2011-11-25

Skyrim Archery Tweak: More Like Real Archery Now

Learn how to make the archery in Skyrim feel much more like real archery and medieval combat.

This post and the video below shows a Skyrim archery tweak making bow and arrows work much more realistically and intuitively. Tweak makes arrows fly thru the crosshair and then fall (as in Oblivion and most other games), and not over the crosshair like it does by default, and make the archery feel a lot more like real archery.

As far as I know, this tweak is safe (doesn't break save games) and you can "uninstall" by removing the lines you add, and arrows behave as by default again.

By default, bow is automatically tilted up and arrows fly over the crosshair, making the bow to work a bit like gun (you hit where you aim). This is usually fine, especially in close distances, but if you want to "snipe" from a distance, it comes really hard to figure out where to aim.

Plus, I think it's just better that the archery works more the way it works in other games and in real life - Thus, I like really liked how this tweak changed how archery works.

Skyrim.ini Edit

1) Find Skyrim.ini (not SkyrimPrefs.ini), which is located in 'My Documents/My Games/Skyrim' after running Skyrim once.

2) Backup Skyrim.ini before editing (take a copy of it).

3) Add to Skyrim.ini (or edit the lines are already there) [1]:

[Combat]
fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0
fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0
f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

The latter two (*Bolt*) lines are for the crossbows added via Dawnguard DLC.

4) And if you want the arrows to fly really far (not in use on the video), add this to Skyrim.ini as well [2]:

[Actor]
fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000

Because of gravity physics, arrows fall as they fly, this tweak doesn't change that.

As a result, with the tweak arrows behave more intuitively and you can compensate longer distances by aiming higher without guessing how high the arrow will fire - and on shorter distances, hit exactly where you aim.

Here's a video I made showing how the archery works by default (0:00) and how it changes and works after the tweak (3:35 onwards):


Skyrim Archery Tweak: How to Make Arrows Behave More Intuitively




Watch the video in YouTube (HD): Skyrim Archery Tweak

References

I couldn't find who came up with the tweak first to give proper credit, but I found it from Bethesda Forums when the tweak was posted by spookyfx.com: