Have you ever noticed rabbits (and other animals like deer) just run at the bottom of lakes? They just... keep on walking under water like it's nothing. This mod aims to fix this without the use of any scripts.


The Good:

• This issue has bothered me immensely since the moment I noticed many YEARS ago. If you hadn't noticed until now, please forgive me. 
• Animals now tend to float near the surface + they now move slower while in the water, as opposed to walking completely as if nothing ever happened. Please, note: If the animal runs into the water at full speed, it will take some seconds for them to resurface.
• The file is as basic as it gets, no edits to any vanilla records, so 0 chance for conflicts or issues.
• Rabbits, Deer, Elks, Foxes, Wolves, Sabrecat, Skeevers and Bears are all currently covered.
• No scripts, 0 performance hit. Mod only contains two simple records.
• ESL flagged file.
  
  

The Bad:

• Well, calling it swimming is a bit of a stretch. What I'm doing is 1) slowing these animals down while under water and 2) giving the animals a waterwalking spell that stops working as soon as 2/3 of their body is out of the water. Since this is kinda contradictory, this translates to animals sort of floating partly underwater, partly above the surface (like swimming IRL works). However: there might be a couple of seconds where the smaller animals (like rabbits...) might be more above the surface than below (Praised Be!) or more below the surface than above (lol). It still looks better than vanilla (imo) but you're free to remove those smaller animals from the system via SPID if you like. I've done what I can!
  
  

Also, please note: this mod doesn't edit animal behavior. Animals will continue behaving the same way their race records are set up in vanilla/your mods. This means that most terrestrial aggresive animals like wolves, bears or sabrecats won't follow you into water, unless you have a mod that modifies this behavior and allows them to follow you.




Can I install this mid-game?
Yes.

Is this compatible with X?
Yes.

 Is this flagged ESL?
Yes.

My rabbits are water-walking like Jesus!
Hallelujah! No, really. Like mentioned above... they might have a second where they get above or below the water, especially smaller animals like rabbits, but they should return to being in the middle right after. Definitely not perfect but still better than vanilla in my opinion. You can disable rabbits in the ini and make them fully submarine rabbits again if they bother you.

Is this... the best you can do?
You sound like a taunting NPC. It's definitely far from perfect, ideally animals would stay very consistently in the line between the water and the surface and all of them would have a custom swimming animation, but yeah... for now I prefer this over vanilla. It ain't much, but it's honest work. All for the price of free. If a fellow mod author has a suggestion or ideas for improving how "swimming" works, please reach out!

Wolves, bears and others animals won't follow me into the water during combat!
As mentioned above, the mod does not modify the animal combat behaviors in water... (or any other vanilla record). If the animal is set not to follow you into water, they won't do this. But if for some reason they find themselves in the water, they will make use of this mod.

What about horkers, slaughterfish or mudcrabs?
This mod applies only to rabbits, deer, elks, foxes, wolves, sabrecats, skeevers and bears. It makes sense for horkers, slaughterfish and mucrabs not to move near the surface, but well below it.

I never realized this was a thing, and now I cannot unsee it. I think I hate you.
:(