Absorb and Balance
Timed landings, weight-reactive grinds and manual balance. Realistic (0.8–4.5 m), Medium (1.5–6 m) and Fun (2–8 m) presets, adjustable HUD, ASCII cat and directional vibration.Absorb & Balance
By Ninel - version 1.3.56
Time your landings, balance grinds and manuals, and let the board react to the skater's weight. Choose between three presets, from demanding timing to more forgiving gameplay.
Presets
| Preset | Absorb height range | Timing window | Clean zone | Grind / manual difficulty | Stick balance | Absorb on vert |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realistic | 0.8-4.5 m | 180-30 ms | 35% | 7 / 10 | Circle | On |
| Medium | 1.5-6 m | 220-35 ms | 50% | 5 / 10 | Single axis | On |
| Fun | 2-8 m | 360-80 ms | 70% | 2 / 10 | Single axis | Off |
The minimum height determines when absorbing becomes necessary. The maximum height is the plugin's allowed drop limit. The timing window gets smaller as the drop approaches that limit. These are gameplay settings, not a guarantee that every landing can be saved.
Preset buttons are at the top of the menu. Each balance category supports LB/RB or the left stick. Circular balance uses the stick; Medium and Fun select single-axis balance. Changing a preset value marks the profile Custom. Saved named presets are updated with this release; Custom profiles retain their settings until another preset is selected.
Landings
Press RB, LB or F before touchdown:
- Clean: press within the final clean portion of the timing window.
- Sketchy: press within the rest of the valid window, triggering a recovery.
- Too Early, No Absorb or Too High: invalid landing, requesting a native wipeout.
The final verdict uses the actual touchdown and replaces the HUD prediction. Native recovery outputs follow that verdict. Blending with the game's own landing animation still needs in-game verification.
Open Absorb > Timing zones to adjust the minimum and maximum timing windows and the clean-zone percentage. Height settings support tenths and can be displayed in metres or feet.
Grinds and manuals
- Independent category switches and control choices.
- Native ReSkate board tweaks with adjustable strength and smoothing.
- Progressive grind friction near the front/back edges, with a separate on/off switch. Added friction releases below 1.2 m/s.
- Soft manual exits based on the direction and speed of the lean.
- Directional controller vibration through the included local XInput relay.
Menu and HUD
Open Insert > Plugins > Absorb & Balance. Separate tabs contain Tweak, Absorb, Grinds, Manuals and Display settings.
The menu uses the original large ASCII cat background. The in-game HUD keeps its blue/purple palette, landing verdicts and optional reactive ASCII cat. The balance circle has adjustable position and background opacity, and replaces the balance bar while active. Ctrl + H toggles the HUD.
The plugin cannot selectively hide the game's Flick-It visualizer, which may remain visible beneath a transparent circle. The retired custom menu and 3D preview are not included.
Installation and updates
Use the existing Thunderstore package Ninel / Absorb_and_Balance. Its internal name is unchanged so this archive updates the existing package. Package files are directly at the ZIP root.
For manual installation, extract the package into ReSkate/Mods/Ninel-Absorb_and_Balance, then reload the plugin. Custom preferences remain saved.
88 simulated scenarios passed. Physical tail contact, slowdown strength and animation appearance still require in-game testing.
Startup is spread across scheduled callbacks to respect ReSkate’s execution limit. Native footplant/board-interaction phases are excluded from absorb tracking; the exit flight starts a fresh height measurement.
In Manuals, choose Left stick and Single axis, then enable Steer with the left stick. Up/down controls manual balance; left/right stays available for native steering. Physical buttons, triggers and the trick stick remain available for powerslide inputs. Circular balance keeps its existing bumper-steering behavior.
Manual single-axis modes: horizontal left-stick balance with LB/RB steering, or vertical left-stick balance with either LB/RB steering or native left/right stick steering. Select the stick axis in Manuals after choosing Left stick and Single axis.
Sketchy reactions now request only native clips whose names identify a sketchy landing or recovery. No generic sketchiness scalar or experimental gameplay setting is forced. If no matching clip is exposed, the plugin logs that limitation instead of substituting another animation. Clean verdicts stop the plugin-owned sketchy clip.
Version 1.3.56 replaces whole-body sketchy playback with a stronger upper-body recovery: sampled native flail arms and bounded torso motion, blended over the live animation. Legs and feet stay native. Visual naturalness still requires in-game checking.
Version 1.3.56 uses procedural damped torso and arm motion on Sketchy verdicts, without native flail clip sampling. It is a visual recovery over the live skating animation, not a replacement rigid-body simulation.
Version 1.3.56 selects different recovery patterns from impact speed and landing misalignment. Optional Genoux et appuis sketchy adds limited knee flexion and asymmetric leg motion. This does not create a physical one-foot support constraint; foot alignment and visual naturalness need in-game verification.
Version 1.3.56 uses two-bone leg solving during sketchy compression, lowering the pelvis by at most 0.27 m while retaining support-foot targets. The free foot can slide up to approximately 0.085 m along the recovery direction. Invalid geometry leaves the native leg pose unchanged. There is no mesh collision detection; clothing, foot placement and naturalness still need in-game checks.
Version 1.3.56 has 40 procedural recovery profiles across five movement families. Arm counterbalance is staggered behind compression, and recovery weight depends on incoming impact speed and drop severity. Pelvis travel stays within 9 cm and foot slide within 3 cm. Appearance and clipping still require in-game verification.
Version 1.3.56 removes experimental fall protection and native ragdoll control. Procedural sketchy recoveries and their smooth return to the native animation are retained. Works with standard ReSkate; no modified runtime is required.
1.3.56: 80 sketchy recovery profiles driven by measured surface-normal impact, board pitch/roll, heading mismatch, landing speed loss and slope. Includes rear support, edge support, rotation unwind, braking steps and slope recentering. These are procedural animation responses to measured game physics; they do not add native ragdoll forces.
1.3.56: one sketchy recovery option controls the whole body. Arm targets blend progressively, ground reaching retains one hand, and complete arm paths are checked against wider leg clearance regions. The 80 reaction profiles and smooth release remain available.
1.3.56 uses settings.write solely to hold exp_sketchy_landings off temporarily during Absorb receptions. The saved gameplay preference is restored when the hold ends. Native sketchiness outputs stay zero while this plugin supplies its own procedural recovery. No custom runtime is needed.
1.3.56: clean verdicts play a dedicated grounded recovery extracted at runtime from the game's plain ollie. Only the part after landing is played, with floor alignment, stance mirroring and a smooth blend. Low/mid/high sources follow drop height. Sketchy verdicts retain the 80 procedural profiles. Native animation assets are not included in this package.