USM for K1

[TheGreenGoblin]

Not to be a nag T7, but I was just wondering, how has the project been coming along?

[Shem]

I do want you all to know though that I have not abandoned this mod, it will be released this month. I know it sounds like a long wait, but hey you've waited this long for it

 

Thanks again for your patients.

Today's the 28th and the month has two more days left. We'll see if T7 is ready.

[Ghost Down]

*sigh* ..Last day of the month and still no release

 

- Dream Evil

[Liit Orda]

It's cool, it'll get released. We just need to wait a bit longer.

 

T7 promotes diseprin.

[Shem]

*sigh* ..Last day of the month and still no release

I'm not surprised. Not that I'm saying that to knock T7, it's just that he's bored of K1, and it would be hard to work on something that you have no passion for.

 

I've been bored with games for a time being and what that happens, I have no desire to mod the game. I've had that happen with the Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy games. And when I want to go back to them, it's when I'm bored of the KOTOR games.

 

So, it will be ready when it's ready. Whenever T7 has a little interest sparked into the game. Hopefully it will be very soon for our sakes.

[Ghost Down]

T7? ..

[Liit Orda]

T7? ..

 

T7nowhere is making the mod.

[Darth InSidious]

The optional things like Bastila's single bladed lightsaber is cut and the Sand People Chief's weapon is cut. I haven't even started on those models and honestly I have little interest to work on them. A couple of other things that I started on for this mod I have also scrapped, due in large part to my own lack of interest in modding KotOR at this time.

 

Could you PM me some info on these optional extras? A list of the items and your thoughts on them maybe?

 

Thanks

[Master Kavar]

T7nowhere is making the mod.

 

Just not fast enough.

 

I can stand to wait a little longer though. Patience is a small price to pay for those gorgeous weapons. So long as he hasn't forgotten about it completly by now, which tends to happen when you get sucked into a new game.

[RedHawke]

*sigh* ..Last day of the month and still no release

 

- Dream Evil

T7? ..

Dream Evil, I realise you want this mod badly, so do I, but these kinds of posts do not give the modder any encouragement to release a mod faster, if anything all you are doing is serving to inspire the opposite.

 

T7 will be done when he is done... simple as that. You cannot hold a modder to a release date estimate.

[Darth333]

Damicles: (ref. to erased posts) read Redhawke's post above. Any further posts asking "when this mod will be released" and the like will be erased and will lead to the thread closure. These posts do not add anything to the discussion and are considred as spam.

[lactose_]

Some thoughts...

 

I've been adding a lot of lightsaber mods to my game lately, and I've noticed that most modders allow the player to receive their lightsabers "whole" - i.e. they're already constructed.

 

I'd like to suggest that, instead of always giving whole lightsabers, sometimes give the player the upgrade parts instead, like the crystal.

 

There are a few reasons for this:

 

1. Dark Jedi/Sith drop many sabers during the course of the game, and we always tend to end up with much more than we actually need. Giving upgrade parts will allow the player to make use of all the extra sabers. Sure you could sell what you don't need, but I think it's kind of odd (sad even) that the PC would sell lightsabers - the special weapons of force-attuned individuals - just to raise money.

 

2. It makes it, well, more exciting to construct the lightsaber yourself. I remember how I felt when I bought the HotG and MotF crystals in K1: I couldn't wait to construct it, and play around with other crystals, to see how it would turn out.

 

3. You could use the upgrade crystals to fit a storyline. Just purely as an example: Quatra was attacked by Juhani and damaged her saber. She gave the remnants of it to the Council on Dantooine as she left the planet. If you 'save' Juhani, the Council hands her what's left of Quatra's saber. Then you can re-construct it fully, symbolizing the redemption of Juhani to the light side.

 

Those are my suggestions, purely for variety's sake. Hope they might be useful in making this mod cooler (if that's even possible). Can't wait to see it!

[Darth InSidious]

But upgrade parts (aside from colour crystals) require you to make them compatible with every lightsabre .uti in the game, which means editing them all manually...

[lactose_]

^^ Yup I meant only the colour crystals.

 

Another thought: instead of having colour crytals, could they be named as 'hilts' or 'parts' instead?

 

Most mods with upgradeable sabers have their base (colour) crystals that can supposedly fit into regular sabers. However, once you upgrade it, the whole hilt of the saber changes into the new model. This is quite unrealistic (and jarring) imho, so how about naming them 'hilts' instead?

 

For example, Jolee's saber is supposed to be made from wood right? How about having the base colour upgrade called "Jolee's wooden hilt" instead of something like "Jolee's crystal"? That way it makes more sense when you see the wooden model in-game.

 

Hope that wasn't too confusing...

[RedHawke]

mods with upgradeable sabers have their base (colour) crystals that can supposedly fit into regular sabers. However, once you upgrade it, the whole hilt of the saber changes into the new model. This is quite unrealistic (and jarring) imho, so how about naming them 'hilts'instead?

Because the color crystal unlocks the specified saber, that is how the game works. The way Lightsabers are handled by the game is hard-coded, at least I have never found any files that I could change the system with, so we cannot change it. We modders have to work with what we have.

 

These objections of yours are very likely why all the saber hilts look the same in the vanilla version of the game.

 

Also your ideas of renaming crystals "hilts or parts" doesn't work because how will you define the blade color? As much as personally I hate this part of Star Wars lore, lightsabers have color crystals to define their blade color. *Shrug*

[Darkkender]

Also your ideas of renaming crystals "hilts or parts" doesn't work because how will you define the blade color? As much as personally I hate this part of Star Wars lore, lightsabers have color crystals to define their blade color. *Shrug*

 

Just as a Star Wars Technical Note. A lightsabers color is generated not just by the crystal but bye the the frequency of light and the amount of current forced through the crystal or set of multiple crystals. There is almost impossible chance that the same colored lightsaber blade could pass through each other even if they were crafted exactley the same. Even the same crystal that produces a red saber blade will not have the exact same color of red on a spectral scale that another red saber has. Even though to the naked eye they look exactely the same. Of course this tidbit of star wars trivia is proably a slight derail but I thought it was a nice note to the current discussion.

 

Actually DK, a 'true' lightsaber only has a power regulating crystal connected to the power cell, 'color crystals' are a bunch of recent EU hogwash. Any of the saber scematics published before the late 90's will clearly show this.

 

See Lightsabers have attributes that simple light energy through a crystal cannot do. It has mass or else you couldn't pull blows, the blade generates only limited light, and the blade casts a shadow. In the end a Lightsaber blade is likely made up of a core of superheated, possibly negatively charged plasma contained in an electromagnetic field, its color should actually be determined by whatever substance the plasma is generated from. This would also explain the Blast Door scene with Qui-Gon's saber in the blast door and the rapid heating of the door. -RH

[lactose_]

Because the color crystal unlocks the specified saber, that is how the game works. The way Lightsabers are handled by the game is hard-coded, at least I have never found any files that I could change the system with, so we cannot change it. We modders have to work with what we have.

 

Yup I know how it works, but I was referring to the asthetic part of the naming process. See, when you have just the regular saber, and you suddenly insert a modded crystal, the regular hilt suddenly takes on the shape of the new model. Realistically, you wouldn't expect the hilt to change just because you put in a crystal, would you?

 

So that was my point. Instead of modders naming their g_w_crystalXX.uti "Exar Kun's Crystal", they could call it "Exar Kun's Saber Hilt". And give a description that says something about the crystal being stuck in the hilt and cannot be removed, or used in a double-saber.

 

That way it's just more realistic and immersive, more role-playee, as it were.

[RedHawke]

Yup I know how it works, but I was referring to the asthetic part of the naming process. See, when you have just the regular saber, and you suddenly insert a modded crystal, the regular hilt suddenly takes on the shape of the new model. Realistically, you wouldn't expect the hilt to change just because you put in a crystal, would you?

That's why all the hilts look the same in the vanilla version of the game.

 

People 'whine' about not having customisable hilts in TSL and your complaint is the answer as to why, the system they have needs all the hilts to look the same for your exact stated reasons.

 

So that was my point. Instead of modders naming their g_w_crystalXX.uti "Exar Kun's Crystal", they could call it "Exar Kun's Saber Hilt". And give a description that says something about the crystal being stuck in the hilt and cannot be removed, or used in a double-saber.

And my point is that, we modders are making a saber, not a crystal, we only make crystals so people can upgrade the saber and change things about as a courtesy to the player, it is not the other way around.

 

In the beginning sabers were released that were not upgradeable... guess what? An outcry for making them upgradeable happened, hence started what you have today. If someone released a non-upgradeable saber they would be likely 'whined' off the face of the forums. The crystals are the only way to integrate it to that process, there is no changing it, or other way around it.

 

Once again, the stock game sabers are all the same for the very reasons you are complaining about.

[lactose_]

I'm sorry RedHawke, but I think you have misunderstood my point completely. I'm neither 'whining' nor complaining.

 

The very reason I am posting in this thread is because I like new hilts. Yes, I absolutely love them. To bits.

 

All I am asking for, since I hope that this mod is going to kick butt, is a small cosmetic change to the way most modders operate. To help me to demonstrate what I actually mean, I will use pictures to illustrate my point.

 

First let me assure you I know how the saber upgrading system works. Modders usually model a new hilt which is then placed in-game for use. The way to get the new model in-game would usually involve upgrading an existing saber by placing the appropriate upgrade crystal inside it.

 

Voila! You now get the spanking new hilt!

 

That's great. However, I cannot help but feel an out-of-game sensation when I see that I can change a stock model like this:

to this:

just by slotting in a crystal. Heck, I know this is Star Wars, but even then I can't suspend my disbelief enough to accept that a crystal can somehow cause a hilt to morph into something entirely different.

 

Therefore, I am just suggesting that some of the upgrade parts be named differently, like:

 

instead of -

re-name it -

 

Thus, when you upgrade a saber, it now makes (#1) more sense that a new hilt is used, and (#2) you feel more immersed in the game world. Of course the modder would use the picture of a hilt instead of a crystal to represent g_w_sbrcrstlXX.uti in-game.

 

So that's what I'm trying to achieve by posting here: a mod that would be just little more realistic, and cooler by making the game more believeable. That's all I'm suggesting. Seriously.

 

PS. pictures made with apologies to mjpb3 and T7 for the Darth Nemesis Double Sabers mod.

[RedHawke]

I'm sorry RedHawke, but I think you have misunderstood my point completely. I'm neither 'whining' nor complaining.

lactose_ I did not say you were 'whining'... anywhere in my post.

 

As far as you complaining...

 

mods with upgradeable sabers have their base (colour) crystals that can supposedly fit into regular sabers. However, once you upgrade it, the whole hilt of the saber changes into the new model. This is quite unrealistic (and jarring) imho, so how about naming them 'hilts'instead?

 

See, when you have just the regular saber, and you suddenly insert a modded crystal, the regular hilt suddenly takes on the shape of the new model. Realistically, you wouldn't expect the hilt to change just because you put in a crystal, would you?

These statements are complaints, with questions on the end...

 

Not totally illogical complaints either.

 

I happen to agree with you in spirit (Stated above concerning my feelings about color crystals), but I must disagree with you creatively because implementation just wouldn't work right.

 

Hence why I said what I said above about the stock game hilts being all the same, as this is how Bioware solved that problem. The minute we modders added to the stock game sabers with modded hilts it breaks that feel, but it is a necissary price to pay.

 

Heck, I know this is Star Wars, but even then I can't suspend my disbelief enough to accept that a crystal can somehow cause a hilt to morph into something entirely different.

Actually, if you look in the Tales of the Jedi comics the color crystal is rather large (One of the cells shows the color crystal of a saber as the whole front 1/3 of a saber, if I recall correctly), so I think you are not actually suspending your disbelief enough... or you haven't read the comic.

 

What you are asking for is even worse on the realism scale, the 'normal' game sabers would have color crystals but modded ones wouldn't, that just wouldn't fly, nor will it give people any more 'feel' to it, in fact I would bet it would have the opposite effect.

 

Also, to remove the color crystals for the main game sabers and rename them to 'hilts' to compensate for the adjustments to modded sabers to keep 'realism' would mess up an integral part of KotOR during the Jedi Training, the dialog and vocals clearly state 'color crystal'. Also how would you explain the 'crystal cave' on Dantooine as now giving out 'hilts' from masses of crystal? There is no way I personally could buy this.

 

Again, to do as you are asking is too much work for too little reward.

 

To do what you ask 'realistically' would require re-doing the saber upgrade function and adding a slot for the hilt, as the saber upgrade functions are hard-coded this is something we simply cannot do. Though this is something I really wished OE would have done for TSL.

 

Kudos to you for the very well thought out post though.

[lactose_]

Thanks for the reply RH.

 

Just to clarify though, the two suggestions I have listed here so far are purely for the sake of variety.

 

Suggestion 1:

Give players some sabers that are already constructed, and give some that we need to construct ourselves.

 

Suggestion 2:

Have some saber hilt upgrades named crystals, and some named hilts.

 

The reasons I have asked for this is just to make the game more fun. For most of the saber mods I have downloaded so far, I sincerely believe that they could have been improved if the above suggestions were implemented.

 

To further clarify my ideas for suggestion 2 which we have been discussing, I have no wish to change all of the saber upgrade parts to be named 'hilts'. That was not my intention at all.

 

It was just that, with the mods I have tried, I sometimes find it amazing that putting in a crystal could make such a big difference to the hilt, especially with some of the more elaborate (and I must say, very exquisitely modelled) ones. So therefore, it wouldn't hurt to just re-name some of them.

 

Again, my main point is variety. I'm certain that us players wouldn't mind that in the least. Of course, whether T7 plans to do that is up to him.

 

Then again, all I'm hoping for is that this mod gets released soon.

[mjpb3]

^^^ lactose_

 

I can totally understand what you are asking about in your posts, and why. I have wondered about this myself.

 

But I can also tell you that, even though realistically changing a saber's color crystal should not change it to an entirely different blade, the game will only let us do things a certain way.

 

As RedHawke stated, that is why the game, as it is - without any mods whatsoever - has a set look for each saber, be it double, single or short. Bioware, and in turn Obsidian, set it up like this exactly because of what you are referring to - changing the color crystals will change the blade. And, that is the only way we can do it (so far).

 

If you can find a simple way of doing what you are asking, then by all means, share... but until then, we modders have to do it the best way we know how

 

There comes a point, when you mod the games or even enjoy the mods others make, where you have to bypass realism and settle for a little make-believe.

 

If you want to get realistic, the mod I just finished, Asajj Ventress and her sabers, is not realistic because she hasn't even been born yet! But you can use her sabers? Yeah, that's realistic.

 

But you have to let that go if you want to enjoy the mod...

[lactose_]

Oh dear, I seem to have dug quite a hole for myself with this suggestion. :<

 

I had hoped I had clarified myself, but looking back I feel I may have made things a little too confusing, so bear with me while I try again. LOL!

 

I have no intention to change the way the game works, not at all. I know that a crystal.uti is needed to upgrade a saber, and I do not want to change this in any way. Likewise I do not want the game to recognise a brand new upgrade slot called "hilt", or anything like that.

 

My suggestion was purely an aesthetic, cosmetic, superficial (running out of adjectives here!) one:

 

I would just like to see some of the crystal.uti files show up in-game with a different name and appearance. For example, instead of calling the crystal.uti a SABER CRYSTAL, as such:

call it a SABER HILT, like so:

 

Also, change the corresponding iw_sbrcrstl.tga to show a hilt instead of a crystal too.

 

This will give the ILLUSION that the saber was upgraded with a brand new saber hilt with a crystal inside, instead of a standard hilt being magically transformed when the player slots in the upgrade crystal.

 

I hope that was understandable, because I'm really at my wits end in trying to explain what exactly it was I meant...

 

As for realism: of course I don't want the games that I play to be entirely realistic! Haha! I just want enough realism in-game to help me forget that I'm actually playing; I want to be able to be immersed in the game world - but when I see a hilt suddenly being utterly transformed by a crystal when it realistically shouldn't be (even in a fantasy game), then a jolt of reality suddenly hits me. I don't know if I have expressed myself eloquently enough, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

 

*Phew* There! That was tough, but I hope that clarifies things...

[RedHawke]

lactose_, you are being very clear, I'm sorry but this isn't an issue of clairity, it is a matter of realism or what passes for it in KotOR and TSL and the saber upgrade screen.

 

So therefore, it wouldn't hurt to just re-name some of them.

 

-and-

 

I would just like to see some of the crystal.uti files show up in-game with a different name and appearance.

You are breaking the very realism you seek to achieve by only doing this to select modded sabers, this sets them apart from the normal way of doing things in the game (Bad Idea), and as I have said previously you are breaking the game if you do this to all of them.

 

To do as you ask and to keep 'realism' you would have to do this to all sabers or none, a partial job will not work. See, it is very unrealistic to change out a 'color crystal' for a 'hilt', sorry.

 

In the end, yes we modders could do what you are asking... but it likely wouldn't have the desired effect.

[lactose_]

Thanks RH.

 

To do as you ask and to keep 'realism' you would have to do this to all sabers or none, a partial job will not work. See, it is very unrealistic to change out a 'color crystal' for a 'hilt', sorry.

Just to add: I also meant that the hilt would contain a crystal inside it, and the crystal cannot be removed; this would work for unique hilts (such as mjpb3's Darth Nemisis' saber) because they can only work for standard OR short OR double sabers only.

 

---

 

I know that what I'm suggesting is purely a matter of opinion; some people might like it and think it helps the game to be more realistic, and others may not. The very fact that both mjpb3 and yourself have thought about it suggests that, if the game were made by us, we would probably have implemented a different system to the way things work.

 

In the end though, we can still agree to disagree.

 

Because this is such a modder-friendly place, there are often many suggestions which come up that people might not necessarily have thought about. I'd like to feel that I have added at least another way of looking at things. All said and done, the most important thing is what the creator of the mod decides to do.

 

Whatever the case, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that I hope this mod gets released soon.