Cool. I saw the list on the very first post in this topic so I’ll check some out. The outfits are just ugly in this game, lol

I just found This Unique Party Robes mod on the Kotor Nexus page. It is something new since the last time I played the game. The change to the robes looks good.

Looking through the recent mods, there has been a lot of high definition texture mods that have been added in the last 6 or 7 months. Some of them are insanely huge.

Ooo thanks I’ll definitely check these out!

So I downloaded a bunch of mods, most of which aim to make the game look a bit better. Now I’m tweaking some things and haven’t really gotten into actually playing the game yet (restarted with Xia Zheng). Here’s a couple of pics:

Xia Zheng. Scoundrel. You’d like her. She is wearing a combat suit, to which I have given a new greyscale color scheme using Gimp. You can’t tell much about her face but I edited that too to be a little more to my liking.

Twi’lek Soldier. Just for fun. Also wearing the combat suit.

Neat, I recognize the mod you are using for the red Twilek. I don't recognize the one you are using for Xia though. Which one is that? I does not look vanilla.

Xia is special! First I used this mod to bring all of the NPC’s and PC heads up to “HD” quality. Then I altered Xia’s face in Gimp to be a bit more to my liking, specifically I darkened the color of her hair and the ribbon she wears in it, and changed the color of her lipstick to a red wine color to match the ribbon. Oh, and I also changed her eye color to a light grey.

You inspired me to spend the last 2 hours modding January into Kotor.

Khajiit is happy to be of service!

On a note unrelated to superficial improvements, Xia ran into a horrible dialogue bug which makes it so that the NPCs’ voices will not be audible and their dialogue skips to when you respond to what they are saying. This prompted me to download this bug fix mod in hopes of eliminating the issue.

*edit* urrrgh, looks like the above mod won’t fix the issue as it’s a common problem with the game engine that restarting the game will fix.

Darkside Xia

She looks like Mad Max Xia!

BTW, since you are doing her as a Scoundrel, are you using the Sniper Shot feat? I tried it briefly a few times, and it seemed really underwhelming. I would typically only hit and do 1 or 2 points of damage, with a blaster rifle. But it seemed like the way to go for Scoundrel, since it can stun people, and they get sneak attack damage on stunned opponents.

I have been using it but not to any great affect. I think Xia’s blaster skill just isn’t good enough. I’ve never seen it actually stun someone, usually it just takes a slightly larger chunk of health from the enemy when it hits.

I am thinking for ranged weapons you are probably better off using either the ranged version of Power Attack, or the ranged version of Flurry. I forget the names, but they do the same things. Then later on once you Jedi up you will probably be using either a Lightsaber or force powers, and the gun stuff won't matter.

Most of my characters just skip using a blaster at all, and go straight to using a melee weapon. The Melee feats work with lightsabers, so they are still useful in the later game. I have had a lot of success with dual wielding and Flurry. You end up with 4 attacks a turn.



Edit: I did some looking at blaster builds. There is a handy thread on it here. Plus another here.

One thing worth noting is that the force speed powers don't improve Sniper Shot or Power Shot. Rapid Shot does. So keep that in mind if you are using the Speed powers.

Also, if you are playing a Scoundrel (and so you have Sneak Attack), the Force Stun and Insanity are powers that will stun your opponents, and give you a Sneak Attack.

It looks like Sniper Shot really is not worth it. Even when looking at calculations of average damage over time, it comes up short compared to Rapid Shot or Power Shot.



I also learned this handy tip for Scoundrels in this thread
The sneak attack modifier (to your chance to hit and damage inflicted, depending on the feat level) is automatically activated by the game when one of these situations occurs: the hostile NPC you're targeting is either stunned, isn't in combat with you yet, or it's attacking someone else.

Those were interesting reads! Carth is a freakin’ madman with those dual pistols in the early game so I played around earlier with having Carth draw aggro while Xia flank attacks with dual vibroblades. Seemed to be fairly solid. So yeah I think I’m definitely going to go with power attack and flurry which will come in handy when I get a lightsaber/lightsabers.

I noticed that about Carth too! He's a beast with dual pistols. The devs were kind to give him to us as a starting companion. Plus he has a great voice actor, and a really interesting back story. He's probably my favorite NPC in Kotor 1 (though it has been a while, so I don't remember the others much, aside from Bastila).

Yeah the others are hit or miss. I had forgotten how annoying Bastila is at the beginning, but as the first Jedi member of the party, she makes a big impression. Mission is a bit too “too cool for school” for my liking. Even Zaalbar isn’t safe from being made fun of! Speaking of “Big Z”, he’s strong and tough, but not very memorable. The other 2 Jedi are kinda “meh”. Canderous is ok. Then there is HK-47. I think he’s very amusing with his crazy dialogue! There is that other droid companion but I think I only use it on that one mission you need him for.

@Subbie:
I’ve been playing through Taris and just ended after Bastila joins the party. I ran through the undercity with Carth and Mission until we picked up Zaalbar. The combo of running in with Carth while the two scoundrels blasted the rakghouls attacking him worked really well. When Zaalbar joined, I noticed he is good with melee weapons right out the gate so I had him join Xia and Mission. This combo is reaaally strong. I was even able to get many stuns with the sniper shots from both Xia and Mission. The Vulker base fell very fast. Oh, and for Xia I used a blaster rifle the whole time. I think even with one level of two handed fighting the penalty still makes it ineffective. I didn’t pick any extra combat feats. I’ll probably just wait to do that when I get lightsabers.

That is interesting. So it looks like the secret to the scoundrel is those double-teaming tactics.

The Secret to the Scoundrel sounds like a great title...

Yeah Xia seemingly can’t take a lot of abuse; I guess that’s reasonable as a scoundrel isn’t supposed to be a hardened frontline fighter. I’m a bit nervous about taking her into the dueling ring, which is like the only side content we have left on Taris (and the bounty hunter line by extension). May not, but I sure would like to get the bounty for Bendak and his blaster.

So after a break and some restarts, Xia is now undertaking Jedi training. We made a save game right before talking to Dorak about our lightsaber crystal, so we aren’t stuck in a chosen class. Now I’m having fun running around Dantooine, trying out the different Jedi classes. I’ve messed around with Consular and Sentinel so now we are about to try Guardian, which I’ve read can be really interesting with Scoundrel as a base. Consular has performed better so far, which I guess is to be expected since it was designed to be the natural choice for Scoundrel players.

My ex Jaelyn (who got me into playing Kotor) used to love the Scoundrel/Consular characters. There was always a lot of lightning in her games.

The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... fun!

I think she always ended up playing a Dark Sider.

I usually played Sentinels, because they had a good balance of feats and force powers, and decent access to skills. A few years ago I learned how to mod the game, and made all the skills Class Skills. After that I tried playing a Guardian, and I had a blast! I love their class leap ability. I don't think there is any distance restriction. You don't need a ranged attack. It is just bam! and you are right in the bad guy's faces from across the map.

When I get to playing it with January, that will probably be her class. With lightning. At least I think you can still use force lightning with a Light Side character. I think it just costs more to use?

Yeah! With Scoundrel, the jump attack counts as sneak attack!!! That’s one reason why I’m curious to play as a Scoundrel/Guardian.

So I got KotOR II yesterday from GOG during the May the 4th sale. I cannot get the Universal Widescreen patcher to work! I followed basically the same procedure I did for KotOR I but I don’t get an option to change the resolution to 1920x1080 in the game options. Also, the .ini edit won’t stay at 1920x1080, it keeps changing it back to whatever the stock highest setting is.

Did you also copy the Widescreen UI Fix to your override folder? It probably won't work without that.

Yep. That’s also part of the process for KotOR I.

I’ll keep researching and playing with it to see if I can get it fixed.

Found this video so I’ll see if it helps my situation after I get home from work.

*Edit: Update*
And of course it did not help at all.

UPDATE:

Damnit!! Curse my ADD!!! I was putting in 1290 instead of 1920!!! It works fine now!

So, an ID10T error then...

Lol exactly

So how has the Kotoring been going? I'd like to hear more about your experiments with various classes and how they worked out. Especially the Scoundrel/Guardian.

Wall o’text incoming!!

Lol, well, in KotOR, I’m currently playing a mod that lets you start off as one of the Jedi classes right when you wake up on the Endar Spire. I don’t know if you are familiar with it, but the way it works is kinda wonky. When you start the game you pick Soldier, Scout, or Scoundrel as usual. Then when you wake up, you immediately pick a Jedi class. You are technically an “apprentice” at that point and when you get to Dantooine you undergo your Padawan training like you normally would. Here though, you could change your Jedi class if you wanted to, which could make for some interesting multiclasses. I decided to play through as a Scoundrel1/Sentinel. Taris was ridiculously easy (I didn’t use lightsabers until after Bastilla joined our squad to role play trying to keep as low a profile as possible), as was Dantooine. We breezed through the first part of Tatooine and are currently in the Eastern Dune Sea about to do the stuff there. It’s kinda good that I’m breezing through the game because I’m wanting to play a Twi’lek Exile in KotOR 2 (a Twi’lek in KotOR 1 doesn’t make sense because I would imagine it would be difficult to cram those head tails into a Mandalorian helmet ), and also my attention has been pulled away to BATTLETECH as I’m trying out a mod that advances the timeline to 3062 and let’s you play with Clan mechs and technology!!

I will say I settled on Scoundrel 5/Sentinel 15 before deciding to try this mod. The Sentinel gives you the most skill points of any Jedi class which I want in order to increase both persuasion and Repair for the HK stuff. It also has a good balance between hp and feats, and force points and powers, which I know you are already well aware of. I’m trying to maintain a neutral or “Grey” alignment. I strongly considered Scoundrel 7/ Guardian 13, but decided against it since I wasn’t going for a Darkside alignment (you get a melee damage bonus for being all the way Darkside). 7 in scoundrel allows for strong Scoundrel’s Luck and Sneak Attack. Guardian is light on force points and powers but gives you more health, feats, and gives you the jump attack that takes advantage of your sneak attack bonus. It’s fun jumping around the battlefield like some kind of brutal grasshopper!

I have seen that Jedi from the start mod. But I never tried it. It sounds too overpowered. I mean, Carth by himself could probably clear out all of Taris. With a Jedi along for the ride...

Whenever I play it again, I might try the Scoundrel/Guardian. I read about it some more today.

So what are you doing for your weapons and attack powers? Are you still doing dual blades and Power Attack or Flurry?

Yeah I’m currently doing dual sabers, one regular and one short (orange and silver, respectively . I’ll probably go all silver as soon as (if) I get another silver crystal.), with all 3 two handed feats. Primarily using flurry for the extra attack, and for force powers I’m focusing on buffs, while the other Jedi set up stuns which I can capitalize on with sneak attack.

Two sabers + Flurry + Force Speed = Yikes!

Indeed!

Okay, I found an update to running Kotor 1 at high resolution. Make a backup copy of your Swkotor.exe file. Download the KotOR High Resolution Menus 1.4. Then copy the 3 hires_patcher files to your main Kotor folder. Run the bat file. It will ask you four questions, such as the width, height, etc... that you want. Then go back to the file you downloaded, and navigate to the folder of the screen size you want. They will first be in ratios like 16-9, and so on. Drill down until you find the one you want. Then copy the files over to your Kotor\Override folder. Done! The menus in the game will look really big. But the hud will be visible in gameplay.

An article discussing a hypothetical third entry in the KotOR series. Personally, I think that ship has jumped to hyperspace, but who knows? I honestly didn’t think we’d get a sequel to VtM:B.

The world has been ready for Kotor 3 for 15 years. So I don't think there will ever be a sequel either. Especially not with EA making all the Star Wars games.

I’m not sure that’s as important as the House of Mouse being overly protective of the franchise. EA could easily put BioWare to work on a new KotOR, but Disney would need to sign off on it, which they’ve shown no interest in doing.

I found a good red haired player head here.

Ooo I like it!

I always mod the games so some of the armor has the "disguise" effect so I can appear as a helmeted Mandalorian or Sith Trooper instead of those dopey metallic form-fitting armors. It breaks a few small things in the game like changing in and out of enviro-suits and anything that requires the game have access to your character's face, but those minor inconveniences are worth it to me.

I created January for Kotor 1 a while ago, using the PFHC01 head as a base, mainly because it has a ponytail. I have not been able to port it over to Kotor 2 until now. I just found Effixian's K1 to K2 Heads. It ports over two of the Kotor 1 heads to Kotor 2, including the one I was using. So I replaced its textures with my January textures, and now I have Jan in both games.

I just have to get around to actually playing them...

I started playing some Kotor. I also wanted to experiment, so I created a Scoundrel with the intent to go Guardian later, with a twin sword/saber + Flurry idea. I saw some builds online for doing that, so it looked like it would work. Especially with using the Guardian's force jump to instantly engage and make a sneak attack. It worked a lot better than I expected in the tutorial. But I did not go beyond the start of Taris.

Then I started a game with January as a Scout, with the plan to go to Guardian later. I did not do her as the Scoundrel, because that is just not her. I got to Taris, and the game froze when trying to take the elevator to the Undercity. No matter how many reloads, I locked up there.

After trying a bunch of suggested fixes for crashes in the Undercity (like turning off Grass and Frame Buffer Effects), I eventually bit the bullet and just reinstalled the game. It worked! I was able to get into the Undercity.

But then I could not get it to work in Widescreen. I tried using the KotOR High Resolution Menus 1.4. mod that I was using before, but it either would not take. Or I would start to a bunch of blank menus. After a few hours of banging my head against a brick wall, I did come upon one method that it working, so far.

I download the latest version of Flawless Widescreen here. I used the x86 version. Run that and select the Kotor 1 profile. Then start Kotor 1, go to the graphics options, and 1920 x 1080 will be there for you to change to.

You only have to change the graphics options once. But you do have to start Flawless Widescreen every time, before you start Kotor. It is a bit more convenient than the old way of using Flawless Widescreen however.

So now I just have to reinstall all my mods, especially the one for January's head. Then hopefully I can get back to playing.

Yeah, if you recall, I had a heck of a time getting these games to work in widescreen. I’m currently using the Universal Widescreen method and it was working fine last I checked.

Ok, I found how to take screenshots without the hud.

Go to your Kotor folder and open the swkotor.ini file.

Find the
[Game Options]

If they are not here, add the following to lines, or if they are there, change them like so:
GUIsInScreenShot=0
EnableScreenShot=1

Using PrintScreen will put a screen shot in your Kotor folder, without the game hud.

Big dog

He ate something that disagreed with him

January

Time for some navigatin'

Man the guns!

Ship board again

So are there deathclaws in KOTOR? They really get around. Looks like Jan's up to some universe saving!

*Adjusts glasses* Ahem... actually that is a Rancor, not a Deathclaw.


So Subbie, how are you playing January in KotOR? Is she, in fact, ? Or is everybody else deluded and she is just January and having strange dreams?