Combat Speed

Combat Speed

Combat Speed is a multiplier to your attack and block speed. It is affected by a combination of your Armour (Most Heavy Armour reduces it, Assassin's Rags and Wooden Sandals increase it), encumbrance % and if you have the required strength level (40x blunt damage or 1x weight whichever is greater, for Martial Arts it is equal to 80% of MA level) to use a weapon.

Training your Dexterity and Attack/Defense skills are generally the primary method of increasing your attack and block speed, but this does NOT impact combat speed. As an example, the base attack speed is believed to be 0.765. Each level of attack increases your attack speed by 0.00152. Each level of Dexterity increases it by 0.00228. If a character were to have 100 Attack and 100 Dexterity that would result in 1.145 attack speed. Attack, Dexterity and Defense levels are additive to attack (Attack and Dexterity) and block (Defense and Dexterity) speeds. Combat speed multiplies the final attack and block speed value you have. So, if you were to be wearing Wooden Sandals you would have 1.20225 attack speed with 100 Attack/Dexterity. (Attack speed caps at 1.2 so the extra 0.00225 would just help slightly if injured)

Oddly enough, Dodge is completely unaffected by Combat Speed. The movements take the same amount of time regardless. Similarly odd, if they were affected, they appear to be set to look at the Martial Arts skill instead of Dodge as their other speed enhancing skill besides Dexterity.

Details

All weapons have a required Strength level to wield effectively, usually determined by the Blunt Damage of the weapon. In some cases, this equals out to x2 the weight of the weapon however this formula does not work for a LOT of weapons such as any Katana, Polearm, Jitte, Heavy Jitte, multiple Sabres and other weapons at lower qualities. If one does not have the required Strength to wield a weapon, this will result in a penalty to their speed combat. This scales as far as around -47.5% at 20 levels or more under than the required level. For every level above the 20 levels mark, the penalty will decrease by about 2.375% until you reach the required level.

Contrary to what has long been believed, damage types appear to have no direct effect on speed, or what skills are taken into consideration. As mentioned above, Blunt Damage affects the required Strength level of a weapon, meaning that in some cases Strength can be seen increasing the speed of a weapon, but in truth it is simply reducing the penalties instead. Assuming you have enough Strength to wield the weapon, extra Strength will have no effect on speed.

Item Related

Increases Combat Speed

• Assassin's Rags (1.1x)
• Wooden Sandals (1.05x)

Decreases Combat Speed

• Backpacks excluding the two thief versions.
• Ancient Samurai Armour
• Ancient Samurai Legplates
• Holy / Unholy Chest Plate
• Empire / Samurai Armor
• Samurai Legplates
• Mercenary Plate
• Chainmail
• Chain Shirt
• Rusty Chainmail
• Rusty Chain Shirt
• Rusted Hive Shirt
• Blackened Chainmail
• Blackened Chain Shirt
• Blackened Chain Hive Shirt
• Hiver Chain Shirt
• Crab Armour
• Crab Trousers
• Crab Shoes
• Samurai Boots
• Armoured Rags (Coloured variant as well)

Combat Move Speed

Combat Move Speed is how fast your character moves around while in combat. It is often confused with the Combat Speed above but is a distinctly separate and independent value. It is determined by your Race, providing bonuses or penalties depending on which one your character is.

There is no way to increase your Combat Move Speed, beyond race selection.

(Western and Southern) Hive Prince/Hive Worker Drone - 1.2x

(Western and Southern) Hive Soldier Drone - 1.1x

Greenlander/Scorchlander/Shek - 1x

Skeleton/Soldierbot/P4 Unit - 0.9x

NOTE: This list covers playable humanoid races in Kenshi. Combat Move Speed for all races can be discovered in the Forgotten Construction Set.