[LE] Mass, Knockdown, and Stagger Resistance

[avocadoninja]

Okay, I have searched everywhere for definitive answers on these but I'm afraid I've had little luck.
(1) First, the base mass state in race dialogue: Do we have any idea what all it affects? I'm assuming at least knockdown, but does it affect stagger. Is stagger a chance based event or usually a threshold? In the base game you can shield bash dragons to infinity and back, and they have a base mass of 4.0. Would setting a players mass to 4, for example, reduce staggering?

 

(2) Staggering and Mod Incoming Stagger: On that note, how exactly does staggering work? Some old posts I could find were about how the stagger reduction perks were broken, so some fixes existed that changed them to a percent based complete reduction - for example Tower of Strength (I think) would "mod incoming stagger" by .5, supposedly decreasing stagger by 50%. Some said this was broken, and that mod incoming stagger only worked when setting it to 0 - completely negating the stagger. The fixes did so, while adding a conditional to like 30% or whatever. Supposed this was added to the official patches, but I could find no such change to the perk therein. Was more information discovered on stagger mechanics? Does mod incoming stagger work, and if so - does it decrease the duration of stagger? Does it decrease the force of stagger, so that certain things are less likely to stagger? How does this work I am v confuse hlep

(3) Armor weight: Mass seems to be an actor value, but is there any way to easily access equipped armor weight? I can't seem to find an actor value for it. There's one for inventory weight I think, but that's not as useful I think. Is scripting the only way to interact with an actor's equipped armor weight?

LaStLy (sorry!) on the note of armor weight, have definite formulas for speed reduction and stamina cost increase of armor weight ever been uncovered? Are there game settings or actor values that interact with this effect?

Thank you so much guys and sorry for the questions I'm just getting really lost here

Edited November 30, 2016 by avocadoninja

[Psithief]

Even if all of the below is completely wrong, the end result is someone needs to add some more descriptions to the creation kit wiki. :smile:

 

Stagger

 

I'm trying to figure out how it works too, after installing a mod that ramped staggers up to 11.

 

A lot of the relevant numbers for stagger are under game settings, but it seems none of them are described in any detail @ https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Category:Settings

 

This is my current best guess at how it works, but please note it's all guesswork right now.

 

Staggering a creature happens when a force exceeds some multiple of the creature's mass. I'll call those staggerForce and staggerResist below.

There are only two types of stagger. Cross the lower stagger threshold, the creature staggers back a bit. Cross the upper stagger threshold, the creature staggers and may fall into a crouch if humanoid.

(For the player, it's whether the camera shakes a bit or shakes as if a dragon landed on you.)

We need to convert attacks into force.

 

There's probably a base number for every attack. Maybe it works like this?

 

Non-weapon attacks:

• fStaggerAttackBase: If an attack hits, start with this number. (staggerForce = fStaggerAttackBase)
• fStaggerAttackMult: For each ?point of damage? that attack would deal ?through all resistances?, multiply it by this number. (staggerForce += fStaggerAttackMult x damage)

1-handed weapons

• fStagger1WeapAR (damage rating of the weapon if viewed in inventory) replaces fStaggerAttackBase
• fStagger1WeapMult replaces fStaggerAttackMult

2-handed weapons

• fStagger2WeapAR (damage rating of the weapon if viewed in inventory) replaces fStaggerAttackBase
• fStagger2WeapMult replaces fStaggerAttackMult

Weapon bash (e.g. two-handed weapon, bow, one-handed weapon with nothing in the left hand.)

• fStaggerBlockAttackBase replaces fStaggerAttackBase
• fStaggerBlockAttackMult replaces fStaggerAttackMult

Shield bash

• fStaggerBlockAttackShieldBase replaces fStaggerAttackBase
• fStaggerBlockAttackShieldMult replaces fStaggerAttackMult

Some states make it easier to be staggered.

• fStaggerRecoilingMult: If the creature has attacked and bounced off a block (shield/weapon block) and is in the recoil animation, multiply the force by this number. (This defaults to a number greater than 1, so it makes it easier to stagger). I have no idea if it's used.
• fStaggerRunningMult: If the creature is running, multiply the force by this number. (Again, greater than 1)
• fStaggerShieldMult: Probably unused. Maybe if the creature has a shield? Defaults to 1 (100%), which probably means it has no effect by default. I haven't managed to get this to do anything, so it may have been removed from the formula altogether.

Then there's some stuff about blocking. This effectively reduces staggerForce, but I don't know the values. It might be block skill.

 

• fStaggerBlockBase (defaults to 0.001)
• fStaggerBlockMult (defaults to 0.005)
• fStaggerBlockingMult (defaults to 0) Does not appear to be used.

Increasing fStaggerBlockBase and fStaggerBlockMult sufficiently can make it so you can't be staggered while blocking, even if your stamina is depleted by the attack!

 

So the force is compared against the creature's mass.

 

• fStaggerMassBase: Start with this number as the base stagger resistance for every creature. Defaults to 0. (staggerResist = fStaggerMassBase)
• fStaggerMassMult: For each point of mass, multiply by this number. (staggerResist += fStaggerMassMult x creature mass)

 

If the creature is the player:

• fStaggerPlayerMassMult replaces fStaggerMassMult

 

There is also fStaggerMin, which is the minimum stagger value. Defaults to zero.

If you set this to 10,000 you'll expect every attack to stagger a humanoid-size creature. I haven't tried on dragons or mammoths to see what the minimum stagger against them is.

 

There are settings fStaggerMassOffsetBase and fStaggerMassOffsetMult. I have no idea what they do. It could be used to determine the difference between a small stagger and a big stagger.

Finally, fStaggerMaxDuration defaults to 3. I don't think it's used.

 

 

My thought is that "mod incoming stagger" would have worked by adding a multiplier to the variable staggerForce before it is compared to staggerResist. If someone assumed it actually provided a flat 50% reduction in staggering, that would be very hard to verify in-game without access to all of these multipliers.

It can't modify the duration of stagger as such, as there are only two stagger states and each has a fixed duration. You're either briefly staggered, or very staggered, so "mod incoming stagger" would sometimes reduce heavy staggering to light staggering and sometimes prevent light staggering, depending on the amount of incoming damage and its source.

 

 

Knockdown

Ok, so how does knockdown work? I don't know yet. I'm still working on stagger.

 

I imagine there's an even higher threshold, and that stagger/knockdown are part of the same system. This would explain why there is a game setting fAIPowerAttackKnockdownBonus but no corresponding multiplier for stagger. The actual setting name is fAIPowerAttackKnockdownBonus. :|

Edited December 2, 2016 by Psithief

[avocadoninja]

This definitely helps! Thank you so much for the list of gamesettings too, those will be interesting to mess around with. Hopefully some of this info can be better documented at some point.

[TheWormpie]

Does anyone know more about this than back in 2016? I'm trying to figure out how to prevent a specific actor from getting staggered - and afaik changing a game setting like here will edit how much all actors get staggered.

[foamyesque]

Does anyone know more about this than back in 2016? I'm trying to figure out how to prevent a specific actor from getting staggered - and afaik changing a game setting like here will edit how much all actors get staggered.

 

Boost their mass (which can be done by enchantments) and it'll stop or reduce stagger, but I've got no idea how much would be needed.

[lofgren]

You can give them a perk that reduces incoming stagger to 0, similar to the heavy armor perk.

[nerdofprey]

I actually did that recently; created a perk that reduced an NPC's stagger to 0, to make a boss fight more challenging. It's pretty easy!

[TheWormpie]

I actually did that recently; created a perk that reduced an NPC's stagger to 0, to make a boss fight more challenging. It's pretty easy!

Awesome! But what is the effect called that reduces stagger?

 

You can give them a perk that reduces incoming stagger to 0, similar to the heavy armor perk.

Which heavy armor perk am I to look at?

[lofgren]

The one that reduces stagger.

 

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Heavy_Armor

[TheWormpie]

The one that reduces stagger.

 

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Heavy_Armor

Thanks :)