Spirit

Unfortunately I don't think that would work too well because most of the time the enemy spawns are triggered by an event or just waiting for them to become in PVS or line of sight maybe.

All it takes is a few triggers. A trigger that periodically fires and spawns a grouop of NPCs if the prievous group is wiped out, and is deactivated when the player kills all guards in the room where the NPCs are supposed to spawn. Setting the "shy" flag on these NPC spawners is a must.

What I really find unrealistic in JK games is that enemies are usually just standing around at their guard posts and do nothing until you get to them. Sure, some guards are needed, but I think that smaller squads of enemies should regularly spawn in certain rooms that the player have not yet cleared, and proceed to pursue the player. This would help to keep up the tension, and enemies periodically aproaching from the right direction could help the player if he or she gets lost on the map.

I think Rosh could be kept as an asshole character, sure. A good cast of supporting characters at the Academy with their own goals would be nice.

Speaking of the characters of the Academy, am I the only one bothered by the way they are dressed? Especially the Zabrak and Twi'lek females. They would pass better as prostitutes than Jedi.

Force power that disrupts or allows control of droids?

There are such Force powers in the Star Wars universe. Force Ionise is an example, it's basically a Force Lightning that is used only against droids, however, Ionise not only damages droids, but also stuns them temporarily. There is also an ancient Sith technique called "Mechu-deru", which allows a Force user to bind droids and other artificial constructs to his or her will. 

I'm brainstorming something like Kinetic Combat.

It's known from KotOR II. The Force user (who is Kreia in that game) uses telekinesis to control a whole bunch of lightsabers. I think the remote (aka training remote, the little spherical droids you can summon)logic could be abused somehow to recreate it, with invisible "remotes" armed with lightsabers being spawned by the force power. Now, Jedi aren't wizards, they can't make lightsabers appear out of nowhere. A solution to this problem would be if the player could pick up lightsabers dropped by dead enemies, and then use the said lightsabers as "ammo" for this power. If an enemy manages to shoot / cut down a lightsaber used in Kinetic Combat, it would be destroyed. If the shockwave of an explosive reaches a lightsaber, or if it is hit by a lightsaber wielding enemy with great power, or if the Jedi runs out of Force points, the lightsaber(s) would deactivate and fall to the ground, ready to be picked up again.

The flying lightsabers could be controlled three ways:
-the power would behave much like saber throw level 3, but the Jedi throws a bunch of sabers instead of just one. The higher the level of the power, the more sabers the Jedi can control at the same time, but s/he is still limited by the amount of lightsabers s/he has. Another difference is that instead of just mindlessly spinning in the air, these sabers would mimic actual fencing moves, deflect blaster bolts, parry attacks etc.

-the sabers would actually be NPCs summoned by the Force power, who seek out and attack nearby enemies on their own.

-the sabers would actually be NPCs summoned by the Force power, one of them would be controlled by the player the same way NPCs are controlled through Mind trick lvl 4, and the rest of the lightsabers would follow the controlled one.

Or y'know, Tavion could've used the scepter to unseal the Valley like she uses it many times to destroy things in JKA.

 

 

I still think it's possible for Shadowtroopers to exist though. We don't know how many there are left.

Assuming that Tavion got the scepter (because let's be real for a second. This is just complete and utter BS reasoning to bring back an old boss) and I was in her shoes, here's what I would've done:

1. Stage a series of fights to distract the New Republic, primarily so that I can maneuver a stealthy and daring mission to steal the force from the Valley of the Jedi. Masquerade as some new type of enemy so that they are convinced that I no longer exist, and they are forced to move troops away from the Valley.

2. Now that I've got the Valley's power in a scepter, I can start to industrialize production of shadowtroopers on a grand scale. If the Artusian crystals are really like that of a lightsaber, it should be easy to find a similar material from some other planet.

3. Next is the Cortosis. In JK2, it's smuggled from Bespin. But where is this stuff normally found? How is it made? If it's only from Bespin, then I'm out of luck. At this point I still have the element of surprise. I'm lying low and building an army of super soldiers...

4. ...until Kyle Katarn on a monthly visit to the Valley discovers that all of its power is gone.

 

Now I'd we constructed a game based on this framework, ideally Jaden would be inspired by the tales of those who fought against the (fake) enemies, and s/he's discovered his/her way with the Force. After Desann ravaged the Temple, there are much more stringent entry guidelines in place. Naturally because of these restrictions, Rosh would not exist. Jaden impresses them by building a lightsaber, and becomes Kyle's student. Kyle is the perfect foil for Jaden because he's intuitive and savvy (yet somewhat impulsive to act on emotion) and Jaden is a calculating and judgmental pupil (yet they're a bit of a nerd). Jaden overall is a bit arrogant, but over the course of the plot, they grow humble by the experiences with Kyle...or into a complete asshole who feels held back by the training and wants a fast track to success. Overall, the stake for Jaden is an overwhelming fear of failure, which ironically is the same thing that Kyle dreads.

 

Anyway, the plot is simple. We have an intro where we don't actually play as Jaden in the present. We live out one of their fantasies as a Jedi. This draws the player in and we see what they want. Then they awaken from the dream as the ship pulls into the Academy, and we are wowed with the sights, etc. Then we see a few filler missions against generic evil baddies after some training. After that, we accompany Kyle on a trip to the Valley, and along the way we learn more about him as a Jedi Master. But we discover that the Valley's power is gone! And we fight our way out, Kyle and Jaden both kill a Shadowtrooper. On the way back, Kyle explains what a Shadowtrooper is. We need to figure out where Tavion is, because we need to stop her. And stuff. More filler. At the end, we raid a base with Kyle to discover the location of Tavion. At the end of said mission, a slightly hyped up fight between Kyle and Tavion ensues (I can play as Kyle?), and while they fight, Jaden places a tracker on Tavion's ship. Before Jaden returns, they are captured and placed aboard Tavion's ship. Kyle managed to elude Tavion before Shadowtroopers swarmed in. Tavion attempts to draw us into the dark side, blahblah, Kyle comes back, rescues us, and we have discovered the position of her base. Before we can strike, we need to take control of key positions, like mining camps, stuff like that to choke out Tavion's forces. In the end, a great battle ensues and Jaden chooses to either join Tavion in ruling the galaxy (and uses the control they have over the mining camps etc to assert dominance over Tavion. Tavion is once again someone's bitch) or crushing her once and for all.

 

 

I did some research on cortosis. It's mined on the following planets: Obredaan, Bal'demnic, Duro, Katanos VII. I kinda like your story, but I'd keep Rosh, he's the ultimate asshole, we need one in every game, however, I guess noone will miss him if Tavion kills him (or Jaden does). But there's one thing: how does Kyle know that it was Tavion who stole the Valley's power? She's not the only one to know its location, and draining the power of a Force nexus is beyond anyone's power, or at least that's what Kyle thinks until Luke finds info about the scepter. Sure, he might have a suspicion though. What I find really fascinating is that in this story, Kyle is present on all missions, and there might be a way to make the missions coop mode?

Well, even if Tavion somehow recaptured the Valley of the Jedi, the mining operation on Artus Prime was ended by Kyle, and the planet itself was under NR control, so there would be no supply of Artusian Crystals. But it is indeed interesting that we never get to know if Tavion managed to steal the Force power from the Valley.

Damn, the more I dig into it the more I'm convinced that the "plot" of JKA just can't be salvaged. Dark Side Jaden had the right idea to keep the scepter and all the stolen Force power for him/herself instead of engaging in necromancy and distributing it to a bunch of incompetent morons in ninja suits like a certain Dark Jedi did. With all that power, Tavion could have become a living God, but noooo...

The crystals weren't infused with the Valley's power. They were trying to use these crystals on subjects from Artus on Kejim. My understanding is that the crystals were basically just lightsaber crystals. ("Those crystals you're holding are not much different from that of a Jedi's lightsaber...")

Well, Wookieepedia is quite clear on the matter.

Artusian crystals were a substance found and mined on Artus Prime. They were the primary component in Admiral Galak Fyyar's plan to infuse Force powers into Human subjects with little Force-sensitivity. Initial attempts to do this in Kejim Outpost were unsuccessful, but the goal was finally achieved after the crystals themselves were infused with the power of the Valley of the Jedi. A small Artusian crystal was a vital part of the Shadowtrooper armor.^[1]

Ok, that's true about Tavion and Alora. It doesn't really change my point about Shadowtroopers though.

The Force Crystals were infused with the power of the Valley of the Jedi, and then they were used to empower stormtroopers.  (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Artusian_crystal). I think the reason why Shadowtroopers needed a crystal and Reborn didn't is that stormtroopers were not Force sensitive at all, while the members of the Empire Youth who were chosen for the Reborn program did possess some Force sensitivity to begin with. With the valley of the Jedi secured by the New Republic, there was no way to enhance any more crystals and make Shadowtroopers.

This is false. The Shadowtroopers are a totally different type of soldier. As explained on Kejim, the Remnant were using machines to artificially infuse the force into Shadowtroopers by using force crystals. They also gave them specialized Cortosis armor.

The Reborn on the other hand were simple stormtroopers/imperials/people who were given the power of the force via the Valley. The cultists of Ragnos on the other hand are just straight-up Sith. It's a bit depressing to me that we only ever actually fight maybe two true Sith characters in either JK2 or JKA (Alora and Tavion, who are both incidentally female). The cultists are so weak that they can be killed off in one blow.

 

Anyway, if that were the case, it still seems implausible to me that they would simply stop manufacturing Shadowtroopers altogether. While the Cairn installation was damaged, it wasn't destroyed, and there was no sign of them slowing down production. Since the Cairn Stockpile mission was cut from the game, we don't know the status of their supplies. There's also no guarantee that this is the only place they manufactured them. For all we know, they aren't even manufacturing them on Cairn, they could just be transporting them.

From wookieepedia:

(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shadowtrooper):

Shadowtroopers were stormtrooper-Dark Jedi hybrid soldiers created by the DarkJedi Desann and Imperial Admiral Galak Fyyar on behalf of Lord Hethrir's Empire Reborn. Similar to the Reborn soldiers, Desann used the Valley of the Jedi to imbue stormtroopers with Force powers.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Reborn

Hethrir had entrusted Desann with training a number of his loyal Empire Youths

The shadowtroopers were Imperial Stormtroopers artificially empowered with the Force. The Rebron were members of the Imperial Youth. Both groups of Dark Force users were made by utilising the power of the Valley of the Jedi. It is suggested that Reborn troopers were used widespreadly, while Shadowtroopers were only deployed during the siege of the Jedi Temple, this is why there are a bunch of Reborns left even after the new Republic secured Ruusan, but no Shadowtroopers. Note that Kyle and Jaden never fought against the Sith. Jerec was an Imperial Inquisitor, his followers, as well as Desann, Tavion Axmis, and Alora were Dark Jedi. Technically, when Ragnos posessed Tavion, Jaden had to fight a Sith Lord, but even then, Ragnos was limited by to the capabilities of Tavion's body. The cultists of Ragnos weren't Sith or Dark jedi, they were ordinary people infused with the Force using the Scepter of Ragnos, and Force power siphoned from various nexuses, and they lost their power when the scepter was destroyed.

Nice catch on both counts.

 

Kyle has Protect and Absorb despite us not having access to those powers in JK2. Continuity issue, perhaps?

 

It slightly bothers me that in JK2, Kyle says at the end (spoilers) "The rest of them blew up with your ship." Was that really the last of the Shadowtroopers though? After all, some of them appear in the Academy grounds. It's impossible for me to believe that they were completely wiped out also, especially since they seem to have been engineered in Cairn, which wasn't even catastrophically damaged by Kyle's actions.

 

And this in turn leads me to my main issue with Cairn. It makes absolutely no sense that Kyle wants to sneak out after carving a path through enemies. I think there should be an optional objective in cairn_dock to place charges, so that the installation can be destroyed. After destroying the installation, Shadowtroopers won't appear in Yavin.

IIRC Force Protect and Absorb are also featured in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, so it's really a continuity error. Force Deadly Sight is also featured in the game. As for the Shadow Troopers: they are simple stormtroopers who were enhanced with the Force by Desann in the Valley of the Jedi. The Valley of the Jedi was recaptured and secured by the New Republic, cutting off the supply of fresh Shadow Troopers. Unlike Reborns who were deployed all over the galaxy, including places like Cloud City, Shadowtroopers were only present on the Doomgiver, the Cairn installation, and the Jedi Temple. Kyle mostly wiped out those on Cairn, sabotaged the Doomgiver, and the very few Shadowtroopers who survived the siege of the Jedi temple were captured.

• Continuity: on t3_byss, after shutting down the tractor beam, Kyle tells the player through comlink that "THEY'RE SENDING TIE BOMBERS!" but the said bombers are nowhere to be seen, there are only TIE Fighters. 

But the whole situation is just pure, weapons grade bullshit. I mean, Imperial fighters attack their own spaceship, because why not. The crew of the said ship gives absolutely zero fuks about it. The attackers are TIE Fighters, and supposedly bombers, which are short range spacecraft without hyperdrive. We can also assume that there are no other capital ships around, because they would probably also fire on the dreadnaught, but no such thing can be seen. In other words, the attacking TIEs are the dreadnaught's own fighter squadrons, who, being short range spacecraft with minimal life support and rations, desperately need a carrier. So basically, the entire ship, along with its fighter and bomber escort just commits suicide because two Jedi are on board. 

I just played through the SP missions with JKE, the mod is epic as I expected. But there's always room for improvement. So here are a few things that I think would vastly improve this already wonderfull mod.

Force Repulse

This thing is pretty useless in its current form. It takes quite long to charge up and the player gets shot / chopped to pieces while it happens. For all the Force it consumes, one could unleash a Lightning that kills everyone in the room way before Repulse could be used at all. The animation and that bubble effect thingy isn't looking very good either. I suggest scrapping it completely, and replacing it with something more usefull.

Force Destruct

Currently, Force Protect can be used to defend against this power (and Push, of course). This should be changed to Force Absorb so it would be in tune with the JK1 variant of the power. A new icon would be nice too.

Force Stasis

I found this to be very, very OP. This power can paralyse any non Force-using NPC for 15 seconds, including enemies like the Mutant Rancor and Boba Fett. Its also has very long range. I suggest it to be reworked in the following way:

-its range should be reduced

-its duration should be 5 seconds for all three levels

-should not affect droids, rancors, and "enemies with strong will" ie.: Boba Fett

-instead of its range and duration increasing with the levels, the number of enemies affected should. On level 1 it should only stun the targeted enemy. On level 2, it should paralyse enemies in a cone in front of the Jedi. On level 3, the power should stun all enemies around the Jedi. This way the power would not be OP, but remain usefull. A new icon would be nice too, as the current one is much more fitting for the Force Blinding power that is appearently under development.

Force Insanity

Currently, this power kills lesser enemies instantly on level 3, I have no idea why, this is not how Force Fear / Insanity is supposed to work. Force Instanity is essentially the Dark Side counterpart of Force Stun, both achieve the same effect but with slightly different methods. Force Stun simply shuts down the brain of the victims, while Force Fear / Insanity overloads it with uncontrollable, primal fear. A new icon for this power would be nice, because the current one is much more fitting for Force Deadly Sight that is under development.

Detachable E-Web

I loved it, but there are three minor issues.

First, when detaching the E-Web, the explosion from the tripod mount wounds the player. There should be no explosion at all.

Second, losing the ability to jump drastically reduces the usefullness of the weapon. For example, using them on hoth2 is impossible in some cases, as even the smallest obstancles can't be scaled while holding an E-Web. I suggest that the E-Web should not prevent the player from doing normal, non-Force powered jumps.

And finally, the animations could use some improvement. Carrying that bigass laser gun on the shoulder is the most badass thing I've ever seen in JKA, but when my character starts holding it like an E-11 blaster rifle while walking, with the gun halfway clipping into the ground, it just ruins the experience. I suggest that the gun should be kept on the character's shoulder in the same position all the time as when it's firing.

That is all for now, I hope the mod's not dead, because JKA was never as much fun as it is with all the new stuff added by this mod. I spammed the WIP Deadly Sight power like no tomorrow, burning everyone in my path. 10/10 would do it again.

I see. I was hoping for some sort of a workaround, like creating a dummy "something_default" skin file that would somehow direct the game towards the real, "hidden" skin.

It does, you'll just have to name your icon file appropriately and it has to be 256x256 if I remember right.

 

The cultist for example has the file model_brown.skin so all you'd need to do is make an icon image called icon_brown.jpg, that's it.

 

Simple observations will pretty much show you what all you need to do.

*facepalming intensifies* No, making icons with names like that won't make them show up in the menu. In fact, these icons with these names are already present in the game, and they don't show up. Renaming the skin file to model_default_brown and the icon to icon_default_brown would make it appear in the menu, but it would show as the default skin for other players (in this case, they would see a green cultist). This is what I'm trying to circumvent somehow.

The rank key also influences the rate of fire, but sometimes yields... strange results... for example, alt firing and akimbo wielded blaster pistols. Also try the npc class, as it's been mentioned earlier, classes jan and lando shoot faster than stormtroopers.

People would need to download a file if it's not part of the base selection, or the hidden skins that I have linked, however even those would appear without an actual icon unless they downloaded the file too or made an icon for it themselves.

It's always going to be client-side when it's not a part of the base assets or something that you download when you visit a server (No one likes downloading pk3's when visiting a server though )

I want to add the already existing but hidden icons to the model selection menu. Is it that hard to understand?

Okay...

I want custom skins that are featured in JKA to be featured in the player model selection menu in MP. For example, cultist/brown, stormtrooper/officer, imperial/officer, imperial /commander. I know that they can be acessed via console, but I want them to be selectable in the menu. I'm aware of that I can just edit the textures, make a new player model, edit the skin file, or make a new skin file, but these are unfortunately all client side solutions. I want these skins to be visible to everyone else, just as if I used the console. Is there a way to do it?

I checked that out already, most of those icons won't appear in the model selection menu, only in the top right corner in game.

I'm just wondering, how can I make skins like stormtrooper officer, imperial officer and commander etc selectable in the multiplayer menu? I know that one way is to clone the skin file and put defualt_ in its name, eg.: imperial/officer won't appear in the menu, but imperial/default_officer will. However, such cloned skin are not visible by others in multiplayer, so sticking to my prievous example, if I would to use my imperial/defaultofficer skin, others would see a plain imperial instead of an officer... that's not good. How can I add these alternative, "hidden" skins to the multiplayer menu in a way that others can see it too?

Old versions of lugormod had Tavion and Desann stances if you trained your saber offense skill to 4 and 5 respectively. I have no idea how they did it, but my guess would be that it was a workaround with .sab files, as you could use Tavion style by using the /saber tavion command even after the stances themselves were no longer available.

Is the mod dead? I wanted to check out the current version of it but the dropbox link in OP returns a 404.

Maybe the Destroyer should also have force grip or pull to try and hold the player down so that they don't escape the explosion.

Nah, that'd make him waaay too OP. Besides that, it would not work. The CD immediately starts the Dark Rage when engaging, and as soon as that animation ends, he explodes. While he is in that animation, he can't use other Force powers.

I actually think T3_Rift would be a more suitable level for the destroyer, but I can see why you suggested Tanaab.

Just to make sure that everyone knows: I suggested it for 2 reasons, one being that opening a door only to find a destroyer on the other side while being chased by godzilla would be great lulz, the other reason is that using grip + push the destroyer could be used against the mutant rancor, to slow it down at least.

The hard part of messing with the Cultist Destroyer, I think, would be finding a way to make him appear very rarely in game. While the cultists do have many different NPC types, all of them are either used to often or not used at all to be a good fit for the Destroyer. Based off of the JK3 Prima guide, the Destroyer was so rare that he's existence was only justified through rumor and speculation.

"its rumored that they exist and those who encounter them have not lived long to tell the tale of what happend and no trace of a Cultist Destroyer has ever been found."

He would fit well for a Tier 3 mission or somewhere on Korriban, though I can't think of any way to make him appear only once or twice throughout the entire game other than modifying a map's npc spawn list itself. Unless someone can recommend a rare Cultist variety that appears hardly any times whatsoever. I honestly don't know how often the strongest cultist varieties appear in game.

Anyway, I agree that a vehicle explosion, maybe with a red glow to match Nihilus's death, would fit well for the destruction power. We may not be able to use it yet, though I don't see why we should leave the game's NPC left to rot unfinished.

While we're talking about finishing the NPC, why not give him a different skin? Maybe recolor give him a black or grey outfit to make him stand out.

There is another cultist variant that's not used, the cultistcommando. He has dual blaster pistols. I think the commando could be used on Vjun3, while the destroyer could have its place on Tanaab (t3_stamp), or Kor1/2.