Lock picking overhaul

[Night-Pryanik]

Summary

SUMMARY: Features "Lock picking overhaul."

Purpose of change

Make picking locks more realistic.

As for now, lockpicking is too heavily affected by mechanics and dexterity. Though this isn't unrealistic, the degree of this effect is clearly out of bounds. Any skilled and/or dexterous car mechanic won't have any problem in picking any type of lock, even with no experience in this field at all.

Describe the solution

• Add a new lockpicking skill in the skills list;
• Create a formula which takes this new skill in account, and used it in calculation of success when picking locks of locked doors and gun safes;

The formula is: (1.5 ^ lockpicking skill) * (1.3 ^ mechanics skill + picking quality of tool - half of tool's damage level) + current dexterity divided by four.
As one can see, most important parameter is the lockpicking skill. Level of mechanics skill and dexterity affects the chance too, but very insignificantly.
A character with high (7) lockpicking skill and zero mechanics skill will have ~70% chance to successfully pick the lock, while a character with high (~7) mechanics skill and zero lockpicking skill will have only ~11% chance.
The chance to successfully pick the lock (6 - infinity) is rolled after "door security" (1 - 120 points).

• Add the skill to starting professions, where appropriate;

Gave Burglar 4 levels; Bionic Thief 3 levels; Bionic Prepper, Special Operator 2 levels; Scoundrel, Survivalist, Survivalist Jr, Handy Man, Convict, 1 point in lockpicking.

• Add books which will train skill to some max level (2?);

Added a booklet with basic information (max 2 level) on lockpicking and added it to several books item groups.

• Check and adjust time required to pick locks, if needed.

Significantly increased time required to perform a lockpick. A character with zero skills in everything, 8 dexterity and undamaged crude lockpick will spend ~4 minutes on attempt (previously it was ~4 seconds). Because of that, I made lockpicking interruptable long activity.

• Created explicit lockpicking quality that is visible in item examine menu. Added this quality to copper, gold, silver, and platinum hairpins which all were missing it.

• Train player's lockpicking skill by amount of lock difficulty on successful picking the lock.
  Also train player's lockpicking skill by power 2 of their current skill on every lockpicking attempt.

Describe alternatives you've considered

A lot of other formulas.

Testing

Default character with 8 dexterity, zero skills in everything, and undamaged crude lockpick will roll 6 on average. He must defeat lock's roll (1-120). That means that the lock's roll must be not less than 6. It's a very low chance, but it's not impossible. I find it fair that an absolute noob in lockpicking could pick the lock almost completely through sheer luck rather than by skill.
Every lockpicking attempt trains player's lockpicking skill. On 0 level every attempt will award 2% to the next level, so player has to make 50 attempts to gain level 1. That means that player must break only 10 crude lockpicks (5 damage levels each) to get to level 1. Every picked lock will train the skill even more.

Additional context

This table shows chance to pick the door for a character with default dexterity of 8 and undamaged crude lockpick (picking quality of 3). As one can see, after some threshold (for example, 8 lockpicking skill) the character is guaranteed to successfully pick the lock.

[Fris0uman]

Is it displayed in the @ menu with the others or is it a hidden skill?

[Brian-Otten]

The idea here sounds good to me and lockpicking seems both specific enough and useful enough to deserve it's own skill. If you're working on this make sure to take a closer look at the time needed to lockpick, since it's currently way too fast.

[CountAlex]

Would you also consider adding skill books?

[Leland]

lockpicking is too heavily affected by mechanics and dexterity

I can see the issue in this, but I have a few reservations with adding a skill that's for a specific and somewhat uncommon action (also see: trapping 😏)

Perhaps as an alternative, maybe cap the rate of success garnered by traditional skills (to say... 40%?), and then have an e.g "Master Lockpicker" trait that can push that out further – which could be given to deft handed starting characters and found in a book or two... just an idea! Thanks for working on this!

[Night-Pryanik]

Is it displayed in the @ menu with the others or is it a hidden skill?

It is displayed as usual skill.

[Night-Pryanik]

If you're working on this make sure to take a closer look at the time needed to lockpick, since it's currently way too fast.

Yeah, I plan to double check on that.
I tested it on current master, and character with zero skills in everything spends mere 4 seconds on trying to pick the lock.

[Night-Pryanik]

Would you also consider adding skill books?

In my OP's todo: Add books which will train skill to some max level (2?)

[Night-Pryanik]

skill that's for a specific and somewhat uncommon action (also see: trapping 😏)

Yeah, I consider this as issue too. Also swimming.

[Shodan14]

skill that's for a specific and somewhat uncommon action (also see: trapping 😏)

Yeah, I consider this as issue too. Also swimming.

Yeah, this kind of feels like it'd need a more comprehensive approach before we get like 10 new skills.

[SkuliAdams]

Rather than getting its own skill, lockpicking is a perfect candidate to be a proficiency (it's even mentioned specifically in #31610).

[mrkybe]

While the slippery skill slope is a potential future concern, I think its worth considering that basically every single RPG system ever has a skill dedicated specifically to lock-picking. Lock-picking is a skill you can learn/master in a very self-contained manner, it won't/shouldn't benefit any other skills (though I could see an argument for it providing a little bit of mechanics xp at early levels). The reality is that there are a lot of these kinds of skills IRL and sometimes it makes sense to progress in them individually.

[Shodan14]

While the slippery skill slope is a potential future concern, I think its worth considering that basically every single RPG system ever has a skill dedicated specifically to lock-picking. Lock-picking is a skill you can learn/master in a very self-contained manner, it won't/shouldn't benefit any other skills (though I could see an argument for it providing a little bit of mechanics xp at early levels). The reality is that there are a lot of these kinds of skills IRL and sometimes it makes sense to progress in them individually.

I'm fine with lock-picking being a skill, I just think that there should be a comprehensive review of the skills needed rather than incremental changes. Swimming and trapping has almost no use at the moment, cooking vs chemistry, do we really need 4 different gun skills etc.

[anothersimulacrum]

Forum thread relevant to the skill discussion: https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/skill-merges-trapping-survival-and-launchers/23032

[Night-Pryanik]

Rather than getting its own skill, lockpicking is a perfect candidate to be a proficiency (it's even mentioned specifically in #31610).

I'm not against the very idea of lockpicking as a proficiency, but we need to implement the proficiency mechanics first, with all required infrastructure, and this is a huge work, and nobody volunteered to it yet.
Until that I think lockpicking using dedicated skill (yet of very specific use case) is better than our current situation.

[Shodan14]

No plans to overhaul the lockpicks themselves? It's really easy to make the crappy ones and almost no incentive to find any better ones. It would make sense to have at least two steps up from the scrap metal one: a regular small set and a pro set (and maybe a fancy lockpick gun to make it as fast as it currently is).

[Night-Pryanik]

No plans to overhaul the lockpicks themselves?

Yes, I planned to work on this too.

[Brian-Otten]

I saw this mentioned in the discord and forgot who said it so sorry for not giving credit, but it's probably a good idea to fully decouple lockpicking from mechanics. If lockpicking is its own skill it's already in a very narrow slot and gameplay wise it hurts to have mechanics creep into its one usecase. Realistically speaking higher mechanics wouldn't actually help you pick locks very much either.

[matt32106]

One of hackers' hooby is often lockpicking. Maybe some % of the profession should get it as well?

[Night-Pryanik]

While I'm here, I removed separate gunsafe_ml examine function, because it was effectively duplicating existing lockpicking examine function, and make examining gun safe use the latter function. So now examining gun safe automatically tries to pick its lock.

[Night-Pryanik]

Maybe some % of the profession should get it as well?

I gave the skill to several professions:

Gave Burglar 4 levels; Bionic Thief 3 levels; Bionic Prepper, Special Operator 2 levels; Scoundrel, Survivalist, Survivalist Jr, Handy Man, Convict 1 point in lockpicking.

[Grekhaus]

It seems like this would make early game lockpicking even more tedious than it already is, since you'd be activating the lockpick an average of 20 times to pick a door. Would it be possible to make lockpicking function like mending clothing, with a 'do once/do until successful/do until tool damaged' menu?

[Night-Pryanik]

Would it be possible to make lockpicking function like mending clothing, with a 'do once/do until successful/do until tool damaged' menu?

Of course it's possible.

[MirrorMorphMemories]

I know I'm a little bit late, but would it be reasonable to add bump keys to the game? From my reading, it seems to be about as quick, easy to use, and reliable IRL as lockpicking used to be before this change - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_bumping, https://acehackware.com/blogs/aces-stories/6069558-how-does-a-bump-key-work, and https://www.thespruce.com/dangers-of-lock-bumping-1835232.

They work on the same principles of as a pick gun, except with bump keys (of course) and something to tap the key into the lock, like a shoe or something. The concept is complicated enough that you should only be able to make bump keys from a lockpicking book or from starting with some skill in lockpicking. It could form a useful intermediate option between lockpicking (very slow, but silent and works on almost all doors) and prying (very fast, but noisy and won't work on stronger doors) by being fast, somewhat noisy, and working on lower security doors.

[Night-Pryanik]

I guess this could be added, why not?

[EvgenijM86]

Unless you add more content that can only be opened with this skill this feels like bloat. Finding a crowbar makes this skill almost obsolete.

[Night-Pryanik]

Finding a crowbar makes this skill almost obsolete.

Let's remove the lockpicking mechanics altogether then?

[EvgenijM86]

I see no reason to remove the mechanic itself - it has it's very early game uses. I just don't understand the point of having a separate skill and books for it at this moment. Unless there is more content planned for that skill. Like more locked metallic doors in houses, which you cannot pry.

Not sure if lockpicking even makes sense to open safes with, because you don't really use any picks for that and your knowledge about regular locks will give you no advantage when dealing with safes. Probably will need a separate safecracking skill... (and it's almost completely based on your perception, rather than dexterity).

[Night-Pryanik]

I just don't understand the point of having a separate skill and books for it at this moment. Unless there is more content planned for that skill. Like more locked metallic doors in houses, which you cannot pry.

Even is separate lockpicking skill has very few uses at the moment, it is still better than previous situation where mechanics skill used for picking locks.
Also, your strength could be insufficient to successfully pry open door (and do it guaranteed). And raising stats is much more harder than increasing skills.
Also, lockpicking isn't an early substitute for prying doors. It's a separate mechanics, which you could use alongside with prying mechanics, even with crowbar in possession, because picking locks is silent.
Also, we can always add more content later.
There are some other points I didn't mention here, but the ones are listed are sufficient IMO to justify the existing of lockpicking skill.

[Zireael07]

Is lockpicking skill also used for opening safes?

[Night-Pryanik]

Is lockpicking skill also used for opening safes?

No, safe cracking is totally different mechanics.

[Adomatic]

I find it hilarious that 'fabrication' includes blacksmithing, carpentry, glassblowing, LOCK-MAKING, and earwax sculpture, but we need a separate skill for picking locks.

[ghost]

I find it hilarious that 'fabrication' includes blacksmithing, carpentry, glassblowing, LOCK-MAKING, and earwax sculpture, but we need a separate skill for picking locks.

#31610
They will all be split up at some point.