FlufMod 0.9.5 Beta

Description
Don\'t be fooled by the title of this mod! It does not contain fluff, nor does it make anything fluffy (sorry Chewie), this is a big mod which changes many aspects of force powers, combat and adds a variety of custom player models and skins for [i]both[/i] multiplayer and singleplayer!

First of all, lets have a look at the changes to the singleplayer side of the game.

[b]Singleplayer[/b]

First off it is worth noting that this mod adds a huge number of excellent custom player models and skins made by a variety of authors, for you to choose from when you start a new game. Not only that but there are also customization menu options for many of these, allowing you to refine you character even further. If you want to play as a Shadowtrooper with blue, red and black armour, then you can! ;) If you want more detailed information, then be sure to check out the readme. There is also a cool little robe toggle thing, which allows you to put on or take off your outer robes on the fly, should you decide that you would rather use your robe with the hood up for a bit of sneaking around, or maybe take it off completely when battling a bunch of Cultists. This feature is available for both SP and MP.

Next up we have a revamped force points system and some adjusted force powers. The author has included two very detailed though rather long, readme\'s which outline the many changes, so rather than trying to describe them myself, I may as well let the author do it:

[quote]
=================================
- SinglePlayer Force Point System
=================================

At the moment it is quite a HACK, but it works, and that\'s the point.
Through the use of the menu system and external CVARS, I created a \"different\" (far
be it for me to claim \"better\") system for the distribution of forcepoints.

-Force Sense
I find that the Force Sense ability is supposedly innate to what a Jedi
is. \"Seeing things before they happen giving them god-like reflexes\".
If it were up to me, i would code in force Sense as being the most powerful
ability, instead of a simple \"item and secret finder\" that the single
player game makes it, or the \"bypass mindtrick\" ability that multiplayer
makes it. Thus, I have taken it out of the equation somewhat,
due to my current lack of modifying ability for the Single Player Game.
It is still incrementable like all other abilities, but it starts the
game at level 2.

-Saber Throw
I don\'t like saber throw. It\'s cheap, and impracticle. (Obi Wan: \"This
weapon is your life!\") The jedi should never knowingly chuck their saber
around the room. Our lightsaber is all we got. (I prefer to try to play
and beat the Jedi Knight games without ever using any other weapons,
however the placement of disrupter rifle snipers often forces me to play
sniper wars *grr*).
Anyway, Darth Vader(EP6) & Yoda(EP3) are the only Jedi to have been
witnessed throwing their saber, and it wasn\'t with any real \"boomerang\"
control, it was simply an agressive attack against Luke and a Clone
Trooper. Thus, I revamped how Saber Throw is given in the game. With the
default SaberPack all sabers are generically the same: all with default
values. The MOD alters this play to give each saber specific combat
capabilities and limitations, some of which include the inability to
throw the saber. Kicks are available to those sabers that aren\'t throwable.
However, since some sabers are throwable and others are not, Saber throw
starts the game at 0, and it is up to you to increase it wisely.

-Initial Forces:
Pull: 1 //Because of the ID-10-T error, some maps require you
//to be able to Pull/push objects. Also, it should be
//innate for a Jedi to be able to \"pull\" items
//(ie saber) to them.
Sense: 2
Saber Offense: 1
Saber Defense; 1

-Tier 1:
Game Start: 6 pts
Missions: 1 pt (2 if All Secrets found)
Total Points: 10 to 12 Possible Pts
-Tier 2:
First Mission: 3 pts (5 if Saber Favorite Weapon)
Missions: 1 pt (2 if All Secrets found)
Total Points: 7 to 12 Possible Pts
-Tier 3:
First Mission: 3 pts (5 if All Secrets found)
Missions: 1 pts (2 if All Secrets found)
Total Points: 7 to 13 Possible Pts

Total Points In Game: 24 to 37 Possible Pts


As you can see I did a little tweaking with the per mission point system. If
you find all of the secrets on a mission (eg: Post-mission menu shows
\"Secrets Found: # of #\") then, the next mission you recieve extra force
points for spending. This is remaniscent of DFII:JK. However it isn\'t perfect, as
some missions have secrets, but do not actually consider them as Secrets in the
\"post-mission debrief\". So, basically if after the mission it displays a \"Secrets
Found\" entry, and you have found ALL of the secrets for that level, you will recieve
the extra point.
[/quote]

Next up we have some heavy modding to the saber combat system. This is where it gets even more in depth; from what I can tell you are able to choose from a variety of saber hilts, each with unique abilities and styles associated with them. For more information, be sure to read the FlufMod_Saber_Info.txt which contains a lengthy and very detailed explanation of the attributes and damages associated with each saber.

[quote]
===========================
- SinglePlayer Saber System
===========================

-Select any Hilt, Any Style at start of game.
Sabers: Dual, Staff, Single
Stances: Medium, Strong, Fast, Tavion, Desann
Colors: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Purple, Red.
Hilts: (See: FlufMod_Saber_Info.txt)

-New Style selection system based on increasing Saber Offense
If you increase your Saber Offense you will recieve the option to add an
additional style of your choice. This happens at the Weapon Selection
Screen. If you choose not to add a style at this moment, select NONE and
you will recieve no bonus style. After Hoth and Vjun you still recieve the
default new style as per the game, however at this point you can as well
select NONE and choose to retain only the styles you currently posess.
This acts now to make SaberOffense a tad bit more important, not just
style-wise, but also as your attack base. You can have only one style, but
a level 3 saber offense, so you are really powerful offensively, even though
you only use one style of saber combat.
Finally, this does not affect the MOD oriented hilt limitations. You
still retain ALL styles you gain in the game, even if a specific HILT does
not allow you to use it, so be careful about which saber hilt you pick and
what styles you pick for it. Especially after VJun, where you can \"build\" a
new saber hilt, so this may or may not affect styles learned throughout the
course of the game.

Also, after the VJun mission, where you str able to select a new saber hilt,
this has been altered to prevent changing saber types. You must stick with
whatever type of saber you began the game with. I personally like this better,
because as the game progresses, you are \"practicing\" saber techniques with
one type of saber. \"Obi-Wan: If only you\'d spend as much time practicing
your saber techniques as you do flying, and you\'d rival Master Yoda as a
swordsman.\" Hence, you don\'t really alternate between the saber types,
you focus on ONE type and get really good at it. With this as well, I
believe wholeheartedly in the role-play aspects, and thus if you increase
your SaberOffense with one type of saber, you should have to start from
Level 1 again for a different type of saber combat. Which, since I could not
code this effect with the limited resources available for Single Player mods,
I simply eliminitated the option.[/quote]

As the author states in his readme, and as you can see from the amount of time and detail he has put into this mod, he is attempting to add some more RPG and choice related aspects to JKA, which while it allows you more freedom in gameplay than JK2, is still pretty linear gameplay wise. I would really like to go into this mod in more depth, but the very fact of its complexity makes it difficult to test for a review since we generally don�"�t have that much time, especially for huge mods like this. For the full effect, I would definitely recommend downloading this and starting a new game!

Now, that�"�s the major points of the singleplayer side of the mod dealt with, so what about the multiplayer aspects?

[b]Multiplayer[/b]

AS in singleplayer, there have been some significant changes to the saber system, as outlined below:

[quote]
=================================
- Saber Style Selection...
=================================

Yes, I think it is rather pointless, and annoying, for Raven to have coded
in 7 total saber styles, and yet you can only use at best 3 at a time. Sabering
is more than just 3 distinct methods, hell its more than the mere 7 animations
they\'ve included, and since I\'m not a modeller we\'ll just have to make do. Instead,
I basically opened up all the styles, Tavion, Fast, Medium, Strong, Desann, Dual,
and Staff, as a point based system using your Saber Offense Level.
Level 1 - 1 Point
Level 2 - 3 Points
Level 3 - 5 Points
This works out, because Dual and Staff cost 3 points as opposed to all other
styles 1 point. In addition to the Saber file scripts, you can configure the sabers
to bonus you with styles or limit others. Like Anakin\'s EP2 saber, is normal, but
his EP3 saber and Darth Vader\'s saber both have Desann learned, so you don\'t have to
buy it. On the server side, you can effect styles available with a server CVAR,
listed below. As well, Bot JKB files can use the same method of saber style flags
in their force power string. Using the same bit flag addition values as you would
for the g_SaberStyleDisable CVAR listed below (but only for the Styles not the disable
flags) you would append that value to the bot\'s personality\'s forcepower string as
follows:
Example: 7-1-222222202020003333-104
The -104 gives the bot the use of Tavion, Strong, and Dual styles, I think.
Not too good on the whole AI section of the source code, but they all use the same
parsing engine as it does for the player, so for now I believe it works, and I\'ll
keep testing for later revisions.[/quote]

To be honest, I really have to agree with the author here, considering that Raven used different saber styles and attacks for Tavion and Desann its quite annoying that they only included 3 styles for the single saber and 1 for the dual and staff sabers each. Its a shame that we have to resort to modding to include extra styles like Tavion\'s and Desann\'s, when I think Raven should have included these and maybe more styles to begin with so that we would have more variety in gameplay.

Along with this there have been many changes to the way force powers work, from the use of force points and force regen times, to adjustments of the various force powers, such as having to hold down the force speed (now called force dash) button in order to continue using it, which makes sense, as like the author says in his readme, Jedi don�"�t just \'turn it on and off\'. There have also been some adjustments to saber throw, meaning the saber now flies in a strait line, a la Yoda in Episode III, and you now have to go and pick your saber up afterwards, as it no longer returns automatically to your hand.

There are many more adjustments which are explained in greater detail in the readme, which I wont paste in here since those alone are about three pages long! For more info be sure to read the readme!

So what does the author have planned for future versions of this mod?

[quote]
=================================
- Future Plans
=================================
First let me note that help is ALWAYS appreciated, especially from the
fine folks at the filefront.com forums and elsewhere on the \'Net who help
point out certain things and help me seek the location for things as well
as offering advice, pointers, and general answering of foolish questions modders
like me sometimes need. So anyway, in the end, this section is just a list of
things I would \"like\" to do in the future, but can\'t because I suck.

- Update Saber Deflections of standard Blaster attacks. I\'d like to
change it so that it would deflect some on its own, but if you
actively hold a key to \"contribute\" extra attention, your
deflection rate skyrockets. Very rarely did you see powerful
Jedi affected by blasters, especially when they were concentrating
on deflecting the missles. I\'d like to add the Concentration.
- Update a \"Sense\" radar. I dunno how exactly I\'d do this but I\'d
like to make some sort of radar that would indicate hostile
intention in a specific direction, for those rare moments when
that 2D screen is just to limiting on the peripheral vision
it would be nice to have the force work for us, point out
where that last shot came (or is coming) from.
[/quote]

Personally I think both of these ideas are excellent. The idea for the saber deflection modifications reminds me of the Star Wars Episode I Game, where you actually had to use the attack button to deflect blaster bolts, which I have to say was much more satisfying than just having it done for you! I also like the \'sense radar\' idea, this would be very useful in FFA\'s and it could also be quite useful on singleplayer, when you see the beam of a disruptor rifle graze your shields and want to know where the shot came from.

All in all a [i]very[/i] in depth and complex mod here. This wont appeal to everyone of course, but I am sure some people will absolutely love it! Just a note to the author for next time around though, I think it would be a good idea to include a simplified readme with a briefer outline of the features to make it easier for newbies to get started with the mod and also for the benefit of us reviewers to be able to quickly see what the mod features without having to do a lot of reading or hours of play-testing. ;)

Keep up the good work JaedenRuiner, your modding skills are impressive, most impressive! ;)

~Nozyspy~