Why does my Vector3.SmoothDamp smoothtime variable affect the target position instead of the actual smoothtime?

I am trying to make my character move to cover with a raycast hitpoint using SmoothDamp and it worked at first, I put my computer into sleepmode and went to bed, the day after i booted it all up again and it did not work anymore and I cannot recreate the requested behaviour as the code seem to have adapted another behaviour. Here is the code:

     using System.Collections;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using UnityEngine;
 using GameCreator.Variables;
 using GameCreator.Characters;
 
 public class RayCastFollow : MonoBehaviour
 {
     public float rayDistance;
     public float coverSpeed;
     public bool CoverDetection = false;
     public Animator anim;
     public PlayerCharacter playerCharacter;
     public bool inCover;
     private Vector3 velocity = Vector3.zero;
     void Start()
     {
         playerCharacter = GetComponentInParent<PlayerCharacter>();
         anim = playerCharacter.GetComponentInChildren<Animator>();
     }
     void Update()
     {
         Debug.DrawLine(transform.position, transform.forward, Color.blue, 0.1f);
         Debug.DrawRay(transform.position, transform.forward, Color.green, 0.1f);
         RaycastHit hit;
         Ray ray = new Ray(transform.position, transform.forward);
 
         if(Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, rayDistance) && !inCover)
         {
             Debug.Log(hit.transform.name);
             if(hit.transform.GetComponent<Cover>())
             {
                 CoverDetection = true;
                 inCover = true;
                 anim.SetBool("Cover", true);
                 playerCharacter.characterLocomotion.canRun = false;
                 playerCharacter.characterLocomotion.canJump = false;
                 Vector3 coverPos = new Vector3(hit.point.x, playerCharacter.transform.position.y, hit.point.z);
                 playerCharacter.transform.position = Vector3.SmoothDamp(playerCharacter.transform.position, coverPos, ref velocity, coverSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
 
                 if (inCover && Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.V))
                 {
                     CoverDetection = false;
                     inCover = false;
                     anim.SetBool("Cover", false);
                     playerCharacter.characterLocomotion.canRun = true;
                     playerCharacter.characterLocomotion.canJump = true;
                     
                 }
             }
             else
             {
                 CoverDetection = false;
                 inCover = false;
                 anim.SetBool("Cover", false);
                 playerCharacter.characterLocomotion.canRun = true;
                 playerCharacter.characterLocomotion.canJump = true;
             }
         }
 
         
     }
 }

The coverSpeed variable that is supposed to act as the smoothTime does not affect the transition period at all but rather the final position. when it is set to 1f it snaps right into the appropriate place but when i change it to 2f the final position is a step closer to the origin position and the higher the number of the coverSpeed variable the less the character moves to the target position. But the point in using smoothdamp is that I don't want it to snap at all but for the transition between the two positions to be smooth and preferably correct. What am I missing here?