Table of Contents
If you’re just wanting to get started speedrunning KotOR, this is the place to start! This guide covers the basics of KotOR speedruns, from how to actually get KotOR running and the appropriate settings, to how to use these guides to answer the questions you have.
If there’s something that isn’t covered here or in a different guide, feel free to join the KotOR Speedrunning Discord. The community is pretty friendly and always willing to help!
The guides are organized into sections. There are five categories:
The different pages have links to the other relevant pages; so if you’re just looking to jump into a category, you can start with the Route Guide for that category, and then follow the links to see the descriptions of individual tricks from that run.
Q: Can I speedrun KotOR?
A: Yes! Anyone can speedrun this game, as long as they enjoy it and are willing to learn a new way to play the game. Speedrunning KotOR is very different from any casual playthrough you’ve done; as one simple example, we mash through all dialogue as fast as possible.
Q: Are there any glitches in KotOR speedrunning?
A: Most definitely. Some glitches are very useful, while others must be avoided. KotOR speedrunning is split into three categories and three rulesets. Different rulesets allow different amounts of glitches; Unrestricted has no restrictions, Glitchless does not allow any glitches, and No Dev Tools is a middle ground.
Q: What category and ruleset should I learn first?
A: Ultimately, whichever category and ruleset you think you’d enjoy the most! The easiest category to start with would be Any% under either the Glitchless or No Dev Tools rulesets. Any% Glitchless is easy to pick up and provides good menuing practice, but doesn’t introduce any of the tricks that are staples of KotOR speedrunning. No Dev Tools is a good category for beginners, as it uses Hotshots and other common glitches. Unrestricted uses all glitches available and has the shortest time for each run attempt. Any% is generally an easier category to learn versus Max Quests because it’s significantly more straightforward and much shorter, where All Planets provides a middle ground.
Q: What is In-Game Time?
A: Because different computers have different hardware, load times for many PC games varies from system to system. In order to remove this complication, we remove load times from the timing for KotOR speedruns. This is achieved through a load-removal tool in Livesplit, thanks to glasnonck. For any runs except races, In-Game Time (IGT) is what matters.
Q: How long is this speedrun?
A: This depends on the category you choose to run. The approximate “good” times(as of date of writing) for the most common speedruns are:
Q: What should I focus on to improve my time most quickly?
A: I would give you three things (plus a bonus!) to focus on, in order of importance:
1. Learn the route. As in any RPG run, knowing where to go is what saves the most time, as then you’re not having to stop and figure things out mid run. As far as RPGs go, KotOR is pretty short; but it’s still fairly complex.
2. Figure out the keyboard hotkeys. KotOR lets you customize hotkeys, so get a setup that you like and then go with it. You should have comfortable hotkeys for all of the following, roughly in order of use:
While you can do all this with the mouse, learning the hotkeys will improve your efficiency, especially in the next point. Many runners also recommend rebinding the movement keys to WASD (strafe controls) from WZSC (tank controls).
2.5: Similar to the above, learn to move efficiently. Holding both mouse buttons will run you forward, and you can turn the mouse to turn your character. Or, hold the right mouse button to fix the camera and use WASD to run diagonally/forward/backward. Get a method of movement you like and practice it until you’re comfortable.
3. Practice the menus. Again, like most RPG runs KotOR has a fair amount of menuing. This is actually where most of the execution in this run happens. Learn the menus with all the relevant hotkeys and practice them if you really want to get good times.
But most importantly of all:
4. Patience. It takes time to learn a run like this, and the combat in KotOR is based on D&D’s d20 system, so it’s inherently luck-based. We do what we can to mitigate the RNG, but sometimes you get good rolls and sometimes you won’t. Even apart from that, KotOR is a glitchy game (in both good and bad ways). Even though we try to break it in the right ways, it can and will throw odd behavior at you, softlock you for fun, and sometimes just plain crash. Just stick with it and you’ll improve!
There are several settings you should set up ahead of time so you’re not losing time to the game doing things you don’t want.
Gameplay:
Feedback:
Autopause:
Graphics:
Outside the game, find the swkotor2.ini file in your KotOR 2 installation folder, and open it with a standard text editor(Notepad works great). Then, under the section headlined [Graphics Options]:
Depending on your setup, you may wish to run KotOR in Windowed Mode. In order to do this, you’ll need to open the swkotor2.ini file in the game’s installation folder again and add the following under [Graphics Options]:
In both cases, omit the quotes and be sure to capitalize correctly. This should cause the game to open in a window the next time you run it. Sometimes you may need to press “ALT+Enter” to force the game to switch views after this setting is in place.
Example section of ini
