reviewing Steal Skill

S

Stg Granite

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
I never liked the way that Steal Skill acts, because it's too easy to steal anyone, or almost anyone, even if your charecter has a very low Steal. You just need to save your game and load it if the check fails.
I was thinking about making some changes in it, like:

To even open the inventory of the critter using the skill, you need it on a certain level. If it's too low, the target will immediatly perceive your action. The chance of being caught trying to see the inventory of a critter could vary from one to another. IMO, this makes sense.
or
When you open the window, the items which you will see depend on the level of your Steal skill. For example, if a critter has a stimpack and a Laser Rifle in its backpack, and your character has Steal 20%, then he will be able to see the stimpack, but not the weapon. However if he has Steal 65%, he will be able to see the rifle too. Or perhaps the inverse, as the as a rifle is easier to see than a stimpack.

What do you think? Is it possible to do?
 
I like your ideas very much, however I think it is impossible mod FO like that.

I know you use the steal skill like that (steal-fail-load it's just to easy to do...)
 
SledNeck said:
i take it you think using the steal skill is cheating or something?
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No, absolutly. I just think the developers didn't implement it as they should. I don't see a point in rainsing the Steal skill, if i can take all that i want even with it in a low level.

Oracle said:
I know you use the steal skill like that (steal-fail-load it's just to easy to do...)
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No, i don't... i did, once... :roll: erm... allright, i do, but rarely.
 
Stg Granite said:
When you open the window, the items which you will see depend on the level of your Steal skill. For example, if a critter has a stimpack and a Laser Rifle in its backpack, and your character has Steal 20%, then he will be able to see the stimpack, but not the weapon. However if he has Steal 65%, he will be able to see the rifle too. Or perhaps the inverse, as the as a rifle is easier to see than a stimpack.
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Sounds good, could be done, a lot of work though. :| Save, load, that's the real skill! :wink: You can always put a double skill check, first one when you try to steal (to see the critters inventory) and the second (engine) check when you try to drag certain item to your inventory... just a thought. :lalala:
 
Your first idea is possible... even easy. Not difficult at all to modify a script that only allows you to steal if your skill is over a certain level. However, it would be extremely time consuming. You would need to decompile every NPC script, add the code that checks for various skill levels, then recompile the scripts. I have done work like this when adding the the lootable armor mod to my project. I like the idea. Someday maybe...

As for being able to steal certain things if your skill is over a certain level, I don' think that's possible. I mean, maybe someone can figure out how to do something like that with Timislip's engine tweaks, but I can't see it being possible with scripting alone.
 
About the first idea, i would do it, but... hell, i really know nothing of scripting. Perhaps i should try to learn.
Timeslip, you say? How would his Engine Tweaks help in this?
 
I have no idea if Timeslip's engine tweaks would work. I'm just saying that, because he has been able to do things with the engine, maybe someone could use his stuff to figure something out.
 
Items are supposed to have some size modifier that affects the chances of stealing them. Maybe that could be used to make stealing items impossible without a high enough skill level. For example, a minigun would have a large enough penalty that anyone with a steal skill below 120% would have their chance of stealing it reduced below 0%. This would make the Pickpocket perk much more useful as well.
 
Forgotten Knight said:
Stg Granite said:
When you open the window, the items which you will see depend on the level of your Steal skill. For example, if a critter has a stimpack and a Laser Rifle in its backpack, and your character has Steal 20%, then he will be able to see the stimpack, but not the weapon. However if he has Steal 65%, he will be able to see the rifle too. Or perhaps the inverse, as the as a rifle is easier to see than a stimpack.
Click to expand...
Sounds good, could be done, a lot of work though. :| Save, load, that's the real skill! :wink: You can always put a double skill check, first one when you try to steal (to see the critters inventory) and the second (engine) check when you try to drag certain item to your inventory... just a thought. :lalala:
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Do you know how to do it?

Kanhef said:
Items are supposed to have some size modifier that affects the chances of stealing them. Maybe that could be used to make stealing items impossible without a high enough skill level. For example, a minigun would have a large enough penalty that anyone with a steal skill below 120% would have their chance of stealing it reduced below 0%. This would make the Pickpocket perk much more useful as well.
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This is good too. But is it possible?
 
Me :P said:
Sounds good, could be done, a lot of work though. Save, load, that's the real skill! You can always put a double skill check, first one when you try to steal (to see the critters inventory) and the second (engine) check when you try to drag certain item to your inventory... just a thought.
Stg Granite said:
Do you know how to do it?
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Click to expand...
Yes, here it is:

Code: 
procedure use_skill_on_p_proc
begin
   if (action_being_used == SKILL_STEAL) then 
      begin
         if(is_success(roll_vs_skill(Dude_obj,SKILL_STEAL,x))) then 
            begin
            end
         else 
            attack(dude_obj);
      end
end
This code enables skill check every time. If X is 100, you can pass the skill check every time. But if you put 50 or negative value -50 you have a less chance to view the critters inventory and it will attack you if the check fails. I didn't tested this code with dude_obj.int but it's easy.

Code: 
procedure use_skill_on_p_proc
begin
   if (action_being_used == SKILL_STEAL) then 
      begin
         if(source_obj == dude_obj) then 
            begin
               if(has_skill(Dude_obj,SKILL_STEAL)<20)then 
                  begin
                     script_overrides;
                     reg_anim_clear(dude_obj);
                  end
            end 
      end
end
With this code you can never see critters inventory if your steal skill is not greater than X (in this case 20). These codes are for npcs scripts(there are many). Can be useful for some special critters(bartenders, main characters...), if you don't use hidden containers for critters stuff.
This is just the simple stuff, you can add AG check, IN check... you can even make them fly :ok:
 
Kanhef said:
I have no idea... I haven't done any modding myself.
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#define pid_weight(x) proto_data(x,it_weight)
#define obj_weight(x) pid_weight(obj_pid(x))
#define pid_cost(x) proto_data(x, it_cost)
#define obj_cost(x) pid_cost(obj_pid(x))

I recently came across these in the command.h header file. These could be used to check for specific weights of items.
 
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