Kotor 1 (GoG) Reverse Engineering

[Lane 35]

Hi @Salk

I know what your talking about! The load behavior of a main menu load, a hard load (load game menu in game), an autosave load, and a quick load all have subtle but important differences. 

This has actually come up in the speedrun world a few times. For example, the effect duration glitch (in which they last a long time) only happens if you have previously loaded a hard save in this session (as that messes up the global timers). 

There's a variety of other small differences, between these functions; most of which I haven't dug too deeply into. But I'm unsurprised you've run into this before. 

If you could provide an example of a specific script related issue that performs differently for different loads (to use as a reference point), I'd be happy to mount a bit of an investigation into it when I get the time. As mentioned above, it's a busy time of year so this may be backlogged a bit.

I'd also be happy to field any other questions! 

Thanks, Lane

[DarthParametric 3,910]

If it messes with timers, then I imagine anything related to OnHeartbeat events for placeables/modules/user defines would experience the sort of issues described.

[Salk 435]

Hi again, @Lane!

Yes, I strongly suspect that anything messing with timers is going to cause problems for the two different kinds of game loading processes that I was talking about. I'm not sure I would say I noticed anything particularly different between loading from autosave and loading from a quick save or from the main menu. 

Perhaps I was not very clear with what I was trying to say but where I did notice a difference is between loading a saved game (of any kind) the first time after running the game (running the game's exe) and loading the same saved game again. 

As DP suggested, I think the OnHeartbeat and possibly the OnSpawn functions are affected, meaning that they don't really happen in the same sequence in the two different scenarios.

I also give you a very interesting (and possible to reproduce) situation that I investigated recently: for some reason, the game makes the headgear worn by some NPCs invisible in certain specific conditions. The outcome is somehow linked to loading the area.

To reproduce this, you can take a look at the Sith Governor on Taris at the Sith Base (tar09_darkjedi001) that should be waring a neurasl amplifier mask (g_i_mask10). The area module is tar_m09ab.

What makes it invisible is if you are controlling the Player PC character when you enter the module for the first time. If you are controlling the Player PC character (which is the normal thing to do) when you take the elevator to reach the second floor of the Sith Base where the Governor is or if you are using the console to warp there then the mask will be invisible UNLESS there are no other party members with you. In that case, it will show. It will also show if there are other party members and you warp there or access the area via elevator controlling one of the party members (it does not matter if it is one or ther other or if there are two party members or only one with you).

Cheers!