Locational Damage Stability Patch

Locational Damage is originally by Kahmul in ~2013, and adds much needed hitbox and locational damage functionality to Skyrim. It has a ton of features and is overall an incredible mod. There is an impressive attention to detail with respect to the effects that are triggered for each hit zone. However it has certain stability issues when faced with large numbers of NPCs. This patch is an attempt to keep the mod functional and stable during large battles by sacrificing accuracy. In script lite play-throughs one might not notice any issues but when playing heavily modded there are scenarios where LD will slow down considerably.

If you are interested in detailed explanations for the changes that went into this mod, use the link in found in my Nexus profile.

This patch is released with the express permission of the author but is maintained by me and any others in the community who decide to assist in testing and designing.

Fixes

Script lag is mitigated by three mutually exclusive and stand-alone changes to improve stability and performance at the expense of accuracy. Initial tests were done with battles of upwards 30 combatants. Details on the implementation of fixes can be found on my site.

Headshots are reliably triggered except in the busiest of fights

Not fixed

1) Triggering of NPC vs Player archery effects

2) Accuracy of long ranged calculations (this may also be an issue in the original)

3) Triggering of effects at high levels (this may also be an issue in the original)

Warning

Saved game bloat is a minor concern for Locational Damage, but to be safe one should not be combine it with other combat heavy mods that apply universal effects, like Deadly Combat and Ultimate Combat. The mod appears to safely detach its effects when an actor dies. I would recommend at most one mod in use that affects enemy A. I via script and/or adds locational damage.

Installation

See the readme for specific instructions. This patch depends on 1 SKSE 2 Locational Damage 3 PapyrusUtil.

Recommended Mods

Projectile Speed Tweaks by Argonil

[]Camera-based locational damage mods compute hit locations based on incident camera angles. While this is highly effective for close-range procedures (such as melee combat), it is inaccurate by design at long-range. Classic locational damage mods are least accurate for Archery since bows are often fired at long range and arrows are subject to gravity. With vanilla settings for arrow speed and gravity you are more likely to notice inaccuracy with Archery.

[]Projectile Speed Tweaks adjusts both arrow speed and gravity to be more realistic and challenging. This complements classic locational damage mods quite well, by both making the incident camera calculations more accurate and making archery more deadly in general. T