[WIP] Jedi Class (and lightsabers!)

[SpuneDagr]

I'd like some feedback on this part. I had to come up with names for 30 varieties of lightsaber. Here they are, in level order, so the names at the end of the list should "sound" more powerful than those at the beginning. Thoughts/opinions? Are any of them too silly? Do you have a favorite?

Normal
Power Converter
Carbon Scorer
Soldering Iron
Vacuum Tube
Circuit Breaker
Contact Corroder
Charge Coil
Electro Cylinder
Ozone Sizzler
Ionic Knife
Flash Foil
Laser Sword

Magic
Neon Splitter
Ionizer
Radon Spark
Rayblade
Zero Pointer
Energy Spike
Atom Splitter
Quark Stream
Gamma Razor
Plasma Lance
Kinetic Katana
Dimensional Shard
Coldfire Diffuser
Antimatter Torch
Arc Cleaver
Star Helix
Cosmic String
Singularity Drive

[SpuneDagr]

Use the Force Luke!
i am literaly weting my pants over this mod and its future updates!

Wow. Pants damage is some high praise.
My goal is to get this up and playable before Christmas. I may have to cut a few corners, but I'd really like some player feedback.

[Irbis]

you have my blessing all the way!
i am one of those crazy Star Wars maniacs who will play even Pokemons as long as theres Vader inside!
no, seriously - write my name on the "wet pants" list
wohow! that would be such an awesome gift for christmass :3

[SpuneDagr]

Well, it looks like this won't be up in time for Christmas after all. I have too many other obligations at the moment to even get a few minutes to work on it. I should have time again after this weekend.

Have a good one, all, and may the Force be with you.

[Jupiah]

I'd like some feedback on this part. I had to come up with names for 30 varieties of lightsaber. Here they are, in level order, so the names at the end of the list should "sound" more powerful than those at the beginning. Thoughts/opinions? Are any of them too silly? Do you have a favorite?

Normal
Power Converter
Carbon Scorer
Soldering Iron
Vacuum Tube
Circuit Breaker
Contact Corroder
Charge Coil
Electro Cylinder
Ozone Sizzler
Ionic Knife
Flash Foil
Laser Sword

Magic
Neon Splitter
Ionizer
Radon Spark
Rayblade
Zero Pointer
Energy Spike
Atom Splitter
Quark Stream
Gamma Razor
Plasma Lance
Kinetic Katana
Dimensional Shard
Coldfire Diffuser
Antimatter Torch
Arc Cleaver
Star Helix
Cosmic String
Singularity Drive

Wow, those are some creative names. How many hours did you spend tearing through the thesaurus to come up with all those?

Honestly, the all sound awesome. If anything, some of them are too awesome. Star Helix? Cosmic String? Those sound like they might be more appropriate as unique weapons than magic ones. Heck, Singularity Drive sounds more like the Death Star's bigger brother than a sword!

Heh, I imagine it must difficult to come up with names for these things, so I'll contribute a few of my ideas for you to use however you'd like:
Fusioncutter
Blaster Beam
Frozen Lazer
Superconductor
Flux Aperture
Electron Rift
Ignition Matrix
Surge Emitter
Cauterizer
Magnetic Welder
Galvanized Shaft
Vortex Channel
Pulse Shroud
Modulation Focuser
Phase Baton

By the way, any plans to make some staff-like double-bladed sabers?

[SpuneDagr]

Thanks for the feedback. I did have a little help with the names, but for most of them, I just had a list of prefix 'energy' words, and suffix 'weapon' words and put them together like Mad Libs.

I especially like your Fusioncutter, Flux Aperture, Cauterizer. I may change a couple of mine or just add some more. For the unique weapons, I'm aiming for more of a 'poetic' vibe than just all-out powerful. Here are a few from my brainstorming list.

A Thousand Generations
The Horrible Relic of Korriban
An Elegant Weapon
Knight of the Old Republic
Balance to the Force
Palpatine's Last Resort
A Master of Evil
The Skywalker Legacy

I wasn't planning on a two bladed lightsaber, mostly because there are no attack animations that would look good with it. If somebody wanted to do some work on bringing double-edged weapons to life, though, I would definitely incorporate it.

[w00p00]

so are you anywhere near done ? I dont want to get impatient bu it really looks cool :}

[SpuneDagr]

I've been busy and out of town for the last week, so I haven't had any chance to work on it, but I hope to have a playable version ready soon. I don't want to release it in too rough a state, but I also want feedback before I declare it "finished." I'll keep you in the loop. Promise.

[lothario]

<APPLAUSE>

This is just great! But it's almost scary how influential George Lucas has been upon our generational psyche, isn't it? I mean, somebody even did a total reconversion Star Wars mod for Max Payne, for cryin' out loud. Was a mod like this as inevitable and unstoppable as Darth Vader said joining the Dark Side was? Fight it, nerds! Don't give in to the seduction of the Star Wars mod!

But seriously, the screens look good. One suggestion: if you wanted to avoid having a hundred lightsabers inexplicably laying around in the Ember mines, why not just use the ember crystals to level-up just a tiny handful of lightsabers? The game mechanics are already in place to custom out weapons... you can use this concept to create different flavors of lightsabers, e.g., a red ember makes a red lightsaber and does fire damage, a blue crystal makes a blue lightsaber and does extreme cold damage, a green crystal makes a green lightsaber, etc., you get the picture. It would involve altering the default particle effects from the embedded ember weapons to instead stick to a blade shape at the end of the lightsaber handle, but it's probably doable. Maybe that's too much like KOTOR with all the lightsaber crystals modding the char's lightsaber?

-Loth

[hakkenshi]

Thanks for the feedback. I did have a little help with the names, but for most of them, I just had a list of prefix 'energy' words, and suffix 'weapon' words and put them together like Mad Libs.

I especially like your Fusioncutter, Flux Aperture, Cauterizer. I may change a couple of mine or just add some more. For the unique weapons, I'm aiming for more of a 'poetic' vibe than just all-out powerful. Here are a few from my brainstorming list.

A Thousand Generations
The Horrible Relic of Korriban
An Elegant Weapon
Knight of the Old Republic
Balance to the Force
Palpatine's Last Resort
A Master of Evil
The Skywalker Legacy

I wasn't planning on a two bladed lightsaber, mostly because there are no attack animations that would look good with it. If somebody wanted to do some work on bringing double-edged weapons to life, though, I would definitely incorporate it.

You could also use some other references from the Bioware games...

Blade of the Exile
Mandalore's Fall
Revan's Redemption (or maybe a set of swords named after Revan and Malak..?)
Sword of the Fallen Knights
Broken Blade of Malachor
Blade of Ajunta Pall
Starforged Blade
The Dark Edge of Space

*sigh* I miss those games.

[SpuneDagr]

But seriously, the screens look good. One suggestion: if you wanted to avoid having a hundred lightsabers inexplicably laying around in the Ember mines, why not just use the ember crystals to level-up just a tiny handful of lightsabers? The game mechanics are already in place to custom out weapons... you can use this concept to create different flavors of lightsabers, e.g., a red ember makes a red lightsaber and does fire damage, a blue crystal makes a blue lightsaber and does extreme cold damage, a green crystal makes a green lightsaber, etc., you get the picture. It would involve altering the default particle effects from the embedded ember weapons to instead stick to a blade shape at the end of the lightsaber handle, but it's probably doable. Maybe that's too much like KOTOR with all the lightsaber crystals modding the char's lightsaber?

This is a great idea, and probably doable within the "Transmute" system. Once I get everything up and running, I'll take another look at the lightsaber drop system and see if I can do something like this instead.

Blade of the Exile
Mandalore's Fall
Revan's Redemption (or maybe a set of swords named after Revan and Malak..?)
Sword of the Fallen Knights
Broken Blade of Malachor
Blade of Ajunta Pall
Starforged Blade
The Dark Edge of Space

I like the cut of your jib. To my shame, I never played the Knights of the Old Republic games - I mostly watched my roommates play. The Dark Edge of Space is quite evocative, and weapons named after Revan and Malak seem obvious in retrospect. Thanks for the suggestions. When I sit down and do all the unique weapons, consider these on the list!

[SpuneDagr]

Progress Report

As of last night...
Graphics

• Tried out a new texture for the gloves based on Obi-Wan's armor from the Clone Wars. Looks okay, but now my boots don't match!

Skills

• All skills in the Martial tree are in, at least with placeholder skills (some are exact clones of other skills, for now)

What I still need to do...
Graphics

• Texture for boots
• Finish the astrodroid texture

Skills

• The skills under the Martial tree, while present, need some work. More on that in a minute.
• Additional Light Side powers, including Mind Trick, some kind of shield, and perhaps an improvised projectile ability. Force Push and Force Bubble are good enough for now.
• All Dark Side powers. All save one have pretty close analogues in the core game. The only one I really have to build from scratch is Force Choke.

Items

• Need to finish all icons for lightsaber weapons. I have a bunch already, but more is always good.
• Must come up with stats for unique weapons.
• Also need to enter Epic versions of all weapons.

[SpuneDagr]

To everyone waiting patiently for something you can play:
I will release this before everything is finished. My bare minimum is that the Jedi model has to look good, and that at least one skill tree is workable. Everything else can come after that. I'm as anxious to get real feedback as some of you are to try this out!

Thank you all for your patience. I hope the final product is as good as you're hoping.

[lothario]

You're doing great so far... and we understand that this is not a one-hour project, and that you also have a life. Just take your time, and make it work. You will have ample feedback on this to improve on the first rough draft, I am sure.

-Loth

[hakkenshi]

If you ever manage to figure out which part of the Alch's boot texture goes where (apart from the shin, which is pretty obvious), I would be forever grateful if you could somehow point out how it all wraps around the mesh. I've been tearing my hair out trying to make it work - I'd just look myself in Blender, but I can't get Blender to work on my Mac.

Glad you like the names! They're all basically taken from one story element or another. I look forward to finding them with the Jedi 'toon I'll create.

[lothario]

If you ever manage to figure out which part of the Alch's boot texture goes where (apart from the shin, which is pretty obvious), I would be forever grateful if you could somehow point out how it all wraps around the mesh.

Sorry to interrupt a little off-topic, but I have an idea that might help you right away, hakkenshi:
1. Open up the texture in question with your editing program (I like to use Gimp).
2. Add a layer that is a white grid, and put some labels on a few of the sections. I like to use numbers 2, 3, 4, etc., because you can see where everything is oriented. If the number 3 is sideways or upside-down, you can tell by looking at the model with the texture wrapped around it.
3. If you still can't deduce which goes where, add a few more numbers to the grid, and take another look at the model. You'll figure it out eventually.

This is the trick I used to retexture some armor models in Gothic 3.
-Loth

[hakkenshi]

If you ever manage to figure out which part of the Alch's boot texture goes where (apart from the shin, which is pretty obvious), I would be forever grateful if you could somehow point out how it all wraps around the mesh.

Sorry to interrupt a little off-topic, but I have an idea that might help you right away, hakkenshi:
1. Open up the texture in question with your editing program (I like to use Gimp).
2. Add a layer that is a white grid, and put some labels on a few of the sections. I like to use numbers 2, 3, 4, etc., because you can see where everything is oriented. If the number 3 is sideways or upside-down, you can tell by looking at the model with the texture wrapped around it.
3. If you still can't deduce which goes where, add a few more numbers to the grid, and take another look at the model. You'll figure it out eventually.

This is the trick I used to retexture some armor models in Gothic 3.
-Loth

You, sir, are far cleverer than I. Thank you! I'll give it a shot right away.

[SpuneDagr]

Here's what I've been able to figure out on the boots, based on the texture PNG and some screenshots. There are still some pieces I'm not sure of.

[hakkenshi]

Cool! I'll try to find more time (maybe less sleep?) for a quick Clone Wars skin, or maybe something for the Old Republic MMO trailer...

[SpuneDagr]

Request for Ideas

Here are the unique skills I have in my lightsaber combat tree ("Martial") right now.

• Slash - deals damage in an arc in front of you
• Sweep - 360° attack that debuffs whoever it hits (the idea is that you're cutting the enemy's weapons in half with your lightsaber)
• Leap - Jump into a group of enemies, damaging them when you land. (Based on Ember Phase)
• Combat Trance - Boosted speed and damage for a while
• Frenzy - Right now this is pretty much just Devistate.

These are okay, but I feel like they're lacking something. Combat Trance and Frenzy seem too close in concept - I'd really like to differentiate them more. Does anybody have ideas for cool lightsaber skills, maybe from other games or the movies?