Hello everyone!

I've been playing around with KotOR Tool and I think I might be ready to take on a bigger mod now.

I'm still waiting for my first mod to go up on KotOR Files (I kept adding or not adding things or something). But I've made mods and I think they're quite good for my first. They'll be up soon.

Anyway, I'm thinking of making a mod about an Elite Sith Unit called "Unit 52" which is based on a card deck. There are 52 Soldiers. The 1,2,3's etc are normal troops. The King, Queen and Jack are Dark Jedi and the Ace's are Sith Masters. I thought maybe it could be an Expansion to the Yavin Space Station because it's so small. Savum could call you after they land on Yavin IV to make a base of operations. At the moment this is all speculation.

I was wondering what everyone else thinks? Would this be a good idea. Pro's and Cons. Things like that. I don't want to start on a big project that nobody's going to find interesting. And of course, I won't start this until I'm done helping Bindo245 with his Endar Spire mod.

Thanks for listening!

-MakoKing77 :thmbup1:

Nice idea but I'm always hesitant about expansions in K1 simply because of the Level 20 cap and the fact it's already graded to get you at max level just as you face Malak in the final confrontation.

So expansion mods for K1 need to be very intelligently done and quite conservative about experience gains. They need to concentrate on visual splendor, intellectual interest and give nifty (but not overpowered) treasure rewards in place of experience. You have to be very careful about introducing too much combat, particularly against high level (high xp) enemies in any K1 expansions.

This just doesn't apply to TSL because of the Level 50 cap and the fact Level 35 by game finish is a vanilla standard (iirc), there is plenty of room for tons of extra experience, you could put in entire new module expansions without affecting gameplay progression (this is all probably mostly due to the cut M4-78 and droid factory modules).

K1 is *very* limited by comparison. Most of the game revolves around a specific character level progression.

This is kind of sad because the Yavin Station is one of the most inspiring hooks for an expansion mod, it virtually screams for one.
But one I tried out wasn't smartly done and made a real mess of it, ignoring any intelligent approach the way kids like to run with scissors. It was a nice idea wasted.

Here is what you will need to do in order to maintain the Kotor plot and theme and to make sure you don't mess up its overall gameplay:

- restrict any expansion to minor excursions with a high degree of player control so that they may exit the sidequest at any time their XP is getting too high to continue it without badly affecting the overall gameplay of the main plot

- to do this you need to have continual exits from the sidequest/expansion for the player scripted in dialogue, such as a speeder/transportation method always nearby that he can select to bring up a dialogue "Do you wish to return to Yavin Station?"

- alternatively you can have several opportunities for players to make this choice within interaction dialogue, so they may continue deeper into the sidequest or return to Yavin Station at any time, particularly after a series of XP gains

- you want to carefully lay out total XP rewards available within the sidequest/expansion in the first place, by not introducing too much combat and concentrating on intellectual/artistic interest value and conservative equipment rewards

- keep it short and sweet, some of the greatest production efforts of sci fi go into ultimately very short scenes which impress and leave the audience longing for more, keep them wanting

- try to leave the player with a personal experience upon returning to Yavin Station which does not affect his character/stats or gameplay overall too much, so that the gamer has enjoyed the excursion but his character is left relatively unaffected overall, perhaps just a new cool item which is normally very hard to get in game.

Good points Vanir, but as for XP.... I believe there are mods out there to make the final Malak confrontation more difficult... that of course does not invalidate your point, and only changes Malak and not the rest of the Star Forge, but it is something to consider. Also, only modding expansions for TSL robs us of modding a game that stands on its own just fine. K1 is more exciting, to me, to make an expansion for, because the base story was/is satisfying enough - an actual ending, original or not. Adding interest to playthrough's in K1 makes me want to play it again. Adding expansion to TSL without TSLRP or RCM makes sense, but still leaves you with a broken game. With a restoration mod and M4-78 installed, the game is big enough (for me) and still interesting on its own, as it is written with more edge and imo, intrigue.

Your post is food for thought though, and I thank you for it. I never really considered mods and their place in in-game continuity, from a difficulty perspective. I guess that is because I cheat relentlessly :D

@OP: I think the idea has some originality, not sure how you would play it out. You could reskin a module and tack it on to the Y4 doors pretty easy :)

Thank you for the input guys. I might make this for KotOR 2 mainly because of the fact it has better levels to remake. I don't know at the moment. I think the best place for the Headquarters would be a reskinned korriban, make it look green like Yavin. Any thoughts?