Walk speed

[ajb1978]

Just reporting on something I recently calculated.

A full storm lantern burns for exactly 4 hours.  Using a storm lantern as a makeshift clock, I calculated the exact time it takes to walk from my chosen house on Coastal Highway, to the hunting lodge.  In short, when unobstructed by wind or delayed by animals (easy on a Pilgrim save) it takes almost exactly 7.5 hours of game time to make the journey.  That journey, according to my before and after notations from my journal, was 9.6km.  This means the character's walking speed is 1.76km/h, or 0.8mph Imperial.  This seems rather consistent with trudging through thick snow over uneven terrain.  Abysmally slow if you were walking on pavement, but considering the environment...understandable.

That is all.  Just a random analysis I thought to conduct.

[MarrowStone]

Imagine how fast they are going overencumbered... Snail's pace.

I know that in a Stalker save I was able to go from the Broken Railroad maintenance shed, up Timberwolf Mountain, and to the Lonely Lighthouse in roughly 5 days while liberally tending to my needs and not pushing myself too hard. I could probably shave it down to 3 if I rushed and 2 if I have a death wish and a ton of coffee.

Reminds me of that one challenge where everyone tried to complete a modified hopeless rescue as fast as they could.

[Guest]

Very interesting, and thanks for sharing.

@ajb1978 I've seen players questioning on whether walking backwards is faster that walking forward. I haven't seen a test on this yet.

It would be cool to see a pair of snow shoes you can find in the game. I mean, you can find heavy ski boots in this game! Snow shoes help a player traverse uphill faster or just travel snow in general. Maybe have them apply a benefit to speed while heading to TWM summit or something similar. Wishlist topic I know.

I wouldn't be surprised if Hinterland tested game mechanics with varying snow depths. Probably axed the idea because the player is slow and trudging continually  

Speaking of movement. Anyone else find that when encumbered and walking over an object on terrain this makes you move at normal speed? Is this considered a non-fixable bug based on the Unity engine? It's been around since I've picked up the game which is nearly a year now. Just a bug that really annoys me, and I'm guessing it cannot be fixed.

 

[Drifter Man]

9 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

This means the character's walking speed is 1.76km/h, or 0.8mph Imperial.

Thanks for sharing @ajb1978, it's interesting to see how they keep adjusting the parameters. I did similar test two years ago, normal walking speed was 1.13 kph back then. I walked on even terrain exclusively, for about 2 km distance.

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

Thanks for sharing @ajb1978, it's interesting to see how they keep adjusting the parameters. I did similar test two years ago, normal walking speed was 1.13 kph back then. I walked on even terrain exclusively, for about 2 km distance.

You guys are really hardcore. No troll. Amazed.

[ajb1978]

5 hours ago, Vonwoah said:

Speaking of movement. Anyone else find that when encumbered and walking over an object on terrain this makes you move at normal speed?

Yep, and if you're outdoors you can trigger this intentionally by quickly crouching and standing while holding W to move forward.  Say you're at 59kg (no satchel) and barely able to move at all.  If you move forward, then quickly crouch and stand, you will start moving forward at a respectable pace.  Still slow, but respectable enough that you can reach your destination before you physically die of old age in real life.

In interior environments for some reason, this is not quite the same.  In a cave for instance, if I am moderately encumbered but start picking up coal off the ground as I move through the cave, I notice my movement speed might reach a point where it slows to a crawl.  If I can keep walking for a few seconds, it's like the character finds his footing and the momentum starts carrying him forward at a reasonable pace.  Up to a point anyway--if I keep collecting coal, this lag time between slow crawl and slow walk gets longer and longer until eventually I'm moving at a snail's pace forever.  Unless I can find a small obstruction to walk over.  At that point, I'm moving at a reasonable pace again as long as I don't stop.

Both of these cases, I really, really hope are not changed.  I don't care if they're technically bugs or not!  It's only something you can take advantage of when you are heavily overencumbered, like in the 55-60kg range.  I don't think it would be a good use of time to try and patch this out, just to deprive players of being able to carry a few extra kg.

[MarrowStone]

Ive noticed that movement speed (especially sprinting) seems much faster on pavement such as the roads in Pleasant Valley and Coastal Highway. 

You should try testing out the speed you go traversing from one end of Coastal Highway to the other. 

[ajb1978]

Well I took a fully fueled storm lantern and walked back and forth on the pavement until it sputtered out.  In that 4 hours, I walked exactly 6km, for an easy calculation of 1.5kph, or .93mph.

That of course made me realize that I had screwed up my earlier calculations of the walk speed.  Not sure how I flubbed the math, but the walk speed on snow (mostly flat, a little bit uphill) is 1.28kph.  I actually did state 0.8mph correctly though.  I'm not sure where I got the 1.76 from.  I'm thinking the actual default flat-surface snow walking speed is probably closer to 1.3kph, since while most of the trip was on flat terrain, there was an uphill trek from the fishing camp to the ravine transition, that would have negatively impacted the speed slightly.  But only slightly--it was a LONG walk.

So in a nutshell, you're about 16% faster on pavement vs. snow.  Which is still really slow!  Walking at a leisurely pace would still be roughly twice as fast.  But if you doubled the walk speed in the game, it would probably look like you're riding a motorcycle.

[MarrowStone]

Thanks for looking into it, @ajb1978.

Kinda funny how only 16 percent faster feels super fast anyways.

[ajb1978]

It's always fun doing little experiments like this, to figure out the physics of the game world.

I haven't tested it specifically, but I think if you play a Custom game and set the day length to 3x, the walk speed would instantly become realistic.  If I had traveled that same 6km in 1/3 the time, that would bump the walk speed up to a normal walking speed.