Im trying to create a flying companion that has a set of movements relative to the player, but for optimization’s sake theyre attached to a spring arm.
They have a few different positions they can move to based off the arms length and rotation.
The main issue is I want this companion aligned to the velocity of their movement relative to them in the world and there seems to be literally nothing i can do to simply have them face the current velocity.
Like this? Behold my RedArrow 
companion:
Perhaps a crude diagram could visualise what is needed better?
Regarding the tools, these two:
And the relative / absolute transform switch:
should allow you to pull off pretty much anything that is needed for a multi-joint robotic arm. And that’s before quaternions need to get involved.