Absorb & Balance

By Ninel — version 1.3.86

Feel the weight of every landing. Ride away clean, absorb a hard impact through the knees, or save a sketchy landing on one foot. Dozens of procedural reactions take their cues from your speed, board angle, and momentum.

• Landings blend from clean rollaways to deep knee bends, arm counterbalances, and one-foot saves.
• Grinds and slides show your weight shift. As you lean and correct, the board tweaks and the skater moves with it.
• Manuals let you balance on one axis or in any direction, with separate control options for steering.

Landings

Press RB, LB or F before touchdown. Your last press before contact counts. The game’s downward impact speed sets the timing window, so a harder hit needs a later press. The bar estimates the approach and the verdict appears at contact.

Prefer the stick? In the Absorb tab, set Absorb input to Left stick forward (push it forward before touchdown, like pumping) or Both. The buttons can be rebound on ReSkate's Binds page.

• Clean plays a dedicated grounded recovery, adapted to drop height and stance.
• Sketchy uses one of 80 procedural recovery profiles, selected from impact, speed loss, board alignment and slope.
• Too Early, No Absorb and Too High request a wipeout.

Hard impacts compress the legs and fold the torso. On small drops with enough sideways drift, the front foot can slip while the rear foot stays on the board. The skater counterbalances, then blends back into their rolling stance. A new trick or drop takes over as the recovery fades.

Presets

Custom settings remain saved. Heights decide which drops require an absorb. The timing range runs from the gentler to the harder end of the impact scale. Heights support metres and feet.

Controls and display

Open Insert > Plugins > Absorb & Balance. Tweak, Absorb, Grinds, Manuals and Display have separate tabs.

• Enable grinds, manuals and board tweak independently.
• Balance with LB/RB or the left stick, using one axis or a circle.
• Manual stick balance supports left/right or up/down, with the corresponding steering choice.
• Grind friction, body movement, HUD position, circle opacity and the ASCII cat are adjustable.
• Ctrl + H toggles the HUD.

For directional XInput vibration, run tools/Demarrer-vibrations.pyw. The relay stops vibration when requests expire.

Optional board setup compatibility

Try Truck Tightness and Wheel Size by OrdinaryCoconut for custom trucks and wheels. Install it through ReSkate's mod manager or its official Thunderstore page to receive the author's updates.

In Compat., enable Enable compatibility. Absorb & Balance reads the companion's active truck spring and steering tuning every two seconds. Looser trucks increase drift slightly; the steering effect of truck settings and wheel clearance changes how quickly you can correct. Changes are capped at 15% and apply to grinds and manuals. The wheel diameter itself is not exposed. If the companion holds the skater pose for ride height, Sketchy uses a shorter impact-driven animation through ReSkate’s clip player. The integration falls back to normal balance when the companion does not hold those tuning values. mods.read only checks whether the companion is enabled.

Installation

Install through the existing Ninel / Absorb_and_Balance Thunderstore package, or extract the ZIP into ReSkate/Mods/Ninel-Absorb_and_Balance. Keep files at the package root and reload the plugin after an update.

Requires standard ReSkate. No modified runtime is needed. The settings.write permission temporarily suppresses native sketchy recovery while Absorb handles a landing; it does not change the saved gameplay preference.

Changelog

1.3.87

• Choose the absorb input in the Absorb tab: buttons, left stick forward (like pumping), or both. F keeps working on keyboard.
• The Absorb tab reminds that the buttons can be rebound on ReSkate's Binds page.

1.3.86

• Grade the last press before touchdown and use the native downward impact speed for the timing window.
• Show timing guidance in the air and display the verdict only at contact.

1.3.85

• Require confirmed deck contact before applying procedural leg offsets. Keep native footwork when the support foot moves outside the deck.

1.3.84

• Let the game handle foot placement when a Sketchy landing triggers a native powerslide or tic-tac.

1.3.83

• Highlight procedural landing reactions, one-foot saves, and weight transfer in grinds in the package description.

1.3.82

• Load modules in small groups and warm landing clips individually. Stop clip discovery after the cache is ready.
• Retry the support toe sample and correct the remaining shoe penetration at the ankle.
• Remove unused graphics and development traces, and refresh the English package description.

1.3.81

• Keep the one-foot support inside the deck and account for raised ends when checking shoe clearance.

1.3.80

• Smooth the support leg and compensate for ankle height lost during blending.
• Restore a wider one-foot catch while retaining extra clearance in a deep crouch.

1.3.79

• Blend out interrupted Sketchy poses while the next drop starts.
• Keep the support leg in sync with the smoothed pelvis and limit raised-knee height during a deep crouch.
• Reserve one-foot recovery for drops up to 1.55 m.

1.3.78

• Increase one-foot reach slightly and soften the return to the board.
• End sketchy recovery and hand control back as soon as the board leaves the ground again.

1.3.77

• Start the one-foot pose on confirmed board contact when the skater is grounded.
• Increase the reach slightly and extend the blend back to the native stance.

1.3.76

• Make the one-foot catch more compact, absorb through the support knee, and open the arms earlier.

1.3.75

• Start one-foot recoveries from the recorded touchdown and show a stronger initial loss of balance before the counterweight.
• Preserve impact direction when a skater snapshot is temporarily unavailable.

1.3.74

• Vary one-foot recovery timing and amplitude, and delay the upper-body catch behind the initial slip.
• Use toe clearance to place the rear foot, and filter the powerslide input during one-foot recovery.

1.3.73

• Increase upper-body counterlean during one-foot Sketchy recovery and relax the free ankle during the lift.

1.3.72

• Anchor rear support to the moving deck and send the free foot farther out over the edge.
• Start earlier, blend back longer and require a stronger landing mismatch for one-foot catches.

1.3.71

• Slow down one-foot recovery and increase the counterbalance.
• Require more landing misalignment and guide the rear foot inward and above the deck.

1.3.70

• Give one-foot recoveries a wider weight transfer and a smoother leg pose. Require a clearer off-axis landing.
• Request the straight-landing tic-tac on one in three eligible Sketchy landings.

1.3.69

• Smooth the front-foot lift and let the skater stand taller over the rear foot with stronger counterbalance.
• Request a short tic-tac on straight Sketchy landings while rolling.

1.3.68

• Start one-foot recovery earlier, lift the leading foot and shift weight onto the rear foot.
• Request a brief native powerslide on faster off-axis Sketchy landings when the player is not steering.

1.3.67

• Make one-foot Sketchy recoveries easier to test with a higher, longer free-foot lift and a slightly lower trigger threshold.

1.3.66

• Restore the softer knee compression and use it on more mid-impact Sketchy landings.
• Trigger one-foot recovery on smaller lateral and heading errors. Increase free-foot lift.

1.3.65

• Trigger deep knee compression on a wider range of large Sketchy drops, including less direct impacts. Keep the same maximum compression.

1.3.64

• Let the knees buckle faster on hard sketchy drops and shift the pelvis toward the loaded side before recovery.
• Give the wheel-compatible recovery a stronger forward fold on the hardest impacts.

1.3.63

• Increase knee compression on heavier sketchy landings and add brief one-foot catches on light, off-centre impacts.
• When Truck Tightness and Wheel Size owns the pose, play a short impact-driven sketchy clip through ReSkate’s animation player.

1.3.62

• Keep manual steering active when the wheel mod owns the skater pose for ride height.

1.3.61

• Give the companion mod its own compatibility tab with an explanation, credit and official install address.

1.3.60

• Optional read-only integration with Truck Tightness and Wheel Size.
• Add a switch and credit with the official Thunderstore address in Tweak.

1.3.59

• Reuse joint reads within each update, including sketchy arm clearance checks.
• Use lightweight movement state reads instead of full telemetry in the main update.
• Reduce idle vibration file traffic and poll relay status once per second.
• Keep active vibration changes responsive and preserve the existing animation and balance settings.

1.3.58

• Replace accumulated development notes with a consistent English description.
• Repackage the 1.3.56 gameplay without the experimental camera fix or modified ReSkate runtime.
• Preserve the existing Ninel / Absorb_and_Balance package identity and saved preferences.

1.3.56

• Dedicated clean landing recovery, adapted to drop height and stance.
• 80 procedural sketchy recovery profiles driven by landing impact and alignment.
• Smooth recovery transitions and arm clearance checks.
• Standard ReSkate support; no modified runtime required.