Ironman Perfect Thief
I started this mission by uncommenting the appropriate line in my user.cfg file so there was no cash to use on the load-out screen. Starts with 20 broadhead arrows, 3 water arrows, a slow-fall potion, and a noisemaker arrow. This is the culmination of 45 hours and 27 minutes of gameplay and innumerable attempts that ended with my setting up practice saves to work on the tough spots. Acknowledgements go out to Sneak and Peter Smith who were invaluable with their work on the Perfect Thief of this mission. We three spent seventeen days working out the details of Mynell's spiders, the southeast spice chest in building B, and Davidson's banners. No broken skylight! No slashed banners! No property damage of any kind! The spiders still don't know we were there! By all means read Sneak's report of our initial, successful, Perfect Thief run at this mission in the Eidos Thief Series Forum, Thief 2 Ghost/Perfect Thief Results topic posted on January 1st, 2001. Sneak is a bit of a writer so this one has some serious entertainment value! You'll find details on how to Ghost the spiders in Mynell's, Kilgor's, and especially the banners in Davidson's cabin which took seventeen days by itself and involved getting far enough into the banner textures to loot the chests hidden behind them without slashing the banners.
Ironman is a valid mode of play IMHO. The level of immersion and tension near the end is awesome.
Stuck AI:
Three of the AI can get hung up. The archer who patrols the second floor hallway between Angelica's and Porter's and the adjacent catwalk sometimes gets snagged by the ladder going from the catwalk to the roof. I drop a box onto the catwalk from Angelica's and mantle up onto the nearby crate and wait for him to settle down. When he returns to his patrol I rush out and drop this box at the bottom of the ladder. Dante has trouble with three small barrels in the second floor hallway. Just push the first of these barrels up against the wall and he's good. A purple archer can't work his way around a large barrel south of building A. This one is a little tougher to fix. He needs to be alerted to continue his route. Then jump down there and push the barrel toward building A and against the nearby crate. They don't have any problems working around it there. I alerted no AI in the final run. I could see the archer was stuck when I was returning to the starting point at the end but he'd been okay during play so I let him be.
Elevators:
To avoid bounces when starting elevators I have taken to crouching up close to the control buttons and then pushing and holding the move-back key while pushing the up or down button. This is critical in Mynell's. Any noise from the elevators and the spiders will bolt. The elevators also sometimes bounce when stopping. I have yet to find a cure for this. I tried to get all my elevator trips out of the way early so as not to risk so much on them. I did have one or two bounces in the final run but no alerts. Porter's elevator is problematic since it doesn't work properly and I always bounced getting on during the downward trips. There are probably enough boxes around to build something to climb up and onto this elevator but I never tried that.
Building A locks:
It turns out that most of the doors both on the ground floor outside and the second floor hallways can be unlocked from the other side. Just crouch and look around where the lock probably is and when the highlighted door blinks out that's the lock highlighting. You just can't see it. Go ahead and use the orange building A key on it. Most of the locks are on the hinged side of the door but not all of them. I was able to do all of building A except Selentra's this way. I didn't try Jerm's though since I had to fetch the gold control shed key for Selentra and Jerm was handy. I have been unable to work this trick on building B. What this meant was that I didn't need to visit the building A main office until I had completed some difficult parts of the mission which made failures a less costly mistake time-wise.
AI Triggers:
There are three conversations that the AI are waiting to perform that require Garrett in proximity to activate. Dante and his archer pal at the back door to building A, Dante's twin and a young woman between building A and building B right in front of Gilver's, and Kilgor and a Hammerite on Kilgor's loading dock. I kept the first two idling as long as possible since the first four AI start patrols once they are spurred. In the final run through I managed to avoid triggering the second conversation altogether.
Building B south door:
There is a grey metal door on the south side of building B that the black clad ship guards use to access building B. This is the first time I've seen this door. I'm ambivalent about it. Don't know if it's a good or bad thing.
Consummables:
I used six water arrows on the torches on Davidson's ship and the adjoining dock. With these torches radiating the spiders and the black guards see and attack each other. Four would probably do but I had left the ship until almost last so wanted to minimize the risk. I used two moss arrows near the banners in Davidson's cabin. I used one broadhead on the painting secret in Porter's but was able to get into Porter's from upstairs so didn't need to use another to get at the malfunctioning elevator. I used Selentra's silver key on his safe and Mynell's blue key on his safe.
FailOnSee:
I have FailOnSee set in my user.cfg file. I wasn't always sure if I'd been spotted or not. The spider upstairs in Mynell's could trip FailOnSee based on noise alone since he couldn't possibly see Garrett. Aside from moving from their positions I'm still not really sure what alert levels the spiders are at so the sounds they're making aren't a foolproof clue. They're normally issuing a slow paced hissing or snoring sound but can chirp and spit out raspberries when something makes them suspicious. Unless they actually move from their patrol route or static position I take all this behaviour to be acceptable Perfect Thief. The only chirp I got was from Jack Horner in Mynell's downstairs while sliding along the back wall to get the statue. I could see no way to avoid this. I tried as slow as I could but when you cross a certain line he chirps but doesn't move. He doesn't even look in that direction. With further experience with spiders in other missions I have come to know a line extends back and to their left that could account for this squawk. That's quite a distance but this line extends all the way across the water in Thief Gold: Bafford's Manor so I guess it's just a long line. There is, however, a break in this line a foot or two behind the spider that Garrett can slide through. Crossing is death in Bafford's but Mynell's spiders must be less edgy and only chatter at it. Take care with FailOnSee. You might be busted with an elevator bounce without any good idea who was spooked. Sure wish there was a FailOnHear but maybe that'd make it too tough. (ed. remembered after posting the spider upstairs in Mynell's chirped also when the rope arrow landed)
Statistics:
Time: 2:47:35
Loot: 1,665 of 1,665
Pockets: 17 of 18
Kills: None
Damage: None
Secrets: 13 of 13
Ghost: Yes
Perfect: Yes
Ironman: Yes
Saves: None
Ultimate: No
FailOnSee: Yes
Potions used: None
Consummables: six water arrows, two moss arrows, one broadhead arrow, one rope arrow lost with a poor shot in the building B stairwell secret, blue key, silver key
Navigate: Home, Thief.
Copyright © 2001, 700425 Ontario Limited. Last modified on Monday, April 2nd, 2001.