How fast should the running animations be?

[Duke John]

For the Sengoku Jidai mod I will be modifying the unit animations. Not only to have yari being used with 2 hands, but also to slow down the running animations. Some of them are just too quick and having nothing to do with armoured soldiers running in formation. So how fast do you think infantry and cavalry should be running/charging?

It would be easiest for me if you give me percentages; skirmishers should be 80% slower, or heavy infantry should run 250% of their walking speed or charging should be 10% higher than running.

Technically it is possible to give each unit a different running speed, so if you think that there should be variations between Ashigaru and Samurai then speak up.

I believe that walking speed should be the same for most if not all infantry (and I would almost say cavalry) since army formations sometimes have the habit of breaking apart when all units start walking their own speed. M:TW didn't had this problem since faster units would pause, but... well you know the drill by now.

And about the animation itself. The R:TW animations display running as athletic running with really wide strides. I don't know wether there are any reenactors amongst us, but is this even possible when armoured? I can understand a short sprint, but running at maximum speed for some time would be suicide since you would be exhausted before the fight even starts. The exception perhaps being skirmishers although not as fast as currently.
So I was thinking about giving soldiers a more jogging-like animation.

Thanks,
Duke John

ps I know that this is mod related, but I think that MPers have a better grasp of how the balance is and wether elements should be downgraded. So if you really need to move this thread, then please leave a link.

[Sid_Quibley]

Firstly great news that speeds can be modded on an individual unit basis.

How about relating run speed to armour rating.For rome inf this goes from 0-12

Perhaps have 4 run values ie:

Arm 0-2 100%
Arm 3-5 90%
Arm 6-8 80%
Arm 9-12 70%

Same sort of relationship for cav.As for relating cav to inf im sure youll get lotsa feedback on that one

If its possible to have 3 speeds per unit ie; walk,fast march,run,that would make things even more interesting.

[CBR]

Well if you reduce running speed by 33% you will have something like MTW/STW running speed.

MTW cavalry could have been slightly faster though so they could be reduced perhaps 20-25%

I made a post some time ago about the differences in speed for real life units that showed even MTW might have had a bit too high speed heh. The 33% for inf and 20-25% reduction for cav should be ok for realistic settings as well as giving players better control.

The jogging/trot animation should look fine I think.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

In Shogun most infantry walked at 3.72 mph with the more heavily armored naginata 33% slower and the lightly armored monk and no-dachi 16.5% faster. The infantry running was 166% of the walking.

The cavalry walked 33% to 66% faster than 3.72 mph, and ran at 250% of its walking speed. That put the fastest cav at 15.5 mph. I think CBR told me that 18 mph is often given by historical sources for top speed of cav.

[CBR]

I think CBR told me that 18 mph is often given by historical sources for top speed of cav.

Yes thats light cavalry doing a wild charge heh. Heavy cavalry would do it slower. I have seen numbers from 8-15 mph. All depends on size of horse (and armour) as well as how ordered a charge one wanted. The trot (uhm about 10 mph +/-2 IIRC) made for a well ordered charge that meant the unit could stay in formation.

Overall the cavalry speeds in STW/MTW seemed balanced and realistic compared to infantry speed.


CBR

[Duke John]

I made some calculations based on the animations. Lets compare everything to standard infantry (second row are the movement rates for M:TW):

Infantry walking		100%	3.7 mph			100%	3.7 mph
Infantry running	 	280%	10.4 mph		166%	6.2 mph
Infantry charging		348%	12.9 mph		183%	6.8 mph
Fast infantry running 		337%	12.5 mph		200%	7.4 mph

Cavalry walking			127%	4.72 mph		150%	5.6 mph
Cavalry running			470%	17.5 mph		333%	12.4 mph
Cavalry charging		716%	26.6 mph		367%	13.7 mph
Fast cavalry running		630%	23.4 mph		400%	14.9 mph

Unless I can't calculate properly then these are hard facts, and IMO show clearly how wrong the current speeds are.

Note: I don't know how fast infantry is walking in mph, I took the number from S:TW provided by CBR. I think we can assume that walking speed in R:TW is at least not less than in S:TW. I included it to get some grasp of how fast an unit would run in real life.