A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 111: Peragus Mining Facility (KOTOR II 02)

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

You can watch Austin play through this section of the game right here. After T3-M4 and 3C-FD (who we're all sure will be very important throughout the game) managed to repair the Ebon Hawk, it and its unconscious crewmembers--the so called "last of the Jedi" and a mysterious robed woman named Kreia--have come to in the abandoned Peragus Mining Facility. Well. Mostly abandoned. There is the matter of the sneering (but surprisingly aware) scoundrel Atton... and the droids. So many droids. Hallways and hallways of droids. Now if only we could get a lift off this station. Hey, look, a ship!  Next Time: Chatting on the Ship and Telos: Citadel Station intro and Side Quests. For part 1, we're not getting deep into the Czerka or Ithorian quests Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Our KOTOR II Mod List Galactic & Going Rogue Kickstarter Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Chia Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Warm greeting. Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakney, joined by Alia Kampora, Austin, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, by patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes. So we are starting nights of the old. Republic 2, where last we left off, we had just done some very introductory stuff as we were getting, as we were sort of realizing what the situation was for our character on Paragas

Mining Station. And we were about to try and make our, make our escape with the help of our new friends, Atten Rand and Crea. Yeah. Whoever or whatever her whole deal is. And we saw an HK unit arriving at some point during during that, during that play through appearing to be hostile, but who knows? Maybe, maybe they're their old buddy. Who can, who can say? Who can say? Before we get into it really quick, I just want to shout something out, which is Natalie, you and I were just on an actual play, a tabletop role playing game recording, which I think is available now. Maybe it's available next week. Maybe I've gotten my dates wrong. But we, people who listen to the show may remember about two years ago, we played a

game called Going Rogue. You and I got to play that again with some other folks on the, on the internet, other folks from the kind of tabletop and actual place, space. It's actually May 26th. It'll be the upcoming Monday that'll be available. And that's part of a crowdfunding campaign for Going Rogue and Galactic, which again, the game that we played a couple years ago. If you do a search on Kickstarter for Going Rogue, you will find it, or for Galactic, you find it. So shout-outs to everyone involved there, Jess and Riley, and then everybody we got to play with. You can find notes and stuff on the, on Blue Sky. I think we've both probably reposted stuff about it. We got to play a pair of droids, which I think was very fun.

It was very fun. If you're, I don't know, if you're a listener of AMCA, you might be interested in um you know the the identity and consciousness of being a droid and and and who who is a droid um droid rights etc you might be interested in this uh episode uh it gets it's it's it's a fun one it's a fun one and it's all it was only my i think second actual play uh recorded actual play. So, you know, the systems are very, very easy to grasp, like quick to grasp, rather, I should say, even for a beginner like me. So I recommend it.

It was a good time. I mean, I don't know if everyone in our, I don't know if our characters were having a good time. Oh, no, our characters were fundamentally doomed maybe from the get-go. But in what way, who could say? Speaking of droids, we did kind of leave off on one, huh? Oh, yeah, we need to reunite the homies. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, your friends, Rob? Yeah. The ones that you were like, they're so bonded. Yeah, it was going to be like an R2-3PO situation. Yeah. Like, just two buddies, like going on a little droid adventures. I think you called them our away team at a certain point. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no, I was super excited. That did not work out. In fact, right after we stopped where we left. left off last time. Literally, it's like, oh, boy, my buddy's right in this storage closet. Yeah. Extremely dead. Extremely dead. In fact. Why isn't my buddy beeping, beeping, booping back at me? I will say there is apparently a way to not, I don't know how you got through that door,

but use your buddy's dead body as an explosive to open that door up. There is apparently a way to break that door open otherwise. But the way I did it was by overcharging the poor body of that droid. to open it and let let us through uh so uh oh oh wow so in this in this section of the game uh to an extent it sure is cotor oh yeah a lot of hallways a lot of hallways full like three four enemies there's two droop there's maybe three maybe three there's that there's I guess there's four total enemy types you fight in this zone. And they're all droids, right?

There's a little spider crab droids. There's a little floating remote droids who can heal them. Mm-hmm. There's the big rocky droids. And then there's a boss. We'll fight later. There's the spider showy that's red. It is different for some of the red version.

There's red version. They're the shielded. The shielded ones. Right. You're right. You're right. You're right. So five.

Five enemy types. I've been paying attention. And the other thing I will note is that there is more story. Well, is there more story here? There's more talking in this. Like, Cotor sometimes was like a little light on the like, hey, could people like, let's, we've been doing a lot of wandering around, but there's not a whole lot of like exchanges. Here, it's like, all right, it's talk time.

Dude, this is Bioshock. audio logs baby audio logs are here it's bizarre but it's not just the but it's not just the it's the conversation it is just the whole thing you're right it's being like hey you know what let's loop it back i got more to tell you and i'm like oh you're right there's this is this still happening it is still going well and i i've been thinking a lot about this in relation to the production of this game um this game was made in an absurdly quick amount of time i think it was I it's definitely around one year it might be 10 months it's some absurd amount of quick turnaround that I'll double check briefly but do you know what's pretty quick and easy to

make is writing and I say that as a writer as someone who's done video game writing I don't mean that as in it's like it's light to work but I mean that in terms of how how where the you can put someone in a room the theoretical amount of time yeah you don't hit those those kind of bandwidth bumps the same way that some technical hurdles might need to be solved or how long they might need. And so it does feel like a game where they were like, you know, how are we going to make this game long? 30 minute conversations.

Real intense stuff. Real intense stuff. So I guess we can, like, I'm trying to think where do we begin? because like basically there's a ton of like wandering the caverns that we did it's like our buddy level quick summary or do you want to walk through it how do you want to run through paragas we are doing all paragas this episode we're not breaking this one up we've all played through all of it yeah do you want to do you want to like a five-sentence summary in the just king thing style you know what let's let's get to um let's get to the harbinger showing up i mean

That's, there's sort of two acts here. Yes. One is the like, what's been going on on Paragas Station? How do we get off Paragas station? And then like the sort of finale of Paragas is like, here's our actual enemy. Here's the actual stakes. The pedal goes down a little bit. Yeah.

Maybe we'll meet an old friend, briefly, a glimpse, an old friend who's like trying something new. We'll see. So, yeah. So where we left off, you're sort of stuck on Paragas Station. you cut to maybe T3 can help you unlock the station so you can just make a swift exit to the Ebenhawk

it's a little tutorial section showing you like one droids can fight two it's basically like if you strap a spear to a Rumba and that's kind of that's kind of how it goes they they're great at hacking but

no sooner if they demonstrate as T3 sort of demonstrated all little hackability then he's ambushed from somewhere and we cut back to the exile and Atten and Crea and how are we going to get off the station? And the answer is go through the depths of this mining station, unlock doors. What's behind this? Oh, it's more locked doors. We're going to have to, we have to access a lot of consoles to figure out like where's the next console we can get to unlock another door. Every single one of these consoles, to Austin's point, has some audio logs that tell you the mystery of Paraguas Station.

We learned that there was some nefarious dealings as people tried to sell you out to the exchange. And you meet your helpful droid buddy, the HK unit, who just cannot stop. It's a bit that starts funny, goes a little long of the tooth, but loops around being kind of funny. that's right through repetition as he keeps as he keeps doing a variation on like it's it's basically

how to serve man how to serve man for dinner type type jokes where it's like I didn't say I was going to I didn't say I wanted to kill you master I said I wanted to kill your ability to put yourself in danger that's right but it turns out that have to learn what an hK droid looks like if i was in the military there are scenes in this episode i think in this section where someone's like we got a cool new protocol droid and it's like that's like you need to know what an AK 47 looks like check the model number check the model number what's the HK stands with HK starts with HK we got a cool new protocol droid with like sloped armor plating on its chassis uh

That's right. As if to deflect incoming rounds. Yeah. Totally normal. And so it turns out that he's, he is actually maybe the evildoer of Paragas Station. And you're going to have to sort of work your way around him and, you know, get access to the fuel lines to make your escape and get to the Ebenhawk. So, yeah. You know, obviously, Austin, like, you know, Allie, you played this game before.

Allie is not. Allie is fresh to us, too. I thought. I'm it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how do,

let's talk. How are we feeling about how our builds did? And how are we just feeling about like combat design, like the, the vibe, the loop? It's Cotor. Right now I think it's Cotor. I'd say you, maybe you're seeing some hints that there might be more in loading screens where they start talking about like force forms and saber styles. none of that's in this yet Right now I'm running up to a droid

And swinging my sword I love disabling droids I love to run around I disabled a droid I am protected For a brief amount of time While I melee And then I move on to the next droid

I'm really enjoying the force I feel like in the last game The The little that I played I wasn't really engaging with my, with the foresight of me enough. And now I feel like I'm really going force mode. Like I'm really feeling force vibes. I'm just, I might be forced screaming.

Ooh, a little dark side. A little dark side force scream. I might, it's, you know, it does the trick with those Sith assassins. We'll get to them. We'll get to them. Oh, you're right. I left out a whole type of enemy, six, six enemy types, the Sith assassins. that's for part two

yeah so yeah I think I'm I'm quite enjoying not making my character a jack of all trades and really

focusing on specializing and then allowing myself to really spend time in control of other characters for their specialties like I'm just leaning everyone all the way into

what they're what they're kind of starting vibes are and I like it I feel like I feel the most I've felt like I'm moving my little figurines around the map and I'm playing with my dolls and I really like it I think I'm having the opposite um situation with my my uh exile right now because I started as a consular I think we all did um and then I'm putting a lot of I'm putting a lot of my stats into computer. I wanted to at least get five computer so I could make my own spikes. And it's a lot of investment in the early game.

So I don't know that the like combat is clicking for me or I'm having the best time doing it. I think a lot of the time I spent like playing the game. I was like, I don't know that I'm having fun. But the rating is really good. Video games from 2004. Yeah. I run a very hot and cold on this game. Like there are moments where I'm like,

this is fantastic. This is delightful. You're so funny. You're so witty. This is what will happen next? And then also it's like if I have to beat up another like, like mob of droids I am going to lose my mind like this is and I think part of it is I think this exactly the kind of game that made me think I did not like RPGs uh for a long time I did not play

RPGs I kind of missed like I never played the ultimate series and that had sort of stopped being a thing by the time I was like really doing a lot of like playing games myself so they kind of missed the uh you know one of the sort of the heyday of like the really narratively dense like text heavy like our you know our RPGs and so when I started like when I was like oh like these games are getting some really good reviews I'll give them try like I'd give like never winter nights a shock because it got like really really positive reviews and it'd be like there's parts where like the vibe was really cool and like there's there's cool stuff happening in the background but then the reality of it was never winter nights crucially another

yeah d&D based game I think running third edition yep uh huh Yeah, which was revelatory at the time, I think now is like, oh, I do not want anything. Third edition does not a great computer game make, I think is part of it. And I don't think that the presentation does it any favors, because a round of tabletop game combat can be really exciting and fun. I think Baldersgate 3 being so popular, you know, kind of shows that. this game is technically doing something that's a predecessor to that same basic system of play. You don't feel like you're making interesting decisions in the combat fundamentally. Crucially, third edition is a grid-based system.

Like, it is still, it's still wearing that like turn-based war game, tactics game, like, identity on its sleeve. This is using to resolve action. It's using the D20, like, D&D third edition system, but it doesn't play remotely. like D&D third edition. And so it is like, you're like, shoot the shit out of that guy. And the background, like dice start rolling frantically. And misses are not fun.

And D&D, going back to one through three point five editions, D&D is all about like, oh, that didn't work. Try it again. That is the nature of the game. Like not every attack's going to work. So you just kind of, you know, try and try again. And there's a lot of like going around in circles in this. that is pretty insufferable in the context of a game that's like got this kind of like

janky third third person like plausible combat uh that's happening and I think a big part of it is getting your characters to stop running around in the wrong direction I've tried put in them in different stances their ability to like wander to the wrong position or run into a mine. The presentation often makes it unclear about like who are they actually aiming at. I think, you know, it's like, all right, let's, I've got this guy stunlock. Let's hit him. And I will watch these characters like engage somebody else that I'd not tell them to, to attacks. There's, there's a lot of that. And then just like Kotor, what, what situation wouldn't be improved by littering the battlefield with mines with this, with this system and your, your AI companions?

who doesn't want just like movie traps everywhere that you will just watch characters run into and like basically immediately disable themselves for the duration of the fight. And this game is so much of that for this entire time on Paragus where it is walking into space, bash on these things,

it's really passive. It really makes you realize how much a lot of action, a lot of RPGs sort of starting to draw from Souls-like games is sort of a blessing to some extent because like it's at least it gives you something to do with the perspective you have on the action. Here it is it is extremely dreary, I think,

is my feeling about the combat. And at this stage, like I'm also, yeah, doing the consular build, I'm leaning heavily on the force powers, but I think part of it is sort of like with the Dup's Pillow bolt, The Dup's Polo. Duff's pillow. Dupes. Mace window.

AMCA merch. You can get the Dup's pillow now. There's a lot of I'm having to do stun lock attacks to basically lower the hit number and then you can sort of bash guys down. Otherwise, there's even more like sort of, ah, whiffed again. Let's let's try again. And so like combat follows in that very bioshocky vein. the given the old one too I'm giving them the old one too

and scene after scene after scene uh and it just doesn't to me it also feels like fights are either like trivial easy or like or they're hard fight impossible right right yeah there's not I have not found like ever a moment where it like feels like it exists in a happy happy median

for me as I'm like I think I'm wearing like a couple different gaming hats while I'm playing this game where I have like a mixture of one hat is the wow hat the World of Warcraft

where I am just I am going up to guys I am doing my rotation I kill them I loot them I keep going like that and I'm just in that rhythm and your brain is just like yeah and I'm like I press this button then this button then this button, then this button, and then I press that button.

And it's just that, it's the, and it feels so good. And then I, to address the sort of the dice mechanic, the probability and that kind of thing, then I have like an XCOM cap or maybe fire emblem cap and the other side where I'm like, you know, pausing and I'm looking at my four guy or my three guys and I'm like, okay, what, what can I do let me stack up a couple moves and then I just like let it play and then there's like the the like RPG brain of I love to go in people's houses and loot their house and and open the chests and get the things what I tell you I know I said this last episode but when I click on a cylinder in that and the animation plays out and then the item inventory

pops up on my screen delicious delicious food for me I think I'm just like I have all of that in my brain as I'm moving through it and then it's like the the audio logs

and the cut scenes and stuff I'm in like story mode just I'm reading a book or whatever I don't know. I think for me, with those kind of expectations, it really, it all gels in my brain. But I'm definitely going at it with the aim of like my brain go, bz, rather than, you know, a particularly difficult, like, strategy game moment or something, you know. I think it's made a bit worse for me because I'm also thinking about like Imagine a Larian got hold of Cotorne and like physics were introduced to like so force push plus like force lightning and then the way Larian puts the stuff together

But it's all very inert here. I think I think that's exactly why I this is working for me because trying to play Baldur's Gate 3 as someone that gets very intimidated by D&D and like the whole turn system and like how many steps in a cantrip like when I see those words like my brain just like can't compute going back to Cotor which is a sort of more focused you know with the with kind of the the specifics sanded off I think is actually working for me because I feel like I it's a digestible amount of information being presented to me. Whereas with Baldr's Gate 3,

I just got so overwhelmed. And I intend to go back and play that game one day. Who doesn't? We're all saying this. It won't pick it back up for some stupid reason. How many other characters have you started? I don't want to talk about it. Mostly I actually respect in that game.

I've respect to different character classes so many times because it's fairly cheap. I do want to give a couple of tips for people playing. on at home and also people listen, people on the podcast that I probably said during the Cotor ones, but I, having replayed this now or started to play back through, I'm thinking a lot about those things, because there are things that the game does not tell you, or they tell you it in a feat description on another character, and it's a feat you didn't pick. It's just one that they get, and you don't even see it in the feat list when you're leveling

up because it's an intuitive one or an intrinsic one or whatever. So a couple things. One, even numbers are what matter on attributes. so 12, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20. That's what matters. If you somebody at 15, it doesn't fucking matter. 15 is not better than 14. It's the same.

The nice thing I'll get me to 15 is you might find gear that can get them to 16. But you only get those bonuses on the even numbers, the plus one plus two, plus three, plus four. So that's the only thing that matters there. And you can see that that's the ability modifier. Important abilities for combat. Strength is your melee chance to hit by. default. It's also a bonus damage to hit by default. Dex works if you have weapon finesse, or I think maybe lightsabers eventually will also use either your strength modifier or your Dex

modifier, whichever is higher. But strength is the one if you want to hit stuff with a fucking sword. Dex is the one for shooting a gun. And Dex also gives you defense bonuses. It makes it harder for you to hit. It doesn't reduce damage. It doesn't give you more HP, but it makes you harder to hit, which means that Atten Rand is kind of a fucking tank out the game because he is high decks. The other thing about Atten is that Atten has sneak attack. He's the only person in your party at the beginning of the game that has sneak attack. Even if you're playing the Jedi Sentinel, which is kind of the rogue style class, you do not

start with anything like sneak attack. You have to get that when you prestige class later. Sneak attack says that you'll do bonus damage when you hit someone who's when they're unaware of you, and that does not just mean when you turn on your little stealth belt and become invisible. It also means when someone has been stunned with, for instance, horror or a disabled droid or something like that, which is why if suddenly Atten is the person doing the most damage in fights, it's because you've stun-locked somebody and then Atten follows up, and it's why you do want to have that sort of triangulate on the same person thing for a big fight.

I think those are three big starter things. There's other stuff that we can talk about later, or if people specifically, things like fuck i'm so sick of running out of force points in combat for instance you will unlock a force there is a feat you can get pretty early that is force point regeneration get it don't fucking look back even me who doesn't use very many force points got that shit it's too useful um i think those are the big ones that i like never run out of force well then you're good love that for you i do think there are also moments when like the the the jank of the game kind of works for it.

A thing that I love doing in this game is somebody in my party falls and I run far enough away from the enemies that they wake back up and the like fight restarts itself so I can like midpack, mint back, bed back and then like pretend like I'm going back in fresh when it's really, I've just been sort of wandering around in the many hallways. That is a, that is a MMO type maneuver that is playing fantasy 14 and be like, we got to get away from this fight. I'm going to fucking die. Yeah, I don't want to, eminy, get away from me. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, God, the, the stealth, oh, man, I can't believe we're doing the stealth belt again. You just don't have to do it. Rob, let me just tell you. No, I'm not. You don't have to. I don't even, I don't even try. It's a very, a very silly system. I'm, I'm making Atten be a, a ranged, you know, demolitionist.

Just throw stuff. and shoot stuff for now. He's my, he's the new mission for me, basically. It's like you stand back here and you just, you just plink people and then you get under my skin. I'm like, shut the fuck up. The difference, of course, is no one has ever believed in things more than mission and no one has ever believed in things less than at Nran.

So, yeah, so it's a whole lot. It's a whole lot of that. And the other thing, it's the way these, these quests are really designed. It really is like a, oh, this door, like this door is locked. You have to go through this other long hallway, fight some of the battles. And there will be a console that will have a couple ways of unlocking that door. And there'll be a lot of backtracking and, you know, going around to these various places. and it's all

it's weird I find I think for me I've mentioned you're comfortable with Cotor I find this game I get disoriented a lot where I'm like

which fucking door was it I'm trying to unlock I've been lost comfort and and disorientation are different things for me

you know a night Rob where you're like you're leaving the first bar and you have the healthy buzz and you're just comfortable and then you're like where does that I walked. Oh, I know a place around here. I think I, isn't that place over? That's what it's like for me more than it's like, but you're comfortable. You're not. It's your neighborhood. And so like, yes, there are a number of times you can go watch the let's play, which continues to go up on our YouTube page, which did exist, by the way, I'd forgotten it existed. We have, for Patreon backers, we played the Outer Rim board game. And that video is on that YouTube channel. But it's, it's for Patreon backers only. So people should go back us and go watch that.

because they probably don't know it exists because we never talk about it. That was really fun. That was really fun. But I've been putting up the less play and there are a number of times in the list play where I'm like, I think I go, don't I do here?

But what I'm not doing that or in between that is just sort of like, killing these droids. There's a lot of moments where for me it's like, I've left the bar and I'm like doing all right and then it's like, I need to go pee. Oh, that's a bad feeling. It's like, where the fuck is that door? Sorry, what was I doing here?

What am I, hang on? Like 10 minutes ago, there was Dorian. had to unlock and like everyone was like you got to unlock that door how do i get back to the console that unlocks the door please let me through i promise i'll buy a drink uh yeah that is i did remember one specific combat moment though that i think has a lot of character i there's actually two i slow down so i speed through bits of the combat on the let's play but i but most of it in progress go forward actually i think the next episode is also going to have basically all of it there because there's not that much in the next zone that we go to.

But the, there's one, we talked about not liking the mines. I really don't like the mines in the big open cavern area, but there's a, there's one particular hallway down where like the enemies are in the bottom shooting up at you up the hallway. And there's a mine there. It sucks, but in a way that I'm like, yeah, sometimes it's good to have the low ground. You put the fucking mines there. You've got to run down through the mines.

The mines are making good, but like, I left that fight. I watched my companions, and they were both set to do standoff tactics. They plunged into the minds, got themselves knocked out, and I had to take out all those droids by myself. I'm going to say this. I damn near, like, uninstalled. I need to say this out loud because someone is probably screaming it. And I'm not saying you didn't do it because I absolutely believe this buggy as shit game could do this.

You do have to confirm the stance you put them in with a button trust. So I had thought this because when you fight HK, they immediately were like, I'm going to go make out with these floating lines. And so I had to reload that fight. But I figured out how that worked. It was just like for whatever reason, they plunged ahead,

even though they were both enraged or stationary. And they just ran straight into the mines. And I was like, what is, what does it take? It's weird. What do you need from me? I don't know. The second fight that I think,

is, has character, there's that one point where you go into a zone that looks like it's the dual of the fate zone, you know what I'm talking about? It's like a big pit in the middle and there's like a walkway across the edge and there's like force fields around. If you hack that computer, you can make it, you can make all the droids vision sensors turn off and they don't fight you back. And so you go around that room and you kill two dozen droids and they just stand there as you slaughter them. You can fight them? Oh, that's not what I did actually. I just smoked my.

I wanted the XP. That's free XP. Wait, once I start beating them up, they agroed. Nope, not mine. They agro. They go into a fight stance, but they will never attack you. They cannot attack you. Eventually, you'll get far enough in. You turned off the like setting

to attack organics. Oh yeah, maybe I also did that. I did both of those. There's two things you have to do on top of each other. I only did the one that was like make them not hostile. Okay. Or I set them to... Maybe that's the one I did.

Maybe I didn't blind them. Maybe I made them so they don't attack organics. That's maybe what I did. Yeah, you can like make the chamber really hot so they can't sense you or something. That's what it was. That's the one I did. Yeah. Okay.

The sneakers tactic. One of multiple sneakers things in this fucking section, by the way. Sneakers, of course, also the movie where there's a voice controlled. My voice is my passport type stuff. That's true. And it's 100% here. literally have to get HK to do my voice as my passport verify

me in order to get access. So, and I think the timing is right, you know, in terms of this is an early 2000s game, that movie's in the early 90s. I just wouldn't like that as a teenager and then nostalgically put that stuff in. So, yeah.

Anyway, I thought it was... Stinkers now out on 4K. That's true. Like very recently. I love that movie. Yeah, very recently. That has not had a new issue come out for a long. long time yeah so the other thing that while you're while you're going around here

the other thing you're doing is you're at all these consoles you find the audio logs and okay so I think something's about Cotor don't lend themselves to the atmosphere they're going for like so this thing is evoking a little bit bio shock a little bit system shock like you wake up in the space station everyone's dead but it's a big bright featureless space station with nothing really going on. And so what you're running around, it's like, it dawned on me slowly like, wow, they're really like trying to drip feed you this like, what happened aboard the space station? And I'm kind of like, I just want to get to my car and get out of here.

But they're going to tell you about like, all right, guys, the drone. are acting really crazy. We don't know what's going on. They just keep acting so strange. I hope that doesn't, that doesn't go off in our faces at some point. Oh, man, like, what happened to all those miners who got injured? Like, who could have poisoned the miners? Ooh, like, I've heard some of the miners want to sell the Jedi we recovered to the exchange. And as, like, when you get to, you know, it's what what what has happened here starts to really become clear when you finally get to you go through the mining tunnels and all that and then you run into the hk unit who is trying to play he's playing he's playing very much the character the hk 47 type character we saw in the last game but this time he is absolutely not your employee like this is like he's still doing the oh yes no you're my you don't remember me I'm your loyal droid. I've just been trying to protect you, master.

I was so worried that I was going to lose my bounty. Bounty, what do you mean? Oh, nervous retraction. By bounty, I mean my joy at preserving, at seeing your life preserved. Mm-hmm. And so what HK tells you in so many words is like he keeps coming up to, oh, it was most horrible. someone exquisitely sabotaged the space station dry chuckle all the miners thought they'd be safe

in the dormitories but all they got was a slow excruciating asphyxiation it was most delightful did i say delightful i mean i was delighted by the feeling of pathos it evoked in me listening to their screams and this conversation goes on for like 30 minutes as he does this bit. The first five minutes is amazing. And the middle 15 minutes is really bad. And then I think it gets worse because you can start poking around and learn exactly what happened pretty quickly thereafter.

You leave, you know, you're moving basically from the kind of central comm station down from there into the mining tunnels and then to this kind of fuel depot area, which is where you find HK. And then from there, you end up, we'll talk a little bit more about the events that happen when you walk outside. You don the old space suit to walk outside briefly, gracefully, very briefly. And you go back inside and explore some dormitories. And between all of that, you can put together exactly what happened around. There's a particular guy named Korda, whose name will come back to in a moment, who's actually played by Robin Atkin Downs, who is like a very well-regarded voice actor

who has been like, you know, he's Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes. He's in the Metal Gear Solid series as Miller, who is, of course, an all-time character. But Cord is the one who's like trying to sell you out to the exchange. And you can get all,

you can learn that HK is the one who poisoned all the other people in the Medbay. And you can't do anything with that information. I think that is the height of you can't make a fucking game that's about talking. If you don't let me talk, say the words I want to say, you know, just let me fight this guy. I could take this guy. I could take this guy right now. Chat, I could not take that guy right then. You need to have everybody else with you to take that guy

probably. But like, you can't, you can't even really go. I ran back to Kraya and Atten at one point to be like, hey guys, I found out what happened here. And you can get slightly new dial from them about other stuff, but you can't be like, you know, you can tell Atten, hey, I think there's something up with this droid. He's like, yeah, I don't trust droids. Like, no shit. All droids are stupid. And I'm like, okay, well, I didn't say all that. I didn't just murder a bunch of them when they couldn't see me. But I don't say that they're bad, you know, generally speaking. And Craig doesn't really say anything else, which I think is a missed opportunity partly because one of the things you can say to her is like, I'm going to

come back and check in on you. And like, you can go do that. And she doesn't care that you've done that at all. But anyway, that's the lowest. And I do think that by the time HK says, quarter, quarter, I'm coming for you. It's like, oh, yeah, this is good again, actually. HK in stalker, slasher movie mode is actually really good. But still kind of bitchy. Like, the protocol droid thing is so ingrained to it. It's like, what if C3PO were like a killer? Like, but he's still C3PO. Do you think he's working method? Like, he's going undercover as a protocol or as a protocol draw, and he won't break that

character even though his end goal result is killing everybody. This, like the vibe I keep getting from him is like a murderous Niles Crane to an extent, but they actually kind of gave us that character with perfect host, the David Hyde Pierce. Have you seen this? No, what is this? This is, I don't know that it's a, a very good movie. I saw it on a plane, but basically a guy, like sort of a reservoir dog situation,

a thief is on the run from a job gone bad. He home invades this like dweeby nebish dude, rich dude's house. And it's David Hyde Pierce. And it turns out that he might have just home invaded Hannibal Lecter. Incredible vibe. And so, and crucially, this guy's having a big dinner party later later tonight. And so there's sort of who is holding each who is holding who hostage here.

And it's it's got that whole like it's still recognizably David Hyde Pierce kind of a Niles-esque character, but like totally unhinged. And here we've got a bit of a bit of that like he just takes satisfaction and a job well done. He finds it so irritating when people do not get out of his way. So it's so satisfying to make it so they can't get in his way by killing them all. Uh, there's, he is very, he's very entertaining that way. Um, I, I was sort of, I was sort of bummed that I had to, had to kill him so quickly. Though we did take some hardware off him that maybe makes me think that like, uh, we've not seen the end of an HK, uh, hang, uh, of hanging time with an HK in this game. But it did, but they do flub important things. Like, with that character and his smugness, if they had made it so that you can only trick him. him into saying passport into the voice recorder when it actually happens. But instead you can trick him before you have the voice recorder. Yes.

And so you have to repeat the bit. And it's like this character isn't this dumb. Like you could only get him if you poked his ego once. Or if you, that's the joy of getting one over on a character like this is like, oh, he thinks he's so fucking smart, but he's not. And because they let you do it multiple times, it's like, oh, wait, like you've wasted the punchline. And also, you don't ever get to trip him up all the way. Yes, you can get the code from him to open the door. But opening a door isn't fun. Like, it's not, that's not a fun

verb. That's not a fun story. And then I got the code so I could open the door. Importantly, sneakers doesn't end when they open the door. You know what I mean? There's more movie after that. That's one step in a larger thing. Obviously, Cotor 2 doesn't either. But that's the one time you get to like get one over on HK. It would be so satisfying if you'd had the chance to like set a trap for him or lead him into one of his own traps or turn the droids against him or something, you know, like there are all of these other opportunities you could imagine. Now again, whole game made in 14 months. First co-tur made in three years. I get it. It's a different vibe. But you want to, you want to be able to pull the rug out from under him and sort of see it.

Yes. Did he ever watch Just Shoot Me? Sure. Yes. I did see just shoot me. Remember the David Cross episode where he plays Donnie, uh, L. Say more. Brother who is developmentally challenged. I do not remember this episode. So basically it turns... What is this from? A sitcom called Just Shoot Me.

Yeah, Just Shoot Me was a 90s sitcom. I guess it was it 90s or 2000s? Maybe it... 90s. Okay. I think of it's a 90s show. That was about a fashion magazine. It was a fashion magazine or was it like a...

Yeah, and like a hyper-feminist daughter comes in to run, basically Cosmo, run by her, like, sleazy publisher, dad. But I don't remember who the lead is in it, but it's a David Spade, sidekick guy, you know, show. But there's a character where, like, one of the characters has a brother who, it turns out, has been faking, having had, like, traumatic brain injury. And it's basically playing on all those stereotypes people have about people with, like, brain injuries and disabilities. to basically, like, play on their ignorance, play against their, like, well-meaning prejudices, to basically, like, make life really easy for him. But one character figures it out. And eventually, like, the, the fun moment is that there's a character who's genuinely a dumbass in this who eventually, like, David Cross's character snaps and can't help but reveal, like, what the fuck, man?

Why are you doing this? Here, let me. And, like, I kind of want that moment for HK where if you put. Coke him, he'll completely give the game away, and he'll be like, fuck. Yes. I shouldn't have said that. He didn't really react to the fact that you got him. You need the Phoenix Wright end of a case.

The character gets a new sprite to show how owned they are moment, where, like, people who haven't played those games at their court case games. At the end of every case, when you've, like, unmasked the true villain, who, of course, is, like, someone who in power, who has the court's affection at the beginning of every case, they like the evil comes out they become a grotesque caricature of themselves in some way and it would be so juicy to get to do that to hk here and instead you fight him with some other people you first you hit pause to put your equipment on your characters because they don't give you even a brief moment to re-equip your characters before the fight starts but thankfully they allow you

to do that they don't they don't say well you can't do it at least but still yeah like that A character like that, especially because you, you sat through like 20 minute conversation, 25 minute. This shouldn't end with a fight, if possible, it should end with some sort of like, aha, but uno reversal. Right. And instead, it's like, very well, let's brawl. And you're into, you know, kind of yet another frustrating fight. Not too terrible. He shrugs off every droid's done.

Yeah. He does. Well, you know, yeah, I think that we're going to have a very interesting journey here. He did, like, kill mad people. I would expect him to shrug off the droid stun off the first. That's true. Off first, right? He didn't, he didn't resist my droid stunt, of course.

But, um. Wait, what? It's dice rolling, baby. You might have hit some twos and some threes, Rob. I tried so many. He never, not a single stun landed. What are your, what's your stat line, Rob? It's like 18 charisma.

Okay. Like 14 wisdom, something like that. Yeah, you should be fine. It's luck. I don't know. Here's the problem with the D20. There's a lot of space between a hit and a miss. That's true.

And so, you know, you could be rolling. And the system has a rule that 20 is always a success. 20 is always a success, at least in the way it works in Cotor. And my instinct is that you are all playing the actually really powerful class that takes some time to get going because you. you need to get a lot of force points and a lot of force abilities. And I'm playing the, I didn't die once in this section. This is, you, I walk, they barely hit me. Like, I go up, I go clank, clank, clank, clank dead.

Sometimes clank, clank, bop because it plays a really rewarding bop sound on humanoid enemies for some reason. But I'm not getting, there are levels you get two force powers every level, or certain levels. Or Craya does at least. I think she's a consular. I'm like, fuck. Well, somebody told me I shouldn't level up my companions at the stage of the game. Is that true? No, just play the game.

Okay. Just play the game. You know, I will tell you, I did one of those things last time. You remember in Cotaur 1 where I didn't level up, like, past level 4 or 5 to get through all of Taurus. And it made the rest of the game, it's nice when the game was a cakewalk. That's, it's fine. You know, I'm getting through the combat like it's nothing. But in a game where it made me not care at all about what I was getting or doing.

because it was so busted by the end that I wasn't even excited about getting extra damage anymore you know so which might not be a thing here partly because this game does have loot I don't know if y'all I mentioned last time it was like oh I'm getting

a fit off by the end of this section this next section did y'all even find the cool gear because I learned while recording the next episode that this game unlike the first game has loot randomization in the chests in some of the I have some new gear.

Do you have the cool gear with, like, the purple? No. No, I got, like, a red, like, um, um, thurmond Pulp Fiction fit. Oh, interesting. Wait, that sounds cool. I have, like, a red bodysuit. Let me show you what I'm wearing. What?

You're a red bodysuit. Interesting. I am now wearing, uh, this guy. This kind, it's kind of, it's like a, from the back, it's like blue and purple and like a, a cool on cape uh-huh holy shit I have a whole chess plate situation going um and I realized

I kind of looks like an unlicensed superhero game yeah uh-huh that's yeah that's about right but I think it looks freedom force it kind of looks good I kind of I'm kind of getting it off you know so there are ways to just like luck into really powerful gear I got this late in the things I already beaten HK

and stuff but nevertheless I do also wonder if there will be moments when one of us gets just, I read about someone who got a Gomorian axe, which normally you can't find until... Wait, I have a Gomorian axe. Okay. I just been running around, like, bashing on people with a Gatorian axe. The Goryan axe here.

I roied up before every fight. Yeah. Uh-huh. And, uh, that, like, this character has got so much HGH just coursing through his system and, like, angel dust. Like, like, my guy is just a pharmacological wonderland. Oh, my God, this is strong. Holy shit.

you got to start putting points in the strength my man so I think I'm gonna get finesse and decks up oh that's a good idea this thing does 2d10 damage yeah it's got quite the spread so good yeah I mean of course it's the you don't want to get the twos

but being able to get up that by the end of there have been times he's like basically one hit a yeah like one of the advanced droids and just like cuts in half it's cool and finesse is going to turn you into a beast this is you can't get this weapon normally, like from a guaranteed place is my understanding, until one of the

optional planets that comes after the next like two main zones we go to. So it's like as if you found on Taurus something you wouldn't normally get until you go to Tatooine or something, you know? So yeah, those things are going to keep happening. And I'm kind of curious about how that makes our runs feel differently because in the first one, it was very obvious to be like, oh and make sure you get the really good lightsaber crystal and some of that stuff will still be locked but there's stuff that's just better now my dude has a whoopin stick right yeah and so that is kind of a weird thing

where like my little charismatic brainiac dude is the person walking up to people and just absolutely going yeah like just going absolutely ape shit on like on these hunks of metal yeah right like it's a real hitchbot situation I have never remembered one other thing about the combat that I want to say which is

in D&D 3rd edition, as in many RPGs, there is nothing stronger than getting a second attack per round. Night speed, like force speed level one doesn't do shit, but night speed and master speed give you a bonus attack. So you can get up to the second level of four speed. You're rolling to hit twice per round when it's activated. Very little is better than that. Flurry gives you a second attack for a tradeoff.

If you're getting killed, maybe don't use it because it means your defense isn't high enough to take those hits. or to dodge those hits, or your HP isn't high enough to tank them. But once you get there, Flurry is really powerful. And then likewise, two-weapon fighting, especially for a character who stands back, like Atten is really power. If you're playing Atten that way, it's really powerful because, like, just getting a second attack every turn. Once their stats are decent, it's just unbeatable in terms of raw damage output. So things to think about if you are doing any physical or any non-force combat type stuff, which everyone should have a little bit of, you know.

um there's one last thing so we we you do uncover the secret of like all those poor miners thinking that they like what's happening in the station but like also they are so stupid that like there's one guy who's like i met this really cool hk unit he's so helpful he like helped me maintain all the droids yesterday next audio log some of the droids are starting to have weird malfunctions the hk unit's going to help me reprogram all of them It really speaks to how little people think about droids in this universe. They could never be. This is the thing for me.

I think that, yeah, it's like they, how could they possibly act any differently from what is expected of them? Like, that is just not considered. Like, they are a tool. They are not a malleable, capable of change being. They're just a screwdriver or a screwdriver or a, a, a. You know, it's, I think, very telling that nobody questioned it. And it just kept sort of delaying the question and being like, well, yeah, some of the droids. I mean, in the previous episode, we heard that in a different audio log, oh, some of the droids have been acting kind of weird.

Some of the droids have been turning on us. Anyways, I don't know about that. And I think it's just an expectation that, well, it's impossible that they would completely overtake us. Like, these have to be anomalies. These have to be, you know, atypical situations that won't have actual impact. But by the time they realize it. Season one and or line, that's like they're so proud of themselves. They can't even imagine the, remember that?

that someone like me would sneak in and spit in their food that's HK you know 100% but then he's also wildly proud of himself he is wildly proud of himself

that droid experiences no sense of sympathy for other droids no not at all he's like this so fucking disappointing the shit talking he does to T3 about T3 and like oh that I could not stand for I got to be but he did

but he did keep T3 safe I guess so remember like T3 like he He bushwax T3 And then moves him out of harm's wet He does do that This is true So there's a little bit of like

I don't know Unlike all of the miners He gassed to death by Making an explosion That would send them back To the dormitories Which he then filled with gas To kill them

Rip to them I really like the bit Where the guy is like The droids also started Repairing this weird ship That docked here I don't know I'm gonna tell them not to do it

And then the next one starts and he's like, well, the ship's fixed. I couldn't get him to stop fixing it. Everyone in this world needs to remember the world they're in. I guess like maybe other fuel. It's like, it's a good, not my problems. Like, or, you know, like, it's like, it's kind of the, it's the banality of, of bureaucracy or just like office life where you're like, when you step back, it's like, yeah, it's fucked up that, you know, these droids are.

are misbehaving, but in the Zoom in it's like, it's Tuesday and I put the fucking ticket in to HR and they didn't. It's three days. To your point, it's Tuesday. Yesterday was Monday. The ship just showed up yesterday. This doesn't happen over three months.

These people did get bushwhacked. They did get jumped. Like, I, and they're on a station that is so far from everything else. They all hate it here. It sucks to be here. They don't have cable. They don't have access to the outside world.

They don't have a, there's not like a gift shop. You, I went to their cafeteria. It's all gray. No, you know, I think some of them let it happen. I think at least two or three of these motherfuckers were like, I'm going to let it roll. I'm just going to let it. Well, that's why they're trying to get in touch with the exchange, right? Like, I can get out of here.

You're right. I would trade me too. Yeah. Take me to our Shadah. Thank you very much. I'm trying to have your time. Uh, the other thing that emerges you get, as you go through these audio logs is, um, what finally, like, the, the person puts it all together is this poor little Celestean mechanic.

Oh, who is like, I overheard, uh, Corta talking about how he's going to steal the Jedi and, and give to the exchange. I don't think that's a good idea because when Jedi get mad, they destroy half the galaxy, which is a fun little, like, the experience of like being a ground level person is like, Jedi functioning as like demigods whose like trouble and strife is just like well the Jedi are feuding half the galaxy burn to a cinder

so just like don't don't poke them but he overhears Corta like talking to someone else but how they're going to steal this Jedi and trade him the exchange he tries to talk one of the guys down Carta comes up and kills him and prepares to make his escape but

when you find out like Corta's ultimate fate. He's on a hollow call with somebody else who looks like Corta, to be clear. Like, oh, you just see Corder in that call. They don't ever cut to the other person. So those cuts are just back to Corder from a different angle. Yeah. It's HK.

It's HK doing the mechanics voice. Only person he's talking to is HK. And if you listen to that performance, it's HK doing the mechanics voice and then slowly slipping until finally he kind of like unveils his own voice. Corta. Yeah, exactly, which is, which I like it. But yeah, there is a real limit to your point, though, to those hollow calls. And partly the limit is, I'm fucking sick of seeing them.

There's so many in a row. I just want to see a person. I just want a person I can talk to. I wish someone knew would show up so there could be conversations. Someone who does show up around now after you fight HK. Actually, before you fight HK, right? It's you put on the space suit. It's when you go out to the spacewalk, yeah.

I need to know if everyone had, like, war. flashbacks when you stepped outside in the space suit. I thought of everybody else because, again, I got to times two through that section because I was watching the YouTube video. And I was like, well, now it's my turn. It's my turn to do the suit walk. It's so Catholic of you. It's fine.

Finally, I've avoided my fate, my guilt too long. But it's short. You walk down two little things? This is how it should have been used in the first game, by the way. It's just sometimes... It's cool. When you go out there, you look around, you can look at the ship, you look out into the galaxy. That's all it had to be.

That's all it should have been. Did you feel bad for not at that point getting the cool skyboxes that you almost got? Yes. Starfish sucked. It's so dense, dude. It's a billion, billion stars. And that's maybe fine or true or something. But the thing that that Skybox's mod fixes the most for me is, hey, let's just dial it back a little bit.

Let's let the stars like, they pop more when there's not a trillion of them on screen at once. Yeah, no, I had a moment where it was like, fuck, I should upgrade it. The best part of the section for sure is that as you're walking across the platform, you can, like, look into the window at Atten and he calls you. Yeah, like, wave to me, buddy. I'm right here. And also, I think this game is made right around the transition from 3-4 displays, 4-3 displays to widescreen. Chris standing off to the side behind him because she's already like in position for her next big scene. This game was not in widescreen originally, Rob.

This widescreen is from this patched version of the game. A spire patched it. So yes, I think we're going to get a lot of boom mic just barely in frame moments because they're Probably just had her there already because it's the same scene from when you all reunite to go fight HK in five minutes. Yeah, I zoomed in on her in the let's play to be like, hey, look. Hi, Kraya, a little smiley face. That conversation with Atten made me forgive him as a character and decide to not just go full dark side because I talked to him. Because it was just so funny, like standing there and being like, hey,

look out and he's like what the fuck are you doing out there you were supposed to go bro I'm doing my job I told you I was going to go save us and you were like I'll just stay here and be on the computer like come on it's like when you see like your friend on the random ass side quest on their Instagram stories and you're just like what the hell are you doing out there I thought you were going to be and then the harbinger arrives

a ship that looks a lot like the Endar Spire I think it's probably the same type of ship as the Ender Spire shows up. And guess who's on it? Dark menu. The guy from the splash screen. That's right. Yeah, the menu. A sexy evil guy.

We will talk about this guy. Solomon Grundy. You know, big gray body motherfucker. I think to your point, by the way, Rob, about lighting in this game and this place being so well lit, I have to, I have a question, which is I think you all saw the version of this that has the pre-rendered spaceship cutscene, and then it goes to like an in-engine version of Cyan in the, in the, uh, the harbinger. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. I need to show you two different screenshots. And one of them is really bad and blurry because it's a different, because it's the original screenshot. Here's the one that I think maybe we all saw. Uh, and I'll put these in the, in the, in the, uh, episode description with the, with the other notes. This is the one that I think we all saw, which comes from a mod

that makes these, that updated all of these cutscenes from the pre-rendered version. And that's just him in the model of the Harbinger in the cockpit area. You may remember killing guys there in the opening of Cotor 1. Here's what the original one looked like

in terms of lighting. They were doing a different... Now, if you go in that room in the game, it looks like the one I just, the first one I sent you. That's just what it actually looks like. But the lighting is so different in the original cutscenes because it's pre-rendered and they can actually do the, it's the same character model and stuff. You know, it's not a different resolution, but they're doing a different lighting pass entirely. RTF patch. A hundred percent. Yeah. So for the listener

who I'm not describing it, I know I said I put it in the show notes, but the with the mod, it is higher resolution. It's not all crunching, a tiny little thumbprint, uh, sized cutscene, but it's so bright. It's like all bright. There's not a, um, any sort of in-game lighting effect. None of the screens in the cockpit are emitting any sort of, uh, light that none of them have any sort of light halos going on. Um, and it's, it's just super bright. It's kind of, uh, oralist, uh, to use the parlance. In the original one, it's dark in there. And there's a figure standing in the dark or sitting kneeling in the dark, actually, surrounded by corpses. And it's like, kind of hard to make out the details. I'm

just because it's such a resolution. And so I think this is a place where, like, I wish there was a mod for good resolution cutscenes that were not this, that were not just what we did it all in the in-game engine with the in-game lighting, you know, which maybe I'll poke around and see if there's something else we could do for it. But this is the first time I've been like, I'm not happy with this mod suggestion. Without having that in my head, though, it still looked like him meditating. in silence and this like bridge full of dead soldiers is kind of cool like it's a really good

entrance for a villain i really like another shot later i was saying this to alley where he shows up in the end of a long hallway and he's like dead center framed in the middle as a fake yeah uh-huh it's great they're doing it with the Sith Lord's perfectly he's like edge lit uh-huh standing at the scene between the darkness of the hallway and then the he's slightly backlit but it's it's hitting his skin as well. So yeah, it's, it's really menacing. Yeah. Um, and like it's based on first impressions. This guy has what Malik didn't. Oh. Like, and part of it is, I mean, like, even in the story, like Malik is a petulant child who is basically like smashing his toys and like raging out because people didn't take him seriously. This is his big chance. But he's an understudy

trying to like seize the stage. This guy has that like mall energy and what I mean by that is that like contained fury of like he has no existence except for when it's time to like go Terminator mode and there is no

like life or joy beyond that. It is just like he waits for his moment to strike comes out. It's a cool introduction that he's like engaged in like Jedi meditation. But, like, he's so obviously SIF. Yeah.

And he's not going to monologue about it. He's not going to, like, whine or be emo about it. He's going to just silently come at you and keep coming. Yeah, I'm really excited to get to talk about this guy. And I'll say, you know, the title of the game is the Sith Lords. And there's another character on the front who I think is very clearly a Sith Lord on the front cover of the game, which I guess you all haven't seen. That's kind of an interesting thing about this, right? is like, I'm not saying we need to go into it necessarily, but, you know, there was,

there were promo materials by the time this game came out. I knew who the Sith Lords were. I thought I knew who the Sith Lords were. I guess if you look at the Steam icon, there's a different guy there. If you look at the Steam, like, what do you call that? The wall pit, not the wallpaper, but at the top of the banner, there's another guy there with a red lightsaber. So there's another Sith Lord we'll learn about.

I think they're both very interesting, and I can't wait to. We'll talk a little bit more about this one here. Do we, do you know his name? No. Okay. I can't remember if Crya says it in that brief exchange. This is what was killing me is I was recording the let's play for the next episode and going way out of my way to not say his name.

And then she just says it in a conversation at some point, like nonchalantly or my character said it. My character was like, well, what's up with that guy and Ben says his name? And I'm like, wait, where the fuck did you learn that guy's name? So I'm wondering if I missed it or if I clicked through it or something. But none of you seem to know his name. So I think we'll just call him the Sith Lord whose whole body looks like the moon for now. Darth Crater, you know?

We don't know his name, but we do know who his master is. We sure do. How soon does that happen after his? introduction? Do they speak to each other? So we see, so we see him arrive on the ship. We go inside to reunite with Crea and Atten. We beat HK. Beat his ass. Then we cut through, then the whole that whole group is together. And we go through, we go into the Harbinger. Because what we're going to plan, again, for people who have not been playing along or watching, the Evan Hawk is on this station, but we can't get to it because it's locked up in the,

the hangar. But we figure out a way to get there. And that plan is, what if we cut through the ship and go through its fuel system, its fuel line, to go back into the other half of the fuel depot that was blocked off by force fields? And then from there, we can get into the hangar bay, basically. That's sort of the pitch. A pitch that Atten fully hates, even though he kind of comes up with it, I can't stop

thinking about Atten as like the inverse of, you know, Hans Seller was like, never tell me the odds. Atten is like the C-Ripio saying the odds more where he's like, I know what the odds are and they're going to get us killed. I don't believe. Well, he gives Leia lines. He does. You're right. Some rescue this is. You're right. Oh, he's Leia coded. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Wow. Um, yeah, there's a lot of stuff. There's, you know, Atten doesn't. like droids, and doesn't like Jedi, and doesn't like trouble, at and doesn't like taking chances, at and doesn't like committing to a plan. I feel like we're doing the Amelie intro.

It is, yeah. But, but, yes. He does not like, does not like droids, making like a stink face at a droid. That is, that is the vibe. He is kind of rushed like that at this point, certainly. But then, then eventually, Allie to your, to your thing of like, where do they, you get more? Crea starts being like I have a bad feeling

Okay, Atten says I have a bad feeling about this like twice in this section It sucks I wish you wouldn't say it But Crea says something I think more ominous Where is it? Do I have it written down? It is something like It is Atten says I have a bad feeling about this

And and you go can you stop saying that And the game says Atten has a special ability it's the same as your special ability you remember in the last time you played where you have like Jedi danger sense that can tell you to make sure this shit ref coster never wanted to have happened with star wars galaxies that's right only the Jedi should have uh force intuition you shouldn't know it should be ambiguous that's right aton has a special ability quote to sense anything that places him at risk when he gets a bad feeling it's recommended that you save your game um so funny i should note

Atten also has some other wild fucking abilities that I had fully forgotten about. Did you all see his like superpowers? His like I won't die abilities? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Atten has a thing called spirit. It ends up being called like spirit, fighting spirit, and heroic resolve that quote, whether it's survival instinct or sheer resolve, Atten won't give up. When knocked unconscious, there's a chance he will get back up, ready for more action, provided

somebody else and the party is still standing. If he returns to the fight, he'll come back with a percentage of vitality restored. So he will just self-excus me, he will just self-res himself. And then on top of that, the more damage he has, the higher his saving throws are. Those are the things that will resist being stunned or resist being frozen by carbonite or shit like that. If he's under 50%, he starts getting a plus two, and then every additional 10% after that of HP he's down, he gets another plus two. So if he's under 10%, he gets a plus 10 to that roll. And remember, this is a game you're rolling a D20. So a 10 is like a lot of dice,

that's a lot of boost to be getting on a roll. He is like, what the, what is this guy's deal? Like what, what I need to understand the character just like the story justification for him being, yeah, what, what, how did he get here? How did he get to this? Great question. I wonder if we'll find out. And at that point, when he has a bad feeling and Kraya has a similar, something, something is wrong on this ship. Oh, I guess you at this point, if you run into, if you run into the Sith assassins at this point.

Oh, yeah. You start jumping you before you lose Kray or is it only, no, you fight some of them with Kray for sure. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. They like show that they're like following you as you're running. running away with Kraya at one point you just beat their asses also they're they're invisible they show up I mean I beat their asses I don't want to speak for other people that forced scream I just and then they all show up for me and I can click on all of them Natalie's clicking on heads over here like I literally am just like y'all have you

tried just like clicking the head like if you click the head they'll die a lot of um again like various it's a bit of the problem of Cotor 1 which is like we need lots of lots of enemies that you're going to deal with and so once again we have like Sith trash mobs but the trash mob is antithetical

to like what they're supposed to represent so it's like oh shit these invisible dudes are stalking you through the ship this is so fucked up guys you're being stalked and they're invisible when they attack you doesn't fucking matter like you can see the shimmer you can target them

they just get like absolutely like roasted it doesn't well not when not when Krea casts force sonic speed power on you

un unconsent no consent to this effect being added to my fucking screen and then you're just in a I have a really important note for everyone that I got from the fans over on YouTube You can turn it off in the options, which is huge.

Wait. Because it's one of the most important abilities in the game. It's just in the video, like the graphical options, there's just like, for speed effect, on or off. Turn that shit off. Oh my God, I'm turning that shit off. It is. No, I don't like it. It literally is like migraine-inducing.

Rob. It's that bad. It's horrible. I think maybe it must have hit different on an old CRT TV because I don't understand how you ship with this. Because I don't think the original game did have the option. to turn it off. And again, it's maybe the most important power in the game for many, you know, types of build.

So very important that you turn it off. But yeah. I'm turning that off. Can I tell you? So take note of what you just said, Rob, that these guys seem like pushovers, because they will lampshade why that is with an incredibly funny, convoluted reason in the next recording. Excellent.

Also, board the state that you get more audio logs. You get the captain of the ship who's like, we were talking. told to investigate this freighter that was under attack. But then there was a Sith ghost ship there. We brought that aboard. There was a Jedi whose body was all fucked up. Anyway, we brought him aboard. But I don't know why the Republic is making us do this.

I don't know why it was a high priority mission. And then, holy shit, he gets on the call. And it's Carth. And Carth is trying out a little goatee situation. He's back out there. Can I tell you who doesn't have Carth or Nassie, I think, is me. Wait, why?

Because Carth did not make it out of my game. Because I have a dark, I have Darkside Reven. How does this game know that? Because you tell you said at the beginning of the game. Wait, I don't think I had Carth either. Did you have a Darkside Reven?

Did you tell them Darkside Reven? Yeah, yeah. Well, then that's why. You don't have Carth. Oh. Who do you get it? I was like, well, that's a man I didn't recognize. Oh, I believe.

it's Admiral Seed. C-E-D-E. Did y'all get Admiral Seed? Which is like the most defeatist name you could possibly imagine having. Yes, quote, while he's never officially seen in the canon storyline, following a light side female exile

succeeding in the light side male version of Revenant, the first game, he is nonetheless canon having served with the Republic Navy at the Battle of Telos. So he doesn't even, this guy does not even show up at all. If you are playing as someone with a light side Reven. So yeah, you guys got

Carth. How's Carth doing? Did he have his hat on? This is an important mod question for me. Did he have his hat on? No. No hat. Interesting. What's his rank at this point? He was an admiral. Interesting. His eyes weren't bulging out of his head, though.

Like when you see an attractive person and you go, there's a, no. There's a hologramed. No. There's a holograph. fix mod that I think I had us install that changes how the faces are supposed

to work. There's some fucked up eyes in these holograms though. Maybe, yeah, I didn't install any of the visual mods, so he would look fucked up for me. I see, I see. Okay. Some of them look like they have like duct tape behind their eyes. Yeah, that's just kind of weird, but you guys are getting

this effect here. Yeah, yeah, okay. I have fixed that we have fixed, I fixed that. part, but the part of the problem, one of the things I actually really don't like is they take Carth and Admiral Seed and give them different uniforms, including this big Admiral hat, which I guess he's an admiral now, but I think it looks stupid. Did he get traded to Starcraft? That's what it looks like.

You're not wrong. So again. I've got to be over at a brood war cut scene in five minutes. How's my Russian accent? God. Yeah. Well. Anyway, so he's out there.

He's thriving. He's in charge. Got all these people killed. You get to the med bay and it's like, I don't know what's going on. This creature that we found aboard the Sith ship with the fucked up skin. And like it looks like his body was completely shattered while he was still alive. But obviously he's dead now. But that seems pretty rough

Oh no, he escaped I'm here for the Jedi You said he's His whole body is white He's scarred up the way I described the moon Like he's scarred up Like he's cratered and cracked

Or like a really dry desert With like a hard top That's cracked Yes Yes Or like when something's been burned And like it's peeling apart Yeah it's

But it all looks also desiccated Like it's very old Yeah. And he's sexy. Let's not forget that part where he's giving evil sexy vibes, too. That's important. Ali looks skeptical. You ever just want a man who's like a scratching post?

You know? I think also we're saying one of the people says of him something like he's fractured. Not just like his bones are fractured or his body is fractured. But, like, he is fractured. He is broken. I don't know if this is making him sound more or less sexy to you, listener. It really depends on your taste, I think. But that is the vibe for him.

If you like Walton Goggins as the ghoul in the Fallout show, you'll love this guy. That's what I... You might be right there. You might be right. Right? He's super shredded. Yeah. He's shredded.

He's like, you know what he's giving, honestly, is like, uh, crispy deep-fried Kylo? Yeah. Amazing. And I will say we are not using. There's a mod that changes what his skin looks like. I'm like, no, we're getting O.G.

Darts guy's name I'm not losing. I'll still show it to you later on at some point. But anyway, so the med, the med, the medical logs, the lady, like puts it all together. These people all figure it out just a little. a little too late. Yeah. She's like, wait, there's invisible Sith aboard the station.

They must have been here the whole time. It's like, that's rough. That sucks. It made me, it made me really sad when she described him as she says something like, he must have been in constant pain. Like, like, she talks about his whole skeleton having evidence of like hundreds of fractures or something like that. You and her, it's like, we're the same.

Like, that's my, that's my. That's why you self-insert in the story. You were seen and heard. Yes, absolutely. God, yeah, I'm not sure whether he's alive or dead or what's even keeping him together. His flesh is cracked and scarred, and I'm registering several thousand fractures in his skeleton, as if each bone was splintered repeatedly over time, then put back together. Judging from the scar tissue, I believe these wounds took place before his death.

If so, he must have been in constant pain. I have no idea what's been keeping him together. Wild. Yeah. And meanwhile, everyone else is like, it's weird. There was no one else on that ship, but it feels like there's somebody else on our shift now. And that is the point of which is like, all these sit just showed up out of thin hair. Like they were wearing cell generators.

Yeah. Uh-huh. He breaks out like a horror movie villain, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing that cut scene is really cool.

Mm-hmm. seeing him like explode the glass he'll mind control someone to come over to like I don't know weaken its hold on him or something first it's great

that reminds me in the mess area of Paragia station that's the Halcyon dining room right? Oh my God it kind of is it kind of is the Halcyon dining room it's like almost exactly

the Halcyon dining room down to at the end there's two doors that you go into and it's like a buffet area. And this might be the first time we've ever been in a place that's as shiny as the Halcyon was. Yeah. Also, isn't there an article

we should shout out about the Halcyon or is it a Reddit post? The Reddit post that Jenny Nicholson found from the person who worked there and it was like it was turning into the Stanford Prison Experiment. Yeah.

I'm starting to get the feeling that Redditors are not the vibe. They're not passing the vibe drag. The fact that when you read this whole post, I highly encourage people to read it because it's fascinating and it is

unbelievable how poorly this thing was run and the post goes into detail about it. But the fact that people were responding to this person being like this was such a harmful

toxic environment in how things were being run and it just fostered toxicity between team members or sorry cast members etc and then people were just like well if i was there i would have had fun and been grateful that i got that job the whole time i feel like the halcyon subreddit and then the disney adults like type reddit like both have this weird protectiveness or on the magic of the experience and that was true like when Jay Nicholson was first like writing about it and then also there is this weird like very

boomerified like part of it is like maybe you should just been happy that you have a job huh I'd like I'd like a job that was as cool as working on the Halcyon which it does not sound like it was not like it was a cool job but yeah there's and then there's just kind of this know it all thing

where it's like well seems like you just didn't really understand what they were trying to do with that magical experience it's bananas please go read it if you are interested in the the working the inner workings of the halcyon yeah I know yeah Robert I think you're right this is a very similar look and this is the first I think inspired it I think it's clearly which is probably where the halcyon began to go wrong was they were like we're gonna work out you know what we're good people what they want Cotor 2 Star Wars that's right I can you oh

I want you to, every episode we record, I want you to think about what element of the session we played would go into a new Disney Star Wars like hotel or, or attraction park experience, theme park experience, because I think you'd end up some really funny rides and experiences. Kraya goes to talk to the mysterious Sith Lord. She says, she says, like, don't worry about me, basically. Right. I'm going to go do something normal and talk to the guy. Yeah, I think when you ask him or when you ask her, like, are you sure about this? She says, this battle is mine alone. I am not defenseless. He cannot kill what he cannot see. And power has blinded him long ago. Run, I shall be along shortly. which is a really interesting thing to say power has blinded him long ago.

So one, you immediately are like, oh, they have some sort of relationship. Two, what's it, why does it mean that you're allowed to go back there and fight? If he's, if powers blinded him, shouldn't we all be safe from him? Shouldn't we be able to go fight him with you? What do you mean by that? What are you trying to say by that? I don't have any, Austin doesn't have an answer here, but I do think it's an interesting way to frame why she thinks, is it because it's like,

power has blinded him so he can only see power and I am weak so I'll be safe. Is it power has blinded him and so I'm powerful and he can't see me because I blind him? I don't know. And then I truly, I think it is wild that you actually get to see this exchange. Allie, you were talking about this before. This whole thing that I would have been talking about is a setup to get back to your point, which is they fucking talk. Do you want to talk about what their conversation was like?

Well, I was just, I was, I was beside myself when she was like, I trained you. I was like, what the hell are you talking about, lady? What do you do without you training sit lords? I thought you were just some dead lady on my ship. What's going on here? He says, I sent you, my master, faint, weak. And she says, your senses betray you as you betrayed me. And he says, after all that has happened, still you live.

you are difficult to kill. And she says, for one as limited as you, perhaps, to have fallen so far and learn nothing, that is your failing. And he says, the failure is yours. No longer do your whispers crawl within my skull. No longer do I suffer beneath teachings that weaken us. And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one, and one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come. And she says, perhaps we shall see and he draws his

lightsaber and she tries to counter with a sword and cuts off her hand, and you go, ah, my hand, revealing a deep connection

between you and Craya. Earlier, Natalie, you said you did not consent to have this woman give you speed boost powers or to speed boost you. And that's because

the two of you share a force link of some sort where whenever in game she buffs herself, it buffs you too. Oh, I thought she was casting it on me. She has a special feat or a special force power or something that actually

literally links the two of you together in this exact way that like anytime she buffs herself, it buffs you too. It's called force chain. You and Kraya have a special bond. Most beneficial force power is used on one of you automatically affects the other. For example, if Kraya activates

force resistance, and you will also receive its benefits. It affects speed, energy resistance, aura, heel, force resistance, and force barrier. So she's really good at buffing. And apparently, in moments like this, you feel her hand getting cut off. But I don't think you see the conversation, right? Like, you don't, your character, the exile doesn't see this happening, just suddenly feels the hand being removed, I believe. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. What do we think of Kraya teacher of mysterious Sith Lord? I wish we're getting Ackleite season two. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It turned into a good show at the buzzer, and they didn't play the second half. And it's so important for Jedi stories to be about teachers. It's a thing that I think so much Star Wars stuff has gotten right, and so much Star Wars stuff has just left by the wayside, is that, like, teaching.

and pedagogy and the relationship between mentor and student is actually like the best stuff about the Jedi to me. And so immediately, like, it's barely in Kotor 1. There are the Jedi Masters and there's that montage where you learn. But because you're playing Revin who like already was a Jedi knight, there's some like, how did your teachers treat you? But it's all in the retrospective. Whereas here, we immediately, Kraya is immediately a sort of mentor figure to you, whether you want her to be one or not, constantly trying to tell you things about the world. Giving huge apostate vibes.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, big time. And now her, force fear. Oh, yeah. Side ability. But she's wearing the Jedi robes. Yes, 100%. And now we know she's trained a Sith,

at least at some point, whether that was when he was a Sith or when he was a Jedi or something else. And he is like, we got out from under your fucking teachings. This is the last guy who took her class. And now you've signed up for her class. Read the fucking teacher reviews. Go on read my teacher. It does not sound good. This is when you visit grad school,

you talk to people, and you, like, you're outwears. And you were like, so what do you think of? And you just, like, look for reactions. What do they say about the who teaches the required courses? Because if Cray is teaching the required courses, maybe it's time to look at a different program. This stuff is so juicy for me And this is the stuff that immediately is like Cotor 1 doesn't have any of this Like it doesn't have It doesn't have what if there was another character

Who had a similar relationship To another important character And you're like Are my a mirror account? Cotor's version of this exchange is hot for teacher Begins to play And it's Bastila Who then turns out

Didn't actually graduate That's right I forgot about that. Yeah. She'll be your master. Okay, so I didn't, technically, I kind of didn't. I'm not even ABD, really. Anyway, can you come back to visit my mom?

But I am DTF. So it evens out. God, the mom's stuff with Bastila. So yeah, that's an interesting new development between Crea and Mysterious Darth guy. And when you're in agony, Atten's like, oh boo what's wrong

like he's real worried he is he does take some concern like that facade cracks it's like there's a there's a there's a softy maybe Atten is just pretending to be jaded to protect who boomed heart

interesting and then he says if she's in pain that's pain that's buying us time we can't afford to waste especially if sleeps with vibro blaze It gets tired of playing with her and decides to use us for practice next. Atten, it wasn't funny this time.

And then you try to drop that line again later on. It's not funny. You're not going to, we didn't laugh because we didn't hear it. We didn't laugh because it wasn't funny. You move on. So, yeah. You know, I'm kind of putting Atten. Atten to me is, what's the,

Uh, guy in, hold on. He's, he's Denison always sunny to me. Okay, say more. Please, please, yes. Like, I think, I think he's got this, like, this, this conception of himself of being an incredibly handsome, swab, like, like, you know, charismatic guy. And he's, he's just not actually that guy. at all outside of the

circle of people that he's insulated himself with. That's exactly it. He's surrounded by in context, you might think that. But the second he's anywhere else. But there's moments where you're like, oh, is there a heart under that cold, cold, cold exterior? And then it's played for a bit and we move on

and he's back to being an asshole. but you kind of I'm growing to love him have him be this lovable asshole we're working towards that so far not 100% there but I'm not consciously trying to dark side force kill him oh somewhere in there also I notice now my character has a little like zipper scar under his eye and I'm like did he start that way or did I just get enough dark side points accidentally Are you even getting dark side points from shit talking Atten or something? Mostly I get light side points, but occasionally, I know, like, at a certain point, it's like, when he's like, I have a bad feeling, and it's like, oh, is your coward sense tingling? And he was like, hey, man, not cool. Well, you really came for him with that one. Those are fighting words. Before we leave the Harbinger, this is where I got.

that outfit I had talked about before. And I actually remember what I wanted to say something about it, which is, and I'm curious if y'all have found these either, some of the equipment pieces that we're finding are from other force sensitive and force user organizations and sects and stuff. So for instance, oh, yes, I got one of those. I think the light armor that I found, I forget what it was called, I don't remember what it was called, but it's from, it's from some, oh, here it is. It's the Zasen Shah armor is what I had found.

And it says, does not restrict the use of force powers. Even though it's kind of a light armor, it's, or it's actually not light armor. It's just armor, but it's like Jedi-specific armor. Zasin Shah initiates are known for their survival skills and resourcefulness. Their flexible armor is very adorable and can be upgraded via some underlays and overlays. The outer rim planet of Yannabar was the home of the Zatian Shah, who developed their force powers as a means of survival. the harsh planet. Zayson Shah, stress independence, and survival as well as assistance to those in need. And then I also found Jal Shay perception gloves, and it says the Jal Shay used these

gloves during meditation. How they function is unknown, but they seem effective in increasing one's awareness to their surroundings. And I've played a little further ahead and have continued to find other sorts of things like this. I just think it's fascinating that, like, this game is about the end of the Jedi, right? Or it's like, you are the, you are the one. remaining Jedi apparently alive. That's what the text crawl says. But it's not like all force users. The Sith have hunted all force users across the galaxy to their end.

In fact, you're finding evidence on this random-ass republic spaceship of different force sects existing. And I think that that's just a thing that's interesting. It's a thing we always talk about is how much more we wished Star Wars would dip into. How do other people think about the force? Jason Shah, like, central to, like, one of my all-time favorite, like, Star Wars fanfix, which is, like, about Luke going to a set of breakaway sacked and, like, being like, well, what's your whole training get down?

And they're like, ain't yours. Hey, like, he's like, well, you're a lot like the Jedi. And they're like, the differences are crucial to understand. They are bigger than you might think. Do you know the name of the fact? Do you know what it was? Oh, I can't. Long past you.

Couldn't tell you. No, yeah, we don't need to look up that thick or the author or what other stuff they've written. Sure. Sounds good. Yeah. I did get, I got a weapon called the guideon beacon. Oh, yeah, the guideon beacon. Yeah.

The guidon, guide on. I think it's a guideon. Like a flat, like a guideon is like a, like, you put a flag on it, I think. It's like a marching. It's a, it's a tool. It's part of like a flag guard, a color guard. Oh, interesting. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. It's a staff-like device used by minors to signify their claim on an asteroid. Yeah. It could also be used as a weapon akin to a quarterstaff with an anchoring pipe. I haven't found any cool, cool. I found a lot of like component or not components because that's an actual thing. I found like modules. Right.

For upgrading. Oh. Yeah. Upgrade your shit. Those kinds of things. Other tip. Oh, yeah. Okay.

I'm getting. so and I'm just like for for now the the component cost is really low I'm just making stuff and trying it I've got like a droid saber I've got a droid long sword and a human vibro blade so I just swap between those depending on who I'm fighting a human vibro blade like it's like more human orient she's describing being the witcher she's describing being girl a perfect man human vibro plate sleeps with vibro blade it's the thing with like the witcher has the silver sword and the regular sword seal sword but for droids and yeah that makes sense exactly yeah that's kind of how I'm approaching it well um I do want to say that in in talking about uh getting back to some of the like story presentation and how and how we're being uh given the information all this kind of information drop. I think one of the sins maybe that Cotor 2 is committing here is just too many options on the first talking screen. When you're talking to someone and there's seven

different things you can ask them and like three of them you can repeat but like two of them will go away, I just want that paced out a little bit. Like, just give me half of that and then open up the second half of the next set of questions I can ask them. I think that would be my like wish list from this dialogue system is just pace it out a little bit because I think that with things like the computer consoles, it's very directed. Like I know when I go into the, you know, it's like access the medical records. I know that the information I'm getting through that, you know, click is going to be related to the medical records or whatever.

It just feels more like I can see the branches better in other types of conversations and in going, in other dialogue formats rather, like the consoles and internal. And so that one conversation that you have with HK where you get the voice recording from him is I repeated it like three times accidentally because I was just like have I exhausted all the text options here? Is there something I'm missing? It's like very easy to lose track of where you are in the conversation when I wanted to go back and like pin him to the ground when I wanted to go back and pin him to the ground and say look I know what you've done. I was like oh maybe I can only say it deeper in on the conversation and I couldn't say that but there was something else new I could say like four steps deep in one of the branches and that's just like no that's not the best way to do this this is like so in elegant this is it's not good and to the degree that like we haven't even talked about you know HK tells a long story about by the way this is we do get this character's name it's HK 50 this is not awesome. HK-47, when you mouse over him in the fight, it'll say HK 50. Ours was a Garfield cat. Oh, shit, I didn't notice that. Yeah, this is a different HK unit. But regardless, there are things that he says about like, oh, here's how I got you

off the Harbinger. Here's, like, where you were before that a little bit, but, like, not, there's nothing ground-shaking or there's no, like, big reveals there. You slowly piece together what we all kind of gotten around to, but, like, none of it is it's so much dialogue and most of it's not for much and I actually think that if it was less dialogue but was more just like

oh I learned that HK did X Y or Z or if that conversation had been broken up via comm unit over the course of all those fights that would have maybe made us you know calling back and forth with with HK

I guess the com link was specifically to Atten but I was just surprised that there wasn't any conversation happening as I'm going and doing stuff that he obviously doesn't want me to be fucking doing. Master, I wouldn't advise you go into the dormitory, you know, whatever. Politely. Politely.

Politely. So then, yeah, you get through the fuel part of the ship. You kill a bunch of other set of assassins. You get back through to Pragus, but on the other side of the fuel depots energy shields. You kill. This is where I think that. this is the worst part of this is where I was like I'm hitting fucking fast forward on the let's play you kill so many droids here this whole section should get cut from this game

just let me get to the we've we just had the high point of meeting the weird Sith and having Kraya encounter him we do not need 16 straight minutes of droid killing for nothing but XP so something that I did in this section after you know we killed HK we're being introduced to the Sith assassins, introduced to the Sith guy, all of that. I completely respect my weapon to just be a human-oriented weapon. And then I was like, I ran into the first set of droids. And I was like, oh, I don't have my droid weapon. Like, I don't have any of the droid things on this.

Maybe this is just like the last little bit of droid. I'm not going to go all the way back to the workbench. I'm not going to go reload. and then I just kept running into more groups of droids and eventually it wrapped around to a place where you eventually find a workbench and I was like, okay, I need to have two of these. But it was surprising to go back to fighting droids

after being introduced to Sith assassins. I thought that was a little goofy. It's just such a downbeat. This should be crescendoing. It's like it's time for our harrowing escape and it's like walk down the monster hall. Yeah. I would have even, it would have even maybe been fun to have the HK fight come after this instead of, because then you have that one big fight after escaping the Harbinger, you're like, oh, fuck, like from the frying pan into the fire, now we're trapped between the Sith behind us and HK in front of us. And imagine if it was like, that would have been good. You Atten and T3 versus the droids. And then T3 gets to get his lick back. You know what I mean? Like there's a little bit of like droid revenge happening. That would be fun. Unfortunately, you just fight hallway after hallway of the same droids. It's really a miss.

I will say, Natalie, I do think you identified something, though, which is, I think part of the joy in the style of game, or part of the, maybe not joy, but part of the design in terms of combat is less about any individual encounter, and it's more about having the playbook already built and having the toolkit with you. So you being like, oh, I wanted to go up, get a droid sword ready, is the kind of structure of the game's combat system, in contrast to Balder's Gate 3, where, yes, you want to have the toolbox, but the joy of play and the kind of complexity of play is, how does this level design? How does, like, having a two or three-tiered fight in the, you know, in the under, in the under dark where there's like a, almost like a

treehouse style design in this kind of old mine area, how do I, like, use the elevation to my advantage. How do I move my characters around and use the tools I have? Whereas in this, it's very much like I'm setting up my character for success in future fights by having X-force power, X weapon already modified to this need. I'll switch to that weapon. I'll activate this particular buff and will be good. And I think that that is a lot of where I put the brain power. It's almost never in any individual fight outside of a big boss. encounter where you need to be locked in to be like okay first I have to throw the eye on grenades or whatever you know uh yeah you get you get through the rest of this you

killed 16 minutes of droids and they try to do the like the hallway full of gas thing again they do I'm not even I'm not even pulling the breathing apparatus out for the I'm just running through I don't care I don't care we're just going to spam the antidote the guy's kind of res once I get out of this room I don't care and And then turret sequence. Weird. Why is there a turret sequence here? It feels so bad.

It feels so incredibly bad. This is a turret sequence inside. Because people won't be thinking of the turret sequences from Cotor 1, where you sit in the cock, or the turrets of the Evan Hawk shooting other ships. This is just you're in a turret facing forward as dozens of Sith combat troopers from the first Cotor who have not shown up before in this game. So seven, seven enemy times. types, start showing up, just running across the screen, and you shoot them as they do,

and you shoot boxes, and they explode. And there is, of course, a little connection. Can I ask everyone a question? How many people, how many Sith troopers got on your Ebb and Hawk? I had like six. 15. Two, what? It can be any number from two to 26, and apparently the best thing you're supposed to do for

to be as broken as you can be is to let all 26 all in because you get individual kills which gives you more XP So, Allie, you may have pulled ahead of us in XP by getting so many more SIT guys on board. The ship.

I had to like bump up my DPI on my mouse to just be able to swing around to hit everyone. And then I was like they really do just start flying by you at a certain point.

Well, I was like, where the fuck are y'all going? Y'all exited stage left. Where are you? Oh, on my ship, okay. And you kill them, and then you get one more conversation with Atten and Kraya at the front of the ship before we stop here. Yeah. I do appreciate this so much more than the hard fails of being in the ship fighting. Oh, for sure.

Oh, God, yeah. It's still difficult and very silly. But at least I'll take the, I'll take the 15 guys on my ship. Just get me out of them. So yeah, you kill those guys on the ship. You get one big choice here. Atten is like, I don't even know if didn't even realize you were making a choice. When Atten is like, are you, like, we need to navigate the asteroid field.

And Kraya's like, just shoot the asteroids, you know. And then you get a dialogue. Wait, I have it here. It's, uh, you get a dialogue option. No, I don't have it here actually. I have it. It is not, it is, it is not a particularly big one or whatever. You're like, hey, can you fly this thing or not?

Or can't you do something? And Atten says, I'm doing all I can and it's not enough. What did you do to make these guys so mad? Now, either they'll hit us and destroy us or they hit an asteroid and make the whole field go Nova. And you can either say, can't we just jump to hyperspace or fire on the asteroids? Maybe the explosion will kill them. Or just do your best to keep distance. We'll get out of this yet. Now, no matter what you choose, you're going to get out of this. But if you threaten the asteroids or if you say, let's just try to keep our distance, Kraya will say, what are the asteroids?

They can be destroyed by us as well as them, can't they? Or can they not? She would never say can't they? She would only ever say, can they not? And Atten will say, interesting that it's Atten, that'll take out the whole field, the colony, and maybe us, we might not even be able to jump to hyperspace in time. And so you can either have him attack the asteroids to give you some cover, or you can just try to, like, escape. Regardless, either you hit an asteroid or the Harbinger hits an asteroid, and the whole thing explodes. Now, they don't really show the whole thing exploding necessarily, but in conversation basically immediately, Atten says, well, now that we just killed a planet, maybe one of you can tell me what's going on. Because between

assassin droids, a Sith lord that looks like he sleeps with vibro blades and making target practice for a republic warship, I was better off in my cell. So yeah, I guess you blew up the planet there, whether or not you did it technically. And you get dark side points if you do it yourself right and or if you and then if the Sith do it you get light side I think I think you get light side points if you don't do it I actually don't know if you even get dark side points if you do it I'm not sure the guide I'm looking at does not show that which is very funny but you get one light side point if you're like no we can't do it well someone might be alive still so so yeah but you escape that's worth one point did everybody just not blow up the asteroids

themselves did anybody blow up the asteroids I said, just handle it, bro. Okay. Yeah, that's kind of where I was that. Just keep flying. Do we jump to hyperspace? They're only, nah. I'm only wondering because of what will happen next session.

I'm curious if any of us did blow it up if that has a knock on effect. Because I didn't, I don't know if it does. Well, it definitely blew up. Right, no, but I don't know if you will take the blame for it if we did it versus if not. So we'll see. Okay.

I do kind of love the, like, almost like, mini tutorial, it's not a tutorial, but the introduction of the influence system is basically being like, well, I think Atten has a really good idea here, or we should listen to Crea, like this sort of like, like, these people have no reason to have a relationship with each other. Yeah. But the way that you relate to them makes them react to you in a way, is, is kind of of fun.

But I think you maybe get more of that here in the final thing. You learn that the Harbinger was, the Republic of Worship was the Harbinger, Craya says, it was seized on its way to Tilos by the Sith. They sought you, Jedi. And then you have a conversation about why they were going there, why you were there, how Craya found out that you were on the vessel and intercepted the Harbinger to try to get you off, which means Kraya has been aboard the Ebenhawk. It's her ship, technically. Um, and, uh, you know, there's just kind of a little back and forth about, about some of this stuff.

You can ask why the Sith are looking for you. Um, and Kraya says that once you are dead, they have won, uh, you are the last of the Jedi. Um, and there's a sort of broader conversation that's like, should we go after them? Should we try to flee? How do we stop them? Um, and, uh, a along with a sort of history lesson that is like the Jedi have all fallen, um, you, uh, you basically commit to,

uh, trying to go somewhere to get more allies and some help. And that's kind of like, super mean about it though. It is super mean about it. Are you like, are you ready to do this? And you can be like,

yes, I am. She's like, no. No, no you fucking ain't tell you. If you're saying that, you're not serious about this.

That's right. And if you say, we fight like you've never seen before. Yeah. And if you say, no, I'm not ready. She's like, oh, are you a coward? Only a coward wouldn't be ready to face tomorrow, you know?

There's no winning with Crea. Crea is a very particular type of grad school instructor, you know? But then again, like, so, uh, she flounces off to her room. And Atten is like, hey, go easy on her. She was in agony. And my dude is like, what? Yeah. And he's like, her hand was cut off.

Like she was just trying to hold it together because I think she didn't want to look weak in front of you. Yes. And my guy's like, what? And it's like, maybe you should go check on her. Atten is locked in. That's so wild for Atten to be the one calling out. Like when he was saying this to me, I was, I wanted to be like, I know that. I, I've already started the relationship with her.

Like, I felt betrayed because like you're supposed to be. be the asshole in the group. I love it. I love the idea that you're so caught up in the events of what's happening. And you were not empathetic about in this way. And Atten is paying attention to how people feel all the time. That is like one of his big character traits along with being hopeless. And so I like that a lot.

Another little small thing. Oh, go ahead. The last thing I'll say on that is this, it's interesting that you are, able to put out of your mind in that moment the explicit like the physical experience you had when she had the like when her hand was cut off at in thinks you're like dying all of a sudden you're like you like are grimacing in pain it's it's it's super intense and then it's it's interesting that they chose not to have the exile be able to recall that or have that pain still in their mind? Right, that's past the exile. Exactly. She's still feeling it. The

Kraya is still feeling it because it happened to her physically. So there's a, yeah, which there's a real, put a pin in that, like ideas and materiality. How do those relate? Who believes in what in terms of the history of the galaxy will be a big conversation we start to the next episode with? One more thing about the history of the galaxy. You could ask Kraya here, not even like in this conversation. We're not even talking about going to talk to her more here. You can say, wait a second, how could all the Jedi be gone, right? You can ask about the Jedi on Dantuan and Corrassant.

The ones there, she says, the Jedi Academy on Dantuan is nothing more than a crater that echoes with the ghosts of dead Jedi, and the Jedi temple on Corrassant lies empty. The waters in the room of a thousand founts have fallen still in reverence to the fallen Jedi. and those now lost. Many Jedi blamed the teachings of the Jedi masters for Revan's Fall and the Civil War that followed. And that's where she leads with the other answers. Many Jedi blamed the teachings of the Jedi masters for Revan's Fall and the Civil War that followed, which is fascinating because in Cotor 1, you get the impression that young Jedi liked Revan and old Jedi liked the old Jedi masters who didn't want to go to war

against the Mandalorians, and that was the core of the split. And then you might think, maybe with a light side reven or something, that you, that there would have been a healing between that schism. But it turns out that even with, even if you're a light side reven in Cotor 1 here, they're not going to effect of what happened with Reven and the masters, with Reven and the master's, with Reven and Malik and all of that, the blame didn't go on Reven and Malik. The Jedi blamed the old Stodgy masters who let them slip to begin with. And I think that that's, like, really fun to think about the internal politicking of the Jedi.

And that meant that even if Revin, wherever Revin is now, because Revin lives at the end of Cotor, no matter what your ending is, that schism between those two, the kind of inner schools of Jedi remained. I like that. Robbred, it sounds like you came to some sort of realization. No, I was saying it's like, yeah, like, Rogan endorsed Revan is kind of. kind of the thing. That's what it seems like. Oh, no. And then, of course, you can decide if any survivors still live, we need to warn them.

Or then the Jedi are dead, gone, and good riddons. Which is what I said. Yeah, there's, there's, I've been getting a lot of dark side points, and it's like been really hard to sort of weave the kind of role playing that I want to do where, like, Like, I, I keep choosing the answers that are like, I don't want the force back. I don't want to be involved with the Jedi, but also still, like, being nice to people. You know, like, I don't want to kill people. I just want to not be a Jedi anymore.

And the way that the game has sort of, like, been interpreting that or sort of, like, closing off the options or making things harsher than they should be has already been really interesting in these early stages. and I hope that it just gets even more complicated as things go by. Keep pursuing that. Don't give up on that feeling. I think there's a lot here. Truly, I think you'll have a lot of options to try to go down that path at the very least. I think it highlights, though, also that with usually like five options to respond to things,

it's like a car where the gearing is all wrong, where it's like, it's just hard shifts into, like, for all that, like, it seems like it should allow you more granular. response, it still feels like hard turns are happening in conversations. And then that is like further like let down by the fact that so often the character just says what they were going to say regardless. Yeah, I think that that's totally right. Yeah. Like there's a it's like you have gears for 5%, 10%, 60%, 80%, 100%. And there's like a pretty big gap in there. Like, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. I'm not trying to be a Boy Scout. And then the other thing is mechanically, you only get light side and dark side points often for the top and bottom type answers in terms of like how nice or kind you are and how mean you are.

And there's also sort of, we haven't quite hit this yet, but there will be lots of you, you know, you gained or lost influence for that type things coming up. And often if you try to like play the middle, you're not going to get any influence points. You're not going to lose any either. And there's a lot of opportunities to get influence points, especially with a character like Crea. But I think, like, right away, you know, when we, when we start the next episode, we'll start by talking to Kraya and Atten and T3 on the ship, exploring the ship, finding a couple of things. Hint, hint, there's a hidden compartment with some gear on it on that ship somewhere. Maybe where it was last time, too. Maybe where that little girl hid that one time.

And some of those conversations with Krea, there are options you're like, I just want to, like, go down the middle. And that's totally fine, but you will not get influence with her if you do that. You know, she has desire. She has her own perspective on the world. She wants to be your teacher. And in a very interesting way, you can get influence on somebody by giving them what they want, which really isn't that them getting influence on you? Question mark, question mark, question mark.

What is the nature of teaching? What is the nature of, right? So we'll see. I think that that's the whole of this session. All right. Where are we going next time? We are going to the aptly named Tilos station. Do we learn about Tilos at all here in the conversation that you all ended on?

You just hear that that's where they're sending you. Okay. Well, Rob, what's Tilos mean in Greek? Oh, God, I have no idea anymore. What's teleology? Do you know the word teleology from Aristotelian? I do, but your label is undergrad stuff. Sorry to grab you here.

In Aristotelian metaphysics, the telos is the final cause. It's the purpose an object or a person or a culture has that draws them forward through history. Telos effectively means the end, but almost like what if what if the end was an engine for history? So a knife has the telos of cutting. A knife wants to cut. So when a knife cuts something, it is pursuing its telos. When a general moves military armies around, that is the general's telos. And you can have different ethical understandings of teleology, but it is interesting that

we were immediately going from Piraugas, this fucked up planet and space station, to a planet called telos. We were being driven. And so every time someone is like, ah, yes, we must go to Tilos. It's like saying we have to go to the end. We have to go to purpose. We have to go to your kind of intrinsic, what your intrinsic self wants you to be. And so we're going to Tilos's Citadel Station next. I believe we're splitting Citadel Station into two so that we can spend time on this initial

conversations that are going to happen in the ship. I played through all of Citadel Station in about 5.30, Jesus, 5.30 to 6 hours. But I've played this game before. I know it really well. And I didn't die at all. So I didn't have to do much reloading. Though I did pursue a quest long that I think most people will not. And then I reloaded and did the other path. And I don't think anyone should do that. You should talk to everybody on the ship. You should go to Citadel Station. You should play through where you're, you should focus on getting your equipment. I'm going to spoil a little bit here because I have to. Play until you get your equipment back because you will lose your equipment. A focus on getting your equipment back.

Go to where you get your equipment back. And then I'd say, feel free to do any of the exploring the space, watching the space, talking to any NPCs that are in like the canteena or the shops. The two things you should not do in this next session are go into the Zerka offices or go talk to the authorians. So anything that isn't those two. So there's like side quests. There's like some bounty hunting stuff. There's some, you can go play some Pazok.

You could maybe do a swoop bike race if that's what you wanted to do. Have they chew swoop bike racing or is it just still? They added the jump button to swoop bike racing. Okay. What? Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. So.

Time is really strange because I have a friend staying with me right now who was staying with me when I first played Cotor and when he was here he was like I'm just gonna make you a bunch of money and did all the soup races for me in Cotor 1 to like beat all of them so I think that I'm just gonna get a bunch

of money I gotta tell you incredible you don't get paid enough for the fucking swoop bike race on this planet you'll get paid but it's not worth they should pay you more there's not the big spenders on Tilos no I mean you who are you you're just a new racing scene hasn't recovered since the destruction of...

Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, those are the things you should be able to do. Also, I guess, don't go into... You won't be able to, so I won't even say it. Yeah, those are things. Don't do the Zerka or Athorian. The Zerka and Athorian plots are the key forward momentum plots. And I say we should just get the vibe on Citadel Station.

So soak it up. Do the side stuff if you want to, but none of it that would bring you into those places. Or if you do, like, dip in, but we're not going to talk about that stuff, you know? So, yeah. Just so you know, I've been putting up the Let's Play episodes a week before the episode, the podcast episode. So the episode for this coming one

will be up a week in advance of the next episode. So that is, what is that, YouTube.com slash at More Civilized. Let's see that. All right. Well, with that, we've reached the end of another episode of A More Civilized Age. Our show is produced by Chia Contreras

and supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform choice. Remember, don't talk to Xerka people or Thorians. I'm like, don't talk to Zerka people or Thorians. Good rule. True.