JA 'Unlimited'
By Kat Angel
Date: 03-08-2008
Screenshots
Readme
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= JA UNLIMITED =
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= UNLEASH THE FULL POWER OF THE FORCE! =
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Hello, Jedi Acadamy..ers... I'm Kat Angel, sort of a LTWFTW! (That's "Long time watcher, first time writer" for those who don't speak Strong Bad.) I always thought my first mod would be a map. I tried to do that for a while. Alas, lack of time and natural artistic ability seem to get in the way of projects like that. I didn't have the time to learn mapping. Coding, on the other hand, is something I've been doing for a while now, and though I'm still quite an amateur, this particular project turned out simultaneously easier and harder than I thought. Easier, because Jedi Academy just happened to be written in C++, which I'm already familiar with... harder, because once I took a look at the code, every fix I made didn't fix it. And some broke it. It was a little bothersome to find out exactly what values needed to be changed, but I got it done, and that's all that matters! ^_^
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So what is JA Unlimited?
Well, I can tell you straight off that it's no where NEAR as cool as it sounds. All this does is extend the capabilities for Jedi Academy (Multiplayer only) to handle models and other addons - it removes limitations; thereby, Jedi Academy becomes "unlimited." In all truthfulness, the name is probably a little misleading... but who ever said cool names represented cool things, right?
There was a mod released a long time ago in the filefront forums that was supposed to do the same thing, but by the time I found it, it had disappeared. Besides which, when I actually tried the method that the author posted, it was incomplete, and didn't function fully as promised, so I decided to redo it my own way, and ended up taking it a little farther.
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OK, but what does it DO???
It does a number of things:
-It removes the limit on pictures displayed in the profile menu, so no matter how many player models you have in your base folder, ALL of them will show up in the selection menu.
-It removes the limit on the number of sabers that show up in the selection menu, so, again, no matter how many sabers you've downloaded, they should all show up there.
-It also removes the annoying limit on the number of sabers you can HAVE. Previously, if you were over the saber limit, not only would your saber not show up in the saber selection menu, but it wouldn't even be obtainable through the console. No longer an issue.
-It removes the limit on .sab files. You can have as many and as large of .sab files as you choose to have now.
-The same goes for .npc files - have as many as you like, there's no longer a need to delete the .npc file from a model to keep it in your base folder.
-And, surprise surprise, it removes the limit on .veh files, as well! I know that part's already been released in a separate mod, but, unfortunately, there's no way to make the two mods compatible, so this mod handles that, as well.
I've also included an optional mod that will decrease the size of the pictures in that menu so that you can scroll faster - if you're like me, you have well over 200 models and skins to choose from, not counting team skins, and scrolling through pictures in a 6x3 box takes a while. Thumbnailshrink.pk3 will reduce the pictures to half size, displaying a 12x6 box instead of a 6x3, and, for those of you with a tiny fetish, thumbnailshrink_more.pk3 will take it even further and display your icons in a 16x8 box. If you'd prefer not to have the thumbnail size changed, simply leave both of these out. If you install them both, it will default to 16x8.
Since Raven hasn't released source code for SP, and probably never will, this mod is MP only. Most of it isn't needed in SP, anyway, but the problems of not being able to access some of your sabers if you have too many is still there. There are a few ways to deal with this besides deleting sabers, but this readme isn't the place to put them, so email me if you'd like some help with it. =^_^=
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Sounds great. How do I install it?
Easy! Simply open up the zip file and dump z_ja_unlimited.pk3 into your base folder, and optionally include thumbnailshrink.pk3 or thumbnailshrink_more.pk3 with it. Then start up JA, and you're done!
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Is this mod compatible with other mods?
It depends. Mods that don't change the game functionality, such as vehicles, models, saber hilts, etc, work fine. It wouldn't make much sense if they didn't, given the nature of the mod. Unfortunately, any mod that alters the .dll files - including mods like JA+ and OJP - will most likely override this mod, and so the functionality will be lost. However, if the developers of those mods would like to collaborate to include these functionalities in their mods, it's a pretty simple change that I'm sure they could add to their mod very easily, and I'd be more than happy to share - any mod developers interested, just send me an email.
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And now, the ****important**** disclaimer/bug report:
The makers of Jedi Academy put a limit on the number of models and sabers shown for a reason: namely, the more data the game has to load, the more memory it takes up, and the more data you want to ALLOW it to load, the more memory you have to reserve, so Raven's decision to put these limiters in place was made for a reason. It's fine if you're just seeing pictures and names, but even on an extremely high-end PC, I noticed that I started getting laggy due to lack of available system resources when I started scrolling through the sabers one-by-one, starting when I had gotten through about 100 or so of them, though it was only slight. When I switched to a different map afterward, it also took it 2-3 minutes to get through "awaiting snapshot," but afterward gameplay recovered fully, and when I switched maps again, it loaded normally without that long wait. I'm guessing "awaiting snapshot" has something to do with cleaning models used in the previous level out of memory and replacing them with the new ones for the next level, so cycling through 200-300 saber models and putting them all into the memory would probably have a considerable hit on that. The effect would probably be magnified on older computers, though I don't have one available right now to see just how much it would affect things. If you don't want to deal with wait times, it's probably better to use the scroll buttons with the mouse instead of cycling through sabers with the arrow keys, but regardless, it doesn't seem to be a huge problem. Still, I take no responsibility if your computer hangs and you lose data because of this mod. You have been warned.
Also of note: With this, you can now have a virtually unlimited number of mods. (I say virtually because there IS still a cap, but hopefully it's been increased enough that no one will ever get to it... if you do, that's what email is for, I'll make an updated version for you.) As with all good things, this carries a downside, as well. If you exceed a certain number of .pk3 files in your base directory, you will not be allowed to create a pure server - you'll be kicked out of it, with an error saying you referenced an "invalid .pk3 file." There's an easy way to fix this: disable the pure server option. That can be done by manually switching it off in the advanced options when creating a server, or by adding seta sv_pure "0" to the bottom of your jampconfig.cfg file. This isn't related to the mod in any way except that the "unlimitedness" opens an option to have that many .pk3 files. And if you have enough files to get that error, you won't be joining any pure server other than your own, anyway, so it's not a big deal.
Finally, I'm obliged to state that I am not affiliated with LucasArts, Raven, Activision, or any other company affiliated with Star Wars: Jedi Academy, and this mod is neither supported nor endorsed by any of the so mentioned entities. Star Wars, Jedi Academy, and all related trademarks belong to their respective companies, all rights reserved.
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As for credits, I would like to thank }HOK{ Deathspike. A small snippet of code he posted back in 2005 went a long way toward guiding me to the changes that needed to be made, even though I didn't use any of it in the long run, save one line. If nothing else, it was enough of a start to get me at least a little bit familiar with the file structure of JA's source code, and that can make a big difference in the time it takes to get something like this accomplished.
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So, I hate your mod, it blew up my computer, and now I want to yell at you in person over it. How do I do it?
-or-
I'd like to thank you for your mod. How can I contact you?
To the first group of questioners:
I live at the bottom of the nearest cliff to you that is at least a 50-foot drop and has sharp rocks at the bottom. You can only reach me by car; please drive straight off the cliff, and I'll catch you at the bottom. Promise!!! >.>
To the second group:
You can email me at kasu.dorepa@gmail.com. This also applies to the aforementioned modders who would like to incorporate this change into their mods, if any exist. I'll try to respond within 24 hours.
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Thanks for trying my mod, and I hope you enjoy it! Hopefully this will ease the concerns of a lot of people, particularly now that the mod from the forums isn't available anymore.
Perhaps some day I'll get around to finishing that map...
=^_^=Kat Angel=^_^=