Skip to content

Change movement speeds and gaits

The player has four gaits: walking, running, crouching and narrow passage. A gait is a named set of movement numbers, and all four of them live in one field on the player character.

  • The field: Locomotion Gaits Settings, on Content/TheLastTemplate/Blueprints/PlayerCharacter/BP_PlayerCharacter, in the Details panel under Settings > Movements
  • The names: Content/TheLastTemplate/Blueprints/Enumerations/Locomotion/E_LocomotionGaits
  • The numbers inside one gait: Content/TheLastTemplate/Blueprints/Structures/Locomotion/S_LocomotionGaitSettings

Changing how fast the player moves means changing a number in that field. You do not edit the Character Movement component: the character writes over it every time the gait changes.

The four gaits

Gait When the player is in it Shipped Max Walk Speed
Walking Default, nothing held 190
Running While IA_Sprint is held 400
Crouching While crouched 120
NarrowPassage Inside a BP_NarrowPassage_Base volume 80

The keys of the map are the four values of E_LocomotionGaits. The sprint and crouch keys themselves are in Change the controls. The narrow passage volume is in Flashlight, listen mode, backpack and narrow passages.

Change the sprint speed

  1. Open BP_PlayerCharacter.
  2. Click Class Defaults.
  3. In the Details panel, open Locomotion Gaits Settings under Settings > Movements.
  4. Expand the Running row.
  5. Set Max Walk Speed to the value you want.
  6. Compile and save.

What one gait row holds

Field What it does
Max Walk Speed Top speed on the ground
Max Acceleration How fast the player reaches that speed
Breaking Acceleration How hard the player slows down when the stick is released
Braking Friction Factor Multiplier applied to the ground friction while stopping
Use Separate Braking Friction Use the value below instead of the surface friction
Braking Friction Only read when the box above is ticked

Crouching

The crouch speed is the Max Walk Speed of the Crouching row, nothing else. Max Walk Speed Crouched on the Character Movement component looks like the right place and is not: the character overwrites it with the current gait speed on every refresh, so the 300 it ships with is never used.

Two engine fields on the Character Movement component do matter for crouching:

Field Shipped What it does
Can Crouch on Without it, the crouch input does nothing at all
Crouched Half Height 60 The capsule shrinks to this from its standing 88

The standing capsule is 88 half height and 30 radius. If you make the crouched capsule shorter, check that the player still fits under the props you expect them to crouch through, and check that they can stand up again where you expect.

Add a fifth gait

Say you want a slow limp gait for a wounded player.

  1. Open E_LocomotionGaits and add an enumerator. Give it a display name, for example Limping.
  2. Open BP_PlayerCharacter, Class Defaults, Locomotion Gaits Settings. Add a row, pick Limping as the key, and fill in the six numbers.
  3. Call Update Locomotion Gait on the player with Limping when you want it, and with Walking when it ends.
  4. Compile and save.

A gait with no row in the map stops the player dead

The map is the only source of movement numbers. A gait with no row reads back as a row of zeros, so the next speed refresh writes a walk speed of 0. The player then cannot move and nothing is printed. Add the enumerator and the row in the same pass.

Give another character its own speeds

BP_NPCCharacter and BP_ZombieCharacter each carry their own Locomotion Gaits Settings. Edit theirs the same way, in their own Class Defaults.

Number NPC Zombie
Walking speed 190 100
Walking acceleration 400 400
Running speed 400 400
Crouching speed 140 140

Join the Discord