Real Time Lockpicking

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migck

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miguick

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About this mod

Gets lockpicking out of a menu and into real time: Your lockpicks are now the currency used to open locks, your skill in Security is your ability at spending them, and getting caught is now a real threat.

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[size=7]Real Time Lockpicking[/size]

Category: Immersion

Requirements: Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.416, Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)

Author: migck

Complementary: Real Time Lockpicking minigames by LogicDragon, it should be compatible with this mod.

Description

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Gets lockpicking out of a menu and into real time: Your lockpicks are now the currency used to open locks, your skill in Security is your ability at spending them, and getting caught is now a real threat.

Details

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Are you able to open a “Very Hard” lock without breaking a single lockpick with a Security skill of 5? Kinda takes the “Hard” part out, huh? When was the last time you got caught picking a lock? Is that even possible?

You may disagree, but due to the overly simplistic design of the lockpicking minigame and the above issues, I find Security as one of the most trite and useless skills in the game. And once you have the Skeleton Key, Security becomes a nice icon in your stats screen.

There are mods that address all of this rather nicely, such as Zumbs’ Lockpicking Mod or Fearabbit’s Morrowind Lockpicking. I tried both, and I took note of the things in them that I like and dislike. And with some OBSE script know-how, I set out to create yet another real time lockpicking mod, because in variety lies fun (or so said the penguin in my elevator). And now, here is how this mod works:

This mod doesn’t substitute anything in the game. Oblivion’s Lockpicks are not touched directly, nor is the Skeleton Key, and you still need either of them to attempt to pick locks. The lockpicking menu is nulled like in the above two mods to eliminate the hardcoded feature of the lockpick menu popping up whenever you activate a locked door or container. If you are using any HUD replacers like Darn’s, backup your lockpick_menu.xml before installing this mod, and ensure lockpick_menu.xml remains as a 1Kb empty file.

When you have lockpicks in your inventory, you will find a token “Lockpicks” weapon at the end of your weapons inventory tab. This dummy weapon has no reach, no damage, no weight and 1pt durability. It doesn’t appear in the enchanting menu. And if it finds itself anywhere else than in your inventory, it makes itself disappear. When you have it equipped and drawn, your attack and block controls are disabled. So yeah, you can’t do much with it in case you had funny ideas… Except picking locks of course! To start picking a locked container or door, simply look at it and leftclick. If you have the key to the door or container, the mod will inform you of that and nothing will happen, just activate it to open it. But otherwise you will enter lockpicking mode.

The mod will now calculate the time it will take you to open the lock and the amount of lockpicks you will spend at it. The settings used for this can be customized at the “MigLockpicking.ini” ini file.

The time it will take you to open a lock is always at least 1 second, and can be set in the timerBase variable (default 1). The lock’s level (a number from 0 to 99) gets multiplied by timerDifficultyMult (default 0.15) to determine the extra seconds it takes, and your skill in Security plus any luck modifiers gets multiplied by timerSkillMult (default 0.1) and the result gets subtracted. So at 100 skill, a very hard lock (lock level 99) takes by default 1 + 99*0.15 – 100*0.1 = 5.85 seconds to open. The variable timerMax (default 10) prevents the time it takes from going over it regardless of the lock, because high lockpicking times can be quite frustrating.

Next, the cost in lockpicks to open the lock is determined by the locks difficulty level (Very Easy = 1, Easy = 2, Average = 3, etc…) multiplied by DifficultyMult (default 2), minus your security skill multiplied by skillMult (default 0.1), and the final result is rounded up. You can set a minimum and maximum lockpick cost regardless of the lock with minLockpickCost and maxLockpickCost (default 0)

So with a skill of 100, a very hard lock (difficulty 5) has a lockpick cost of 5*2 – 100*0.1 = 0, and thus you will be able to open any lock without expending lockpicks (kinda like the armorer master perk)

While in lockpicking mode, you will only progress with the lock while you look at it, looking around will pause the attempt. Lockpicking mode is aborted at any time if you:

– Move away from the lock

– Unequip the Locpicks weapon

– Press the block or activate keys

– Run out of Lockpicks

– Enter dialogue, container or loading menues

You must know this in case you need to abort the lockpick attempt and get away due to dangerous conditions.

If what you are trying to break into is off-limits to you (a.k.a. you get the red icon when looking at it), you can get caught by people witnessing you lockpicking attempts. You will be reported as trespassing if you are seen by a guard (obviously), a NPC whose disposition to you is less than twice his responsibility (and not charmed to 100 disposition nor commanded with magic), or of course the owner of whatever you are attempting to break into (this includes members of a faction if what you are picking belongs to that faction) , so make sure you are not seen while lockpicking! (Companions following you will be detected by the mod and should not report you)

If the lockpick cost is greater than 0, you will break a number lockpicks equal to the locpick cost, at a rate equal to the time it takes to crack the lock divided by the cost in lockpicks (and the “Broken Lockpicks” misc stat will be adjusted accordingly). Every broken lockpick will train your security skill up by the TrainBrokenPickMult setting, default 0.25 = one quarter of a skill use. You can run out of lockpicks, in which case the lockpick attempt will be aborted and the lock will remain closed. Otherwise, once the time is up, you will hear a nice unlocking sound and the lock will be open, your “Locks opened” misc stat will go up by one, and your security skill will be trained a number of points equal to the locks’ difficulty level.

What about the Skeleton Key? All of the above applies too! Once you achieve the Skeleton Key, you will find another dummy “Skeleton Key” weapon in your inventory as long as you are holding the original as well. The Skeleton Key is used the same way as the regular lockpicks, with some differences:

You can set a skeletonMaxUses variable in the ini (default 1), and you will only be able to use the Skeleton Key that number of times EACH DAY. Or you can set to 0 to disable any limits to the uses it has. I suggest you use this setting because it makes this artifact much less overpowered and allows the regular lockpicks to retain some usefulness in the game after you get it.

Of course, the Skeleton Key never ever breaks and can open any lock you point it at, but the time it takes to open the lock is still calculated normally. Given that in vanilla it gives you a 40 pts buff to your security, this shouldn’t be a problem. You can remove this buff if you want with the skeletonNoBonus ini setting.

A final mod setting for die-hard players is the restrictLock setting in the ini (default 0). If you set it to something greater than 0, it will prevent you from picking locks with a difficulty level > your current security perk + the restrictLock setting value – 1. So for example, if you set it to 1, and are a novice of Security (perk 1), you won’t be able to pick locks harder than “very easy” (level 1), and thus it will behave very similar to the lockpicking skill restriction in Fallout 3. If you set it to 2, and are a journeyman of Security (perk 3), you will be able to pick up to “hard” locks (level 4) but not “very hard” locks (level 5)

If you use it, it doesn’t make sense to set it to something higher than 4 (allows all locks for all levels). I don’t recommend using it at all because you will always end up finding a lock that needs to be picked no matter what in order to progress, and the annoyance of not being able to offsets the possible immersion value.

While you are in jail, you only have one lockpick available and thus it would normally be impossible to try to escape until you can open hard locks without spending lockpicks. Thus, a setting called escapeMult will give you a % chance per level of Security skill (default 1%) if enabled to avoid breaking your lockpick when the script rolls for that while you are in jail. It is cumulative with the Unbreakable perk below.

New in 1.4 is an option to make it illegal casting open and lock spells on off-limits doors and containers, under the IllegalMagic setting. If you are seen by a suitable witness (as per the same rules as when you are lockpicking) when these spells hit their target , you will be reported as tresspassing.

Version 1.5 introduces new Security perks to make for the loss of the vanilla “tumbler holding” ones. These perks are inspired by the Security perks from Skyrim, and can be customized by the player to enter in effect at different skill thresholds in the .ini

The new perks are:

– Unbreakable: by default it is set as a light version of the perk from Skyrim, activating at Apprentice level, and giving your lockpicking attempts a 0.4% chance per skill level in Security to avoid breaking the lockpick. Which will ease the initial stages of the game when lockpicks are in short supply.

– Golden Touch: by default activates at Journeyman level, adds additional gold to containers you pick which already have gold.

– Wax Key: by default activates at Expert level, will give you a copy of the key from the lock you have picked, if you don’t have one and if the key isn’t a quest item. Note that any keys you get from picking off-limits property are considered stolen property

– Treasure Hunter: by default activates at Master level, giving any containers with magical loot that you pick an additional random magic item drawn from your game’s lists

Again, all these perks are customizable in the .ini. You can change at which skill mastery level they come into effect (even have two in the same level), and the chances for unbreakable lockpicks and extra loot, or even disable a perk completely if you don’t like it.

Note that if you use any open or lock magic effects on a locked container, you will forgo any extra loot that the perks would add. The loot perks will only work if you open the container with a key or lockpick, and only once per container and cell reset.

Suggestions

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tejon’s Lock Bash Omega, a vital mod when using this mod. The possibility of running out of lockpicks or finding a lock too hard is now real, and this mod will provide you with an alternative method to open them and save some lockpicks.

TheNiceOne’s Enhanced Hotkeys, use it to have your lockpick and Skeleton key token weapons ready with the press of a key whenever you bump into a lock

TheNiceOne’s HUD Status Bars, write in its ini file:

set tnoHSB.hud_color to sv_Construct”15*(tnoHSB.val>0)”

set tnoHSB.hud_val to sv_Construct “aaaMigLockpickQ.timer”

set tnoHSB.hud_min to sv_Construct”aaaMigLockpickQ.timer2″

set tnoHSB.hud_max to sv_Construct”0″

set tnoHSB.hud_x to50

set tnoHSB.hud_y to52

SetStage tnoHSB 10

and you will have a bar that gets filled up as the time left to open the lock goes down.

ConScribe, will log info from this mod if the Debug setting is enabled. Get it anyways as it logs everything from every mod, vital for the bug chaser!

Technical

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Drop the contents in your Data folder, or even better install through BAIN. Activate MigLockpicking.esp in your launcher of choice. You can customize the settings in MigLockpicking.ini if you want to, though I suggest using the default values.

To uninstall, remove MigLockpicking.esp, IniMigLockpicking.ini, meshesCharacters_MaleIdleAnimsMigLockpicking.kf, and menuslockpick_menu.xml, and restore your lockpick_menu.xml if using a HUD replacer.

Minor incompatibility with HUD replacers, since the mod has to overwrite lockpick_menu.xml with a null version, backup that file before installing. Other than that doesn’t matter where it loads.

There might be problems when picking locks in first person if you use a mod that replaces the player’s skeleton or animations, like Deadly Reflex or Uneccesary Violence. If this is your case, here is what you can try:

– In the ini, set the firstPersonComp setting to 1

– If that doesn’t work, go to DataMeshesCharacters_1stPerson and see if there is a file named ‘sneakstaffattackright.kf’. Copy it and paste it into DataMeshesCharacters_MaleIdleAnims . Now there delete the file from my mod named MigLockpickingComp.kf and rename the file you pasted to that

Credits

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Zumbs, for his Lockpicking mod which was the inspiration to create this.

LogicDragon, for invaluable help and advice pointing out flaws in the mod. Check out his Real Time Lockpicking Minigame mod, which should even be compatible with this one.

The OBSE Team for allowing the impossible.

LHammonds for so many cooked readmes

Bethesda for this jewel of a game.

Tools Used

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Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)

TES Construction Set

Readme Generator

Licensing/Legal

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You can do whatever you want but that is no guarantee that you will succeed.