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.

[CBR]

The tests I made seems to have precisely same walk speed for inf and slightly less for cav compared to MTW so your table show the same.

Charging speed... all I can say is OMG! Oh well its only limited to a very short range..


CBR

[Duke John]

I'm thinking about using the following speeds:

Slow infantry: Nage Yari and Naginata
	walking		100%	3.7 mph
	running	 	160%	5.9 mph
	charging	170%	6.3 mph

Normal infantry: missile units, Te Yari
	walking		100%	3.7 mph
	running	 	180%	6.7 mph
	charging	200%	7.4 mph

Fast infantry: No Dachi, Warrior Monks 
(missile units are intentionally left out to avoid Benny Hill situations)
	walking		100%	3.7 mph
	running	 	200%	7.4 mph
	charging	220%	8.1 mph

Heavy cavalry: Daimyo's bodyguard (and possibly Heavy Cavalry) 
(if it isn't fixed in the patch that formation is broken up because 
of different walking speeds then the walking speed will be 100%)
	walking		130%	4.8 mph
	running	 	360%	13.3 mph
	charging	390%	14.4 mph

Cavalry: Yari/Yumi Cavalry (if it isn't fixed in the patch that formation is
broken up because of different walking speeds then the walking speed for
Yari Cavalry will be 100%)
	walking		150%	5.6 mph
	running	 	400%	14.8 mph
	charging	440%	16.3 mph

Of course it needs playtesing, but it saves alot of work if I can get the animations right with the first try. So any opinions?

[CBR]

Looks fine to me.

One thing about charging speed is that in RTW it appears to happen at a very short range before it hits the target. It can actually be higher without ruining the game. In MTW you could actually make a unit run at its charging speed whenever you wanted but AFAIK it cant happen in RTW.

And historically some cav (if not most) would accelerate the last 20 meters or so, so a charging speed that is considerable higher than the run speed wont be unrealistic and look better perhaps (I dont know, 50% higher than run speed?)

And infantry can have a bit higher charge speed too although the increase should be less and maybe only crazy units like monks heh.

So uhm 240% for fast infantry

50% on cav looks drastic now that I look at the actual number. ok 40% then:

500% for heavy cav and 560% for light cav.

Or am I totally off here? I dont want to waste your time with loads of charging animations before we get something we like lol


CBR

[Puzz3D]

We are trying 3 running speeds for cav in STWmod for MTW/VI so that cav archers are between the heavier cav and the lighter cav. Of course, it doesn't involve making animations.

if normal inf = 100%,

HC = 333%
CA = 367%
YC = 400%

[Duke John]

CBR, good idea about the drastic change in charging speed.

Puzz3D, I guess that you are doing that to avoid endless HA chases?

[Puzz3D]

Puzz3D, I guess that you are doing that to avoid endless HA chases?

Actually, Creative Assembly only had two speeds for cav in STW v1.12, and the CA were equal to the speed of HC. It was like that so the YC could be an anti-unit to CA. I speeded up the CA in Samurai Wars so that's it's between HC and YC since they have much lighter armor than HC, and we are play testing that now to see if YC is still an effective counter. The ability of the YC to catch the CA has been cut in half, so that's what we're looking at in the battle tests.

The arrow range of CA is 100 meters in STW. The YC run at 6.65 m/s while the CA run at 6.1 m/s. If the YC covers the first 50 meters in the 7.5 seconds it takes to do that before the CA reacts, it could take an additional 90 seconds covering 600 meters for the YC to catch the CA. This does seem too long considering the size maps we play on. However, the CA can't instantly turn and run with the MTW/VI game engine unless you manually rout it, and I think skirmish distance is something less than 50 meters. Also, CA can't shoot while moving which helps the YC. I've seen YC catch CA in the test battles, and I've also seen situations where YC had to give up the chase and take a volley or two loosing 3 to 5 men before getting back out of range. The foot archer and guns are effective if static counters to CA, so it doesn't fall entirely on the YC to be the counter for CA.

[CBR]

Technical(or maybe stupid) question:

How does the charging animation work. Does RTW use one type of animation for all infantry that use X speed or is it something that needs to be done for each type of soldier?


CBR

[Duke John]

I'm sorry for the late response. I remembered your question as something entirely else and thought that I didn't knew the answer.... but this one is easy.

Each unit has a skeleton. Each skeleton has a set of animations, including a charging one.

A single skeleton can be used by multiple units, for example all slingers are using the fs_slinger_new skeleton and thus all have the same charging speed.

In theory it should be possible to give each unit its own charging speed/animation by making an unique skeleton (and thus set of animations) for each unit. Wether R:TW likes that, I don't know.

Does that answer your question?

[CBR]

Yeah sort of

Was wondering how many animations were used for RTW. For example I guess all Roman legions use the same and all pikemen has one too?

Animations can only be used for a type of soldier who has same equipment? thats really my question.


CBR

[Duke John]

I don't know how much they are interchangable. CA made a set of animations specifically for an unit type. The pike skeleton may for example have a pike specific animation (although I doubt that). If you use another skeleton for the pike unit R:TW might crash since it cannot find that animation.

How ever most problems come with for example pikes being used as a sword if the wrong skeleton is used.

But my Jedi powers sense that you are asking this with a purpose. Speak up, apprentice. Hmmm, do you perhaps want to give units slower movement by giving them different animations? If so, then just make a clear list of how much slower the units should move in %, I might be able to help you out.

[CBR]

Heh well..

I was just thinking that one could make new animations for RTW units to adjust the running/charging speed. If it doesnt take that much time and is technically possible to change it for existing units then one could make an animation pack for RTW.

Changing the terrain modifiers hurt the walk speed too, as you already know, so its not that good a solution. Doing the animations instead would give the best result.

But it was just a thought and I dont know how much work it would take. Thats why Im interested in the details and asked.


CBR