Changing Saber Styles

Duelers allows (unless disabled by the server admin) players to change their saber styles on the fly. That is, you can switch from a single saber to dual sabers or a staff any time you like.

The most straightforward way to change your saber style is with the user interface. However, this has the drawback that it leaves you exposed to attack or at the least is pretty darn slow. Luckily, there is another way.

The JA client keeps saber style information, and hilt information, in two cvariables: saber1 and saber2. Depending on how these variables are set, the game will determine the saber style you wish to use. There is a little bit of a challenge to figure out just what the game will do without consulting the *.sab files in the game assets. But again, there is an easy way.

Start by using the user interface to configure your favourite single, dual, and staff saber configurations that use the hilts you like best. Now for each configuration you can examine the values of the cvars saber1 and saber2.

For my favourites, here is what I get:

single saber: saber1 = single_9, saber2 = none

dual saber:  saber1 = single_9, saber2 = single_9

staff saber: saber1 = dual_1, saber2 = none

Now armed with this information I create the following binds in the console (or in an autoexec file):

bind 2 "saber1 single_9;saber2 none"
bind 3 "saber1 single_9;saber2 single_9"
bind 4 "saber1 dual_1;saber2 none"

In the game, when I press the '2' key, I switch to a single saber configuration. When I press the '3' key, I switch to a dual saber configuration. And when I press the '4' key, I switch to a staff saber configuration.

Notes:

  • when the saber1 name is the name of a staff saber (as determined by the *.sab data), the value of saber2 does not matter as it is never consulted.
  • You cannot change saber configuration too rapidly. If you do, you will get a warning from the game about "too many info changes". This is now part of the base game (so I don't have to implement it again in Duelers/JA) and it is to prevent clients from flooding the server with rapid changes in user information (generally in order to attack the server or engage in some exploit).
  • You cannot change saber configurations unless you are "idle". This is to prevent attacking and suddenly changing saber configuration. Moreover, if the server administrator wishes, changing saber configurations during duels will also be disallowed.