K1 Restoration Demo Feedback

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

I usually don’t bother with mod feedback, as I figure it will be taken simply as negative feedback and therefore go unused. But I started replaying KOTOR recently for something I’m working on and decided to install this mod. Usually when I play any game or mod, I usually can’t help but think of things that I would do differently, especially if I see something that I think has a lot of potential. But that’s where it ends, in that I either think about it, maybe write it down somewhere, and that’s it.

 

This time instead of having it rattle around in my head to distract me, I’ve decided to offload it here instead  .

 

Major Bugs:

 

When I downloaded the mod here from DeadlyStream, there was no mention of the known bugs for the mod, like the fact that I can do the arena fights, all except for Bendak Starkiller. Realising that it would not trigger and wanting to proceed with the game, I did a search and finally came by the info that this was a known bug that a patch was in the works for.

 

If this is a long standing known bug, then you should add this to the mod description so that people don’t download this and then are disappointed when they find that they can’t do certain things. Going through the arena and NOT being able to fight and kill Bendak, claiming the prize money and collecting his bounty… was a major downer .

 

Also, this is something that you should have released a patch for ASAP! Especially as I doubt that I’m the only one that likes doing the arena fights on Taris.

 

Lower City “Vigilantes”:

 

I installed the mod having already played through to the Lower City area, so, whatever changes before that I can’t speak of. However, what I can speak of are the added civilians to the Lower City areas. It’s nice to have the added people, especially those you can see across speeder lanes, however, I find that some of them are armed and will jump into combat with you which I find kinda perplexing.

 

Frankly, it ruins my “suspension of disbelief” when this happens and it needs to be resolved. Either you remove the armed civilians so they no longer will jump into combat, or, you give them a reason why there are doing so. On the uppermost level of Taris (North) there is an old bigot (Gorton Colu) preaching against the aliens and mentions his Anti-Alien League. These armed civilians could very well be sympathizers and members of the AAL considering that they are all humans; this could be made clear by giving them a unique look in the way of armor – with an AAL upper armband, something fascist perhaps along the lines of a red, white and black colour schem.

 

I would also add unique floating dialogue to reinforce it as well, maybe even a check to see if you have aliens as part of your group:

 

• “Have you heard Gorton speak?”
• “Join the Anti-Alien League to preserve our purity.”
• “I joined the Anti-Alien League to make a difference.”
• Aliens present in your party: “Alien loving scum!”
• Aliens present in your party: “Alien sympathizers are the worst kind.”
• Aliens present in your party: “You and aliens are a cancer to Taris.”

 

Regardless, leaving them as is doesn't really add much but kind of takes away from the experience.

 

Black Vulkar Base Extension:

 

FYI Minor bug: having already gotten the swoop accelerator, the added journal quest note stating you have the pass is irrelevant. Essentially there is no way to complete this so the entry persists even after Taris is bombed.

 

BTW Minor Change: the malfunctioning droid that you can repair that will then “patrol” really needs to patrol not just wander a small area. It should move along the corridor of doors along the spice-lab side; moving all the way down to the end and back. That way the player can use the strategy of using a stealth’d character to wander down and open each door in turn prior to the droid showing up to clear the rooms out. The way it is currently, it doesn’t really do much.

 

As much as I appreciate a new area to play that offered a decent challenge, I can see why this was cut, as it makes no sense at all and is superfluous in nature – I’m kinda wondering whether it was worth not being able to finish the arena and bounty quests, to be honest. Essentially, by the time you get down to the level, you’ve probably already taken care of everyone in the upper level and probably retrieved the swoop accelerator from the garage – like I did. So getting the spice from the lab, and trading it to the mechanic, is kind of pointless and not to mention, odd.

 

First off, his hands are freakishly big and that puts me off as I immediate see this and it breaks the illusion / immersion created for the game. Also, the fact that you need to infiltrate into the lower levels of the base in order to talk to him to get the pass card, well, that just makes no sense as clearly you don’t need his help anyway. It’s especially odd if you’ve pretty much wiped out everyone up until that point and then you walk into the rec room where no challenges you’re presence.

 

Not sure what was restored and added, but I repeat, I can see why it was cut .

 

For this to work and be more logical, you need to change a bunch of things. One, you need to move this mechanic – along with changing his body model or something – so that he is now in the cantina looking to score spice; not in the Vulkar rec room. You will probably have to change his dialogue, as in, record new dialogue along with re-record (edited) dialogue he may already have; then again, maybe what is there will work just fine – I didn’t pay too much attention to what he said to be honest, and I can’t recall his name either.

 

He will mention that he is willing to provide you with the pass card so as to get into the garage area of the base in exchange for spice – and he wants a lot of it, like the uncut block / package a dealer would get, as he plans on getting out of Taris for good.

 

However, for this to work you will need to make more changes:

 

-          You will need to add a third (or is that second?) way of getting into the base, one that is more expedient in getting you to the Vulkar base garage. Though spatially perhaps a bit of a stretch, there is a door at one end of the Swoop Platform that is guarded by 2 Sith Soldiers. What I would do is alter this so that the door leads to the Black Vulkar base garage level, with the Sith guards there to keep the peace as it were. They may lament that they are being wasted on guard there, but the idea is that the Sith know how important the race is to the locals, and know making sure it goes accordingly is good for their occupation of Taris. Pretty sure there is a sealed door in the garage that may or may not have a turret guarding another door that can be used to make the link. Like the Undercity elevator, the Sith will check to see if you have a pass card in order to enter the Black Vulkar base swoop bike to track service elevator.

 

-          On trying to retrieve the swoop accelerator, the Black Vulkars in the garage should as usual, turn against you if you do not accept their counter offer. The rest of the Vulkars will ignore you assuming that you are a mechanic. Only in certain situations, where you trip an event – like breaking into the spice lab and either failing the dialogue checks or deciding to kill them – will the entire base turn against you. Or to keep it more simple, if you haven’t gone one of the other ways in, then the turrets on guarding the elevator down will trigger the alarm (so to speak) and everyone will turn against you.

 

-          Add an event to one of the empty apartment rooms, where you stumble upon a drug deal going down between the Black Vulkars and some of the Hidden Bek. Along with adding more “grey” to the situation, in clearly some elements of the warring gangs are in league with one another. It also provides you with a package of spice without having to actually infiltrate the base to acquire it from the lab – you can, but, the spice package there should be more of a bonus. As the Vulkars tend to be aliens, you can use them for the cutscene dialogue to indicate that you’ve seen more than they are happy to let you live with – their complicity with the some of the Hidden Beks in steeling some of their own spice to sell to them – prior to attacking you.

 

-          On getting into the base via the spice-route, if you make your way through the base you should be able to come across the mechanic in the rec-room where all the other mechanics are off their faces on spice – you’ll need to change their floating dialogue along with adding new dialogue for the bartender who will lament at the craziness going on and how no one is buying drinks on account of the spice. If you really want to add something special, you would add some dialogue via a cutscene for the group of Vulkars outside who have realised that all the mechanics are high and have put things together in regards to the missing spice that members of the gang had taken in order to sell to make money on the side. They think the Mechanic stole it and are about to go in to make an example of him. You can stop them if you like, and then use the fact that you did so to get the Mechanic to hand back the spice, wait for them to kill him and then go in and kill them, collecting the spice, and a third option, kill them before they do so and then going in and threaten or kill the Mechanic for the spice in order to get it back along with dark-side points.

 

-          Lastly, you will need to add / modify dialogue and checks for Mission. If you did the above, then it would be possible to essentially finish Taris without ever adding Mission and Zaalbar to your party. So in order to change this, you need to script it so that the Mechanic, will only appear because Mission will take you to him after you’ve helped her save Zaalbar. Essentially, she then allows for two ways into the base, and as you can find Zaalbar relatively quickly without having to do all of the Undercity or sewer system, you can then head on up to the cantina if you have the spice already, and cut a deal with the Mechanic. This ensures that you have Mission along with Zaalbar in the group BEFORE this option can be triggered.

 

Some suggested dialogue for Revan and Mission if you have the spice in your possession:

 

• Revan: “So Mission, you seem like a… fun girl. Have you ever tried spice?
• Mission: “Spice! I never touched the stuff but that shutta Lena seemed to live off it…”
• Revan: “Do you know anyone who’ll buy it, and buy it big?”
• Mission: “Maybe this slime-ball I know, a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. Usually spends his time in Javyar’s Cantina in the lower city. I only know because the scuzbucket came on strong one night in the cantina. Before Zaalbar came along and threatened to rip his… *limb* off if he didn’t leave me alone, he said that he had as much spice as a Taris girl could ever need.”
• Revan: “He doesn’t sound like he’s buying, more like he’ s selling,”
• Mission: “He’s a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. He’s a little man who likes to talk big when he’s had one too many Tarisian ales.”
• Revan: “Mission, I need to meet with him as I think I have something he needs that’ll get us into the Black Vulkar base.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar NOT saved: “Yeah… Look, I’d be happy to but first you gotta help me get Zaalbar back. You promised!”

              -  Revan – Zaalbar NOT saved: “OK. A deals a deal, we’ll help you get Zaalbar but you have to keep your side of the bargain, Mission.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar NOT saved: “Thanks, me and Z will be glad to help once we get him back from those sewer smelling Gamorreans.”

 

              -  Mission – Zaalbar saved: “You got it, he should be in the cantina right about now. We should head to Javyar’s to speak with the slimey worm.”

 

Spice Trafficking:

 

The spice trafficking angle addition to the game I think is something that can be expanded upon and really add a good deal to the greyness of the game world. At the very least I would make it possible to sell any surplus spice to at least one NPC if not more than this. Also, Davik’s base has a spice-lab, yet, NO spice! I would add another opportunity to collect spice here for later re-sell; perhaps 2 parcels this time instead of one. All up that would make 4 parcels to offload to potentially 4 different contacts on 4 different planets out of 5 possibilities:

 

-          Dantooine: Shuma the Hutt seems the obvious choice here as it seems this character isn't used for much. Also, Shuma is cut off from his business dealings and would be open to a little spice trafficking to make some credits in the meantime – turn a bad situation into a profitable good one. This is the hardest to offload at a good price, because Shuma has to build a network to distribute the spice on Dantooine whilst doing it all under the noses of the Jedi. Also, you need to be a very persuasive talker to drive a hard bargain with Shuma – however, there is perhaps the possibility of blackmailing Shuma later by suggesting that you will inform on him and that the Council will believe you over him as you’re a Jedi.

 

-          Tattooine: Motta the Hutt is the obvious choice here, and is unlikely to allow any other players into his market. So, this is the main contact to offload the spice to. Being a Hutt, it will be a hard bargain to strike with the Hutt, however, obviously the Hutt knows that the spice has dried up and that you can in the interim, supply him so that he can cater to his patrons – worn out miners. Though, perhaps an intelligence test for dialogue should be in place, to reach an option of getting what it’s worth – because the player is smart enough to realise they have the upper hand in the situation – along with another persuade dialogue choice test to see if you can get even more out of the Hutt.

 

-          Tattooine - Alternative: another option is Griff, the schemer and con-artist, who says he knows some guys who are desperate to buy – makes the claim that the only other person is Motta who will buy it and he will pay half of what he can get for it. If you give it to him he then disappears, later, you can come across his body on Tattooine – or elsewhere like Korriban, but as long as it is somewhere appropriate like a back alley or secluded area. You can go with either him having overdosed on spice or having been robbed and executed due to the spice. To avoid any required Mission dialogue, you can have a check to make sure that she is not present; once he is spotted and examined, he should never appear again for similar reason. Or to be really simple, he just never shows up again having ripped the player off and leaving Mission behind again – this will of course affect the Taris ale quest. The downside to Griff is that there is NO recorded dialogue for this; not that it’s a big deal for such a small part of the game that can have a BIG end impact on the player.

 

-          Kashyyyk: there is no Hutt here I recall, however, there is Czerka. They use the spice in order to subdue and placate the enslaved Wookies – apparently once they get a taste, they go made crazy for the stuff. Their main supplier drying up – a front pharma company for the Exchange – means that they desperately need spice for their Wookie slave operation. They should provide the best remuneration for your efforts, in that for them they are willing to pay any cost in that the Wookie slave trade to them is far more valuable and they need to keep it going to remain profitable. The negative here is if Zaalbar is present he will not like the idea at all, who can have a wide and diverse conversation with the player on the account that he has all the recorded dialogue he needs. The idea here also is that the Wookies are “natives” who are being taken advantage of due to the (human) outsiders and their self-indulgent diseases; kind of like how various aboriginal societies became destroyed once colonists arrived bringing with them alcohol. Something for Zaalbar to go on about at least along with the obvious angry rant about helping Czerka keep his people enslaved – you may wish to have this part of the discussion initiated after the sell, where you give various options via dialogue, one being to inform Zaalbar that it won’t come to that, implying you wanted their credits but plan on taking Czerka down in the long-term.

 

-          Manaan: the obvious choice is whoever runs the cantina, however, that is too obvious. I would go with the hotelier Ignus, the proprietor of the Visitor’s Hotel. He sells spice under the front-desk counter to his hotel guests, some of whom have discerning expensive tastes – spice. Downside is a lack of recorded dialogue, but the upside is that I don’t think it would matter all that much. You should be able to get a descent price from him, and persuade him to pay even more – his hotel seems a little empty, perhaps it’s because he no longer can offer his guests what they really need and want from him..? You could add a risk in the form of a Manaan security sting drug-bust. Not sure how it would work exactly, as I think due to the circumstances, you couldn’t fight your way out. However, maybe you could persuade or force persuade your way out of it – by persuading, you lose your ill-gotten gains, by force persuading, you get to keep the credits as well. Not sure what the negative is if you fail both, other than being thrown in jail and I’m not sure how you would get out of that without having to script a lot of stuff like a trial. Perhaps instead you also need to bribe the person arresting you by paying a “fine” of say 500 credits; or whatever you have in way of credits if you don’t have that much.

 

-          Korriban: Mika Dorin the Rodian running The Drunk Side cantina (or his partner Ziagrom) are the obvious choices due to the cantina; Mika would want to offer spice to his diverse patrons ranging from bounty hunters, assassins, smugglers and Sith. He can also freely do so as the Sith don’t care as long as you are not selling it within the Academy. This means that you can get a fair price for it, perhaps more with haggling, but there are more suppliers for Korriban due to the high number of smugglers; so, the loss of Taris as a supplier will be less heavily felt. Maybe another option is to add some dialogue to a Sith Archaeologist, who will pay you more so as to provide spice to the Sith apprentices who once have begun their training, don’t get to go outside and visit the cantina on a regular basis any more – and get strung out because they can’t feed their habits. This will net you more credits, however, the Sith have a strict no spice policy within the academy. That means that the risk is huge, especially if you tie it into the other students being able to potentially blackmail you latter; the flip side might be that you can bribe one of the students with the spice in order to get the upper hand in passing the trials there.

 

I would also add a contact / opportunity on Taris to offload one of the parcels for a quick sell – maybe the Sith at the cantina want some for their party, or, one of the Tarisian nobles is willing to pay for it with some “pocket change” from their deep pockets – however, doing so means that you end up only getting half to a quarter of what the package is potentially worth.

 

The idea is that Taris is a major producer and supplier of spice, not the only place it is made, but a big player in the market – maybe due to Davik being part of the Exchange. Once the Sith bomb the place, this ends up cutting the supply to the galactic market – or at least to certain planets due to trade routes. This means that the current demand for it is under-supplied, and that means, that the price of spice goes up! In time the demand will be filled by other producers within the region seeing an opportunity to aggressively expand on their market share. In the meantime, the player having accumulated these packets of spice, is in a position to make some quick credits with a little risk attached and dark side points as well.

 

Making the changes I suggest for Taris, or similar ones with similar effect, would improve what is currently available greatly. As though it adds new areas to “play” to earn experience points, what it adds via story undermines what else takes place in Taris. If you were to add a spice trafficking element to the game where you need to find buyers of this spice, I think it would add a lot to the game in creating a more grey KOTOR world for the player to explore. It also makes better use of what takes place in Taris, along with, giving another reason for the player to visit other planets in order to complete the Spice Trafficker side-quest. This kind of quest for KOTOR are the ones I am more fond of, in that they start on one planet and end on another; making the game feel far more nonlinear and open-world in style, yet, tightly integrated together without really being so.

 

There’s my feedback. Take it or leave it, up to you .

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

Opps, posted this in the wrong part of the forum... Can't delete it but maybe a moderator can move it... ?

 

Hassat Hunter; Done

Edited September 7, 2013 by Hassat Hunter

[MrPhil 58]

• Mission: “Maybe this slime-ball I know, a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. Usually spends his time in Javyar’s Cantina in the lower city. I only know because the scuzbucket came on strong one night in the cantina. Before Hanharr came along and threatened to rip his… *limb* off if he didn’t leave me alone, he

Uh, Zaalbar, right?

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

Yeah, I keep on getting those two mixed. Unfortunately all Wookies look the same to me .

[Fallen Guardian 27]

Just wanted you to know I read through most of your post and really appreciate the suggestions I've seen so far. I don't have time to respond in-depth at the moment but I should be able to later tonight.

[Fallen Guardian 27]

Ugh, I'm so sorry. Well, here's my reply, really late.

 

I usually don’t bother with mod feedback, as I figure it will be taken simply as negative feedback and therefore go unused. But I started replaying KOTOR recently for something I’m working on and decided to install this mod. Usually when I play any game or mod, I usually can’t help but think of things that I would do differently, especially if I see something that I think has a lot of potential. But that’s where it ends, in that I either think about it, maybe write it down somewhere, and that’s it.

 

This time instead of having it rattle around in my head to distract me, I’ve decided to offload it here instead  .

 

Major Bugs:

 

When I downloaded the mod here from DeadlyStream, there was no mention of the known bugs for the mod, like the fact that I can do the arena fights, all except for Bendak Starkiller. Realising that it would not trigger and wanting to proceed with the game, I did a search and finally came by the info that this was a known bug that a patch was in the works for.

 

If this is a long standing known bug, then you should add this to the mod description so that people don’t download this and then are disappointed when they find that they can’t do certain things. Going through the arena and NOT being able to fight and kill Bendak, claiming the prize money and collecting his bounty… was a major downer .

 

Also, this is something that you should have released a patch for ASAP! Especially as I doubt that I’m the only one that likes doing the arena fights on Taris.

 

 

Yeah, we'll definitely add that there's a problem with it in the description. Looking back, we probably should've released a patch ASAP for things like that, but we didn't anticipate the patch as a whole to take so long. As it stands, we're so close to releasing a patch that fixes everything we'll just wait until then.

 

 

Lower City “Vigilantes”:

 

I installed the mod having already played through to the Lower City area, so, whatever changes before that I can’t speak of. However, what I can speak of are the added civilians to the Lower City areas. It’s nice to have the added people, especially those you can see across speeder lanes, however, I find that some of them are armed and will jump into combat with you which I find kinda perplexing.

 

Frankly, it ruins my “suspension of disbelief” when this happens and it needs to be resolved. Either you remove the armed civilians so they no longer will jump into combat, or, you give them a reason why there are doing so. On the uppermost level of Taris (North) there is an old bigot (Gorton Colu) preaching against the aliens and mentions his Anti-Alien League. These armed civilians could very well be sympathizers and members of the AAL considering that they are all humans; this could be made clear by giving them a unique look in the way of armor – with an AAL upper armband, something fascist perhaps along the lines of a red, white and black colour schem.

 

I would also add unique floating dialogue to reinforce it as well, maybe even a check to see if you have aliens as part of your group:

 

• “Have you heard Gorton speak?”
• “Join the Anti-Alien League to preserve our purity.”
• “I joined the Anti-Alien League to make a difference.”
• Aliens present in your party: “Alien loving scum!”
• Aliens present in your party: “Alien sympathizers are the worst kind.”
• Aliens present in your party: “You and aliens are a cancer to Taris.”

 

Regardless, leaving them as is doesn't really add much but kind of takes away from the experience.

 

We've already worked on a fix to make them less... trigger-happy. The anti-alien league is a good idea, but it's a bit outside of what this mod intends to do.

 

 

Black Vulkar Base Extension:

 

FYI Minor bug: having already gotten the swoop accelerator, the added journal quest note stating you have the pass is irrelevant. Essentially there is no way to complete this so the entry persists even after Taris is bombed.

 

BTW Minor Change: the malfunctioning droid that you can repair that will then “patrol” really needs to patrol not just wander a small area. It should move along the corridor of doors along the spice-lab side; moving all the way down to the end and back. That way the player can use the strategy of using a stealth’d character to wander down and open each door in turn prior to the droid showing up to clear the rooms out. The way it is currently, it doesn’t really do much.

 

Tor the minor bug: thanks, I'll look at a fix for that.

 

The change: Yeah, the route the droid does was BioWare's design - it'll be changed in the patch.

 

 

Black Vulkar Base Extension:

 

As much as I appreciate a new area to play that offered a decent challenge, I can see why this was cut, as it makes no sense at all and is superfluous in nature – I’m kinda wondering whether it was worth not being able to finish the arena and bounty quests, to be honest. Essentially, by the time you get down to the level, you’ve probably already taken care of everyone in the upper level and probably retrieved the swoop accelerator from the garage – like I did. So getting the spice from the lab, and trading it to the mechanic, is kind of pointless and not to mention, odd.

 

First off, his hands are freakishly big and that puts me off as I immediate see this and it breaks the illusion / immersion created for the game. Also, the fact that you need to infiltrate into the lower levels of the base in order to talk to him to get the pass card, well, that just makes no sense as clearly you don’t need his help anyway. It’s especially odd if you’ve pretty much wiped out everyone up until that point and then you walk into the rec room where no challenges you’re presence.

 

Not sure what was restored and added, but I repeat, I can see why it was cut .

 

What do you mean not being able to finish the bounty quests?

 

Also, in the patch, it'll be practically essential to acquire either the mechanic's or the spice addict's help in order to obtain a pass - said pass being essential to getting to the swoop accelerator floor.

 

His appearance will be changed.

 

Most everything in KotOR 1 was cut for good reason, hence why this mod goes farther beyond TSLRCM in terms of restoration. A lot of the stuff left behind is incomplete and needs content to be added by us to make it more integrated into the game, whereas a lot of KotOR 2's cut content was cut only due to time constraints, and not cut because it slowed the flow of the story or something similar.

 

 

For this to work and be more logical, you need to change a bunch of things. One, you need to move this mechanic – along with changing his body model or something – so that he is now in the cantina looking to score spice; not in the Vulkar rec room. You will probably have to change his dialogue, as in, record new dialogue along with re-record (edited) dialogue he may already have; then again, maybe what is there will work just fine – I didn’t pay too much attention to what he said to be honest, and I can’t recall his name either.

 

He will mention that he is willing to provide you with the pass card so as to get into the garage area of the base in exchange for spice – and he wants a lot of it, like the uncut block / package a dealer would get, as he plans on getting out of Taris for good.

 

However, for this to work you will need to make more changes:

 

-          You will need to add a third (or is that second?) way of getting into the base, one that is more expedient in getting you to the Vulkar base garage. Though spatially perhaps a bit of a stretch, there is a door at one end of the Swoop Platform that is guarded by 2 Sith Soldiers. What I would do is alter this so that the door leads to the Black Vulkar base garage level, with the Sith guards there to keep the peace as it were. They may lament that they are being wasted on guard there, but the idea is that the Sith know how important the race is to the locals, and know making sure it goes accordingly is good for their occupation of Taris. Pretty sure there is a sealed door in the garage that may or may not have a turret guarding another door that can be used to make the link. Like the Undercity elevator, the Sith will check to see if you have a pass card in order to enter the Black Vulkar base swoop bike to track service elevator.

 

-          On trying to retrieve the swoop accelerator, the Black Vulkars in the garage should as usual, turn against you if you do not accept their counter offer. The rest of the Vulkars will ignore you assuming that you are a mechanic. Only in certain situations, where you trip an event – like breaking into the spice lab and either failing the dialogue checks or deciding to kill them – will the entire base turn against you. Or to keep it more simple, if you haven’t gone one of the other ways in, then the turrets on guarding the elevator down will trigger the alarm (so to speak) and everyone will turn against you.

 

-          Add an event to one of the empty apartment rooms, where you stumble upon a drug deal going down between the Black Vulkars and some of the Hidden Bek. Along with adding more “grey” to the situation, in clearly some elements of the warring gangs are in league with one another. It also provides you with a package of spice without having to actually infiltrate the base to acquire it from the lab – you can, but, the spice package there should be more of a bonus. As the Vulkars tend to be aliens, you can use them for the cutscene dialogue to indicate that you’ve seen more than they are happy to let you live with – their complicity with the some of the Hidden Beks in steeling some of their own spice to sell to them – prior to attacking you.

 

-          On getting into the base via the spice-route, if you make your way through the base you should be able to come across the mechanic in the rec-room where all the other mechanics are off their faces on spice – you’ll need to change their floating dialogue along with adding new dialogue for the bartender who will lament at the craziness going on and how no one is buying drinks on account of the spice. If you really want to add something special, you would add some dialogue via a cutscene for the group of Vulkars outside who have realised that all the mechanics are high and have put things together in regards to the missing spice that members of the gang had taken in order to sell to make money on the side. They think the Mechanic stole it and are about to go in to make an example of him. You can stop them if you like, and then use the fact that you did so to get the Mechanic to hand back the spice, wait for them to kill him and then go in and kill them, collecting the spice, and a third option, kill them before they do so and then going in and threaten or kill the Mechanic for the spice in order to get it back along with dark-side points.

 

-          Lastly, you will need to add / modify dialogue and checks for Mission. If you did the above, then it would be possible to essentially finish Taris without ever adding Mission and Zaalbar to your party. So in order to change this, you need to script it so that the Mechanic, will only appear because Mission will take you to him after you’ve helped her save Zaalbar. Essentially, she then allows for two ways into the base, and as you can find Zaalbar relatively quickly without having to do all of the Undercity or sewer system, you can then head on up to the cantina if you have the spice already, and cut a deal with the Mechanic. This ensures that you have Mission along with Zaalbar in the group BEFORE this option can be triggered.

 

Some suggested dialogue for Revan and Mission if you have the spice in your possession:

 

• Revan: “So Mission, you seem like a… fun girl. Have you ever tried spice?
• Mission: “Spice! I never touched the stuff but that shutta Lena seemed to live off it…”
• Revan: “Do you know anyone who’ll buy it, and buy it big?”
• Mission: “Maybe this slime-ball I know, a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. Usually spends his time in Javyar’s Cantina in the lower city. I only know because the scuzbucket came on strong one night in the cantina. Before Zaalbar came along and threatened to rip his… *limb* off if he didn’t leave me alone, he said that he had as much spice as a Taris girl could ever need.”
• Revan: “He doesn’t sound like he’s buying, more like he’ s selling,”
• Mission: “He’s a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. He’s a little man who likes to talk big when he’s had one too many Tarisian ales.”
• Revan: “Mission, I need to meet with him as I think I have something he needs that’ll get us into the Black Vulkar base.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar NOT saved: “Yeah… Look, I’d be happy to but first you gotta help me get Zaalbar back. You promised!”

              -  Revan – Zaalbar NOT saved: “OK. A deals a deal, we’ll help you get Zaalbar but you have to keep your side of the bargain, Mission.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar NOT saved: “Thanks, me and Z will be glad to help once we get him back from those sewer smelling Gamorreans.”

 

              -  Mission – Zaalbar saved: “You got it, he should be in the cantina right about now. We should head to Javyar’s to speak with the slimey worm.”

 

We'll take your suggestions into consideration.

 

 

Spice Trafficking:

 

The spice trafficking angle addition to the game I think is something that can be expanded upon and really add a good deal to the greyness of the game world. At the very least I would make it possible to sell any surplus spice to at least one NPC if not more than this. Also, Davik’s base has a spice-lab, yet, NO spice! I would add another opportunity to collect spice here for later re-sell; perhaps 2 parcels this time instead of one. All up that would make 4 parcels to offload to potentially 4 different contacts on 4 different planets out of 5 possibilities:

 

-          Dantooine: Shuma the Hutt seems the obvious choice here as it seems this character isn't used for much. Also, Shuma is cut off from his business dealings and would be open to a little spice trafficking to make some credits in the meantime – turn a bad situation into a profitable good one. This is the hardest to offload at a good price, because Shuma has to build a network to distribute the spice on Dantooine whilst doing it all under the noses of the Jedi. Also, you need to be a very persuasive talker to drive a hard bargain with Shuma – however, there is perhaps the possibility of blackmailing Shuma later by suggesting that you will inform on him and that the Council will believe you over him as you’re a Jedi.

 

-          Tattooine: Motta the Hutt is the obvious choice here, and is unlikely to allow any other players into his market. So, this is the main contact to offload the spice to. Being a Hutt, it will be a hard bargain to strike with the Hutt, however, obviously the Hutt knows that the spice has dried up and that you can in the interim, supply him so that he can cater to his patrons – worn out miners. Though, perhaps an intelligence test for dialogue should be in place, to reach an option of getting what it’s worth – because the player is smart enough to realise they have the upper hand in the situation – along with another persuade dialogue choice test to see if you can get even more out of the Hutt.

 

-          Tattooine - Alternative: another option is Griff, the schemer and con-artist, who says he knows some guys who are desperate to buy – makes the claim that the only other person is Motta who will buy it and he will pay half of what he can get for it. If you give it to him he then disappears, later, you can come across his body on Tattooine – or elsewhere like Korriban, but as long as it is somewhere appropriate like a back alley or secluded area. You can go with either him having overdosed on spice or having been robbed and executed due to the spice. To avoid any required Mission dialogue, you can have a check to make sure that she is not present; once he is spotted and examined, he should never appear again for similar reason. Or to be really simple, he just never shows up again having ripped the player off and leaving Mission behind again – this will of course affect the Taris ale quest. The downside to Griff is that there is NO recorded dialogue for this; not that it’s a big deal for such a small part of the game that can have a BIG end impact on the player.

 

-          Kashyyyk: there is no Hutt here I recall, however, there is Czerka. They use the spice in order to subdue and placate the enslaved Wookies – apparently once they get a taste, they go made crazy for the stuff. Their main supplier drying up – a front pharma company for the Exchange – means that they desperately need spice for their Wookie slave operation. They should provide the best remuneration for your efforts, in that for them they are willing to pay any cost in that the Wookie slave trade to them is far more valuable and they need to keep it going to remain profitable. The negative here is if Zaalbar is present he will not like the idea at all, who can have a wide and diverse conversation with the player on the account that he has all the recorded dialogue he needs. The idea here also is that the Wookies are “natives” who are being taken advantage of due to the (human) outsiders and their self-indulgent diseases; kind of like how various aboriginal societies became destroyed once colonists arrived bringing with them alcohol. Something for Zaalbar to go on about at least along with the obvious angry rant about helping Czerka keep his people enslaved – you may wish to have this part of the discussion initiated after the sell, where you give various options via dialogue, one being to inform Zaalbar that it won’t come to that, implying you wanted their credits but plan on taking Czerka down in the long-term.

 

-          Manaan: the obvious choice is whoever runs the cantina, however, that is too obvious. I would go with the hotelier Ignus, the proprietor of the Visitor’s Hotel. He sells spice under the front-desk counter to his hotel guests, some of whom have discerning expensive tastes – spice. Downside is a lack of recorded dialogue, but the upside is that I don’t think it would matter all that much. You should be able to get a descent price from him, and persuade him to pay even more – his hotel seems a little empty, perhaps it’s because he no longer can offer his guests what they really need and want from him..? You could add a risk in the form of a Manaan security sting drug-bust. Not sure how it would work exactly, as I think due to the circumstances, you couldn’t fight your way out. However, maybe you could persuade or force persuade your way out of it – by persuading, you lose your ill-gotten gains, by force persuading, you get to keep the credits as well. Not sure what the negative is if you fail both, other than being thrown in jail and I’m not sure how you would get out of that without having to script a lot of stuff like a trial. Perhaps instead you also need to bribe the person arresting you by paying a “fine” of say 500 credits; or whatever you have in way of credits if you don’t have that much.

 

-          Korriban: Mika Dorin the Rodian running The Drunk Side cantina (or his partner Ziagrom) are the obvious choices due to the cantina; Mika would want to offer spice to his diverse patrons ranging from bounty hunters, assassins, smugglers and Sith. He can also freely do so as the Sith don’t care as long as you are not selling it within the Academy. This means that you can get a fair price for it, perhaps more with haggling, but there are more suppliers for Korriban due to the high number of smugglers; so, the loss of Taris as a supplier will be less heavily felt. Maybe another option is to add some dialogue to a Sith Archaeologist, who will pay you more so as to provide spice to the Sith apprentices who once have begun their training, don’t get to go outside and visit the cantina on a regular basis any more – and get strung out because they can’t feed their habits. This will net you more credits, however, the Sith have a strict no spice policy within the academy. That means that the risk is huge, especially if you tie it into the other students being able to potentially blackmail you latter; the flip side might be that you can bribe one of the students with the spice in order to get the upper hand in passing the trials there.

 

I would also add a contact / opportunity on Taris to offload one of the parcels for a quick sell – maybe the Sith at the cantina want some for their party, or, one of the Tarisian nobles is willing to pay for it with some “pocket change” from their deep pockets – however, doing so means that you end up only getting half to a quarter of what the package is potentially worth.

 

The idea is that Taris is a major producer and supplier of spice, not the only place it is made, but a big player in the market – maybe due to Davik being part of the Exchange. Once the Sith bomb the place, this ends up cutting the supply to the galactic market – or at least to certain planets due to trade routes. This means that the current demand for it is under-supplied, and that means, that the price of spice goes up! In time the demand will be filled by other producers within the region seeing an opportunity to aggressively expand on their market share. In the meantime, the player having accumulated these packets of spice, is in a position to make some quick credits with a little risk attached and dark side points as well.

 

Making the changes I suggest for Taris, or similar ones with similar effect, would improve what is currently available greatly. As though it adds new areas to “play” to earn experience points, what it adds via story undermines what else takes place in Taris. If you were to add a spice trafficking element to the game where you need to find buyers of this spice, I think it would add a lot to the game in creating a more grey KOTOR world for the player to explore. It also makes better use of what takes place in Taris, along with, giving another reason for the player to visit other planets in order to complete the Spice Trafficker side-quest. This kind of quest for KOTOR are the ones I am more fond of, in that they start on one planet and end on another; making the game feel far more nonlinear and open-world in style, yet, tightly integrated together without really being so.

 

There’s my feedback. Take it or leave it, up to you .

 

I like the idea, but again it goes beyond what this mod is mostly intended to do. It's moreso a restoration mod than an added content one, yet sometimes added content is needed to restore the cut content - if that makes sense.

 

Something like this is almost entirely added content, with restored content being hardly present.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

It's up to you if you want to use any of it at all; I'm not the one who has to implement any of it. 

 

Not being able to complete the last bounty is the Bendak Starkiller deathmatch fight. Once you kill him in the arena, you can collect the prize money as well as collect the bounty for killing him from the Hutt in the lower city cantina -- I've forgotten his name already, but I'm pretty sure it and the other quests are all bounty quests.

 

Actually, I think the mechanic or spice addict's help to get the pass before being able to get access to the swoop garage, seems like a smarter idea actually, fixes the flow of events along with being more simpler to implement than what I suggested .

[Malkior 476]

So I was fiddling with Kotor 1 for something I was working on, and I noticed that in some parts of the cities there are some severely low-rez NPCs. Not only are they low quality in terms of detail, but the characters aren't capable of facial or hand animations. I realize this could theoretically be changed through a smaller mod, but if that mod changes the module file, it would interfere with this mod. 

 

Is something like replacing the low rez NPCs with those of higher quality within K1R's scope?

 

 

 

 

 

 

..

Perhaps a suggestion thread should be in order.

[ZM90 100]

So I was fiddling with Kotor 1 for something I was working on, and I noticed that in some parts of the cities there are some severely low-rez NPCs. Not only are they low quality in terms of detail, but the characters aren't capable of facial or hand animations. I realize this could theoretically be changed through a smaller mod, but if that mod changes the module file, it would interfere with this mod. 

 

Is something like replacing the low rez NPCs with those of higher quality within K1R's scope?

 

 

 

 

 

 

..

Perhaps a suggestion thread should be in order.

 

I don't really consider it within K1R's scope since it does absolutely nothing to further the restoration of content nor fill in any holes within the game itself.  However you are free to make a K1R compatible version as soon as K1R 1.0 releases.

[Malkior 476]

Eh. It was worth a shot, anyway. I'm still much in a way of inexperienced at modding code and other parts to do with the module, so if I did anything at this point, I'd probably cause problems with K1R.. (I tried replacing the models and I ended up with a smaller scaled NPC with nothing but their head jutting out of the floor...)

 

Would anyone be okay with me posting a "request" in the Request thread?

 

[Fair Strides 509]

Eh. It was worth a shot, anyway. I'm still much in a way of inexperienced at modding code and other parts to do with the module, so if I did anything at this point, I'd probably cause problems with K1R.. (I tried replacing the models and I ended up with a smaller scaled NPC with nothing but their head jutting out of the floor...)KotOR0000c.jpg

 

Would anyone be okay with me posting a "request" in the Request thread?

 

Could you PM me about how you got the models smaller and in-game? I tried once, but the game didn't accept the changes...

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Would anyone be okay with me posting a "request" in the Request thread?

Have at it! In addition, I suggest also posting in Holowan Labs on Lucasforums about it too.