SSE NPC movement speeds. Best way to increase them?

[cumbrianlad]

I'd like to make my dwemer spider follower better able to keep up with the player., but I also want to simultaneously reduce its size in the race form. At present it's set to 75% but I may have some leeway upwards on that. it depends on testing and if it gets stuck in small nord doorways etc. I need to test more but for the sake of this post we'll assume it's 75%.

 

I remember the Dragonborn spider having trouble keeping up with the player even more than normal followers, so this isn't a new problem. I'd just like my pet follower to do better than vanilla.

 

So the question is what is the best way to get a bit more speed out of it? there's next to no info out there about this.

 

I realize that I could hit problems with animations not synchronizing. As for all the places something can be done with this, there's the speed setting on the actor form (Advice I've seen here is don't touch it in case of synch problems). Then there's the movement type forms. I found no info on this at all. last, from what I can see is the race form itself in the move data tab, though for most actors these settings seem to pretty much stay the same and accelleration rate won't be a great help, since the issue is more long runs than getting up to full speed in the first place.

 

On the Movement Type forms, the Dwemer spider is significantly less than a humanoid NPC on the run stats. If I increase these, do they all have to increase in exactly the same proportion or can they be varied independently?

 

So the only options are the actor form and Movement Type form. I could just experiment and test but I was hoping some generous soul would be able to nudge me in the right direction!

 

What the heck! I'm an engineer, so I can't resist a good experiment! I'm off to tinker with a new Movement Type. I can always revert it back to the default dwarven spider.

[Evangela]

What is the race of your character that the follower will be following? That will help with knowing how fast the follower should be.

 

There is a reason why, for example, even while sprinting, bears can keep up; They have a running speed of 638 and the fastest race(altmer) is 540 sprint. Most races are under 500 and all of them have a running speed under 400.

 

Actually, you could just go with 400 and tweak that number as you see fit.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Rasikko

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks for the reply, first off.

 

The race is based on the DwarvenSpiderrace, so it's speeds are way down for run. Left and right 302 forward 285.... nowhere near sprint speed of a playable race. I'm just testing putting the run speed up to 270, similar to most playable races. I'm being a bit conservative from what you say. I'll go for your suggested 400 and see if i can notice any problems animation-wise.

 

I've made my own movement type now, so I can play around with it.

 

Oddly, the dwarven spider has higher run speed sideways than forwards.

[Evangela]

That's probably because they are prone to strafing than just gunning it forward.

[cumbrianlad]

good point. about strfaing. I should probably stick to adjusting the forward speed more. The rest of it I'm not too bothered about, but it will be nice to play with it.

 

What's this about animations not matching, or is that only for the actor speed setting?

 

So far, I've pushed the spider way beyond its normal settings but the animations don't look odd. i'm guessing this may be more important with something like a horse, where the visual representation could look way off, pretty quickly.

[Evangela]

good point. about strfaing. I should probably stick to adjusting the forward speed more. The rest of it I'm not too bothered about, but it will be nice to play with it.

 

What's this about animations not matching, or is that only for the actor speed setting?

 

So far, I've pushed the spider way beyond its normal settings but the animations don't look odd. i'm guessing this may be more important with something like a horse, where the visual representation could look way off, pretty quickly.

Now that's something that out of my scope of knowledge. My best guess is that speed(the actor value) is just a multiplier of the running speed and doesn't really mess with the animation sync speed. The speed on the actor form, I don't know if that's the same thing.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Rasikko

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks for all the help, Rasikko. I've got it keeping pace pretty much with no weird effects on its animations. I had to increase its speed to above the player run speed. I'm thinking that its speed is maybe tied to its size, so since it is smaller than a standard dwemer spider it needed a bit more of a boost. However that may be it is now not being left miles behind.

 

I just needed its size to be smaller because It got stuck in some doorways and gaps that a normal NPC could get through because of its larger radius. A plus for the player of having it smaller is that they can jump over it in cave small halls, doorways etc... so the pet follower never blocks the player in.

[cumbrianlad]

Thandal,

I don't see what I've done wrong by posting this in this particular forum.

Please respond to my PM on the subject.

[Thandal]

@cumbrianlad; You are correct. Sorry, I had your post mixed-up with another mod author's technical query posted in the GMAD forum. Again, my apologies.

[cumbrianlad]

Thandal, thanks for that. No hard feelings. Thanks also for answering my PM in such an honest fashion.