Cataclysm-dda: Nerf improvised lockpicks

[mark7]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Improvised lockpicks (item crude_picklock) are too powerful relative to how-easily they are obtained, and mostly render other lockpicks (and locks) irrelevant.

Currently, improvised lockpicks:

• Can be crafted with fabrication(0), an item with hammer(1) (for which a rock or chunk of steel will suffice), and are auto-learned, so are available from the beginning of the game.
• Are crafted from scrap metal. This tends to be trivially-available from when zombies start crashing into cars. It's quick and easy to produce gobs of them.
• Retrying is essentially irrelevant, since they're so easy to obtain, making mechanics skill mostly-irrelevant. A vanilla character with no mechanics can get inside a door pretty easily.
• Have no serious drawback versus other lockpicks. All I can think of is: (1) they're slightly-more-annoying to use than other lockpicks, since one has to hit the key combination several times, (2) if one is desperate to get inside a locked door, such as with monsters coming, it might take longer, and (3) for alarmed locks, one runs a higher risk of setting the alarm off.

Further, while I care more about the gameplay effects, thematically someone being able to easily-create a useful lockpick seems questionable. My understanding is that lockpicks are normally made of thin, straight, springy metal. One can't just take a random piece of a car, whack it with a rock a few times, and get a usable lockpick.

Describe the solution you'd like
I'm not sure how best to address this. I do not believe that it is important to have lockpicking immediately-available at the start of the game, as there's not a lot in the game that really needs lockpicking. I do think that it is undesirable to have it easily-available early-on, since it renders finding items like the hairpin, fingerpick bionic, and locksmith kit mostly-irrelevant.

I'm thinking that it makes most sense as a late-game item -- once one can create them, most locks become irrelevant. One possibility would be to shift the recipe requirement to HAMMER_FINE(1) rather than HAMMER(1) (not a huge factor, since most hammering tools already have this, but thematically makes more sense, as it's a delicate item and one presumably isn't making the thing with a sledgehammer), and increase the skill requirement to, say, fabrication(7)/mechanics(5).

Describe alternatives you've considered
Removing the item entirely. It's not clear that it's necessary (certainly it tends to devalue the fingerpick bionic). Hairpins and locksmith kits are already present.

[EvgenijM86]

So far I have found 3 uses for improvised lockpicks:
1) To not alert zombies with sounds of you smashing the door. Can be useful in early game.
2) To avoid triggering security alarms, which usually spawns "eye bot" enemy, and it further spawns 2 robots. But most of the time you actually want to trigger the alarm, so that spawned robots will fight zombies for you. Unless you have already killed all the zombies.
3) To train fabrication skill.

[mark7]

For (1), I think that it's not unreasonable for the noise to be a problem for the character to solve until he gets a hairpin, possibly having to break a window initially (though I'll grant that I don't play many stealth/night-stalking characters, so perhaps I'm underestimating the importance of this to stealth characters today).

For (2) I agree that the "punishment" for an alarm is rarely serious for the character (and why I didn't consider it to be an important factor).

For (3) I think that there are other items that can be crafted if one wants to grind fabrication skill. I'll grant that http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=A_Skill_Training_Encyclopedia does list it as one of the three recommended routes to grind fabrication to level 1. Still, even if providing a guaranteed route to grind skills is desirable -- and I'm not sure that the game is really aimed at facilitating mass-producing items to grind skills -- it seems like it'd be preferable to introduce another item to do it that doesn't affect the lockpicking system.

[mark7]

I'll wait to submit a pull request on this for at least two days so that folks have a chance to provide any feedback.

[kevingranade]

I agree there is little to no need to have this be craftable, there are many alternatives for forced entry, and the recipe for this is very trivialized.

[TechyBen]

Could we have a "force lock" option with a screwdriver perhaps? And/Or a "knock off lock" option with a crowbar/hammer*"? With respective lower odds of success/skill gain/breaking the lock or door.

It seems getting hold of the tools (a bit of wire or small sheet metal in game?) is simple. Using them is much more a learned technique. So entry to the skill seems silly to block. It's more a progression that is hard and slow, to even get the first success.

Is it worth blocking a simple entry/crafting, when the limit is the skill use/success rate? Or would it be better to change it to a recipe requiring wire and fine hammering tools to make?

*Last month I had a small safe to get off a wall. After an hour of failed attempts learning lockpicking, a hammer + chisel to the slightly exposed tumbler, knocked it in, and a latch opened the door. Safe removed... it was empty.

[FulcrumA]

I don't think lockpicks are that useful given the alternatives and how high the failure rate is. I wouldn't mind it however if there'd be slightly more noticeable chance of jamming whatever one is lockpicking after repeated attempts and if each lockpick would have considerably less health, being destroyed after just a couple of failures.

Very simple, improvised lockpicks _are_ easy to both make and use, realistically. They won't handle any of but the most simple of locks without a lot of skill and finesse though. Possibly "lockpicking" quality?

[mark7]

I don't think lockpicks are that useful given the alternatives and how high the failure rate is.

Well, the thing is, as I put in my first post, the problem with the failure rate being a limiting factor is that the penalty for failure isn't that high. I suppose that it'd be possible to "destroy" a lock, but that seems like introducing a big mechanic to address this particular imbalance between items. And as far as I know, the issue with screwing up when lockpicking is really destroying the lockpick, not destroying the lock -- I'm not sure that it's that impossible to wiggle a broken lockpick back out.

I suppose that there's a fair argument that the complexity of the items made with fabrication(7)/mechanics(5) is much higher than that of a lockpick and doesn't work thematically. My real interest is in gating access to these so that it's not a guaranteed, immediately-available route via which one can produce an unlimited number of the things, and maybe having a high skill isn't the best way to do that.

looks online

All right, tell you what. Here's an example of someone making a lockpick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCXSiiNEMSE

That:

• Requires and consumes a hacksaw blade

• Requires a torch (to harden the metal sufficiently for it to not break in the lock).

• Requires a grinder. A brief glance at some other people making lockpicks do seem to also show them mostly using some sort of grinding device.

The recipe being changed to what is shown in the video: irreversibly consuming a hacksaw, and requiring access to an acetylene torch and an angle grinder, and maybe bumping fabrication slightly, say, to 2 gates access to the makeshift lockpick arguably more-effectively than jacking the skill way up, is more-thematic than requiring a brilliant mechanic, and leaves it as a craftable item. It means that the acetylene torch is interesting (currently, in my experience, it's almost-always easier to ignore it in favor of electrical welders) and creates a use for the angular_grinder item, which currently has no in-game use. It requires a specific "piece of metal" in the right shape (which has some in-game precedent in using a butter knife or screwdriver to create a soldering iron, not just a random piece of metal). It also accomplishes my gameplay goal of making the hairpin, fancy hairpin, fingerpick bionic, and lockpick kit interesting and of making locks "meaningful" (that is, one cannot just more-or-less saunter into a locked gunstore or whatnot after the first hour or so of in-game time -- the lock has an in-game effect).

[jeremyshannon]

It's been my experience that makeshift lockpicks are basically a prerequisite for the prison escape scenario. Without those you're often boned and may be trapped in a handful of rooms with no way to acquire the resources needed to escape.
I'd support keeping makeshift lockpicks as they are, but increasing the time needed to pick a lock with these lousy tools. It already takes quite a while thanks to breakage, but expanding that would make them even worse.
(I know I'm always overjoyed to see a locksmith kit so I can stop using makeshift ones, but I guess YMMV.)

[mark7]

I'd support keeping makeshift lockpicks as they are, but increasing the time needed to pick a lock with these lousy tools.

Well, problem is that that's not going to realistically do a huge amount to address the gameplay issues outside the prison that I'm aiming for -- locks just don't matter much -- unless we're talking about a massive time increase, because time of use just isn't a particularly strong barrier. Like, say it takes a day to get into a gun store or whatever, then you might consider going out of your way to find some other way in.

That being said, don't want to clobber the Prison Escape scenario, that's fair enough. And I don't play that scenario, so I wouldn't want to underestimate the impact.

How about the convict and death_row_convict professions just be changed to start with some makeshift lockpicks? I mean, both already pack a glass shiv, so they're clearly capable of hiding contraband. Alternatively, the prison could be modified to contain makeshift lockpicks floating around.

[mark7]

That has a couple of benefits:

• It gives those professions a bit more burglar-ish uniqueness.

• If I understand @jeremyshannon correctly, any Prison Escape scenario playthrough effectively requires the escapee to craft improvised lockpicks. That's a no-brainer decision, so it just cuts it out of the picture.

• It makes locks outside that scenario harder to get through without impacting locks inside the scenario.

Since it sounds like you do play that scenario, would you have any suggestions for what might be a reasonable allocation of improvised lockpicks to play through that scenario, @jeremyshannon?

[jeremyshannon]

How about making the recipe known from the start by criminal professions, but requiring a book to learn for everybody else?

[mark7]

Well, I guess that'd be comparable in effect.

There's no existing mechanism or UI to start particular professions with particular recipes, but I guess it could be added.

What's the benefit of taking that route, though, from a gameplay standpoint? I guess it gives criminals permanent access to go through any lock even once they leave the prison sans worrying about maintaining their picks...is that your concern?

[kevingranade]

Challenge scenarios are not a reason to adjust how we handle game mechanics, if the prison scenario becomes unworkable, it can be patched to resolve whatever the issue is, either in this PR or a later PR.

In this case providing a few makeshift lockpicks is a good option, so do that if you feel like it, or don't and we can follow up in a seperate PR.

[FulcrumA]

@mark7

All right, tell you what. Here's an example of someone making a lockpick:

That's for quality, relatively "professional" lockpick. The simplest locks, like those of old apartment building main doors I could open as a kid with any one or two pieces of relatively thin, long metal as there were only one or two key pins to deal with. You could literally use a pocket knife and/or a piece of relatively stiff wire to do this.

I have to reiterate that making really improvised lockpicks is as simple as grabbing a piece of metal you can put into the lock. Which is why merely getting a piece of scrap metal and twisting it into a shape seemed quite realistic and believable to me in the game. It's just such kind of thing will be insufficient against all but the simplest of old locks for anyone but some really gifted (or lucky) individuals. Thus my suggestions of possibly various levels of "lockpicking" quality for the tool, with minimum requirement for certain locks.

[TechyBen]

I'll make a small note here, for the realism side (this is not against the gameplay argument, but just some infor for a perspective).

I was told that the security in the bank was not to "stop people stealing the money". It was "to make it take so long, the police turn up before the thieves get in and out". The exception to that rule, are things that can never be seen/taken (so secret labs/military facilities in game).

So, IRL the "balance" mechanic, is timescale, noise (alerting police/public through alarms), or breaking the device (jamming it and taking even more time to drill/cut/force open). A similar approach with encryption, it's not impossible to break, it just takes too long.

Even more so, locally, when the security of banks is so good, they just take industrial digging machinery, and drive it through the wall to take anything not specifically in the lead lined safe (a local bank is closed now, but a few months before they did, they had to renovate an entire historical building, because a fork lift was left in the wall XD ).

However, I would expect, someone with zero training would have zero chance picking a lock. Perhaps make the prison start have the skills needed to craft makeshift picks? Or a book given by "cell mate" that trains them?

[FulcrumA]

@TechyBen

However, I would expect, someone with zero training would have zero chance picking a lock.

In the example of my post, as a kid, I never had any training, was just curious and since I wasn't really breaking law, I went at it. The lock was simple enough that you had to have vague idea of how it works in theory ("jam something in to lift some of those blocking things you'll find there") and the rest was just a matter of fiddling with it for a bit to do just that.

But it was considerably more primitive than most modern locks people use to actually lock their apartments, though amusingly, some older jail cells have locks as primitive - it's just in majority of cases the rest of the building is staffed and secure enough that anyone who'd just open the cell would be still stuck and only get themselves into even bigger trouble once someone would notice.

[Amoebka]

In this case providing a few makeshift lockpicks is a good option

I have to disagree, it's a terrible option. The scenario becomes completely random - either you luck into picking the one door that matters, or you don't and run out of lockpicks. This isn't a challenge, this is roulette with no player skill involved.

A solution that would make most sense, in my opinion, is to replace the mechanical locks on bar doors with card readers and make the zombie cops on the lower level drop guaranteed ID cards to unlock them.

[Night-Pryanik]

A more complex solution could be altering the lockpicks by adding them LOCKPICKING quality and also adding a new field to the door terrain, something like min_lockpicks_level_required. So locked doors in, say, ordinary houses could have min_lockpicks_level_required = 1 and could be unlocked by a makeshift lockpicks with 1 level of LOCKPICKING quality. More serious door with more serious locks in, say, armories, couldn't be picked by makeshift lockpicks at all (or, as alternative, require an immense amount of time to pick).

[TychaiosIlithios]

I'd add that would be fun to separate disposable lockpicks from indestructible/hard to damage lp bonus packs.
picks 1 - wires
picks 2 - mid grade lockpicks or ones made from sawblades
picks 3 - rare factory made picks in larger set

bonus 1 - zero bonus screwdriver for applying tension
bonus 2 - some specialized tension tools, sets of random keys and some picks for random lucky raking
bonus 3 - rare pro set with the above plus rarer stuff like triangular lockpicks and varied stuff for tricky locks.

as for the process of picking, it could be changed between three different actions
1) fast picking (random raking) - bonus2 and bonus3 allow to apply certain random shaking to the pins, resulting in bit noisy picking attempts with little to damage to lockpicks, minimal skill gains - but very fast attempts with very low chance of success of each attempt (1% with good skill)
2) tension picking - full siege of the lock similar by time to full butchering, failing if interrupted, possibly damaging to lockpicks but quiet and good for training.
3) lock drilling (needs drill, charges and bonus2/bonus3) - 90% chance to jam lock and 20%-40% (skill) chance per attempt to open door. Noisy and consumes charges (hand drill is less noisy but much slower and lower success chances cuz wobbly drill rocks mechanism unless the skill is supreme), but has high lockpicking chances once the minimal skill of mech 2 is met. Successful drilling removes lock from a door. Good part of this skill is adding more utility for the drill.

[codexnovus]

My experience picking locks (that is... limited to the easy flat and tubular pin tumbler locks that you may find in offices everywhere) is that an improvised lock can be as simple as bending a paperclip with your fingers (with the help of a flat surface, but honestly, better with pliers) plus any flat, thin surface (ex: a screwdriver). With that, patience and skill you can open most office standard locks plus the ones in cheap housing. For classic warded locks (the ones you may find on old houses) you need something more specific to apply rotational force (what they call a skeleton key): my improvised one was made of sheet metal cut to make a kind of flag-and-pole flat shape.

I once tried to open a Fichet Multi-T-Lock (short story: we lost the keys and we replaced the lock. I kept the old one) and I gave up after trying a lot. A quick google for documents about the lock I can tell you is my lack of experience, not my tools.

In general, save for specific locks, you can pick any lock with an "improvised lock". Expert kits make it way, way faster (let's say it takes me a good 10 minutes to pick a 7 latch lock, but I've seen people doing it in seconds with an electric pick).

So although I also think is a bit easy to craft... the fact is that improvised picks are easy to craft in real life. The better the tools, the faster you can do it, but in the end, experience is what determines success.

I would say that what an improvised lock can cause is a higher chance of breaking a lock, specially if it's very cheap (mechanism breaks, for these locks is better to find an exploit than trying to pick it) or it's very expensive (mechanism has fail safes that break if you try to pick the lock with too much force). Electric lock pickers and good skeleton keys improve the chances of not breaking the lock.

So real life wise, the recipe is appropriate. Game wise (having been played only on 0.D, just started with experimental, so if things changed...)

I tend to value a thing as OP when is high on my list of things to get. For example, my second favorite CBM implant is the Internal Furnace (the first would be the integrated multi-tool). Internal Furnace is, essentially, the best way (specially on 0.D -no bionic limit- when you start hitting the 5k power storage) to recharge your cyborg: you can go from 0 to 10K in almost an instant by eating 128 two-by-fours (cheap to collect either in houses or forests, specially if you have running a faction camp). Combine this with the UPS CMB and you will never have to carry bulky UPS anymore. With all other methods (save for the plutonium reactor, that I never got, and battery, though you need a vehicle with enough power, and several hours), you need to wait so long for reloading your internal energy that the Internal Furnace is a game changer: i never got a power armor but probably that would had make me almost invincible.

So is no wonder Internal Furnace has been deprecated in experimental. It makes the game an order of magnitude easier.

So, the improvised lockpick is easy to make, and if you have enough mechanical skill, is quite usable to pick a lock, and does more or less the same job as a professional lock kit. But is really a game-changer?

When I start at a refuge, the first think I do is try to craft a makeshift crowbar: You only require one pipe plus a stone (for hammering into place), and I never found a locked door that I couldn't pry with it (that I could pry with a normal crowbar, though fire axes are pretty easy to find in cities and that is my favorite prying tool). Is the makeshift crowbar OP?

I like to use the improvised lockpick, specially at the beginning of the game, but I don't think is really a game changer (as internal furnace was, for example); I find it a bit useless to grind skils, and is replaced easily once you find a professional set of picks.

So I don't think, real life wise or game wise, that the improvised lockpick is OP or too easy to make. My only qualm is that I personally would replace scrap metal for wire, and would make a screwdriver (or something with screw-driving quality at least 1) a requirement for picking locks with the improvised lockpick. But I guess this would be a problem mechanics-wise.

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