Some of you might have seen my Half-Life speedrun and I had enough fun with it that I think I'm going to try and run Jedi Knight (the original of course). For several reasons: It's pretty close to my favorite game ever, the default run speed is quite fast, plus it has the abilities Force Speed and Force Jump which are a speedrunner's dream.

As part of my planning I've been looking around for some people that are still into JK, to bounce ideas off of and possibly assist in the run. I've played through the game several times but I don't think I have the experience that you might have. I'm mainly looking for two things: overall force power strategy and any time-saving tricks.

I think I'll do it on Medium, since it's pretty difficult to get through the first levels on hard without going after a lot of out-of-the-way sheilds.

So I recently did a play-through on medium and this is what I thought:

Force powers:

Get all secrets in level 1
Put a star into force speed at level 4
Upgrade force speed to 3
Put 2 stars in force jump
Upgrade speed to 4 and jump to 3
Upgrade jump to 4 and put 1 into seeing (for fighting Pic)
Save 2 stars
Put saved stars into Persuasion
After Maw, put 2 more stars in Persuasion
Put 2 stars in Blinding
Put 2 more stars in Blinding


For overall strategy:

Obviously force speed everywhere, conserving power for open areas on the early levels.
Jump over enemies rather than killing them (can't do this on many FPSs)
Use persuasion to bypass enemies on later levels
Force Jump to take shortcuts, get off of elevators early, etc


Fighting Dark Jedi:
On the earlier ones, it looks like lightsaber only. Maw doesn't have pull so I noticed you can use concussion secondary to damage him. I don't know how much damage it really does but I suppose it can help to soften him up when not in lightsaber range. It also appears that Dark Jedi don't like stacked sequencer charges. While doing the playthrough I blinded Boc then stacked 20 charges. When he hit them, it was instant death. At Jerec, I blinded him and placed my last 10 and was able to kill him instantly as well. I tried using persuasion on Maw but he always wandered near and blew me up. I don't think you have anything but a lightsaber when you fight Sariss.


Other tricks:

On level 2 I think it's possible to make it on top of the very first box that comes out of the conveyor belt, but it's darned hard.
When there's water to swim through if you hit jump right as you're entering, you'll immediately jump back out and keep all of your forward speed.

One thing I'm wondering about is: is there any sort of bunnyhopping/strafe-jumping/wall-strafing technique I can use in the Jedi Knight engine?

Anyway, any input would be appreciated, even if it's pointing me to another forum that might be able to help me better.

Well, being that I was terrible at KJ, I'll leave it for some of the others to help, but I'll at least say...

Good luck, and I'll be up for having a gander at the video when you're done!

And hi! Stick around here, it's a cool place, and most people don't bite, but Page might try and seduce you.

Oh and all your souls... you'll get filled in



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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

although i can't really help, it sounds like a pretty cool plan
good luck with it

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yay for not posting much ever
enjoy.music

The one problem with JK is that there doesn't seem to be that many glitches to exploit... but, the dark jedi battles are going to be hard.

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RunXrp[/url]

Dont waste time shooting the Dark Jedi, they are made to take something like 100,000 concussion shots.

Possibly use force pull to disable enemies quickly?

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Portfolio

The only place I was ever tempted to use force pull was on the concussion rifle guys in the launch station, but I found if you just rush past they don't give you any trouble. Persuasion is so much better for bypassing enemies, as it works on everything, not just one targeted enemy.

I did a little testing on the concussion rifle with Maw and found that 8 secondary shots will cover the first position, 7 on the second and 7 on the third. A fast saber battle is probably quicker but it will certainly be worth it to take pot-shots at him while he's fleeing.

Oh and by the way, counting posts in hex = winnage.

[This message has been edited by RandomEngy (edited August 26, 2004).]

Good idea. I don't know why I never thought about it before even after seeing such things as the 11 minute Super Mario 3 vid.

Good luck. I think the reason there aren't many exploits is because most of the game was made with force jump & speed in mind.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. There may not be the level of shortcuts there are in, say, Quake 2 or HL, but they are there.

Like Shred said, don't waste time shooting Darkjedi. On Maw, you'll run out of concussion rifle ammo LONG before he dies. The saber is the fastest method. The earlier levels in JK tend to be long and linear, so you'll have quite a haul. Especially on level 4. That'll be a time killer. It's just one, long, drawn-out super-linear 10-mile-long thing.

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

Run diagonally. Using strafe and forward. You'll actually run marginally faster. It's one of my special MP techniques to catch up to people. (A lot of people do it, but don't think about it.)

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

Holy crap you're right. 6.80s vs 8.35s. I thought they got rid of that bug in Quake 1. Thanks.

jk doesn't use a quake engine

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I am _ Ace_1 _ , and I approve this message.

Oh. What engine does it use then? Was it made for the game?

Yes. It's called the Sith engine.

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

Would there be a difference in "speed" by choosing light or dark? I guess the battle between the second Yun could be different.

Also, I guess you wouldn't spent the time killing people and droids. But the dark powers are more destructive (help with saber battles?).

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Snail racing: (500 posts per line)

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The Massassi JO/JA Single Player contest info (I don't know why I have this still in my sig)

I considered doing a Dark Side run but I just love all the light side force powers too much. Plus now that I think about it, light side would probably be quicker, too. You get persuasion, which is quite helpful in getting through levels. Blinding is another really helpful power that shines when fighting Boc and Jerec. Without that you can't do the sequencer trick, which dramatically cuts down the time on those two fights.

Though to be fair I haven't really tested out the dark side powers in saber battles. Last I remember force lightning was pretty weak and destruction took a whole lot of mana, which takes a long time to regen. I'd still love to see a dark side run; I'm just not going to do it. I figure if it's faster mine can go in the "light side category".

They're simply impervious to anything but Force, lightsaber and impact damage.

You can kill Jerec with sequencer chargers however. Place as many as you can, like 30 at the top of the tower, very carefully. Move out of there very carefully so they don't explode (Force Jump may help). Once he goes up to heal...boom. The concussive force launches him into the ceiling at a few hundred thousand miles per hour, killing him instantly.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

hehe, nice. *note to self: try that some time*

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

God yes. I'm a big fan of speedruns. Eagerly anticipating this one.

First off, I don't know why everyone is saying Dark Jedi are immune to weapons. I just killed Maw with nothing but the Concussion Rifle secondary. It took 22 hits overall.

Anyway, update on the sequencer charge front! I found that you can go invisible and run away from Sariss and plant 10 charges then lure her into them for an instant kill. In addition to killing Jerec with only 10, I managed to kill Boc with 8. I have not tried any lower than those numbers so it's possible these bosses could be killed with fewer.

sorta remimds of me of trying to enable the cheats in Goldeneye 64. Sometimes it seemed easier to just run through the level, than to try to fight your way(archives on 00agent was a piece of cake).

Anyways, I noticed lightning kills things VERY fast, kell dragons especially. the only problems are that it's darkside and you need alot of force power.

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I am _ Ace_1 _ , and I approve this message.

Dark Jedi take:
100% damage from impact (hitting a wall)
100% damage from force powers
100% damage from lightsaber
50% damage from punch / force throw
50% damage from energy (most projectiles)
10% damage from explosions

So shooting them with a concussion rifle primary would do about 18 damage (10 from the bullet itself, 8 from the explosion). Concussion rifle secondary counts as impact damage (80 base dmg) so it'd do 40.

Other weapons would do significantly less damage.

Thrust is additive in JK (and in many other first-person games) when strafing to the side while running forward. Assuming you strafe to the side at the same speed you run forward, strafing and running to move diagonally (but still moving in the direction you want to go) is about 1.4 times (base run speed multiplied by 1.4) faster than just running straight forward. Even if strafing is only half the speed of running forward, you'd still run about 1.2 times faster than normal (your modified speed is the square root of your run speed and strafing speed added together).

QM