Is there a way to get near instant or just extremely fast or at least faster than normal drop speed by tweaking the Nif file?

I'm assuming you have an object that you're able to kick around / pick up and place / is affected by gravity.

I would first adjust the mass in the bhkRigidBody collision node, try massively increasing it.

then if that doesn't work, try setting a higher Max Linear Velocity or Gravity Factor.

I would do them separate though, i can't remember off the top of my head but one of those will have bizarre effects on your object. but the last time i messed with this was to actually decrease the speed of a drop and spin in FO3.

Thanks! I will try messing with that. My first thought was to increase the mass but then my "physics" voice in my head said (to me) "that will not work dummy, heavier items do not fall faster just because they are heaver."

But then this is a game not the real world. LOL

I don't have an answer, but I have a feeling no. Playing around with random collision values could lead to odd havok results, but I'd be interested in your test results.

Wooo Wooooo!!! I found it!

It is a pair of settings called GravityFactor 1 and 2. I set this from 1 to to 10.

And for good measure I bumped up the mass and friction 10 times to prevent anything from picking it up or knocking it around from shouts or or what ever.

edit: Strange, I did the tests on a book and it worked great. But then I tried the same edits on a playing card and it did not do anything.

So there is more to this than meets the eye.

check your max linear and angular velocity these should be quite high like 500 - 1000 at least if you want something really fast., also make sure both linear and angular damping are not too low, just set them at 1.0 to be sure. and I believe mass must be greater than 0 for it to move.

well, everything I tried failed EXCEPT for the BOOK !!!???

For what ever reason this works great on a book Nif but all others I have tried will not work.

Anyway in the words of one of my martial arts instructors ... "If it works use it."

I was able to set the material to none to prevent the book from making any sounds on collision.

All I need to do now is make the book invisible. How do I do that? I tried deleted the texture AND tried deleting the texture block/branch itself but in both cases you end up with a purple book in the game.

Go to the BSLightingShaderProperty of each NiTriShape and set the Alpha from 1.000 to 0.000

three notes if you wanted to further study this,

books seem to have inertia levels defined every 10 slots. no idea what this does tbh

They have a motion system of Sphere Inertia, which may play into the inertia listed above.

and a Quality Type of Mo_Qual_Moving.

Books are also rigged and have animations, with collisions set up for that, probably overkill for what you're trying to do.

What is the object you want to fall?

Right, but it is the only object out of a dozen or so I have tried that will work.

If I could wave a magic wand and have any one I wanted I would want a flat square or rectangular object like a playing card. I am "tossing" several out from the actor and testing their z position compared to the actor z position to determine if the actor is on a bridge or other narrow path up high.

So the object must quickly fall. The book works, but as you said it is a little overkill. I had to set the Nif book binder hing to zero to get it to stop flapping as it hits the ground LOL!

Unfortunately there is no game function to do what I am doing the "hard way" with my custom function.

And naturally this "Rube Goldberg" custom function is not going to be 100% reliable but it does not need to be.

Thank you so much!

I forgot there is also a way to do it via the script:

probeRef.SetAlpha (0.0) NOPE this only works on actors.

Not sure which way would be better. With the script way I could turn this on and off easily for troubleshooting. But the Nif way would be less overhead.