With FNV it seems like more specialization is key...Unfortunately an almost-required skill for a char is either Lockpick or Science to access a lot of game content. What this mod will do is add Perks available at level up that will provide alternate means to pick a lock or hack a terminal(not sure how yet...maybe repair?). So far I have 2 planned for sure:

Explosive: Same thing only using dynamite. Success based on skill and stats. Higher level locks need more dynamite to open. Perk has a requirement of Explosives 75.

Guns: Shooting a lock out. Success based on skill and gun damage/ammo type. Higher level locks need AP or specialized ammo(breaching rounds) to open. Perk has a requirement of Guns 75.


Reason for the high skill level requirements is to define them as specialty skills. Not to mention taking one of your perks. Thoughts?

Update:

Got Melee working. Going to list off the features added(-)/planned(*) so far for clarity's sake.

- Perk added. 3 ranks. Req lvl 8, Str 6, Melee 60
- Rank 1; Easy and Very Easy locks allowed.
- Rank 2; Normal
- Rank 3; Hard and Very Hard

- Chance based on Str/Luck/Melee (45/20/35)
- Higher Str. has best effect...

- BUT, each attempt damages equipped melee weapon by a percentage based off skill
- Higher stats, better chance
- Higher stats, more damage done to weapon

*(Planned)

* Weapon Stats factor in to chances
- heavier weapons better chance, etc
- Need NVSE for this I think

* Failures causing possible alert to nearby NPC's

Yes, Lockpick and Science are basically required if you want to be able to get all the loot and open all the doors in the game. If you don't want to spend points in them then you can't get that loot or open those doors. This isn't an oversight, it's a gameplay mechanic. A mod that allows you to ignore those skills from the start would basically mean you could pump the 100-150 points you usually have to spend on them straight into damage/defensive skills causing your character to be far more powerful than it should be.

If you want to do this for roleplaying purposes then the only way you could do it without mangling the difficulty level is to add a new skill like "lock breeching" with the same skill point requirements.

by adding possible negative effects to alternative lockpicking (no hacking alternative from what i read) you could still keep it balanced. there were already similar mods in OB and FO3 so if you make it so that there's a chance to damage or destroy the lootinside and have the attempt attract nearby enemies, that could work.

You are so hilariously wrong I am surprised you can keep breathing.
In NV, most of the locks and hacks are ~50 skill, as are most of the checks for the other skills. More than any other game I can think of, this really rewards you for being a jack of all trades. If you have skill 50 only you will be locked out from some content, but not to an unreasonable extent- no more content than a low Speech would prevent you from experiencing.

Not to mention the fact that with Comprehension and magazines + various drugs and equipable items you can temporarily boost your skills by anything up to 40 points. Meaning that you can quite happily leave your lockpicking at 70 and still be able to unlock everything in the game.

Maybe it's just a variation in our play-styles then . My last char was a smooth-talking scientist who liked energy guns. Now, I "had" to put points in Lockpick to access a lot of items. I understand this is a part of the game, but it didn't fit my mental image of that character. Hell, he fixed Helios One but can't figure out how to open a wooden door without using a bobby pin? All this mod attempts to do is provide logical alternatives.

Example:
I make a low int Melee bruiser. If he's just suppose to be a wall of muscle smashing anything he sees why can't he do that with locks instead of me unrealistically making him a master hacker and/or locksmith.

Mine's Science/Repair/Energy weapons. Above level 15-ish, I started putting points into lockpick & speech.

I could understand doing it for skills like Melee/Unarmed/Explosives as you pretty much need a secondary combat skill with one of them so you have less SP to spend on other skills, and the traits would counterbalance that, but skills like Repair/Science/Survival are perfectly fine stand-alone. Allowing the player to focus on one exclusively and ditch the others but not take any penalty by spending a perk isn't hugely balanced as a perk is usually worth about 20ish SP (even Educated is only going to net you 50 SP), and that's much less than the SP cost of upping Lockpick from 15 to 100.

E: In any case, you seem to be under the assumption that every skillset should be able to access all the content, which rather defeats the point of varying skills.

Some people simply want to experience all of the content they can, no matter what, and if the game won't let them do that the way they want, they'll cheat in order to do it. Something like this would remove that 'neccessity' for some people, and for others would allow them not to waste points on things their character would not waste time on if they were roleplaying him properly.

In any case, I don't think the skill requirement is all that required, or even requiring a perk - you could make it a core part of the game, like the explosive entry type mods in F3.

One big balancing part of it would be the requirement of using resources in order to break through a door, as well as being non-stealthy.

(also, Survival totally is not balanced with any of the other skills if you remove the silly 'food/water heals you' aspect of the game)

So he should be able to punch open those bunker doors with the 6 metal dead bolts should he?

Changing the name of the lockpick skill to suit your roleplay needs is fair enough, you'll alleviate your fantasy OCD without killing the difficulty of the game. But just removing the lockpicking requirement and replacing it with a skill you already had (like melee) is just a cheat. Why don't you just console command everything open?

I don't care if you want to cheat OR if you want to roleplay but don't try and hide your cheating behind half assed logic

@Ringosis: If I take your reasoning to it's logical extreme if I use any mod that adds any content other than what the devs intended I'm cheating aren't I?

Honestly though, it's all roleplaying for me. A bruiser that can smash a Protectron with brass knuckles shouldn't have a problem with a wooden door should he. Anything I mod in will have a system in place to balance it out with the rest of the game if possible.

Nice straw man argument there. There are plenty of mods that add gameplay elements that alter major parts of the game without just circumventing deliberate obstacles. For example if you added a gun to the game that wasn't more powerful than any of the weapons you got at higher levels and then you put it into the leveled list of NPCs that exist in the game already so you had to find and kill an NPC with the weapon in order to get it then that doesn't alter the game mechanics. If however you just added this high level gun into your inventory right at the start of the game, that would be a cheat.




Again you've used the same argument and totally ignored my point. Sure he can punch down a wooden door, but how exactly are you justifying punching down one of those 10 foot high double thick metal bulkheads with the multiple interlocking braces in the sewers.

As I said before, cheat to your hearts content, just don't tell me it's because you are roleplaying

Personally, I'd suggest just bringing back some Fallout 2 items. Lockpicks (equipped to give a boost to lockpicking skill while using them on the locked item) the upgraded set of them, Electronic Lockpick (used for a boost on opening locks that are computerized), Electronic Lockpick Mk. II, and honestly, I really would like it if there was a way to damage doors again.

I used to open flimsy cheap doors in Fallout 2 with dynamite, grenades, shotguns, power fists, and super sledges. Heavy doors, on the other hand, were much harder, and military complex/vault-tec doors just couldn't be blown. Not even with a Gauss weapon, Bozar, or Turbo Plasma Rifle.

Is it really cheating though? Perks are pretty valuable. Give it 3 ranks and I think it's balanced. Rank 1: Easy Locks, Rank 2: Average Locks, Rank 3: Hard Locks. No way to open Very Hard Locks. I see that as fair.

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

Personally, I think that the lockpicking system is kinda weird - why is there a threshold for being able to unlock certain locks? In the end, they're still all pretty easy! I reckon a mod that scales the difficulty dynamically depending on skill as opposed to having it be a hard limit would be the best option.
As for the whole thing with artificially raising your skills? Bah! That's too cheap! I mean, I've yet to find anything more than a lockpicking magazine, and those are still pretty hard to find, but come on - it's too much bother! And, well, yeah - I've yet to find any lockpick-increasing items barring the magazine, so... yeah.

Likewise with hacking. I mean, if "SET TERMINAL/ENQUIRE" works with everything, why do you need to increase your skills? To be honest, I'd be fine with it if the PC did more stuff on higher-level ones, but they don't - so it becomes the same as the lockpicking minigame. Only, well, because of the four-guess limit, hacking is more annoying!

As to balancing - perhaps, in addition to the "alternate lockpicking based on skills" perks, there could be "extra skills via lockpicking" perks? Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much this would apply to - perhaps, say, accuracy-related perks? "Locksmith's Precision", perhaps? Likewise, Science could affect Energy Weapons - if it doesn't already.
The only problem with this is that you might end up "wasting" a perk. While having strength/science based lockpicking makes a bit of sense as a perk, how would you make something worth spending one of your few (as New Vegas only has around 10 perks, total, with the new system) available perks on? Especially if the perk makes sense!

Definitely doable and thematic. Can't see any faults in this one:)



Kinda what I'm aiming for really. Not trying to get my non lockpicking char opening everything by lvl 5, more like most things by lvl 15+.


@Ringosis: Intentional straw man btw . Just trying to illustrate that it's all a matter of degrees. I don't think it's cheating and would add to the game while others won't. Won't see me adding a free Mini-Nuke MG to the game....but that's my choice as well.

Edit:

I see it being balanced by virtue of not relying on lockpicking/science as much. I burn a perk or three to gain the ability to do what a 75 or so skill lockpick/etc could do at an additional cost. And stay thematic to my character design.

TBH I haven't had much luck thinking logical alternatives to hacking. Can't exactly smash/blowup/shoot a terminal into giving you the info. Only thing I could think of is a Deus Ex multitool via Repair.

Hell, if this turns out well adding some bonuses like the skill synergies you mentioned above could always happen.

So you intentionally made no sense? Good work

As I said before, if it was really just about roleplaying then you would simply add a skill called Lock Breaking that could break easy locks at 25 medium locks at 50 etc Thereby keeping with the archetype of your character but not letting you side step putting points into a skill to allow you to unlock stuff. What you actually doing is trying to justify making one skill do two things. Just be honest with yourself.

As for the computer hacking thing. Blast it with an energy weapon, call it an overload.

You have a skewed definition of role-playing. What, exactly, is the point of disallowing one skill to affect multiple things? What's wrong with streamlining things? Don't you get the whole "turning it into a perk costs you a perk" side of things?
Over-complicating is a bad thing. I mean, why do you think they made the Guns skill?

Update:

Got Melee working. Going to list off the features added(-)/planned(*) so far for clarity's sake.

- Perk added. 3 ranks. Req lvl 8, Str 6, Melee 60
- Rank 1; Easy and Very Easy locks allowed.
- Rank 2; Normal
- Rank 3; Hard and Very Hard

- Chance based on Str/Luck/Melee (45/20/35)
- Higher Str. has best effect...

- BUT, each attempt damages equipped melee weapon by a percentage based off skill
- Higher stats, better chance
- Higher stats, more damage done to weapon

*(Planned)

* Weapon Stats factor in to chances
- heavier weapons better chance, etc
- Need NVSE for this I think

* Failures causing possible alert to nearby NPC's

This mod makes so much sense my head hurts. How can you argue against dynamite, sledge hammer, and AP rifle ammo breaking open some locked stuff? There is room to balance this idea.

Uhrm.

I'm kinda surprised at the number of people shooting down this mod idea. OH NOEZ -- offering alternatives!

While the idea does need a lot of work, and would only be recommendable if it came pretty balanced, I think offering some gimped but realistic alternatives is a fine idea.

For example, if you use explosives on things like safes (like Easy Pete tried to do at the schoolhouse, according to Sunny Smiles)... maybe there's a chance you will just outright destroy some or all of the loot inside.


People want to bemoan about balance, but what exactly is balanced about designing a game where you are REQUIRED to take one or two skills that might otherwise NOT fit into your character?

A big strong hulking She-Beast is not going to be daintily wiggling bobbypins around or taking the time to think through the hacking process. She's just gonna use that concrete club she took off a nightkin and bash her way through that 200-year-old wooden door.

At the same time, she would be attracting a LOOOOT more attention to her actions than someone who was discretely lockpicking it open.

I don't get the hate for this. It sounds like a decent idea.

If you want to add economic drains to offset explosive entries, make another type of dynamite called "shaped charge" and give it a higher cost than the regular stuff (for example).

I do miss the old game's electronic lockpicks.

This kind of thing was pretty much default in most overhauls for Oblivion. I like it, keep up the good work! I always thought it would make sense for certain skillsets to give broader utilities. Like why couldn't someone with high repair skill simply disassemble the door or perhaps the hinges?

So, yeah, kudos on a good idea.

Personally I think it's a great idea. I always took lockpick, science and guns because it fitted my character but then again I couldn't imagine playing the game without being able to open up locks or hack computers. More alternatives is always a good thing as long as it's balanced. I say loosing 3 perks is a big disadvantage so it kind balances itself out.

I like the idea... I disagree that the game lets you be everything at once. Maybe I just don't play the same way, but I never seem to have enough skill points to get the perks I want

Update:

Here's some numbers for anyone interested to crunch while I spend the weekend with my family. For clarities sake your chance value must be greater or equal to the lock value to pry it open:

- A player's base value BEFORE random chance kicks in is Str*2 (12min/20max) + Melee (60min/100max) so 72min/120max.
- A random value of 1-20 is added per chance to give a little wiggle room.
- Final rough numbers are 73min/140max

Lock Values are as follows (Perk Rank1/2/3):
Very Easy - 75/50/25
Easy - 100/75/50
Normal - x/100/75
Hard - x/x/100
Very Hard - x/x/125

This is further balanced with damage being done to your equipped weapon by a percentage equal to twice your Strength regardless of success. Makes just spam bashing a lock for a good "roll" not very smart/cost effective.

If all goes well I'll have a test version out Monday with Melee ready to go. Look these over and give me some input. Same scale will apply to all other skils unless someone sees a glaring error or oversight in there. I still think it seems a little high for Very Hard, but don't want to negate the whole "Very Hard" description entirely Maybe increasing the Str Multipler as perk level goes up could help?