marbleman on 18/9/2016 at 21:47

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I take the speed potion part back. It's not needed.
I was curious so I went and experimented a bit - found a nice consistent way to snatch that key without alerting the guy and using a potion :)

Escape! is a nightmare even without going for all loot :)
Also the fire tower in Mage Towers is so much fun :cheeky:

A.J on 19/9/2016 at 06:31

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Oh hey, it's you! What's up? :)

Cigam on 20/9/2016 at 13:42

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One possibility to test out. Whether I go into the first lava room of the Fire Tower after 40 mins or 2 hours, the mage always starts off in the same place. There are lots of examples like this, where things only seem to "start" when I first come near them. And you can predict where they will be when you first come near, no matter how long you have been in the mission prior to this.

So...it might be the case that you could trigger off that conversation about Cutty's coughing between the Hammers, then head to one camera room and work out a time to wait before poking your head around the corner, and the camera will always not be looking at that point. Then you will need to stay away from the other camera room until you are ready to leave, then see if there is a consistent time to wait once you first come near the other one.

Think for me the biggest problem was that jump you have to do from one chute to another. I could never figure out a 10 out of 10 way of making it.

Cigam on 20/9/2016 at 14:29

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"When you're too far off, I guess the guards just stay frozen until you return."

Definitely. Mages Towers again, when I first come out of the Earth Tower via the secret entrance I like to clear out some of the AI in that "hub" area so I won't have to worry about bumping into them when leaving the other towers (especially the Fire Tower where I may have Mages chasing me). Yet I know that if I wait near the central column for the patrolling guards some of them will never appear. I have to to walk down the corridor towards the tower until I hear them in the distance, then go back to the column and lie in wait.

Another example would be running from the spiders in Lost City until you get to the building with the hole in the roof you can drop down. I go off and complete the rest of the mission barring having to leave the Lost City, go all the way back to that first building, climb up the hole and can hear the spiders nearby on their long walk back to their cave. They should have returned long earlier, but I guess they got "frozen" near the building because I had moved too far away :)

Still, all useful to the ghost I suspect.

Cigam on 20/9/2016 at 18:37

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Interesting. I can see why they would do this in the old days but surely most modern PCs can handle the Thief Missions running 'all at once'. Wonder if there could be some patch or mod to change that property globally to "always on" for all AI. Though I suppose this would mean that all scripted conversations would start right from the beginning, whether you hear them or not.

On another note, am I the only one who is wary of using mines when Iron Manning? Sometimes the AI just won't trigger them because I placed or threw them incorrectly, and then I find it easy to not be able to spot quite where they landed. Very dangerous as I might then trip them myself. Mines are a last resort for me.