emotionally brutal experience, harsher even than the records the Exile finds on Dxun. Dozens of crashed ships, datapads cursing the Jedi, starved corpses huddled against the sides of ships or skeletons buried in lava—the surface should be fucked up beyond anything else you see in the game. Also completely devoid of anything man-made, save the ruins of the ships and the academy itself—no more Great Storm Beast pen.

So yeah, piece of cake, right? Especially given the problem of what the .bik movies show Malachor looking like. I get this is an immense request, and if anybody even wanted to try tackling it they would probably not be able to achieve the entirety of my vision for it, and I'm not really expecting all of this (though I'd love it). But the closer that players can get to the idea of what Malachor should have been like, the better.

 

Rebalance of Inflated Stats & Gear

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Most would likely agree that KOTOR 2 has very inflated stats and gear: the player is able to get ludicrously high attributes between the high effective level cap, regular attribute bonuses from quests and companion dialogue, and upgrades that they (or companions!) can craft. Combine this with equipment which can provide nutty boosts to stats and you have a recipe for what KOTOR 2 is at present: a very inflated system that makes balancing difficult, and contributes to how easy the game is.

This I think is a pipedream perhaps even more than restoring mentor Atris, but I'd love to see a rebalance which pushes KOTOR 2 down a bit, back toward numbers which are a little more sane. It would take a lot of work though, especially for mod build inclusion, because patches for dozens of build mods would need to be created to stand alongside the mod, and it would need extremely rigorous testing. If anyone is interested in taking this on, please reach out to me first so we can brainstorm it together.

 

Assault on Khoonda Rework

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The Assault on Khoonda needs a general rework. Right now, the problems with the attack are multitudinous and include some consistency and bugfix needs as well, but it really boils down to a lack of player agency: no matter what the player does the fight plays out the same, attacking the same amount of defenders or repelling the same amount of attackers (just with or without a little bit of extra help), and ultimately either forcing their way inside Khoonda or getting forced back, regardless of how poorly/well they're doing. The sequence doesn't feel immersive; it's like true agency is being dangled in front of the player's face and then snatched away at the last moment.

This request contains a large but by no means comprehensive list of changes I think would be beneficial; I definitely welcome additional brainstorming and ideas, these are merely the things I know I'd like to see.

1. Total Win/Total Loss Conditions. If Khoonda either experiences a perfect defense or a perfect sabotage, it should be possible to forego most fighting: a completely sabotaged Khoonda should surrender to Azkul without a fight (how this is achieved--Adare fleeing, being offered up by her own citizens to Azkul, etc. I leave up to the modder). The same should broadly be true in the inverse: Azkul should send one wave in, however, and only after they're slaughtered should the mercenaries get cold feet leading to his second, Dopak, assassinating him and pulling the mercenaries out.

2. If Berun is put in charge of the militia, aside from losing out on the opportunity to get Zherron's unique mercenary quest there should be some actual, lasting consequences to his appointment, rather than Zherron simply being shunted back into the post the moment that the mercenary assault is imminent. Maybe Zherron should try to take matters into his own hands to stop the mercenaries and be killed in the process, leaving Berun the militia captain, but one who is much less efficient at defense, making the assault on Khoonda much easier (or defense much harder).

3. The above plays into another general request: more consequential impacts to your defense/sabotage. If you do a poor job in preparing for the defense you should have weaker militiamen who are pushed back more quickly, whereas if you did a good (but not perfect) job you should be able to hold the mercenaries to the outside of Khoonda, preventing them from ever reaching the interior and slaying Azkul "at the gates," as it were. Likewise, if the sabotage is performed well the militia should crumple quickly, preventing a fight in the interior from ever needing to take place.

4. There should be support for "no-win" graveyard scenarios: a scenario where you either support Khoonda or the mercenaries, but do such a bad job in preparation that you chosen side actually fails, and your opponents win. In that situation you should be forced to fight the other side to the last yourself, making a graveyard of Khoonda: no mercenaries, no militia. In this case Khoonda would be occupied by the salvagers, and no government, legitimate or otherwise, would rule Dantooine.

5. If you reprogram the Khoonda turrets to attack friendlies, in the intro cutscene it shows them still firing on the mercenaries. They should instead turn around and fire on the militia members.

6. If the mercenaries win, Tarn the Mechanic should be killed along with the other Khoonda government members, or at least be visibly under coercion to work, perhaps with a mercenary guard.

 

Patches & Submods:

NOTE: Just because I list a mod here for a patch request does not mean that open modification permissions have been given by the author! Some patches can be achieved through standalone patches that require the original mod to function, but some of them might require receiving permission from the original author to proceed!

To the authors of the mods that I am requesting patches for, the presence of any of your mods here is not a snub, please don't take it that way! I request patches in this way because I don't want to ask you to spend your time to make fixes to bugs that might not exist without interference from the mod builds, or changes you might not agree with. If you'd like to personally make these changes by all means I welcome it, but I place these requests here so as not to seem like I'm demanding you make adjustments personally on my behalf.

Finally, please also bear in mind that, though I'm requesting patches, there's nothing that mandates that the requested features have to be accomplished in the form of a patch. If you'd rather rework the entire setup from the ground up in a new mod, go for it!

 

TSLRCM Shuttle Enhancement

Spoiler

TSLRCM's usage of the shuttle leaves MUCH to be desired.

First of all, who the hell stands up in the back of a crash-landing shuttle? Give my people a bench or something! It would be less immersion-breaking to revert the TSLRCM change and have the cutscene play out without interruption if party members can't even sit down during the shuttle sequences!

Second, Atton's line delivery for the second shuttle shoot-down above the Polar Mesa is awful. Regardless of whether the 10,000 IQ party can discover the novel concept of "sitting down," this second sequence should be scrapped entirely if the lines can't be suitably redone with AI VO so the delivery isn't patently abysmal.

 

@Ol' Cappy's Companion Starting Armors

Spoiler

I really adore this mod, but as of right now it has four things which I'd like to see fixed/enhanced:

1. The benefits provided for each armor are just a little over-tuned. I'd ideally like to see the bonuses be small enough that it's worth switching off the starting gear no later than the first post-Telos planet, but bearing in mind that these are simple clothing sets with no DEX caps and oftentimes are instantly better than most early-game Jedi gear for those companions who are trained as Jedi, these items instead are usually good through midgame at least, and sometimes the whole game. Some users probably prefer that, but for balance and consistency I would rather most of the gear here see a nerf down to be less viable overall, something to switch out of even for those companions who are made Jedi.

2. Presently when the party is confined on Telos their gear is confiscated this new clothing is as well, and they're given basic clothing in its place. I'd prefer if they just kept this unique clothing equipped, if they were wearing it already.

3. In the workbench preview screen for each of these items they appear as regular clothing, rather than a unique preview model.

4. There are no unique icons for each set of clothes.

 

Endgame Integration with @Kexikus's Visually Repair HK

Spoiler

It doesn't do much right now, but I think it would make sense if HK's repair status played a role in his victory or defeat against G0-T0 on Malachor. I reckon that if the HK Factory is never found OR the HK factory is fully disabled, without the HK-51 production line with HK-47's behavior template coming online AND HK is repaired 2 times or less, G0-T0 overpowers him and successfully takes control of the firing of the Mass Shadow Generator.

Alternatively, maybe an outright duel between HK and G0-T0 could take place, where the player has to pick their combatant?

Either is acceptable, but I think tying Kex's mod into the success or failure of the sequence would be better than letting the player pick a combatant, both because nobody would ever pick G0-T0 and it's probably unrealistic to think G0-T0 could beat HK even if a player was controlling him.

 

@DeadMan's Quarterstaff Replacement Pack

Spoiler

I'm unsure on exactly which of these weapons it happens to, or indeed if this is a base mod issue or simply a strange interaction with the mod builds, but for some weapons (confirmed at least for the Geonosian Electro-Staff) there are strange 'point' shadows emanating from the tips of the weapons that stretch out into infinity. As I said I'm not sure of the origin of the problem, but I'd love to have it resolved.

 

TSLRCM HK Factory Patches

Spoiler

There are two issues with the HK Factory at present:

1. This may happen with the mod builds only, but there's a wall with a massive black shadow on it (potentially lightmap-related? I tested without the texture and it was fine) on a wall near the communications hub.

2. The three HK units who confront HK-47 on the upper floor of the factory (two, after HK one-shots the third) have a ludicrous amount of health. The HKs on the lower level got their health reduced to sane levels in 1.8.6, but these never did. It takes almost a full minute to kill either of them, it's simply unfun tedium. They need to have their health reduced down to levels to match the HKs in the lower level of the factory.

 

TSLRCM Visas Fight: Invisible Saber

Spoiler

Visas's lightsaber doesn't appear during the TSLRCM lightsaber combat training experience. Seems like it might be an error in the way it represents the hand-off between her and Kreia, when Kreia is supposedly examining the lightsaber before the fight. This may also be a new bug introduced with TSLRCM 1.8.6.

 

@Pavijan357's TSLRCM Tweak Pack

Spoiler

Pavijan restores Saedhe the militiaman's head to the vanilla KOTOR 2 version, reverting TSLRCM's change which made him white. I'm unsure of whether this issue stems solely from the Tweak Pack or was an extant issue with the basegame head (or even maybe an issue stemming from the mod builds), but Saedhe's eyelids are blank white presently, seemingly untextured. I'm hoping it's a quick & easy fix.

 

@Hassat Hunter's Kinrath Egg Bash Crystal Drop

Spoiler

Presently if you have low enough damage/chance-to-hit (for me, I tested with 8 STR & 8 DEX while dual-wielding two pretty bad vibroblades with master two-weapon fighting), you can cause many of the eggs to proc their red crystal drops multiple times, including before the eggs are actually destroyed. For balance reasons (money mainly) I want to avoid the potential of the eggs to drop multiple red crystals, and ensure that they only drop when the eggs are actually broken.

 

 TSLRCM Companion Training Revert

Spoiler

I would like better companion training in general, and requests for that are already present, but in the interim a very simple request I have is removing the ability to teach Affect Mind and Dominate Mind to companions. It's totally pointless to do so and should be removed just as a matter of saving time.

 

Quests & New Zones:

The Great Polar Academy Heist

Spoiler

This is based on a memory I had from when I was a child of being able to return to the Telos Academy and take the turbolift down to a lower level, looting Atris's stores of Ossus artifacts. I realize it for the false memory it is, but at the same time, hey, isn't that a really cool idea?

As I envision it, this would be an optional quest which would only be possible provided two conditions were met: Atris is not angry with you (you didn't get the "Leave this place, leave Telos" dialogue from her) and the Handmaiden came with you on your journey. In these conditions it should be possible for the player to return to the Polar Academy; this is the first part of the mod, and also the more difficult I feel: integrating the capacity to return to the Academy at will into the basegame. Atris would need to be able to talk to the Exile after they first parted, and to receive updates on the status of the lost Jedi; the Exile would need to be able to confront Atris about why the Handmaiden stowed away with the party (and maybe even to insist that the Handmaiden leave the ship, removing her as a companion); the Handmaiden would need to be shown being confronted (or maybe just being given the cold shoulder) by her sisters; and, if the Handmaiden broke her oath to Atris and was trained by the Exile, of course that would need to be addressed in some way (perhaps by Atris refusing to allow the player to return after that point?).

The second part of the mod is easier to achieve, I think, and simpler in premise. The idea is that, over the course of the campaign, the player gains access to items that they can coincidentally use to make a hole in Atris's security: an icebreaker that will knock out the security in the main hub near the turbolift, maybe; some booze Atris is very fond of that will knock her out, perhaps. The exact details I leave up to the modder, but the end result should be that, no earlier than perhaps halfway through the game, the player can return to the Academy, utilize all the materials they've gained to breach the security, then take the turbolift down rather than up to the mesa, winding up in the lower reaches of the Academy, store-rooms for Atris's Ossus artifacts which the player can then loot. Perhaps they can even interact with some Jedi holocrons.

Ultimately I think this is mostly just a fun little excuse to achieve something that I think should be in the basegame to begin with, namely the option to return to the Academy if in Atris's good graces.

 

Korriban Tomb Access Tunnels

Spoiler

David Gaider once commented that there were meant to be tunnels connecting the Korriban tombs which were cut from the game. This is reasonably logical; shafts for materials, oxygen and workers being cut to connect the various tombs makes sense, and mimics what was done for the great edifices of the pyramids. So why not put that concept to use in KOTOR 2?

I like the tombs being blocked off from the Valley of the Sith Lords, but I don't like the cocktease of not being able to access them at all when they were right there in the original game (a thing KOTOR 2 is often guilty of). I think it would be a nice feature to restore the access pathways leading to the other tombs, perhaps only by reaching the final room of Ludo Kressh's tomb, where you could perhaps find that one of the doorways there is an access portal not back out, as it is currently, but to the warren of tunnels that connect the tombs.

From there you could return to the various tombs which you visited in the first game--all looted already, obviously, but not without merit to visit. I leave the exact details up to any modder willing to take this idea on, but my thinking runs:

1. Marka Ragnos's tomb has the remnants of a ritual that the Sith in the final days of the Academy were trying to complete to sap strength from the corrupted tomb. This could prompt a dialogue with Kreia about any number of things, from the futility of trying to harness someone else's strength to the childish notions of power of the foolish Sith who contemplated the ritual.

2. Tulak Hord's tomb could have been damaged significantly, and a broken wall could reveal a hidden passage not accessible in the original game where his holocron resides, giving the player unique benefits.

3. Naga Sadow's tomb, obviously, would have the Star Map, and finally a hint about what Revan was doing during the Jedi Civil War, and where his armies may have come from. Obviously it would only be a hint, but it would finally let the Exile and Revan's stories connect a bit, even if only at the edges.

Ajunta Pall's tomb is the only one I have no real ideas for, since the specter might be alive or dead. Modder's discretion?

I know @JCarter426 had some ideas on this, so he might want to call dibs on this idea.

 

Shut Down the HK Factory Before Endgame

Spoiler

Rationally this should be possible. It doesn't make sense to wait for endgame once the player knows the location of the factory, nor does it really fit in with the endgame pacing. I'm guessing the reason this was left for endgame was that most dialogue related to it outside of the HK units themselves was associated with endgame, such as Atton's line about "where is Bao-Dur", and the expectation that Bao-Dur was meant to die there, even though this was not explicitly restored (and of course rationally Bao-Dur's death could not happen too early in the game).

Except I kind of don't think it matters whether or not Bao-Dur dies too early, as long as the remote continues to hang around. I think the structural benefit of being able to tackle the HK Factory whenever the player is ready for it outweighs the structural cost of losing Bao-Dur, most of whose dialogue and interactions are frontloaded anyhow. As such, I'd like to see it possible to send HK-47 and Bao-Dur to the factory whenever the player feels ready.

To the end of restoring Bao-Dur's death, @N-DReW25 has pointed me in the direction of audio files of Bao-Dur's "make my sacrifice matter" line with the background noise cleaned up which should be usable for the sequence, and can be reached out to for copies.

Finally, I think whether HK-47 comes back to the party or not upon completion of the factory should depend upon the player's influence with him, with him abandoning the player if he dislikes them too much, and subsequently only appearing on Malachor independently to deal with G0-T0.

 

Restore Dreshdae

Spoiler

Korriban is a criminally short planet in KOTOR 2, which I sort of understand given that it was a reused planet and they likely didn't want to seem like they were copying the whole thing with no innovation. But to the player neither outcome feels particularly good: it's either a short planet that's almost entirely a retread or a long planet that feels more egregious because it's a retread.

I feel like this could be largely ameliorated by making the way that the integration is done interesting, though, and that's where I stand on Dreshdae. My thought is that the player shouldn't be able to get into the dormitory section of the academy until they find a student badge on a corpse in Dreshdae, and Dreshdae itself, being much more untouched by Sion's Sith than the Academy, is even more visibly ruinous and wrecked than it. There could be datapads scattered around regarding the last days on Korriban and how bad things really got, as well perhaps as some Republic records from the postwar occupation detailing how little the Republic officers liked being on Korriban, how their patrols kept going missing and how poorly they did their jobs rooting out the Sith due to their dis-ease with the planet and rush to be gone. Together, it could paint a picture of both Sith and Republic incompetence; the former destroying their own Empire, the latter allowing the remnants to re-coalesce rather than finishing them when the opportunity was there.

 

Czerka Sucks

Spoiler

The sad truth is that Czerka's route on Citadel Station is absolutely one of the worst paths in the game presently. There is no mechanical, alignment or material benefit to siding with them; the Ithorians give a unique FP boost, they give MORE DS opportunities, and they give more credits as well as access to Samhan Dobo's unique shop, which antagonizing the Ithorians locks you out of. You even get less XP, because there's not the showdown at the Ithorian compound!

Czerka's entire setup on Citadel is broadly a copy-paste of the Ithorians' route, and I think a better solution is probably to have the first quest be shared between them as it is now (the droid intelligence) but then have Czerka diverge more--maybe cooperating with the Exchange completely instead of trying to eliminate them, and maybe with the final quest being to plant false evidence on Grenn to have him arrested while bribing politicians to strengthen Czerka's hold on the station and kick the Ithorians out entirely--doing so would let you enter the Ithorian compound freely and gain the plant samples needed for Samhan's quest, and maybe since Grenn is out of the picture you aren't jumped and Samhan completes the handover without issue, giving you more cash than the Ithorian route. These are just ideas and ultimately I leave it up to modder's discretion, but it's very clear that a serious rework of Czerka's situation is needed here.

 

Abandoned Ithorians

Spoiler

Presently it's possible to side with the Ithorians then try to leave Citadel Station, receive the call from Moza about them being under attack, and just... abandon them, leaving the station entirely. That is kinda weird to be honest, but if it IS to be allowed, there needs to be support for it: you see mercs openly gunning down Ithorians when you go to defend them, after all. This is a bald power-play on Czerka's part, and there should be huge consequences if you don't intervene. But instead if you do abandon them here you can return to Citadel later and nothing has changed, the Ithorians are just sitting around like nothing happened.

Either the Ithorian at the docks should not let you leave until you rescue Chodo (which is probably the most sensible thing to do) OR you should be able to abandon the Ithorians, but the situation on Citadel should be significantly changed when you return, with the Ithorian compound locked down, Czerka mercs patrolling the Ithorian and Residential compounds and a sort of cold war between the TSF in Entertainment and Docking and Czerka in Ithorian and Residential. Obviously that latter implementation would also need AI VO for Grenn and Lorso to talk about the state of affairs that's developed, and it should likely result in a much weaker TSF when the Sith invade, giving the player much fewer troops to support them.

 

Sion the Apprentice

Spoiler

One thing that always struck me as being a little odd was Sion's refusal to contemplate fighting Kreia at your side. Yes, he is broken to her will; yes, he craves her approval. For a player whom he's not romantically obsessed with there's no reason why he would ever choose them over Kreia; he despises the Exile in that case, rather than having a desire to protect them.

But, if he does latch on to the Exile and seek to protect them--at least if that Exile is DS--siding with them against Kreia makes sense. He does not want to die, and he does not want the Exile to die. Indeed, he wants to stay with her and protect her.

I think a DS female Exile who successfully erodes Sion's will twice in the fight with him should be able to persuade him that she is much stronger than he thinks she is, strong enough to be able to beat Kreia on her own, but that she demands Sion's allegiance and assistance regardless. This would set up an endgame where the Exile is the new Dark Lord of the Sith, with Sion as her apprentice, should he agree (this should still be a very, VERY hard persuade check).

This should also lead to Kreia having a bit of a melty. Her whole plan was to have you clean up her messes, after all: eradicating her failures while proving that you are her great success. If you spare her failure and make the same "mistake," she is going to be livid. Sparing and subjugating Sion in this way should lead to a torrent of anger from Kreia (one I'd be happy to write if that's helpful), and a much harder fight overall, as Kreia deems both Sion and the Exile as total failures and does everything in her power, far above and beyond her normal encounter with the Exile, to kill them both.

 

Give Me Back My Goddamn Lightsaber

Spoiler

I have never, ever, ever, EVER gotten over Atris keeping my lightsaber. It lives in my head rent-free. I know thematically the point is to move on from the past that saber represents, and in gameplay terms the goal is to keep the Exile away from having a saber for half a planet more, but man, COME ON! The way I roleplay my Exile, that saber represents the same defiance and certainty that they displayed the last time they faced the Council, and they would have wanted it back from Atris at all costs.

I know some content exists which lets you get the saber back already, but it has some problems with it: it's too easy to achieve and it doesn't take advantage of AI VO opportunities, which I think would probably be necessary to make this work well.

Stealing it really isn't an option (at least, unless this is integrated as part of the Great Polar Academy Heist request), which leaves only convincing Atris to give it to you willingly. I think you should only be able to convince her to give it to you if you promise your help to find the other Jedi and end the conversation on a good note (without her saying "leave this place, leave Telos"). In that event, she would be willing to let you 'borrow' the saber, to help defend you on your quest.

And I swear I will pound her fucking ass with it when I see her next.

Anyway this would need to be tied into the lightsaber quest as an alternate way to end the quest early; otherwise, you would just construct a new lightsaber as normal.

 

Ruined Enclave Landing Pad

Spoiler

At the ruined enclave, there should be a side path near where the entrance to the restored enclave is that lets you enter the ruined remnants of the landing pad--rationally it shouldn't be that difficult to access, and it's sure that some scavengers succeeded in doing so in the past. There shouldn't be much anything there (that's where the scavengers would've focused their looting, after all) but there could be some datapads detailing the attack and the death of some of the residents, such as the Twi'lek merchants. Something to drive home the damage a bit more personally, with people the player knew from the original game. I should emphasize, though, that the area needs to seriously be ruined--a lot of work would need to be done to dirty up the KOTOR 1 module to make including this viable.

 

Fake Holocron Salesman

Spoiler

You can buy the fake holocron from the lying salvager in the salvager camp on Dantooine, or intimidate him into giving it to you, but aside from disassembling it you can't actually do anything with it yourself. Well, that's no fun. It would be nice if a conniving player could try to use their authority as an ex-Jedi and "expert" to try to pawn the thing off on various merchants, ideally with different offers depending upon the merchant, and different outcomes (some of the more shady merchants might not appreciate it when they learn they've been tricked, let's say).

 

Local Mandalorians Unhappy About Murder

Spoiler

I don't know about you, but whether I'm part of an honor-bound warrior culture or not, I get a little upset when my compatriots are slain for no good reason.

If you slaughter the Mandalorians outside their camp before being forcibly escorted to Mandalore, the camp Mandalorians should refuse to trust you. They should be less willing to provide help (less information about dangers? scout won't mention the zakkeg?), provide worse rewards for you completing quests, and Canderous should require more proof of your worth to take you to Iziz.

 

Saedhe's Misdirection

Spoiler

It doesn't make any sense for Saedhe not to guide you in the direction of the Kinrath cave when he asks you to recover the atmospheric sensors. The listening devices were planted; the Khoonda Militia knows exactly where they are, Saedhe just can't get to them due to the explosion in the Kinrath population. Either with AI VO or a full revoice (revoice is probably more likely here given how limited his lines are) I'd like for him to instead spin a different yarn: the same story of the farmer, the swoop and suspected foul play, but instead of suggesting that he has no clue where the sensors are, he should instead suggest that he discovered a "trail of debris" leading toward the Kinrath cave, and suspects the sensors might've been taken by the Kinrath as "shiny trinkets." Additionally, if you enter the cave and kill the matriarch WITHOUT picking up the sensors (either because Saedhe wasn't talked to first or because the sensors simply weren't interacted with) and subsequently leave the module, Saedhe should be treated as having rushed in and gotten them himself during the calm, preventing you from being able to recover them yourself and get the reward/set up Zherron.

 

Three Captains Impact

Spoiler

If the player sides with Vaklu but does not complete A Matter of Leadership (the quest to eliminate the three captains) in the merchant quarter, there should be downsides during the assault on the Sky Bridge: less surviving Vaklu troops, better-equipped, more numerous and better-positioned defenders, and perhaps even turrets and more expansive minefields, representing a more coordinated defense as more of the military leadership stays loyal to the Queen.

 

Kiph the Slicer's Blocked-Off Room

Spoiler

There's a small area in the royal palace just outside the rooms which lead to where Kiph the slicer is, a room with a terminal outside it. If the player attempts to access the terminal Kiph attempts to blow it up, and all the player can do is lock the terminal down. Even though the room can be seen on the minimap, it's never accessible.

This is another thing that irrationally annoys me even though there's not much reason behind it: the map shows a room, I want to get at it. It'd be nice if a sufficiently high computer use could lead to not only locking Kiph out, but breaking the security on the door and letting the player access the (presumably unfinished) room beyond. Nothing too special needs to be put in it; it could just be a store room with a couple items for all I care, the consistency with the minimap is the important thing.

 

Helping Gormo

Spoiler

There is no real rationale why you would help Gormo the Duros get off of Onderon: if you're LS, you'd give the visas to the woman and her children and the Republic agent; if you're DS, you'd probably grab the Quixoni crystal and the 2000-credit offer from the merchant in the merchant quarter. There's no reason to give a visa to Gormo, with his paltry reward offer, when there are already two better LS and two better DS options. Ideally I'd like for Gormo's reward to be changed such that, if you save him, he agrees to work for Geeda on Nar Shaddaa and improve her stock even further. That would make players seriously step back and wonder what the best option is.

 

Batono Double-Deal

Spoiler

If, rather than killing Batono directly, you tell Lorso about it and get her to send mercenaries to intercept him, you should then be able to go to Grenn and divulge that Batono was killed by Czerka mercenaries, double-dipping the rewards from both Lorso and Grenn, in exchange for an additional cost of DS points. This would require AI VO for Grenn.

 

Restored Content:

 

 Tightened-Up Endgame

Spoiler

There's only so much that can be done here, of course, but again with the assistance of AI VO, some can. Some of Kreia's VO when confronting the Lost Jedi can be restored, based on VO which was recorded for Atris; Canderous can be given specific dialogue about leading the companions out from the Trayus rather than relying on repeat VO and splicing; and the companions he's leaving can have final conversations with the player, as is their nature begging them to come with them or wishing them well. Comparisons between Atris's written & recorded dialogue and what Kreia has available at the core could also lead to some specific VO from Kreia explaining her plans for the Force in more detail, which might benefit the coherence of the game as a whole.

 

Restore the Ravager's Crash into Citadel Station

Spoiler

Frankly, without the capacity of the Ravager to crash into Citadel Station, the presence (or absence) of their fuel reserves doesn't mean anything. Restoring the ability to crash makes your choices regarding their fuel actually matter, and also allows a dick Dark Sided player to intentionally doom Telos.

I figure there should be five outcomes:

1. Fuel is given to the Citadel and all four proton cores are placed: Ravager does not crash into the station, whether or not the fuel sabotage team is successful.

2. Fuel is given to the Citadel and less than four proton cores are placed, while the fuel sabotage team is defeated: Ravager does not crash into the station.

3. Fuel is given to the Citadel and less than four proton cores are placed, while the fuel sabotage team is allowed to succeed: Ravager does crash into the station.

4. Fuel is NOT given to the Citadel, all four proton cores are placed and the fuel salvage team is defeated: Ravager does not crash into the station.

5. Fuel is NOT given to the Citadel, and less than four proton cores are placed: whether or not the fuel sabotage team is successful, Ravager does crash into the station.

This would make giving fuel to the station actually meaningful, but not deterministic; a player who gives fuel to Citadel can still destroy the station via #3, while a player who does not give fuel to the station can still save it via #4.

Obviously this setup would require that it's possible not to place all proton cores, and would also need support for if the station was destroyed (perhaps a very bitter meeting with Carth, or Admiral Cede, on the bridge of the Sojourn?)

 

Scripting & Features:

Improved Improved AI

Spoiler

I'm sure that most are familiar with Stoffe's Improved AI. It's a great mod, though it has its problems--companions casting Force abilities when combat ends, for instance, as well as some overwrites which have made work that JC and I did on Thematic Korriban Tomb essentially nonfunctional, necessitating me removing it from the mod builds.

I know how large the AI scripts are, and how difficult it would be to make a comprehensive modification thereof. Stoffe was a legend for doing it at the time, and her work is all the more impressive given that it was basically the dark ages of KOTOR modding. But if anybody's insane enough to make a modernized version of her work with less bugs and--ideally--more features, such as accounting for different kinds of combos which the AI could utilize, I'd sing your praises

 

Expanded Bashing

Spoiler

I love the idea of KOTOR 2's loot bashing system, but I really despise how it only ever applies to consumables, which makes it barely a concern; players can always bash containers with no fear that they'll break any of the rarest and most valuable items in the game, effectively making security superfluous as a skill. I'd like it if the bashing system were expanded to include virtually all types of loot (except maybe body armors), so there's a real chance that using bashing as your means of entry will result in losing rare and valuable equipment.

 

 Uncertain Friends

Spoiler

Depending upon who you side with on the planets across the Republic, you should receive less support at the Battle of Telos. Vaklu hates the Republic and would not spare any of his soldiers to defend it, even to fight against Nihilus's forces; similarly, if Azkul, who was contracted by the Sith, is running things on Dantooine then Dantooine has all but seceded from the Republic, and he certainly wouldn't send men to die on its behalf. Putting either in power should remove their associated troops from the fight, and leave you with just the TSF and Mandalorian forces present for support. Ideally this should have knock-on consequences, like making it more likely for the Ravager to crash into Citadel Station (see the Restore Ravager Crash request for details) or making fights aboard the Ravager more difficult, simulating the many Mandalorian allies who died before you could even board the ship.

 

Unskippable Tutorial

Spoiler

The tutorial actually has some passingly useful information in it as regards the state of affairs you encounter on Peragus, and for use in the spoiler-free build I'd like a mod that makes skipping the tutorial impossible, so players absolutely have to complete it.

Bonus points if the same mod includes an install option that "de-tutorializes" the tutorial for returning players, requiring them to complete the same objectives but not badgering them with things like how to move or open doors.

 

Sith Assassin Suffering

Spoiler

I like torturing myself, but I enjoy torturing my players more. I'd adore a mod that uses scripting to randomize the location of the Sith Assassins that spawn on the Harbinger, so they can appear in a wide variety of pre-set locations, different each time and without the player being able to predict and pre-buff before each fight. The only requirement for this one is that it needs to be compatible with Lewok's version of Sith Assassins with Lightsabers.

 

Don't Steal from the Handmaidens

Spoiler

They're cold enough to you to begin with--they're probably not okay with you stealing their stuff. It should probably only be safe to loot the contents of the handmaiden quarters from stealth. Otherwise they will warn you once, and if you're detected again they should bar you from the dojo (move the Handmaiden herself outside so you can still talk to her, but auto-fail the training quest if not already completed).

 

Party Using Shields on Ebon Hawk

Spoiler

I'm not sure how practical fixing this would be, but if the player changes out the equipment of a party member on the Ebon Hawk the party member will activate any equipped shield when their equipment changes. It'd be nice if they didn't do that so they don't waste shield charges (and also so you don't get jumpscared by sudden shield activation noises).

 

Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth

Spoiler

Okay no not really. Conceptually. Because of how many characters are used during the endgame--including Handmaiden, Disciple, Atton, HK, Visas, Mandalore, and Mira, depending on circumstances--and because I'd like to ultimately add endgame sequences with additional companions over time, I think it would be nice to have a message pop up at some point after Kreia tells you to go to the Restored Enclave warning the player to equip the party in advance. Something as simple as "The Jedi gathering on Dantooine will make hiding from the Sith impossible. Affairs will move quickly, and perhaps out of your control; it would be wise to equip your party in advance, in case of the worst."

 

[N-DReW25 1,345]

 

Quote

Restored Disciple Holocron Quest

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Once the pipedream of all pipedreams, with the advent of AI VO the restoration of the Holocron quest, and possibly the salvation of the single most milquetoast character in the history of the universe, may finally be possible. This is one of my most-desired requests, as I think it has some of the biggest implications for the health of the story overall. I would love to see this completed, and @JCarter426 has done at least some work in this direction already.

I don't mean to ruin your ideal vision using AI, but VO was recorded for this... it's just that extensive scripting, placing waypoints, creating dialogue files, creating conditionals and potentially adding placeables jaded many modders from doing this in the past, myself included.

 

I don't think AI VO is necessary, unless JC says otherwise as I'm 99% sure he has the list of audio for such a project.

[Snigaroo 133]

34 minutes ago, N-DReW25 said:

I don't think AI VO is necessary, unless JC says otherwise as I'm 99% sure he has the list of audio for such a project.

I could be misremembering, but I spoke to JC about this a few months ago and from what I recall the consensus was that it could be done without AI VO, but it would be janky and imperfect. A lot of the VO was recorded, but not all of it and some of what's missing would require splicing, or lead to bumpy dialogue transitions or nonsensical sequences. JC can correct me if I'm thinking about a different project.

[Sith Holocron 2,491]

As someone that has spliced in the past, I'd say let the AI do it. 

[JCarter426 1,224]

On 5/10/2023 at 11:14 PM, Snigaroo said:

Restored Disciple Holocron Quest

I would love to see this completed, and @JCarter426 has done at least some work in this direction already.

I have made a fair bit of progress with this. I've created a system that makes it fairly easy for other mods to add new holocrons without requiring extra compatibility patches. I've achieved this by pacing acquisition of the holocrons similar to the lightsaber and Force forms, so which holocrons you receive depend on your character progression, rather than the order in which you visited the planets. The Disciple has reactions for generic Jedi and Sith holocrons, which would grant a random Force power or Force points similar to the dark taint in the Tomb of Freedon Nadd. My plan is for the base mod to include four Jedi and four Sith holocrons (i.e. three of each group of holocrons will have unique reactions and one will have the generic one). Any holocrons added by other mods would add to the count of generic holocrons without breaking anything.

What remains is to:

• Copy the same changes to the Disciple's Khoonda dialogue and modify it for the version with him there. I didn't want to do that manually, so I stopped working on it until a better option was available, and I think I have a good idea of how to write a tool to resolve this now.
• Finish the holocron models. I started some, but I forget what state I left them in.
• Implement cutscenes for examining the holocron, both on the Ebon Hawk and on Khoonda.
• Place each holocron and implement the discovery cutscenes.
• Finish the Disciple's Jedi training dialogue and implement the cutscene for it.
• Get multiple people to test the game.

I also of course plan to design the mod to be compatible with any male Exile & Disciple mods such as Party Swap and Handmaiden and Female Exile - Disciple and Male Exile Romance without much fuss.

On 5/10/2023 at 11:14 PM, Snigaroo said:

Comprehensive Lightsaber Mod

@JCarter426 is cooking something here and could use help, but with no disrespect intended to my co-author I'm not fully wedded to his concept. I think there are multiple ways to do a good saber mod, and whether in the form of assistance to JC or a standalone shot at it I would love to see some attempts made.

As I said in the K1 thread, I have a WIP thread here, but it's out of date. The gist of it is that lightsaber color crystals as they function now would be replaced with items that include both a hilt and a color crystal, which you can assemble with different hilts and colors to change the final model that is rendered in the game. This is a design a few other mods have executed, although I think what makes my implementation different is that I figured out how to do it with minimal computer terminal dialogue.

The K2 mod would have to be a little different from K1 because it's not possible to give every character a unique design, both for technical and thematic reasons. Technically, there is a limit of how many lightsaber models can be added to the game. Every color counts as a separate model, so there are trade-offs with the number of distinct hilts one wants to provide and the number of colors that can be made available for each hilt. Thematically, the game does not provide any "canon" lightsaber colors for the player or party members, and it feels wrong to me to lock most of them into specific hilt designs with that in mind. The up side of not assigning a distinct hilt to each party member is that hilts could then be available for any color.

Regardless, as in the K1 version, other NPCs like the Jedi Masters would have unique hilts, and there would lootable lightsaber items with unique hilts, such as Freedon Nadd's. There would also be "material" hilts that could be crafted by finding rare items throughout the game. Maybe the player and party hilts could be handled by providing more of those options.

My priority is to finish the K1 version before moving on to K2, but I would welcome any contribution for either game.

[darthbdaman 72]

For the BaB mod, this is possibly related  (though goes a lot further than you wanted);

This is the changelog for a feat mod I'm working on. It's for both K1 and K2, but fulfills the same function. There are a lot of changes in there, but most of them are minor consistency tweaks between the games, restorations, or small fixes, similar to JC's Feat Fixes. There is also a ton of QoL edits and description changes to make the games more new player friendly (and also old player friendly because the game does a really bad job explaining itself).

For K2, the major changes are restoring BaB and restoring the K1 style AC bonus feats. Instead of scaling forever, you just get the bonuses up to +6 at level 12. I've also stripped the bonuses from the Soldier and Jedi Prestige Classes (only Scoundrel, Droids, and Starting Jedi Classes get AC bonuses). This reduces player AC by 4-8 at level 30, without affecting the early game, but I'd like discussion on it.

I've made the Superior Weapon Focus and TwF feats generic. Now that BaB is restored, the Weapon Master and Marauder don't need them to stand out.

I've also tweaked the Saving Throws for most classes. Starting Jedi Classes are now in-between the Jedi and Sith prestige classes in terms of Saving Throws. I kept the Sith having slightly worse saves as I like it thematically, while making sure the Jedi Prestige classes get better saves than their base classes

[Lewok2007 49]

On 5/10/2023 at 11:14 PM, Snigaroo said:

Comprehensive Melee Model/Texture Improvement

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We have SithSpecter's incredible HQ Blasters, and about a billion lightsaber mods of every variety. We have AI upscales of every area in the game (of dubious quality though many are), and almost all the characters. What we most decidedly do not have is a comprehensive and high-quality texture (and, if necessary, model) improvement package for melee weapons, which seem to languish. At best there are a handful of standalones, but oftentimes these standalones aren't broadly respectful of the aesthetic design of the vanilla weapons, and even those that are only cover a small proportion of the weapons available ingame. This would be a major visual consistency improvement.

Already mentioned this with Snigaroo in the Kotor Discord Server's Mod Development Chat when this request thread released, but I am working on a Texture Enhancement on the Melee weapons. I have already completed the Stun Batons, and have the Plasma Torch, swords, and axes left to do, but if anyone has some suggestions of what I could do on the swords, I'd gladly take them. 

[Snigaroo 133]

2 hours ago, darthbdaman said:

For the BaB mod, this is possibly related  (though goes a lot further than you wanted);

This is the changelog for a feat mod I'm working on.

I'd need to play it myself to see, of course, but conceptually this sounds excellent. KOTOR 2's higher level cap and scaling make the game easier than it should be at basically any point after Telos, and lowered BAB on certain classes, plus reduced scaling AC, should help restore at least some of that difficulty. I'd be excited to try it, and even in the event I didn't like all changes it should--I hope--not be too difficult to create an install variant that contains just the changes desired for the builds.

[Snigaroo 133]

I've added a new request (Traya-to-Kreia). This one is pretty easy, I think.

[Thor110 518]

On 5/5/2024 at 10:41 AM, Snigaroo said:

I've added a new request (Traya-to-Kreia). This one is pretty easy, I think.

Easy would be an understatement, that took fifteen minutes to make and it only took that long because I had to make compatibility for the Kreia's Fall Cutscene (in-game) by danil-ch

It's 10.5mb's as it uses HoloPatcher

All this does is change the .utc files to Kreia's regular appearance value, I tested an install, which went fine, I manually verified the files had been updated, but I did not play through the cutscenes in question, so let me know how it plays out.

The info.rtf is practically non-existent.

 

Edit / Note : I think the Kreia's Fall In-Game Cutscene would actually need updating because of a slightly different model used with a custom animation, might be possible to just update the texture, I will take a closer look at it later on.

Edited May 9, 2024 by Thor110
File Deleted

[Snigaroo 133]

6 hours ago, Thor110 said:

it only took that long because I had to make compatibility for the Kreia's Fall Cutscene (in-game) by danil-ch

To change her appearance on Korriban? The Malachor appearance and the Ludo Kressh vision share the same .utc file?

[Thor110 518]

13 hours ago, Snigaroo said:

To change her appearance on Korriban? The Malachor appearance and the Ludo Kressh vision share the same .utc file?

I forgot about those. Not sure if her .utc file is identical but the same file name is used for the one on Korriban and one of the one's on Malachor, so it still might be feasible that way.

Malachor 904mal uses n_darthtraya001.utc

Malachor 907mal uses p_kreia_evil001.utc and p_kreia_evil002.utc

Korriban 711kor uses p_kreia_evil001.utc

Is there another module that has Darth Traya in it?

Though I just checked in-game how changing just her appearance number looked for the Kreia's Fall Cutscene (in-game) by danil-ch and it wasn't perfect.

So instead here is a version that just directly changes the model to use her original texture, not really sure what the best approach is to be honest, probably this.

Looked alright to me in-game in the fall cutscene, will work on Korriban as well.

 

Edited May 6, 2024 by Thor110
File Deleted

[Snigaroo 133]

7 hours ago, Thor110 said:

So instead here is a version that just directly changes the model to use her original texture, not really sure what the best approach is to be honest, probably this.

That would change every appearance of Traya in the game to Kreia, correct? I don't want her appearance on Malachor changed--much as I think it's likely an artifact of LucasArts mandating there be a big bad at the end, it would be much too significant a thematic alteration for mod build inclusion. If the description of the request wasn't clear enough I apologize, but I only wanted the change for the vision appearance in the tomb.

[Thor110 518]

5 hours ago, Snigaroo said:

That would change every appearance of Traya in the game to Kreia, correct? I don't want her appearance on Malachor changed--much as I think it's likely an artifact of LucasArts mandating there be a big bad at the end, it would be much too significant a thematic alteration for mod build inclusion. If the description of the request wasn't clear enough I apologize, but I only wanted the change for the vision appearance in the tomb.

It certainly wasn't very clear but never mind.

This just changes her appearance in the level 711KOR.

TrayaToKreiaUTC2.7z

[Snigaroo 133]

On 5/6/2024 at 6:14 PM, Thor110 said:

It certainly wasn't very clear but never mind.

Did you read the details of the request in the thread OP? The name of the request definitely makes it sound like I wanted a wholesale change and I could've picked a much better shorthand, but the OP description talks about the specifics in the case of each request. I try to do it that way to keep the thread from being cluttered with a bunch of details within the comments.

Thanks very much for the work, I appreciate it.

[Thor110 518]

1 hour ago, Snigaroo said:

Did you read the details of the request in the thread OP? The name of the request definitely makes it sound like I wanted a wholesale change and I could've picked a much better shorthand, but the OP description talks about the specifics in the case of each request. I try to do it that way to keep the thread from being cluttered with a bunch of details within the comments.

Thanks very much for the work, I appreciate it.

I apologize I did not look at the request in the OP, though I have just read it.

If there is anything else you feel should be added or changed about it, feel free to let me know and in the meantime I will take a look at your other requests.

Edit : Malachor Mine Visibility Fix I have also taken care of and will be available at https://deadlystream.com/files/file/2459-no-mines-on-malachor-only-gas/ once it has been approved.

 

Edited May 9, 2024 by Thor110
No Mines On Malachor, Only Gas!

[Snigaroo 133]

10 hours ago, Thor110 said:

Edit : Malachor Mine Visibility Fix I have also taken care of and will be available at https://deadlystream.com/files/file/2459-no-mines-on-malachor-only-gas/ once it has been approved.

That's great, I'm glad it's out before the next version of the K2CP is finalized, I'm hoping JC might want to integrate it. It's such a small thing but it's always bugged me.

[Thor110 518]

19 minutes ago, Snigaroo said:

That's great, I'm glad it's out before the next version of the K2CP is finalized, I'm hoping JC might want to integrate it. It's such a small thing but it's always bugged me.

I've given permission for it and a range of my other mods to be used if they wish to do so.

Surprised no one had covered this yet to be honest, but there's so much to fix it's easy to overlook things.

[Snigaroo 133]

As shocking as it is for me to believe this myself, I just put up by my count north of 115 mod requests. Blame Obsidian for making a flawed masterpiece--emphasis on the flawed.

[Sith Holocron 2,491]

2 hours ago, Snigaroo said:

As shocking as it is for me to believe this myself, I just put up by my count north of 115 mod requests. Blame Obsidian for making a flawed masterpiece--emphasis on the flawed.

May we assume these are things you're requesting for the build after the imminent one?

[Snigaroo 133]

3 hours ago, Sith Holocron said:

May we assume these are things you're requesting for the build after the imminent one?

Yes, testing is completed for the current build so mods completed as part of these requests won't be tested for implementation until the next build iteration, which will probably begin testing work sometime around November of this year. So 10 months roughly before I am going to be pulling new testing material.

[Thor110 518]

On 5/11/2023 at 4:14 AM, Snigaroo said:

Malachor is Toxic

  Reveal hidden contents

Outside the Trayus, anyway. This would give another zone where Breath Control is useful, which makes it feel less like a one-trick pony, and would also contribute to the otherworldly and dangerous feeling of the planet as a whole. The gas mines that sit on the vents can be replaced with plasma mines instead, which will also ramp up the difficulty.

 

Consider that taken care of which you already know but posting here so people see it's taken care of, uploaded it a moment ago, awaiting authorisation.

On 1/5/2025 at 11:18 AM, Snigaroo said:

As shocking as it is for me to believe this myself, I just put up by my count north of 115 mod requests. Blame Obsidian for making a flawed masterpiece--emphasis on the flawed.

There are a lot of requests! Some really cool sounding ones as well, I really should take the time to read through them all at some point.

[Snigaroo 133]

52 minutes ago, Thor110 said:

Consider that taken care of which you already know but posting here so people see it's taken care of, uploaded it a moment ago, awaiting authorisation.

I've just approved it, thanks Thor! I've also marked that request as fulfilled in the OP.

[N-DReW25 1,345]

On 5/11/2023 at 1:14 PM, Snigaroo said:

Low-Poly Quarren Fix

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There's a Quarren in the Nar Shaddaa entertainment module who uses the low-poly Quarren model from the original game, likely intentionally as a point of differentiation from the aliens around him, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be nice if alternate Quarren textures could be made that could then be situationally mapped to Quarren, allowing them all to use the higher-poly model but appear more consistently visually distinct.

 

I haven't read through all of your newest requests, so I don't know what else I might've already made or can make but I do know for a fact that the Low-Poly Quarren fix is already included in Bug Fix Collection for TSL.

 

My bug fix collection is essentially the K2 equivalent of my Unofficial K1CP Tweak Pack mod wherein it fixes bugs that weren't fixed by TSLRCM or the K2CP mod, if K2CP were to update and fix bugs I've already fixed I would update my mod to remove said fixes so that players can continue to use TSLRCM, K2CP and the Bug Fix Collection together.

 

I do believe there might be some features of my mod that could potentially conflict with the build (albeit unlikely) or possibly your vision for the build, and if you find them I'd be happy to hear your feedback for any suggestions I could possibly make.

[Snigaroo 133]

9 minutes ago, N-DReW25 said:

I haven't read through all of your newest requests, so I don't know what else I might've already made or can make but I do know for a fact that the Low-Poly Quarren fix is already included in Bug Fix Collection for TSL.

This adds different textures for the Quarren which differentiates them? Because while the request might sound like it's just fixing the Quarren being the low-poly model, the issue is differentiation in this case--in conversations with @JCarter426 he thought that the low-poly model was used there specifically because it looked different to the other Quarren also sitting at the table, to avoid the impression of multiple identical Quarren being next to one another. I tend to think he's right in this case, which was why I was aiming for texture variation in addition to the model improvement.