# The Details of Saber Damage So, what the heck is the damage system? It is commonly held that the mechanism is random. Although I have not completely grok'd the damage system used in the base game, Jedimod, and this mod, I have to say that this does not appear to be true. Rather, there are two mechanisms for determining the damage of a saber hit. The fist mechanism is for standard swings in any stance save strong/red. In this case a hit is a hit is a hit. The damage is always the same. The second mechanism applies to specials and to the normal strong/red swing. This method calculates damage based on an optimal point in the animation and the relative speed of you and your opponent -- think of it as being just the right distance from your opponent at the right time to score a maximum hit. If you are not quite at the right place at the right time, the damage is reduced on a linear scale away from that optimum point and time. If the algorithm produces a damage below the minimum (ie. you really miss!) you are awarded the minimum damage. If the algorithm produces a damage larger than the maximum (ie. you really hit!), you are awarded the maximum damage. The figures shown in the tables below are the base damage values. There are some other small modifiers for special conditions, but they don't change the damage more than +/- 5 points. However the base damage is adjusted to give the actual damage in large ways depending on your status. There are three possible states for your opponent. First, they can be a mercenary -- that is, they have dedicated all force points to powers other than saber and, in fact, cannot use a saber (they could have also selected merc type in a jedi vs. merc game). Second, they could have saber force points and so be considered a Jedi but they are not using a saber as their current weapon. Third, they are using the saber as their current weapon. For the first case, "merc", the base damage is multiplied by 1.5 to get the effective damage. That is, a Jedi fighting a merc will have a 50% bonus in saber damage. For the second case, no change is made to the saber damage. That is, a Jedi with a saber fighting a Jedi with another weapon will damage according to the base rules. For the third case, the damage is reduced by a factor of 0.5 (or 0.7 for blue stance). That is, when you hit another Jedi who is currently using their saber as their weapon, your damage will be reduced by 50%. To illustrate, here is an example. Suppose you and your opponent are both using sabers. Suppose you are flying over top of your opponent executing the yellow flip attack. If you are positioned right over top of your opponent exactly half way through the animation you will score the maximum damage hit. Similarly, if you were as close as possible to your opponent exactly one third of the way through a lunge, you would score a maximum base damage hit. However, in both cases the actual damage would be adjusted to 1/2 the base value because your opponent is a Jedi using a saber. The following table shows the damage values for standard attacks save the strong/red attack.
Saber Stance | Damage
Blue/Light | 35
Yellow/Medium | 60
Orange | 55
Purple | 30
This next table shows the strong/red standard swing and all of the specials. The minimum damage, maximum damage and optimal timing are show. The optimal time is normalized to a total animation time of 1.
Saber Stance and Move | Min | Max | Time
Red/Strong Standard | 2 | 120 | .5
Red/Strong Special (DFA) | 2 | 180 | .65
Red/Strong Back Attack (Back Sweep) | 2 | 30 | .5
Yellow/Medium Special (Flip Attack) | 2 | 80 | .5
Yellow/Medium Back Attack (Back Sweep) | 2 | 25 | .5
Blue/Light Special (Lunge) | 2 | 30 | .3
Blue/Light Back Attack (Back Stab) | 2 | 30 | .5
Orange Special (Vertical Twirl) | 2 | 70 | .5
Orange Back Attack (Back Sweep) | 2 | 25 | .5
Purple Special (Crab Twirl) | 2 | 70 | .5
Orange Back Attack (Back Sweep) | 2 | 25 | .5