Hello everyone.

I don't know what you think about it,
but I am quite sick of the lockpick and hacking minigames.

I would like to change the following:

1) get rid of the minigames.

2) change the success percentages
I am not sure however how the mechanics work actually, (any help here?) but I thought about:
Very Easy = Skill + 50% (OR x2)
Easy = Skill + 25% (OR x1.5)
Average = Skill +0% (OR x1)
Hard = Skill - 25% (OR x2/3)
Very Hard = Skill - 50% (OR x0.5)

3) An unsuccessful attempt won't automatically jam/lock the device.
Only a "critical failure" depending on the actual change of success.
(100% CoS = 1% jam/lock)


My questions:

a) Is it possible

B) if so, which files / data do I have to change.


THANKS

I think all the minigames are hardcoded into the game, so your out of luck.

Well maybe, but there IS the option to auto-pick a lock with a certain percentage.

So there is hopefully a way to add this to the HACKING minigame.

You can do it with invisible perks, similar to the way Explosive Entry works. You might not be able to make it so you can't do the minigame if you want to, but you can definitely make it so you've got the option of auto-picking/auto-hacking or not. FWE did this in F3, for example, and I'm sure there are other mods for F3 that work that way.

Well I must admit that I am rather unexperienced with GECK except dabbling with object entries.
So I have not much of a clue about scripting, game settings or perks/quests.

Can anyone tell me if there is a decent tutorial that explains the various topics, or explain it right away?

I would like to understand how the lockpick / hacking mechanic really works,
which files / datas are involved (and how they are),
and how the skill level is used in this.

Any help would be great here.

The lockpicking and hacking minigames are hardcoded parts of the .exe, you can't change them. What I believe you CAN do is change the base objects for all the locked containers so that they don't invoke the minigame in their OnActivate block and instead decide if they should be unlocked by some other means. How skill and other factors are taken into account in your new code will be entirely up to you.

There's another mod (Prospector's skillset) doing alternate lockpicking (with explosives), so I'd ask the author or check the mod directly to see how it's handled.

Thanks,

but whether the minigames are hardcoded or not is not my primary concern ATM.

I am still trying to understand the general mechanics for hacking and lockpicking.

And as I said, need/want to know which game settings do EXACTLY what.


EDIT:

Okay, sorry. One quick look in the wiki showed me at least the basic mechanic.
Didn't know it was in there.

But still.

I'm unable to connect the ingame settings with the mechanic presented in the Wiki.
The Minimum skill req. for the different locktypes are obvious,
but where are the "Force Lock modifiers"?
There should be a "Base" of 10% (0.1000000)
and some "Modifier" of -25% (-0.2500000)

For Hacking it's even worse.
I can't even find the appropriate game settings!

HELP!

Yeah I'm actually surprised considering all the mods Obsidian drew upon, it seems like shotgunning/c4ing doors and chests wasn't considered.

It's highly unlikely someone else has wanted to do exactly what you want to do and knows exactly the settings involved to tell you them. Do what the rest of us do and poke around with things and see what happens.

You COULD build a script using the Open base effect.

it's a legacy effect from Oblivion, which had magic spells to open and lock lockable objects.

I believe the base effect only takes one parameter, a magnitude, which is the difficulty of lock it will open.

This is good advice. Most people are happy to help, but a great way of finding things out is to try and figure it out on your own. If you don't end up accomplishing your goal, you probably found out something else you didn't know before anyway.