Next Project: Making lockpicks selectable from inventory.

New Horizon on 18/4/2005 at 02:23

Now that I have edible food out of the way, I would like to know if anyone has tried to alter the way lockpicks are used.

Don't get me wrong, I love the T3 lockpicking system but the one thing that bothers me about it is that you are sucked into lockpicking mode without ever having to test the door. It's a little too automated for my liking.

Yes, I know...it's fast and slick that way, but Thief is also about interaction. So, I have two things I'm going to try and achieve.

1. Make lockpicks an inventory item that you must select.
- Adds an extra choice for the player, if don't want to automatcally know you have the key already or accidentally frobbed a door giving a way your position, this will correct both issues. Which brings me to number two.

2. Make a keyring that is a selectable inventory item. All keys collected will go on a single keyring and you must select it to unlock a door.

I guess the first step here is to remove lockpicks from the permanent inventory list.

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

doctormidnight on 18/4/2005 at 04:03

I have nothing helpful to say, but if you get this working I want your baby.

New Horizon on 18/4/2005 at 13:35

Quote Posted by doctormidnight

I have nothing helpful to say, but if you get this working I want your baby.

lol Wow, I didn't realize this was such serious business.

New Horizon on 18/4/2005 at 16:00

I can't seem to get the lockpicks to work like a standard inventory item yet and I don't think there is a way to do this with trigger scripts either. I noticed in the player section that there was an option for .."when player leans"...if only there was a "when player crouches" option. I could then make it so that lockpicks will only activate when you crouch. Makes sense since the animation pulls you into a crouch mode anyway. I'm going to see if the lean idea would work anyway..just for giggles.

New Horizon on 18/4/2005 at 21:17

Just in case someone here is more familiar with the scripting process than I am. I would like to create a keyring and make it so that any key you pickup in a level is added to this key ring and in order to unlock a door you must choose the key ring from your inventory.

I'm thinking if I set a trigger script for the key saying "When I am frobbed by player" that should be correct but I have no idea what type of action to use to achieve the adding of the keys to the ring. Hmmm.

Bumbleson on 18/4/2005 at 22:31

How about a "symbolic" keyring? Just an inventory item you must select to use any keys? Not that I can contribute anything to the solution, but I don't think it's possible to add anything to an existing item (and it's not necessary anyway).
I don't know anything about the door/lock/key system of T3Ed yet. Make me smart and I might be able to tell you if scripts can help here. I doubt it already, as I more and more come to the conclusion that the scripting system is extremely limited when it comes to implementation of special things like this.

New Horizon on 18/4/2005 at 22:43

Quote Posted by Bumbleson

Hmmmm, might work something like that but I'm not sure yet. I figured if it could be done in Dromed then it shouldn't be a problem in T3Ed....but...

New Horizon on 19/4/2005 at 04:29

Ok, so I'm thinking that I might be able to make a script that says...If the player is a certain distance from a door..."THEN" the player can lockpick. I want to try and make it so that the player must be very close to the door before the picking sequence will activate.

Don't ask why yet, it will hopefully all make sense later.

Again, any ideas and suggestions are welcome.