Stagger mechanics (does anyone know anything about them ?)

[Shrekgaming123]

There isn't a single place on the internet that actually explains how the stagger mechanics work in this game. Nowhere (on uesp or not) could I find any formulas or calculators that predict the chance to stagger. Does anyone have any idea how one could work this out ? Here's what i've gathered from the existing information (for some reasons I cant add link to all my sources but if you want them idk like dm me or something):
1- https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Combat#Staggering
staggering subsection of the combat page tells us the basic stuff: a staggered npc cannot move, power attacks, dual cast spells with the impact perk, power bashes (with the power bash perk), arrows shot with the power shot perk and certain drgon shouts stagger. Force without effort improves the chance to stagger and decreases the likelyhood of being staggered. Some other basic stuff that's lacking from this page: windshear is a unique sword who's basic attacks always stagger (source: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Windshear ) and tower of strength is a heavy armor perk that decreases the likelyhood of the player being staggered (source: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Heavy_Armor ). The same page also gives us multipliers that apply to the chance to stagger when performing certain actions (one handed and dual wielded power attacks have their chance to stagger multiplied by 1, unarmed and dual wielded unarmed power attacks as well as bashes have their chance of staggering multiplied by 0,5 and power bashes have their chance to stagger multiplied by 1,5).

2-https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Weapons
This gives us the stagger values for every weapon type in the game (daggers have 0, swords 0,75, war axes 0,85, maces 1, greatswords 1,1, battleaxes 1,15 and hammers 1,25. All stalrhim weapons have a 0,1 bonus to stagger).Presumably higher values cause stagger more often/cause longer stagger animations. Testing shows that higher values can stagger more massive targets (source: cantpostthishereapparently. com ) .

from here all we have is speculation (That really doesn't make a ton of stuff we know for sure)

3-https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Combat#Stagger
User DavidJCobb conducted research on stagger via disassembly. they give a formula for stagger amount, an intermediary value that decides roughly how much stagger gets dealt. important variables for the computation of stagger amount according to them would be the attacker's mass actor value, the defender's block actor value, the attacker's weapon type and the defender's state. These findings, along with the default values given at https://ck.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=C ... ew_desktop would seem to indicate that stagger amount is 0 when the defender is blocking, but increased by 50 percent when they are recoiling or running. There are, however a few grey areas: first, it is unclear how mass actor value or block actor value are calculated or what variables even go into them. Also, we know for a fact that the defender's mass and randomness are important factors for staggering, so this obviously doesn't paint the full picture.

4- wtfisthispolicy. com
Psithief's post on this forum is an attempt at understanding how stagger works. He postulates that 1- staggering is determined by the target's staggerResist (a function of their mass and current state) and the attacker's staggerForce (a function of the type of weapon they are using and the amount of damage they are doing) and 2- that it happens once stagerForce exceeds a certain treshold, presumably a multiple of the target's staggerResist. We know this is at least incomplete as staggering is at least partially random. Moreover, he doesn't explain wether stagger active effects (force without effort/tower of strength) multiply staggerForce or the resulting chance to be staggered.

so yeah, that's all we (or at least I) know about stagger, really not much and far from enough to derive a clear formula or calculator for stagger chance. Does anyone know anything else ? Does anyone have an idea of how one would go about figuring this out ? like how would you disassemble skyrims code to figure it out ? I mean there are so many unanswered questions about this mechanic: does windshear skip the calculation entirely or does it just have [&@%!] off high values ? if its the second option, are there ennemies (ex: ennemies with tower of strength, really freaking big ennemies ) that cannot be staggered by it ? To what degree does the attackers mass matter ? Can the player affect their mass/mass value so that they take less/deal more knockback ? does force without effort stack additively or multiplicatively with tower of strength ? How do the weapon specific values for stagger even come into effect ? does double the weapon vallue cause double the stagger ? how does the stagger amount from DavidJCobb's post translate to actual stagger chances ?