Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter/Mission-Specific Unused Content/Mount Merakan

This is a sub-page of Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter/Mission-Specific Unused Content.

Hidden Level Designer Conversation

Inside the mission script for the Mount Merakan mission is a note left by the level's original designer, Quentin Westcott, to someone taking over. It includes a mention of the "QW" easter egg as well as many disabled objects, all of which can be re-enabled through modding. The cut bomb turrets mentioned here and shown in the game's concept art are still in the game and are mostly functional if reactivated.

"Hello, You are now taking over this level and here are a few things you need to now. Several items were hidden and not revealed in the PS2 version to save memory. More specifically: 6 Ore extractors 11 ore containers 4 freighters A whole buncha scarabs All of these fellows have been hidden in the level and their Way Points disabled. You will simply have to unhide them, and enable the waypoints. Afew things have been moved around in the level. Among them have been moved is a couple of ore containers in the front RT side of the mountain. They need to form a circle as this group of ore containers is actually my signature. Please do this for me as it's a personal easter egg for my family. :) Please note: You will need to add all these hidden craft back into the events- voicelines, OS conditions, % destroyed, etc... otherwise they will mean nothing if you unhide them. You will need to rework some of math on the % destroyed buildings to get all of jinkins and nym voicelines back to what they once were. (They WERE operating on 16 buildings instead of 10) Second Note: Some buildings that survived the cuts were still hidden OnMissionLoad This is to make the Intro less framerate intensive. They are unhidden on the start of the level in Set up>unhide and unhide2. So that's what that is all about. Once again I took the fully cut buildings out of this so you will need to add them back. Lastly, we had to pull in the play area close around the mountain for fog and farclip issues. There are probably hidden buildings that we didn't use outside the contraint Way Point Planes (Side1-4) Things that were hidden in the quest for better frame rate: All Anti-bomb turrets Ore containers: 17, 18, 34, 39, 42, 43, 25, 3, 8, 33, 20 Ore Extractors: 7, 14, 11, 13, 6, 5 Most scarabs TF Freighters: 14, 11, 3, 5 Thank you and good luck! IF you have any question call me: Quentin Westcott x8626"

Early Level Design Remnants

As described by the above note, lots of objects were disabled to save on memory, but were never re-enabled. These include more ore refineries and smaller structures, but also the scrapped anti-bomb turrets. Additionally, if the level boundaries are disabled, you can go very far away from the normally playable area and see what remains of the "cloud cover" mechanic from this mission's unused voice lines. Unfortunately, no programming remains for the other things mentioned in the unused voice lines. This video shows these things restored plus a few unused voice lines added back in to show how they probably played out.

Unused Audio

According to the lead programmer (Brett Douville), the original plan for Mount Merakan was for it to be so huge that you couldn't see the planet below, making it significantly bigger than any video game mountain to ever exist. Due to all the new concepts it would've added, as well as the technical limitations of the PlayStation 2, the mission was greatly simplified. The unused audio lines should hint what it would've been like.

Several friendly fire lines:

A few lines from Nym for leaving the mission area:

A handful of wingmate command responses from Jinkins:

A voiced fail condition for Nym dying:

Another voiced fail condition for Jinkins dying:

A random assortment of lines for various situations:

Cut lines referring to the mountain being a Hex weapons operation. The final version states it's just a normal weapons plant. As a result, the unused audio files mention lots of structures and destructible objects not present in the final release. The "storage containers" were most likely repurposed as those pointless destructable decoration objects seen around the final version's map:

A cut mechanic called "Target List". Perhaps the Jedi missions would've followed the first game's mission-based structure, but the Nym missions would've been structured around a checklist of things you need to destroy? Just a guess from these audio clips alone:

The Defense Platforms could fire randomly - and at their own buildings - if you destroy its command bridge. Similar to the TF Lander's cut command bridge from The Informant, this would've been another hardpoint that behaves the same way:

A cut mechanic about a cloud layer that's too thick to see in since it reduces visibility. Remnants of this can be seen outside the level boundaries, as objects and buildings used to take up the entire map, but were constrained due to fog and clipping issues. Unfortunately it's just a thin, static model that doesn't reduce visibility:

In addition to the escaping freighters, Hex Bombers would've also made their escape:

The mountain would've been covered in turrets, while in the final version there aren't any. Apparently - in true Star Wars fashion - you had to fly low so they couldn't hit you:

The cut bomb turrets from earlier make an appearance here. Strangely, despite this being a later mission, this is the first time both Nym and Jinkins see them:

Apparently the mountain was so big that Nym would get surprised if you reach the top. Also it had some sort of interior you would eventually fly inside:

A Sabaoth Destroyer not only enters this mission, but also flies through the mountain. This implies that not only did the mountain have multiple peaks, but Sabaoth Destroyers could move around at one point:

Apparently some areas would be unreachable due to wind updrafts that are unsafe to fly into:

This line from Jinkins is in response to a used line from Nym saying he wants to attack Toth's forces directly:

This line is from Jinkins, and it's a response to a used line from Nym saying that "joining forces with the Jedi wasn't such a bad idea after all":

This line from Nym is a response to a used line from Jinkins saying you've destroyed "about half of their operation":

Originally, this conversation would've taken place instead of a used line from Nym stating the landing pads should also be destroyed:

These are from an unused version of the intro:

These are a bunch of miscellaneous voice lines that are either slightly different than used ones, different because of changes in level design, or they could fit anywhere in the mission. Something interesting to note is that some of them have Jinkins commencing a bombing run, but his ship - the Freefall - doesn't have bombs in this game, but did have bombs in Starfighter: