Oblivion talk:Movement Formulas

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[edit] Formulae

The plural of formula is formulae --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.2.16.8 (talk • contribs).

This is true in scientific use, but in informal use, "formulas" is a perfectly acceptable alternate spelling, and more comfortable for the mostly non-scientific readership on this site. --TheRealLurlock Talk 23:06, 27 December 2007 (EST)

[edit] Perk Variables

The exact effect of the various Perk Variables needs to be determined. Since I wasn't entirely sure, here's a copy of that section with my comments. If anybody figures these out more specifically, please modify the main page accordingly.

  • fPerkHeavyArmorExpertSpeedMult (Default 0.5) (Presumed to be multiplier for weight of Heavy Armor only.)
  • fPerkHeavyArmorMasterSpeedMult (Default 0.0) (Presumed to be multiplier for weight of Heavy Armor only.)
  • fPerkHeavyArmorSinkGravityMult (Default 15.0) (Modify gravity when wearing Heavy Armor?)
  • fPerkLightArmorExpertSpeedMult (Default 0.0) (Presumed to be multiplier for weight of Light Armor only.)

Since setting fMoveEncumEffect(NoWea) to 0 results in no speed penalty regardless of armor skill, fPerkHeavyArmorExpertSpeedMult and fPerkHeavyArmorMasterSpeedMult mathematically must indeed be multiplication factors to EncumEffectMultiplier (provided the formula is at least mostly-correct) as that would be the only place that would have the right effect on that term. - Aliana71.9.18.26 07:04, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Revamp

Okay, as per various discussions, the page has been revamped in the hopes that it's more user-friendly. It could still use someone going through it who has a better eye for formatting than I do, I think, but overall, I think it's geared much more to the average user now. There could also probably be some touch-ups to the organization of information, but I'm too tired right now, and it might benefit from another pair of eyes, regardless. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 23:55, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Reworking the Formula

A lot of the information on the current page, such as the impact of height, is extremely questionable. sdt 6, tdt, showracemenu, change to/from Breton/Altmer (tallest and shortest races). Be naked and carrying nothing, and if you're not in the sewers still you'll need to use "player.setav speed/athletics x" since the race change will affect those too.

To start with the simplest parts, assuming a completely naked character with no inventory at all.

The "Base Walking Speed" section is (now) correct, except that the name is wrong. Your Walk Speed is affected by SO many other factors that this needs to just be called "Base Speed". A character with 50 Speed has a TRUE Base Speed of 110.00; one with 100 Speed has a Base Speed of 130. Period. Athletics does not in any way affect your Base Speed.

The only time that you see your true Base Speed is when you are wearing NOTHING that has any weight, have no weapon, and have your fists out.

The "Run Modifier" section is correct (and should probably be the second section on the page since interspersing Creature speed comments just makes the article even more opaque than it already is). A character with 50 Speed and 100 Athletics runs at 440.00.

The "Sneak Modifier" section is correct (and nice and simple).

NOTE: I've changed some of the Gameplay values to simplify testing for this section. Specifically:

    • fMoveEncumEffect = 0.25 (default 0.4)
    • fMoveEncumEffectNoWea = 0.25 (default 0.3)
    • fMoveNoWeaponMult = 1.0 (default 1.1)

For testing purposes, using the console to set the player to 25 Speed makes the math very intuitive, as that gives a Base Speed of 100. For a player with 100 Athletics, the core derived speeds are: Run 400, Swim 52, SwimFast 240, and it's very easy to see where they come from:

fMoveSwimWalkAthleticsMult (Default 0.02)
fMoveSwimWalkBase (Default 0.5)
(0.5 + 0.02) * 100 (Athletics) = 52

fMoveSwimRunAthleticsMult (Default 0.1)
fMoveSwimRunBase (Default 0.5)
(0.5 + 0.1) * 100 (Athletics) * 4 (Run Modifier) = 240

  • Encumbrance

That character has 75 Strength, i.e. 375 "lbs" (for readability's sake) of capacity. Load their inventory up with 374lbs of warhammers etc, and their speed doesn't change AT ALL. Equipment carried but not worn has absolutely NO impact on player speed. Equipping ANYTHING (other than arrows), even a ring weighing 0.1, DOES change their speed (to 99.98 for that ring).

A 1lb robe reduces their speed to 99.83. Ridiculously, this means that a Master of Heavy Armor is actually FASTER than a character in clothing.

2lb = 99.67, 3lb = 99.50, 4lb = 99.33, 5lb = 99.17, 6lb = 99.00. That's clearly a linear progression.

A full set of Orcish Armor weighs 121lbs. Equipped on that player at 50 HeavyArmor, their speed drops to 79.75, i.e. -20.25. That fits exactly with the previous results: every 6lbs worn = 1 unit of speed lost. (At 75 HeavyArmor it's 89.88, i.e. -10.12, also exactly as expected: Weight *= fPerkHeavyArmorExpertSpeedMult. (Technically it should be -10.125, but is being rounded)).

(At 100 Speed, i.e. Base 130, their "dressed" speed is 103.68, i.e. -26.32, which is 130% of -20.25, thus confirming that encumbrance is a factor rather than an absolute unit).

A full set of Dwarven Armor minus the helmet weighs 100lbs, and gives a speed of 83.33. So, 2/3 of fMoveWeightMax = 16.67% speed lost, and this is why I changed those values originally, because that makes it obvious that 3/3 of fMoveWeightMax = 25% speed lost, which is, yippee, fMoveEncumEffectNoWea.  :D

This also makes it obvious why Feather has such a noticeable impact on speed, which on the original formula was just noted as "we don't know how this fits in".

  • Reverting to the default values

Our 25 Speed char still has a BASE Speed of 100, but now has a "normal" Walk Speed of 110, because fMoveNoWeaponMult = 1.1. In 100lbs of armor, her speed is 88.00, exactly as expected: 100/150(fMoveWeightMax) * 0.3(fMoveEncumEffectNoWea) * 100 * fMoveNoWeaponMult = 22 units of speed lost.

Drawing her fists naked cuts her Walk Speed to 100 because of the loss of the fMoveNoWeaponMult bonus, but her dressed speed is NOT the 80 it "should" be, it's 73.33: 26.66 units of speed lost, which can only be derived from 100/150 * 0.4(fMoveEncumEffect).

(Sneaking, dressed, and fists out, her speed is 44.00: 73.33 * 0.6(SneakModifier), as expected).

Equipping a SHEATHED 48lb Dwarven Battle Axe naked drops her to 99.44, a 10.56 unit loss. Why? Because it still counts as "Worn Equipment", so 48/150 * 0.3(fMoveEncumEffectNoWea) * 100 * fMoveNoWeaponMult = 10.56. Those very badly named variables that have "No Weapon" in them are still used in this case.

DRAWING that Axe gets you a speed of 87.20: 12.8 units lost, which is 48/150 * 0.4 * 100.

This finally clears up the exact meaning of those three variables, and explains why the original formula was consistently wrong: because it isn't "really" a single formula, it's two separate ones.

(At 100 Speed, i.e. Base 130, naked and unarmed is 143, and armed but unready is 129.27: 13.73 units lost, again 130% of the 25 Speed case, which helps us order the terms: Base is the outermost factor, so we can have a completely commutative equation if we express Encumbrance correctly).

Your swim speed assumptions were wrong (one of the drawbacks to using nice round numbers <g>). I've confirmed the formula in game and posted corrections on the main page. Will look at the Encumbrance and such tomorrow; I'm too tired to concentrate on it now. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 23:19, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
Not wrong, just abridged :P "For a player with 100 Athletics, ...". Thanks for saving me having to go back to it though - I didn't have the energy left at the time. One thing I want to focus on in the rewrite is having what players REALLY care about, which more than anything is simply "why does it take me 2 hours to run through this dungeon, and how do I make it NOT take so long?", explained as concisely as possible at the top of the page, with the math and the "less important" cases (especially Flying) down below for anyone who's really interested in every detail (and the Creature clutter on a different page altogether). Good luck with Encumbrance - if you don't understand why Feather does what it does, just leave it and I'll do a full explanation later. BTW, I threw a couple of (OpenOffice) spreadsheets together afterwards so you can just plug numbers in to dis/prove any part of the calculations: if you want them just let me know. - Aliana71.9.18.26 00:15, 6 October 2008 (EDT)
Is it possible that flying refers to either jumping or being knocked back by skilled blade/block/blunnt opponents?

[edit] The Final Formula(s), complete and simplified

The shared terms are BaseSpeed, SneakModifier, RunModifier, and ...

Base Encumbrance is the total weight of ALL your equipped items apart from arrows, including weapons and even jewelry, and including any ARMOR weight reductions from perks, divided by fMoveWeightMax. (I don't have a full set of Daedric Armor, which is the only way to exceed fMoveWeightMax, so I don't know whether that's treated as 150lbs or 161lbs). We'll just call this the "EqFactor".

Your "Active Speed" is BaseSpeed * SneakModifier * RunModifier.

If you are NOT "combat ready", your Adjusted Speed is:

  • ActiveSpeed * (1 - (EqFactor * fMoveEncumEffectNoWea)) * fMoveNoWeaponMult

If you ARE "combat ready", your Adjusted Speed is:

  • ActiveSpeed * (1 - (EqFactor * fMoveEncumEffect))

In other words, you take MULTIPLE penalties in combat. Not only do you lose the non-combat BONUS, but all your equipment "magically" becomes "heavier" too. If you are a Master of Heavy Armor your armor is excluded, but your weapon still becomes an additional 1/3 heavier, which explains the feeling of suddenly wading into molasses when you equip and draw a Daedric Warhammer: at 93lbs, * 0.4 / 0.3, it's equivalent to running in a full suit of Orcish Armor with no Heavy Armor skill at all.

Giving myself a full set of Daedric Armor using player.additem, I was able to determine that 150 is indeed a maximum weight in terms of the calculation. Any armor or weapons you add after that are "free" and won't affect your movement speed at all. So if you're gonna use a full set of Daedric Armor anyway, the molasses don't get any thicker just for adding a Daedric Warhammer. :) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:00, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
Then I was unclear. :( My point was that even if you DO have weightless armor, going from e.g. a sheathed Dagger to a drawn Warhammer raises your effective EqWeight by about 120lbs, and loses you the 10% bonus as well, taking you from essentially 110% of your base speed all the way down to about 75% of it, which is like slamming into a wall. Aliana 20:50, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
No, you weren't unclear at all. My point was that if you've got a full set of Daedric Armor equipped and your armor isn't at a reduced weight, i.e., you've got <75 Heavy Armor skill, then adding anything else makes no difference. The HUD verifies this, as my character's movement rate went from 110 to 66 with full Daedric Armor equipped and stayed there regardless of the weapon I equipped. For that matter, I could even add or remove one of the 12 lb. pieces of armor and still have it be the same, because 150 is the maximum it will "charge" you for. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 22:37, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
Ah, I see what you meant. I got the "it's capped at 150" (thanks for testing), but the part after that isn't actually related to the paragraph it directly followed, it's to an earlier one. :)

[edit] And The Proof

If these formulae are correct, we should be able to confirm them against SDT 6.

Using "new" stats and equipment just to be sure, we have a character with 75 Speed, 50 HeavyArmor, a full set of Steel Armor weighing 94lbs, and an Iron Longsword weighing 20lbs.

BaseSpeed = 90 + (130 - 90) * 75 / 100 = 120 EqFactor = 114 / 150 = 0.76

Thus, our "idle" speed should be 120 * (1 - (0.76 * 0.3)) * 1.1 = 101.90, and on the HUD it's ... 101.77, which I'm going to blame on rounding errors and the fact that the game doesn't show exact weights.

And our "combat" speed should be 120 * (1 - (0.76 * 0.4)) = 83.52, and on the HUD it's 83.36. Close enough.  :)


Checking a different character, an 80 Speed, Heavy Armor Master, her EqWeight is 0.7lbs of jewelry, plus Umbra, for a total of 45.7lbs.

BaseSpeed = 90 + (130 - 90) * 80 / 100 = 122 EqFactor = 45.7 / 150 = 0.30

So "idle" speed should be 122 * (1 - (0.30 * 0.3)) * 1.1 = 122 * 0.91 * 1.1 = 122.12, and the HUD shows 121.93.

"combat" speed should be 122 * (1 - (0.30 * 0.4)) = 107.36, and the HUD shows 107.13.


QED  :D

  • I may have typo'd a thing or two since it's very late now: leave comments if you spot something. - Aliana71.9.18.26 13:23, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
  • The rounding errors are Bethesda's, in the fMoveNoWeaponMult stage. A Base Speed of 114.00 becomes a "non-combat" speed of 125.00, not 125.40. Aliana 19:52, 12 October 2008 (EDT)
Actually, going over this, the rounding errors are yours and Bethesda's since they're based on the faulty data displayed to you in-game. Your formulae work precisely when you take into account that a full suit of Steel Armor weighs 94.5 pounds, not the 94 it would add up to in-game. The formulae then become:
EqFactor = 114.5 / 150 = .76333... (repeating)
IdleSpeed = 120 * (1 - (0.76333 * 0.3)) * 1.1 = 101.772
CombatSpeed = 120 * (1 - (0.76333 * 0.4)) = 83.36
Similarly, your second example works out to exactly the HUD numbers if you don't round off the EqFactor before you do the rest of the math.
So, the moral of the story is: trust in TDT, just don't trust in-game weights. Oh and don't round your numbers, cuz Oblivion doesn't. :) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:39, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
Good, because I did originally use 94.5 for Steel, but ended up changing it to 94 when I was trying to pin down the rounding errors back before I noticed the fMoveNoWeaponMult bug. It was irritating me that the numbers weren't matching up exactly. :) Aliana 20:38, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
Just visited this page for the first time in ages... I'm glad to see that all the painful reverse engineering by plugging primes into game settings to try and figure out how the numbers combined in formulas turned out to be right... I had niggling doubts because I didn't know where the minor errors were coming from. Note that I moved nearly all of my work to CSWiki:Movement_Game_Settings and documented some of my experiments in the discussion page there. Abo 19:29, 11 December 2008 (EST)

[edit] Conclusions, i.e. "What does all this mean to me as a player?!"

Well, it's interesting. The end result of it all is: Speed is (directly, at least) a lot less important than you might hope. If you're riding your horse everywhere and using Light Armor / Acrobatics to boost your Speed at levelup, or equipping Fortify Speed items, you'll see very little increase in your running speed unless it's extremely low. At 25 Athletics, a 10-point increase in Speed is worth 13 points of "real" base speed, but if that increase is from 45 to 55, you're going from 351 to 364, which is a gain of only 3.7%. Increasing your Athletics by 10 points over that same time WITHOUT boosting Speed nets you 3.1% - only slightly less, and "freeing" up a stat increase for something "important", like Endurance. It's only if you increase BOTH by 10 that you see a "noticeable" jump: from 351 to 375.2, making you 6.9% faster.

But for most players, the overwhelming factor in how fast you move is ... your Armor skill. Even just in Steel, which is "light" by HeavyArmor standards, even if you have 100 Speed and 100 Athletics, you'll only be moving at 401 if your ARMOR skill is under 75. A HeavyArmor Master, or LightArmor Expert, will outpace you at around 55/55. To take an extreme case, if you somehow haven't mastered HeavyArmor by the time you're wearing Daedric and carrying Umbra (for example, if you wore Light Armor for the first half of the game TO increase your Speed as quickly as possible) your "real" speed will be a staggeringly-low *305* - even slower than the slowest you can possibly be in your jail cell at the very start of the game!

As a concrete example, Methredhel, who is certainly considered "fast" if you attempt "May the Best Thief Win" at low levels, has a Speed of 50 and "should" just be a dustcloud in the distance to a Male Breton with 30 Speed. But with her class of Archer not having Athletics as a Major Skill she only has 10 ranks in that, and her 30 LightArmor means she pays the full penalty for her 9lbs of Leather outfit (plus the 3lbs Pants+Shoes, and more importantly, 15lbs for the Mace hanging unused by her side). This works out to a BaseSpeed of 110, a RunModifier of 3.1, and an EqFactor of 0.18, leading to an AdjustedSpeed of 341 * (1 - (0.18 * 0.3)) = 322.6 (ignoring fMoveNoWeaponMult since that's a constant). If the player strips naked and unequips their weapon, the EqFactor reduces out of their equation, leaving (90 + (130 - 90) * S / 100)) * (3 + A / 100) >= 323 as the inequality they need to solve to be able to outrun her. I'll spare you the math, but even with the worst possible starting Speed of 30, that resolves to A >= 16.66r (17, since you can't have a fractional skill). If you used "Run" just through the tutorial and getting to Dareloth's Garden alone, you'd probably already have 17 Athletics and will actually overtake her on the way to Allectus's House even though at first glance her raw Speed makes it LOOK like you'd have no chance at all.  :)

Oh wow - I just had what may well be the greatest revelation in all of this.  :D
As mentioned, the most significant factor BY FAR is your EqWeight and/or ArmorSkill. A Grand Soul Gem feathers 50lbs, and the Blackwood Armor (which is the best you can get before level 10) weighs 124lbs. And, we know that Feather only affects your "current" inventory, so: enchant a few pieces of that set with Grand Soul gems, drop all your other items, and equip the entire set. Net result: weightless armor, with no movement speed penalty at all, essentially giving you the Master perk instantly. I just tried this with a level 6 character (52 Heavy Armor) and it works perfectly: "full" base speed in full armor.  :D
(3 Greater Soul Gems will feather 123lbs, but Grands are actually easier to find at early levels, and trivial to fill if necessary (as Blacks)). Subjacent Sigil Stones are also 50lbs each, and available from level 5.
Any "spare" Feather can be used to remove some or all of your WEAPON weight, which is the part you can't otherwise get rid of even with Heavy Mastery.

- Aliana71.9.18.26 02:13, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Lurlock's Comments

Do we know that that the number shown in the TDT display represents the player's ACTUAL physical speed? As in, have you tested with a stopwatch and a predictable run from point A to point B (say, the length of the Imperial Bridge) with both a tall and a short character to be sure that there isn't any difference? If all you're going by is displayed numbers, you may be missing something. The animation data is the same regardless of character race, but the model is scaled down for shorter characters and up for taller ones. A small model and a large model performing the same animation relative to their scale will move at different speeds.
That's a really good point, and may actually be true - if that's what the original comment meant then I misunderstood it very badly. :( If it IS true, I'll add it back here in a way that's hopefully a bit clearer. - Aliana71.9.18.26 13:44, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
All I know is I have done tests like this in Morrowind, and at least in that game there's a definite relationship between height and speed. (I created a mod which allowed you to magically shrink/grow your character via the "SetScale" command, and without any other changes, there was an obvious difference in movement speed. It also affects collisions - smaller characters can squeeze into tighter spaces than large ones. Since all of the locations in the game are built to accommodate the largest characters, this very rarely comes up in standard gameplay, but you can design mods to make it more relevant.) Most likely Oblivion works the same way, but I haven't done the tests to be sure. --TheRealLurlock Talk 19:13, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
Also, in the future, it would be appreciated if you made an effort to be less insulting to the editors on this site. A lot of people have put a lot of hard work into this, and it's not like we get paid for it. If something is wrong, correct it - but first make sure that you know for certain that it is wrong, and if you don't, post a question rather than calling the page "hopelessly wrong" and demeaning all the work that went into it by implying that the page is not credible. (And no, I'm not taking this personally, as I had nothing to do with this particular page.) --TheRealLurlock Talk 10:43, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
It's not a case of it being "credible" or not: there are editor's notes on there SAYING the formula is known to be incomplete and/or wrong. Sorry if it came off as insulting: I certainly don't want to rag on the people who put the work in on the original, because I know exactly how much effort it takes to try and sort this out even with a head start from the parts that did test out correctly, because I've just gone through it all myself.... I thought the whole point of a "Discussion" page WAS to talk about and point out errors on the original page rather than edit that directly (unless what I wrote DID end up on the original page instead of the Talk one - hopefully I got it right: can you move it if I got them mixed up please? Thanks) - Aliana71.9.18.26 13:23, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
Okay, I've undone the "fix" on the Races page but I no longer have any idea where to put the Height modifier in here now. Put simply, Height and Scale DO affect speed. It's easy to test scale - load up your favourite character, run for a bit then bring up the console and type player.setscale 10. You will notice a huge difference. Height is trickier to test. I timed a run by a bosmer and an altmer with identical stats and the altmer was somewhat quicker. I haven't confirmed that the relationship is exactly what Deathbane27 added but what I've found certainly doesn't rule it out.
Aliana, Lurlock is referring to comments like "totally untrue - try actually TESTING this stuff" in your edit summaries. It's great that you're helping to tidy up some of the more neglected areas of the site, but you could be more polite about doing it. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 13:32, 6 October 2008 (EDT)
Confirmed. Here's what I did, just for confirmation of my testing:
  • Create a new High Elf/Wood Elf.
  • coc ICTalosBridge01
  • tcl out of the dead zone you land in and place yourself at the first stone of the bridge.
  • player.setav speed 0
  • player.setav athletics 0
  • Put fists up.
  • sdt 6
  • tdt
  • Confirm speed is 90.
  • sdt 0
  • Confirm heading (top right) is 270, or close enough to make no significant difference.
  • Use internal timer still being conveniently displayed to time walk across bridge to final stone.
  • Results - Wood Elf: ~25.5 sec, High Elf: ~21 sec.
  • Time Ratio: 25.5/21 = 1.21
  • Height Ratio: 1.1/0.9 = 1.22

The more astute among you will notice that the Time Ratio is Wood Elf/High Elf, where the Height is High Elf/Wood Elf, but of course, time is inversely proportional to speed (and by extension, height), so that makes sense. Given those results, I think it's reasonable to assume that Height is a direct multiplier to your speed, even though it's not shown in-game. Of course, to be thorough, we would have to time every last race and make sure that that's the case, but that seems unnecessary here, I think. If someone does feel the need, they're welcome to do so! --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:01, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

And not just every race, but every combination of race/gender, as you'll notice there are height differences between male and female characters of the same race in half of the races. It's also possible the weight property may have an effect, because it also scales the base model, but horizontally instead of vertically. To test that, you might take a male and female Dunmer or male and female Nord and compare them, as they have identical height for each gender but different weight. Or compare a male Breton to a male Altmer to see what happens when you have the same weight but different height. --TheRealLurlock Talk 00:52, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
I tested Height and came to the same conclusions as RH. Weight has no impact (it's trivial to change races to 2.0 or 0.5 weight in the CS). Focusing on Race/Gender is dangerously misleading, because they DON'T "matter" directly. It's not "females are slower than males" or "Bretons are slower than Imperials" though either MAY be true, it's "shorter characters are slower than taller ones", and even that isn't necessarily true in all cases. It's true on LAND, but there are still a lot of unknowns: for example, if you're swimming there's no need for the animation part of the game to scale the movement effects to avoid "sliding" feet, so does it? How much of it applies when Sneaking, where the stride is so much shorter? As to where it belongs on the page, I'd say that since the game applies it after all the gameplay calculations we should do the same. - Aliana71.9.18.26 05:41, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
Well, given that most players will spend the vast majority of their playtime on land, I don't see that it's necessarily wrong to state that taller characters are faster than shorter ones. Plus - again, until you test it, you can't say that it isn't equally true in water or while sneaking. Animation data is animation data, and if it's scaled down, it's scaled down for everything, so my guess is that it doesn't matter if you're walking, running, sneaking, or swimming. It's more than likely that your height will alter your speed in every case. (This may also be why horses move so much faster despite having a much lower speed attribute. They may be slower relative to the scale of the model, but the model is so much larger - not just the horse but the horse+rider, mind you. Of course horses move dead-slow in the water, so evidently something else is going on there.) Anyhow, this is why testing is so important. Making statements like this without testing them first just leads to speculation on top of speculation. --TheRealLurlock Talk 19:24, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
Horses are probably using the Creature movement formulae where the base ranges from 5-300 instead of 90-130, though doing the calculations, that means the base speeds of horses would only range from 72.85 (Speed 23) to 102.35 (Speed 33). But looking at some of the other creature stats, I'm guessing that maybe Foot Weight plays a part in the calculations as well as Scale. For example, a Mud Crab has a Speed of 30, but it's got a Foot Weight of 6.0 and a Scale of 0.50. Compare that to Prior Maborel's Paint Horse which only has a Speed of 23 (way slower than a Mud Crab <lol>), but it's got a Foot Weight of only 3.0 and a Scale of 1.00. If we assume that those are straight multipliers (yes, I know, BIG assumption), then the speed ratio of a Mud Crab to PM's Paint Horse, taking only the above-mentioned factors into account, would be slightly better than 1:3. More testing would be required to confirm these hypotheses, though. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 14:42, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] re Other Mysteries

Hasn't it already been established that these have nothing to do with movement? (see the Notes section on the original page).

   * fFatigueBase (Default 1.0)
   * fFatigueMult (Default 0.5)
   * fActorLuckSkillMult (Default 0.4)

And this is the number of lbs you can carry per point of Strength, and thus also nothing to do with movement.

   * fActorStrengthEncumberanceMult (Default 5.0)

It's complicated enough already - having completely unrelated things mixed in as well is only going to confuse people even more.  :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.9.18.26 (talk • contribs) on 13:49, 5 October 2008.

Yes, you're definitely right about that. This page was put together over a year ago by Abo, and as you can see in the history, he basically just extracted any settings/variables he thought might be relevant and put them in tables. At this point, I think we have a fairly good idea of what's going on, though as you've noticed, there are still a few problems (i.e., the Height multiplier...or lack thereof). So yes, I would agree that those numbers can be removed.
It worked out for the best though: if I'd had to hunt all over the wiki for each piece of the puzzle, I'd never have bothered trying to solve it. :) Even though we can now prove they AREN'T relevant and just remove them, that's a lot better than having them come up after we think we've nailed it all. Given that nobody understood WHY Feather made such a difference, it's only reasonable that something with "Strength" and "Encumberance" ended up here - I was at least as surprised as anyone to discover that Strength had absolutely no impact on speed when I started testing.  :)
I'm expecting Lurlock will turn out to be right about the Height issue, also because my Altmer "felt" faster than my Breton at the start of game (before very long any difference will be subsumed by "genuine" speed differences from stats/skills/equipment) even though he "shouldn't" have been.
While we're on the topic of variables, experimentation suggests that the fMoveEncumEffect variable isn't used at all. As far as I can tell, it's always using fMoveEncumEffectNoWeap, regardless of whether a weapon is equipped or not. I have more testing to do on this, but since you seem to be taking an interest and doing your own testing, I thought I'd mention it so you can confirm/reject my findings. I was puzzled at first when testing this, since Quest Items produced a slight lowering of speed despite being weightless, but after doing the calculations in reverse, I realized that while they're weightless in your inventory for purposes of whether you can move at all, they do still count against your movement speed at their full normal weight, as long as you're not over-encumbered. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:09, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
I'm 100% sure it is used (though it's VERY confusingly named) - see the "Reworking" section for details on how, if you can stomach it. :P You'll be happy to know I've already looked into Quest Items, and they AREN'T actually weightless: they still have their "true" weight for every aspect of their BEHAVIOR, including Fatigue (or you could swing the "exploit" version of Umbra all day long without any discernable Fatigue loss, which you can't) - they simply aren't counted towards your INVENTORY weight, which is subtly different from being genuinely weightless. (I think someone mentioned this on the ?Arena? page, as distinct from Permanent Bound Items, which is what tipped me off).
Yeah, I only noticed all the notes you left now for some reason. Not sure how I missed them previously. Just glanced through them quickly and I think I got the gist of what you were saying. Certainly having a weapon drawn will slow you down, it's a very noticeable effect in-game at higher speeds, so it makes sense that that would be used there. I'll go over all the math more thoroughly later on. Once we've both had a chance to test and confirm our findings, we can work on fixing the page up some more. Here's a bullet list of things I can think of that we need to confirm and add or change on the page. Please feel free to add to it and we'll use it as a checklist.
  • Check and explain Feather effects
  • Introduce Armor perks into formulae
  • Fix weight formula, if necessary (I think your formulae came out the same, but without the weight-min variable, not sure)
  • Confirm if Luck plays a factor at all (may silently add to Athletics, as it silently adds to other skills...quick testing says it doesn't do anything, but I may have been at 100 Athletics already)
There's probably more than that, but that's all that's coming to mind right now. I'll sit down later and go through everything and see if the list doesn't get longer. ;) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 21:14, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
Is the Feather stuff clear enough? If not, you're probably going to have to rewrite it for me.
Luck doesn't affect Athletics (probably because Athletics isn't capped at 100, but the why isn't really important).
The weight formulas here are right beyond any reasonable doubt. I did simplify them a little and turned them into two trivial versions rather than a single one with an excessive number of substitution terms, but I don't think what I cut can be considered "important" or even meaningful as far as Normal Oblivion goes. If a mod decides to change everything that's up to them, and it's also up to them to document it: if we clutter the page with "and in OOO it's like THIS, and in some other random mod it's like THAT", it'll be completely unreadable. The perks can be summed up in a sentence or two at the end of that, hopefully.
Wrapping Up:
  • First off, we need to start using terminology that is consistent and makes sense. At the moment, the page generally uses Encumbrance to mean Equipment Weight because of the names of the CS variables, but they're not remotely the same thing, and other parts of the page (and the wiki in general) use Encumbrance to mean "Total Inventory Weight". I'd go with EqWeight, since WornWeight implies that the weapon isn't part of it, which it is.
  • "Modifier" implies additive or subtractive behavior, which none of these are. "Factor" is the standard math term for a multiplicative component, and this topic needs as little extra confusion as possible, because there's plenty already. :P
  • The "Final Formula(s)" section above is as clear and concise as I can make it, aside from the "legacy" use of Encumbrance: if you can improve on it, please do. EqWeight, and specifically the "effective" EqWeight based on feather, perks, weapon, and weapon state, has (potentially) more of an impact on movement speed than Speed and Athletics combined, so it should be the focus of the "main" section.
  • Having the "big" formula at the top of the page with none of its terms actually defined yet makes the article very awkward to read - you have to constantly look back and forth to see what fits in where because of all the substitutions. Define the terms first, THEN use them.
  • Likewise, the CS variables just make everything ridiculously hard to deal with when you're trying to work out roughly what sort of impact a change in Factor X (stat, skill, or whatever) will have. We should certainly give the "full" version of each term once, but after that, "BaseSpeed = 90 + (Speed * 0.4)" is going to be a lot more understandable to someone who wants know what raising Speed with items / spells / at levelup translates to than "BaseSpeed = fMoveCharWalkMin + (fMoveCharWalkMax - fMoveCharWalkMin) * Speed / 100" where they have to keep looking away from the formula to see what these magic words actually mean. As far as we're concerned, these are constants, and they should be folded away whenever possible.
  • Migrating this to the main page piece by piece probably isn't going to work, because we'll have sections and terminology etc that conflict or don't match up. We need to build a "complete" replacement here, make sure we're all happy with it, and then move it all in one chunk.
Aliana 21:03, 12 October 2008 (EDT)
  • Feather - No, it's not clear. The little bit you mentioned doesn't explain where in the formula Feather values are taken into account.
  • Luck - Agreed. I've tried altering Luck in a variety of ways and it appears to have no effect on speed, either visibly or behind the scenes like height.
  • Weight - Agreed. Your formulae appear to be accurate according to all my calculations. I'd like to keep the WeightMin variables in there somewhere, but I'm thinking that perhaps we need to separate this into a "simple" and "full" version.
  • Equipment Weight - Agreed again, though I'd actually refer to it as "Equipped Weight" to make it completely unambiguous that the only thing that counts is what you have equipped.
  • Modifier/Factor - Again, good idea. I'd go either with Factor or Multiplier. Factor is shorter, but I think more people know what Multiplier means. Modifier is probably not the best choice of terms due to its vagueness, though I disagree with your assertion that it implies additive/subtractive.
  • Final Formul(as/ae) - Need to clarify what "combat ready" means. As near as I can tell, having any armor or weapon equipped causes the less-desirable formula to be used. As for the focus of the main section, it really depends on your point of view. When I see "Movement Formula", I expect a technical discussion on the in-game formulae used. If I saw a title like "How Movement Works", I'd expect it to be more of a high-level overview.
  • Big formula - Here, I have to disagree...though even looking at the current version, I think we should put the real formula at the top, then put BaseSpeed under it, since even though it's a "Base" in our minds, in reality, it's just multiplied in like anything else. I basically see it as "Here's the basic formula, now here's how each piece works." whereas doing it the way you suggest, I'd be afraid it might come out as "Here's a whole bunch of puzzle pieces, we'll show you the picture only after you've looked at each piece."
  • CS variables - Yes, agreed, they do make it harder to understand, but at the same time, I think there should be somewhere that we include how they all fit in. As I suggested above, perhaps a section (or even an entire page) where we have the simpler version that assumes all CS variables are at default, as well as a separate section that details the nitty-gritty.
  • Migration - It could go either way, really. If this were a frequently-referenced page, I'd say yes, let's make sure we have a full-fledged replacement before any migration. For something as esoteric as this is, however, I doubt very many people are going to care, particularly if we put a {{Wip}} tag at the top while we're "playing" with it. Still, there's no harm in creating a separate page, and we can ask for an admin to delete it once we're done. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:33, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
  • "Equipped Weight" works for me.
  • Feather: as part of Equipped Weight.
  • "Need to clarify what "combat ready" means" - "Weapon drawn", but since it applies even if it's just fists, using "weapon" will confuse people.
  • "As near as I can tell, having any armor or weapon equipped causes the less-desirable formula to be used" - that doesn't match my observations, but it's a fairly critical point to have different opinions on. :P I'll recheck since I did the initial testing with a mod that made them the same to simplify things, but I also made a point of them NOT being the same as either of the defaults, and to create and prove the final formulae those clearly have to have been at default for that stage.
  • A separate "full version" page with the CS variables on it is fine if you want to do it for the sake of completeness: they're just of no use (or even interest) to players, only modders, so I don't think everyone should be forced to wade through them whether they want to or not. If you're dead set on it, that's probably the version to do FIRST, then substitute (and simplify where possible) for the "normal" version.
Aliana 21:24, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] related pages with misinformation

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Getting_Around has more of the "weight/strength is important" stuff in it -Aliana71.9.18.26 19:13, 7 October 2008 (EDT)

corrected - Aliana71.9.18.26 05:41, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

also http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Feather and http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Encumbrance (and I'm sure there are plenty more after 2 years, just fix them as you find them).

[edit] Movement Speed Penalties

(this belongs on http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Armor, but that's protected)

Until you have the Master perk or use the Feather trick mentioned above, each lb of armor reduces your movement speed by 0.2%. For a complete set, the maximum speed in each armor is:

Iron 83.8% Steel 81.1% Dwarven 78.4% Orcish 75.7% Ebony 71.6% Daedric 67.6%

These penalties are halved once you obtain the Expert perk. - Aliana71.9.18.26 05:28, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

(this belongs on http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Armor, but that's protected) So sign up for an account and it won't be an issue! :) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 15:45, 9 October 2008 (EDT)
it will. it needs an admin to change it. Aliana 08:06, 12 October 2008 (EDT)
No, it doesn't. That page is semi-protected. You've only just created your account and so some restrictions still apply. You'll be able to edit semi-protected pages in a few days. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 08:25, 12 October 2008 (EDT)
Actually, now that I *can* edit it, I'm not going to. :P I don't know if it makes more sense to put the values in the armor tables, or as a note at the bottom, or what, so I'm leaving it for one of you to do since your guess is probably better than mine.Aliana 04:36, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Athletics vs. Speed

I think it would be very helpful to most players to include a discussion on whether increasing Athletics(skill) or Speed(attribute) is more beneficial in moving faster. Something a la the willpower vs intelligence discussion on the willpower page. SteviL 18:01, 13 November 2008 (EST)

It's mentioned in here. In summary, raising your armor skill and/or using feature affects your run speed far more significantly that speed/athletics. ZirePhoenix 21:34, 23 December 2008 (EST)
(pardon me for inevitably posting this wrong) i did a bit of math work and found out that any increase to speed would result in the same movement speed as if it was given to athletics. ex: +20 speed = + 20 athletics —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 173.17.16.104 (talk • contribs) on 01:53, 29 September 2009.
I suspect that's just a fluke based on the speed you were at. If, for example, your Speed and Athletics were both 50, then assuming there were no other modifiers to your speed, you'd have a walking speed of 110, and a running speed of 3.5 times that (365). If you increase only your Speed by 20, your new movement speeds would be 130 and 425. If, however, you increased your Athletics by 20, your movement speeds would instead be 110 and 407. The difference between 407 and 425 is fairly negligible unless you're timing it very precisely, so the speeds might well have appeared the same.
As to the original question of which is better to increase, it'll depend on your specific stats, but typically Speed would be the better choice, since it's part of your base speed and will affect everything much more than Athletics would, not to mention that Athletics doesn't improve your walking or sneak-walking speed...though sneak-running is still affected. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 03:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
So I'm a-wondering whether I should go with Absorb Speed, or Absorb Athletics to make a quick excape from those inbred loons in Hackdirt. . .? 76.192.99.0 03:03, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Assuming that the absorption level is the same between both spells, Speed is still the best way to go, though the difference is really minute. Once you factor in the cheaper cost and longer duration of Absorb Speed, though, the difference becomes clear (i.e., Absorb Speed is definitely the best way to go). —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 21:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Follow-up

Despite the extensive testing done some time ago and posted here, nobody ever got around to changing the main page to reflect the results. I've decided to take an alternate route and look directly at Oblivion.exe to confirm what's going on. I will make changes as I'm able to confirm things and note below anything I'm unable to verify. So far, I've been able to confirm most of the basic formulae for the player, but creatures, feather effects and several other minor things have yet to be verified. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 09:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] maximum speed?

i was trying out the scroll dupe and duped around 2k skooma. problem is u can only drink 8 at a time. my speed was insane, around 700, but not out of this world. is there any way to get like 1000000 speed? im on 360 so cant mod the game files. plz help! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by P90 user (talk • contribs) on 16:48, 25 September 2009.

I doubt you're going to get anything that high without the ability to cheat. I think the only way to really increase your speed would be through casting multiple spells with different names that all increase your speed. I've never been one to play with that sort of thing, so I can't guarantee that it works, but I think it should. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

You can use the ring duplication glitch to fortify speed/athletics as high as you want to. And athletics does increase your speed past 255. A Method Do the mages guild untill you have access to an enchantment altar. Get a black soul gem or a grand one. Duplicate as many as you need. kill things to fill them with grand souls. Get any old ring, duplicate as many as you need. Buy any fortify attribute spell. Do the quest to get skeleton key(this gives you access to fortity skill enchantments.) At the altar, enchant a ring with athletics boost. give it a unique name. repeat until you have used up all your filled soul gems. then use the ring glitch to make the enhancments permanent.

Ring glitch procedure(ps3). Get 2 identicall scrolls. Click on them once in the menu.(i believe for pc you have to click twice) Drop one of the enchanted rings without leaving the menu, youll find 2 drop. Pick them up, equip one of them. Click on the scrolls again and then drop the UNequipped ring, both will fall to the floor, but the Athletics enhancment remains. Repeat procedure for each ring. For a 100 increase you'll need 10 enchanted rings if you have grand souls.

To duplicate soul gems , just dup scrolls untill you have for eg, 20 identical scrolls. Click on them, then drop a soul gem. 20 will fall to the floor. Some say it's cheating, but its just a bit of fun really :)

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