Hi folks! I'm a long-time lurker on the Holowan forums who just got around to registering recently. I've come up with an idea for a mod that will hopefully increase KotOR1's replay value and general difficulty. I think the concept holds true for KotOR2 as well, but we'll see. I'm calling it the
Random Enemy Enhancement and Reinforcement mod, because, uh, mods need names and "REER" is close enough to "rear" and let's be honest, KotOR enemies are generally like children who desperately need a little rearing. ;)
Right now I've got a lot of the basic scripting done and all of the features working in rudimentary fashions (much thanks to Fair Strides 2 for helping me out with some of that!). Now I'm looking for ideas from the community that might make things flashier/work better. Toward that end, here's what the mod does at present:
First, it randomly adds statistics to every enemy that you encounter and does this dynamically when combat begins. There's some level scaling involved (a higher level PC will face enemies whose minimum bonuses are appropriately higher), but you can never quite be certain if the guy you're attacking is just another chump or some monster with a bunch of Strength and a ton of VP. I like the unpredictable quality this gives to fights -- it means you have to reassess your strategy on the fly, once it's obvious that a particular enemy is unexpectedly dangerous. (It also means that saving and reloading won't necessarily make a fight easier, as everything gets re-randomized.) I think it lends some degree of realism, too; not every Sith soldier is just your average bum with a gun (or a clone of some average bum with a gun). Even in the lower ranks, there are going to be exceptional and deadly fighters. The same holds true for pretty much every other enemy. This part of the mod is methodologically similar to the old hardcore mod that Talchia created and subsequent variations from folks like Qui-Gon Glenn. Much thanks to them and stoffe, whose mods, posts, and discussions have helped a lot in figuring out the best way to script these enhancements.
Second, the mod adds random, helpful equipment to enemies. So far I've only gone as far as handing out varieties of shields, medpacks, and grenades, but maybe stims and other gear would be helpful. There's that nifty group heal stim that would be fun to have used against you (needs some modifications, though; right now if you have an enemy use it, it heals your party, lol). It's easy to script in weapons, armor, and other gear as well, but maybe this would be going a bit overboard? I'm not sure.
Third, and perhaps the most fun so far in my testing, is the reinforcement system. Basically what this does is give enemies a random chance to call for help, causing more enemies to spawn and join the fight. It helps add unpredictability to combat -- and, again, defeats the save-reload syndrome, as you never know if the enemies will call for help the second time around, or, if they do, how many friends will show up, or even exactly what those friends will be/how difficult they are (as they, too, are randomized, statistically and otherwise). I'd like to create a wide range of templates that can be called in as reinforcements and then tie these templates to factions, meaning that the Sith will call in other Sith, underworld elements like the Vulkars/Hidden Beks will call in gangsters, Mandalorians more Mandalorians, and so on. I'm also going to include small chances for reinforcements to be mini-bosses with unusual loot which you can pick off their bodies...if you can kill them! If you can't and you die instead, you missed your shot -- since reloading won't guarantee that the mini-boss shows up again. If the community could help provide NPC templates that it would like to see included, I think that would be awesome!
I'd love to see any thoughts folks might have about these features and how to improve them. Two things have already occurred to me. One is making the reinforcements spawn outside of the player's sight (even if that just means a couple meters behind him) to break immersion less. I'm not quite certain how to do that, though; right now I've got them just popping in near the guy who called for help with a text box announcement indicating that this has happened. I'll have to toy around with using GetObjectSeen() and see what I can do. The other is the potential for XP inflation, as killing reinforcements will allow players to level up even faster. I think this can be circumvented by diminishing (or even eliminating) the XP rewards they give, but I'd like to hear thoughts on it. (I'd rather not do an across-the-board decrease.) Maybe just getting the extra loot from the reinforcements is reward enough?
Again, much thanks to Fair Strides 2 who has already been very helpful in a more limited thread that I posted
here.
For humor, here's what happened when I first tested the reinforcement system and forgot to include a sanity check in the script...
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