Lockpicking and engineer's items

[Crimsomnia]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and this is my very first post. Wish me luck.

 

I read some threads about engineering skills and lockpicking being a hard task to handle, and I've noticed this myself. But I wonder why I don't get ANY feedback about the lockpicking being failed. The lockpick ring only runs out of lockpicks and nothing, absolutely nothing happens. Not even the character says anything about his poor luck with locks.

 

And I can waste dozens of lockpicks to a single crate/safe/door/etc. Ain't it supposed to turn out succesful at least in my lifetime, no matter even if the required skill isn't very high?

 

 

And the final question: What's with the steel wires? Can I play Mr. 47 and strangle people with them or what? I suppose they're for setting traps, but I'd appreciate if someone could tell me how.

 

Thank you.

[Schuh]

The hank of wire is for defusing traps. Doesn't make any sense but that is what is it used for. Its basically the next level up of the mine probe.

 

Another way to get your engineer skill up is to mine house. Mine every window and door. It helps but you will go through grenades quick. If you play on a higher difficulty level the enemies will usually drop more grenades. I've found that playing on a higher(even impossible) level isn't that bad. Especially when your team gets up a few levels. The point is that you get more experience and your skill goes up quicker.

 

You can also set mines and then defuse them over and over. Make sure you quicksave or you will be in for some frustration when your engineer blows themselves up.

 

I hope that helps. Good luck.

[Sanjiro]

In your base where you normally equip and heal your sqad there are some locked doors and windows, that i suspect cannot be lockpicked, but you can train your engineering skill on them.

[Cookie]

But I wonder why I don't get ANY feedback about the lockpicking being failed. The lockpick ring only runs out of lockpicks and nothing, absolutely nothing happens. Not even the character says anything about his poor luck with locks.

 

And I can waste dozens of lockpicks to a single crate/safe/door/etc. Ain't it supposed to turn out succesful at least in my lifetime, no matter even if the required skill isn't very high?

 

First off, welcome to the boards! Enjoy your stay.

 

Basics of Lockpicking 101

1) Every lock has a base dificulty to open.

 

2) If your character's lockpick skill + the skill bonus of the tool being used + and a randomly generated number > The lock's difficulty, then you open the lock. Otherwise the lock stays locked.

 

3) Obviously a lock with a high enough difficulty can be impossible for a character to open no matter how meny attempts are made. But as you pointed out, there's no in-game clues for this. (However, if you open up the console when picking locks, you'll see exactly what the difficulty is, and what your chances are to open it. )

 

4) I can't confirm this (since I never bother picking locks), but I'm pretty sure you only improve engineering skill when you successfully pick a lock. So, you won't gain any skill trying to pick an impossible lock.

 

5) Screw lockpicks. Blast the door/chest/locker open.

 

 

Another way to get your engineer skill up is to mine house. Mine every window and door. It helps but you will go through grenades quick.

Why waste the grenades? You also gain engineering skill from disarming traps. So after you make a trap, just disarm the trap. This will increase your skill faster, and not waste any grenades.

[Akmatov]

But shooting or blasting open containers seems to destroy most or all of the contents!

 

I was careful to use just a pistol to shoot open a crate, but it still destroyed the MG34 that was in the crate.

 

Wish I could get the addmod to work so I would be motived to learn how to mod some of the oddities.

[Tonicboy]

First of all, let me say that I love this game but it has HUGE balance problems. One of the biggest problems is that some primary class skilsl are pretty much useless when you play a character normally. One example is the sniper's Snipe skill, which simply CANNOT be developed to a point where it is useful. Another example is the medic's Medicine skill, which will not be high enough to use various items even at the very end of the game when your skills are as high as they will get. And of course you have stumbled upon the example of the engineer who can't even do his primary skill properly.

 

The problem is, you only advance your Engineering skill by using it, but the amount at which you use it in the course of a typical campaign, seems to be far outweighed by the difficulty settings that the game designers have set for items in the missions. Now, there is a way around this which itself is due to another huge balance issue. You may have noticed that characters left at the base auto-develop their skills at a much higher rate than the ones you take on missions.

 

This annoys me to no end and I consider it to be a huge flaw in the game, but you can use it to your advantage. The reason being, engineers are not particularly useful until later in the campaign, so simply leave them at the base. By the later missions, when you really need them, their Engineering skill will be around 100, while your "personally groomed" engineer may only be 40-50. The only disadvantage is that auto-levelled characters always seem to have the most useless skills picked, so it's doubtful that you will be able to get the Master Engineer skill, which is needed to use some of the items.

[Cookie]

One example is the sniper's Snipe skill, which simply CANNOT be developed to a point where it is useful.

 

HUH? That's not even slightly correct.

 

Snipe is just about the most darn useful skill in the game! And training your squad members in sniping is a breeze! I never have a squad with less than 3 snipers. They're deadlier than ANY other class, bar none. I also have a medic, just in case, and a couple of soldiers for any needed demolition work. But my Snipers average about 3 kills to any other soldier's 1.

 

However, I do agree that Engineering is a pretty worthless skill. But, I don't agree it's impossible to get a high enough level engineer to be anywhere near useful. You're just not training them correctly. Heck, my Lvl 10 Medic currently has a 48 in Engineering. The only reason you would have a end-game engineer with a 50 in Engineering is because you're not training them.

[Sanjiro]

4) I can't confirm this (since I never bother picking locks), but I'm pretty sure you only improve engineering skill when you successfully pick a lock. So, you won't gain any skill trying to pick an impossible lock.

As i said i boosted my engineering skill by trying to pick impossible locks at the main base, but that's maybe some weird exception or something.

[Unsterblich]

One of the biggest problems is that some primary class skilsl are pretty much useless when you play a character normally. One example is the sniper's Snipe skill, which simply CANNOT be developed to a point where it is useful. Another example is the medic's Medicine skill, which will not be high enough to use various items even at the very end of the game when your skills are as high as they will get. And of course you have stumbled upon the example of the engineer who can't even do his primary skill properly.

 

Like Cookie said, what you said is not true.

 

1. About sniping: I managed to get a very high sniping skill with Zinaida, my sniper. How I did it? Dahh... sniping? Cookie explained this all to well: it seems you don't know how to train your squad properly.

 

2. Engineering: not true either.

 

To increase your skill in something, you have to use it, to do something using the skill. EVEN IF YOU DO NOT SUCCEED, YOUR SKILL GOES UP, on the contrary to what some people here said. I didn't take the care to see if your increase is greater with success than with failure (could be), but one important thing is the skill cap: you can only increase your skill so much, depending on class and level.

 

This means that a Soldier can have 110 engineering... around Level 48... got it? In other words: the skill cap to all the skills depends on the class. Engineers have a very high skill cap for engineering, while soldiers have a very low skill cap for this skill.

 

3. Medicine skill: same as itens 1 and 2. You didn't used properly your medic, so he didn't learned enough. My medic was extensively used (Gary), and I ended the game with him using all the itens available to medics.

 

 

About the serious bug, with characters inside base "training" far better then the other doing the hard work on the field: yeah, it's true.

 

One way to circumvent this is cycling characters: leave one of your squad members on base, pick a replacement. When you return, he will be highly trained. Yeah, it sucks, but...

[Kizmiaz]

One way to circumvent this is cycling characters: leave one of your squad members on base, pick a replacement. When you return, he will be highly trained. Yeah, it sucks, but...

Another way is to use the skill hack by cchargin: Watchdog. I guess it works best on new games.