Force Powers

Unlike most first-person shooters, Jedi Knight games add the concept of force powers, which adds another unique dimension to gameplay. If used correctly, force powers can be even more effective than any traditional weapon. Depending on server settings, you are given a certain amount of points to allocate across the different force powers. Each force power has 3 different levels you can allocate to it, with higher levels making the force power more powerful.

Force-Power-Affecting Powerups

Force Boon

The boon is a powerup that regenerates your force points significantly faster than normal. If you activate force powers using the +useforce / forceprev / forcenext binds instead of directly using the F keys, then they take only half the number of force points that they normally take.

Neutral Force Powers

Force Speed

Possibly the most useful force power, force speed increases your overall speed in the game. Without speed on, you are usually a sitting duck if any enemy player sees you. Speed takes 50 force points to activate, and lasts for 20 seconds.

Force Jump

Another crucial force power, force jump lets you jump much higher than you normally would. Use it judiciously, since you want to save force points for more useful powers if you can. However if you're in a bind, jumping away can be extremely helpful. Similarly if you fall into a pit, you can often grip the wall nearest to you and jump back out, sometimes without the enemy seeing, which gives you a huge advantage. Jump uses more force the higher you jump, maxing out at 30 force points.

Force Push / Force Pull

Push and pull are the main force power weapons in CTF. Nearly all maps contain large pits where players will fall to their death if they are pulled or pushed into them. Most of these maps strategically place the pits such that players will naturally want to jump over them to take shortcuts too. Both push and pull use 20 force points. Note that pull can be used at a higher rate than push. Push can be very useful on offense, since pushing the enemy chase away has the added advantage of preventing them from using weapons or force for a short period (longer than pulling would).

Force Sight

Sight is basically the game's built-in wallhack. Conversely, wallhacking is basically a cheat that enables force sight without using force powers. Sight allows you to see players behind walls. It is useful for getting the jump on an enemy, for example keeping away from the enemy chaser if you are carrying the flag, or quickly finding where the enemy flag carrier is hiding if you are chasing. Force sight is the only countermeasure to being mind tricked by an opponent (besides predicting their position through footstep sound). It uses 20 force points to activate, and lasts for 30 seconds.

Saber Throw

Saber throw lets you use your lightsaber as a projectile. Unfortunately, what happens often with this is that your saber will be knocked down. While your saber is in the air, you'll be unable to switch to a different weapon, and your force points won't regenerate. This can be a huge disadvantage since you can be left for a relatively long time with no ability to attack or defend. If you max out your force allocation here, you gain the ability to change the direction your saber is travelling in, while at the lowest allocation it will travel in a straight line. It uses 20 force points, no matter how long or short it travels.

Saber Attack

Saber attack level 1 is required to have a lightsaber. The additional levels simply make your swings more powerful, and don't change how many force points it takes to execute each saber move.

Saber Defend

Saber defend is very useful for deflecting all but a few types of shots automatically. Use the full allocation here, or else you won't be able to fully deflect everything, leaving you vulnerable especially to sniper shots. It doesn't use any force points to use saber defend.

Light Side / Dark Side

You must pick to be either light or dark side. The preceding force powers can be picked regardless of your side, but if you pick light side, then you won't be able to use any dark side powers, and vice-versa.

Light Side

Absorb

Absorb weakens or totally negates some force powers used against you, and gives you more force each time it absorbs one of them. It greatly weakens force push and pull, and totally negates force lightning and drain. It is useless against mind trick, though. At full allocation, it takes 10 force points to activate, and stops either when you run out of force, or 20 seconds elapses. It will drain your force gradually by 30 force points over the course of the 20 seconds. Absorb can only be seen by opponents when they are using force on you, though it makes a sound at the point where you activated it for as long as it's activated. However, you can see your own absorb all of the time.

Protect

Protect makes you take less damage from weapons than you otherwise would. Similar to absorb, it gradually takes force points while you have it activated. It also takes 10 points to activate and lasts at most 20 seconds at a time, but uses force at twice the rate of absorb - so if you activate for the full 20 seconds, you will have used 60 force points to support it (in addition to the 10 points to activate it). Unlike absorb, if you take damage while using protect, you lose force points instead of gaining them. It is invaluable to use if you are a flag carrier, since you can often outlive the amount of ammo the enemy has with them, forcing them to either go hunt for more or selfkill and respawn. Keep in mind that protect and absorb cannot be activated at the same time, so using protect signals the enemy that you are vulnerable to force pull. Enemies can see that you've activated force protect even if you're not taking damage.

Heal

Heal will trade your force points for health points (HP). At best, you can trade 50 force points for 50 health points. This is inferior to team heal, but can sometimes be useful if your teammates refuse to use team heal on you.

Team Heal

Team heal is a force power that lets you restore your teammates' health points when they are nearby. Each activation uses 25 force points, but restores 50 health points of your teammate. Base defenders frequently use this to support their flag carrier, since even after using 50 force points to activate force speed, they can give the flag carrier 100 health points back.

Mind Trick

Mind trick is a way to make yourself invisible to an enemy player. Using any form of attack will make you visible again. Even when invisible, they will still be able to hear you, and see your shields if you take any shield damage, and also see the force push/pull animation where you're at if your are pushed or pulled. It is countered by force sight, which in CTF is commonly used by players even when not being mind tricked. For this reason, it's rarely used.

Dark Side

Team Energize

Team energize is a force power that lets you restore your teammates' force points when they are nearby. Each activation uses 25 force points, but restores 50 force points of your teammate. Base defenders frequently use this to support their flag carrier, since even after using 50 force points to activate force speed, they can give the flag carrier 100 force points back. It is crucial on many maps as having force points is necessary to be able to keep running away from the enemy chase.

Lightning

Lightning will shoot bolts of lightning out of your free hand, dealing damage to enemies. Higher allocation of force will increase the range and damage. It is useless against players with absorb activated, so if you start using it and the player turns blue, you should stop using it until you hear that their absorb turns off. When playing base, using lightning can be strategic since it forces the camper to choose either to activate absorb (and lose force points) or lose HP. However, it also signals that you are using dark side, which leaves you vulnerable to force pull.

Drain

Drain steals force points from other players and converts them into HP for yourself. Typically, this is used just to deprive other players of force points, since there are more efficient ways of restoring HP (health packs or team heal).

Grip

Grip lets you pick a player up in the air and move them around. The most effective usage is to place them over a pit, where they have no chance of escape. Grip requires you to have at least 50 remaining force points to activate, and can be twarted by force absorb, and broken by a force push or pull. It is rarely used in CTF, usually only when an opponent is constantly using the dark side.

Rage

Rage activates a mode where you have slightly increased speed (slower than force speed, and no difference if you've already activated force speed), and take far less damage from weapons than you normally would. Unlike protect, it also reduces the amount of displacement you'll feel when near explosions, making you less likely to fall into pits from these. It is very difficult to kill a player with rage activated using weapons - the usual best strategy is to force pull them into a pit instead, since they cannot activate both rage and absorb. While rage is activated, the player's HP will count down to 1, at which point rage will stop (the player can also deactivate rage earlier than that). Another strategy to kill players using rage is to simply wait out until the player's rage runs out, at which point they will be very weak. When rage deactivates, for a short time, the player's speed will be slower than normal, and they will take more damage than normal from explosions. Rage uses 50 force points, so using speed and rage together exhaust a player's entire force point pool.