Most of the details are included in the readme which is included below. If you encounter serious issues or find some serious flaw in my execution, please share it with me here. Other than serious bugs I don't plan on changing this mod much. I may make a second pass on it after I've had the chance to play with it myself for a while and when NVSE has its first official, non-beta release.
Get the New Vegas Script Extender at: http://nvse.silverlock.org/
Download at the New Vegas Nexus here: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38188
Death to minigames!
Real Time Lockpicking and Hacking for Fallout: New Vegas (beta 1)
by TheFlyingBuddha
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REQUIREMENTS:
This mod requires the New Vegas Script Extender (available at http://nvse.silverlock.org/) v1.0 beta 5. Because NVSE is effectively beta at the time of this release, this mod is effectively in beta as well.
OVERVIEW:
The goal of this mod is to bring lockpicking and hacking back into the realm of the rpg. Instead of being skills which simply gate your access to a minigame these skills are now used for skill checks, performed in real time, which means less time spent in minigames, more time spent in the game world considering things like stealth and nearby enemies or npcs who might detect your tampering. This mod also adds the ability to use mines for destroying locks.
This is achieved by running a script when you press the "Z" key when in activation range of a locked terminal, container, or door. While holding the Z key, a six-second series of sounds and animations (in third person) will play ending with a skill check (or the setting of a timed explosive if you are using a mine).
When the check is complete, you will hear a feedback sound and a message will be displayed letting you know if you succeeded, failed, or critically failed. If you are setting an explosive, you will have five seconds to move from the area before it explodes and the check result is displayed.
If you release the Z key while planting or making an attempt, it will be immediately abandoned with no check made or explosive set.
The check performed is a roll against the player's skill, with the level of a lock acting as a penalty. The roll needs to be less than the player's skill modified by the difficulty of the lock. Failed rolls then check against the relevant attribute and a luck roll to determine if the check critically failed. Critical failures will incease the difficulty of the lock by one category, but will never raise them beyond Very Hard. You can attempt very hard locks at 76 skill, Hard at 51, Average at 26, and Easy at 1 with 1% success rate for each given level. Each point spent after those amounts will increase the chance of success by 1%. So at 100 skill, you have a 25% chance to succeed at a very hard task. You will never critically fail at these tasks but it may still take multiple attempts to succeed.
With explosives, the mine's skill requirement will impact your chance of success with powder charges offering no bonus but plasma mines greatly improving your chance of success.
During the attempt there are periodic checks to see if any actors or creatures nearby detect you. If they are hostile or are the owners of the cell and you are detected, expect to be attacked.
This mod does nothing to the original minigames and they can still be accessed normally.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Science checks on Very Hard will be cheesable with no limiting resource. If you want to spend ten minutes plugging away with a 1% chance to succeed on a very hard lock, be my guest.
Detection may be spotty at best as the only NPCs that will get angry are the **owners** of cells. As it is, in the vanilla game NPCs did not react to lockpicking and hacking, only to actually opening a locked or hacked containter.
Currently lockpicking and hacking will have no effect on karma.
I haven't tested this, but presumably you could shoot the explosives you set using this mod. They would detonate early, but the check should still complete as normal a few seconds later.
DISTRIBUTION:
Please don't reupload the work of others without permission. That's just common courtesy. Feel free to play with the code. If you create something better with my ideas, share with me, please!
