What's the benefit of Sedative poison?

[Illudium]

I've been trying to think of a use case for the Sedative poison vials/pills, and I'm drawing a blank. Lethal is self-explanatory, Emetic tends to get targets to an easy kill-zone and gets non-targets out of the way (plus it's readily available without needing a Pickup in most missions), but it seems like Sedative vials/pills just knock a non-target out, leaving them sitting in the open for someone to find an unconscious body and undo the unconsciousness. If you were there to move them it would be fine, but then you could just hit them over the head to do the same thing. When would you want to use Sedative poison vial/pill instead of Emetic or just knocking them out? Am I missing something about them?

[Bouncer]

They do seem quite useless.

I guess it makes NPC's drop their held items faster and even safer compared to Emetic?

[Marceloid]

Yeah, sedative poison vials are super niche.

Regarding its uses:

Things that come to mind would be poisoning the ventilation systems in Hawke's Bay, Whittleton Creek, the atrium ventilation from Bangkok, and the vault security room in New York, quickly subduing everyone in the vicinity.

You can probably also use it to get drops from NPCs that consume food in open areas, but if i'm going down that route, i'll probably just give it a good shot with a Kalmer.

[Nelly]

i've used it before to knock out someone at the same time i choked out the guard watching them, so you can knock out 2 people looking at each other without witnesses. it is a pretty niche use though.

[Illudium]

Originally posted by Marceloid:

Yeah, sedative poison vials are super niche.

Regarding its uses:

Things that come to mind would be poisoning the ventilation systems in Hawke's Bay, Whittleton Creek, the atrium ventilation from Bangkok, and the vault security room in New York, quickly subduing everyone in the vicinity.

You can probably also use it to get drops from NPCs that consume food in open areas, but if i'm going down that route, i'll probably just give it a good shot with a Kalmer.

I hadn't considered either of those, but they make a ton of sense. You're certainly right that the first one's niche, since it requires a mass-poisoning situation to be possible in the level, but under the right circumstances, I can see the appeal.

More importantly, I hadn't even considered dropped items. I can totally see scenarios where that would be useful to get a key or plot item without alerting anyone, especially when hiding the body isn't viable. I was just thinking of disrupting patterns or getting a guard away from a guy, hadn't considered how finding a good knockout point can be such a pain. It's still niche, since it requires the right guy to have eating/drinking in their cycle, and you could still use Emetic, but you could say that about Lethal poison too, both are more efficient than Emetic. (Of course, it doesn't help that prior to looking it up, I didn't realize that Sedative poisons didn't put people on alert or cause you to lose SA.) Thanks!

Originally posted by Nelly:

i've used it before to knock out someone at the same time i choked out the guard watching them, so you can knock out 2 people looking at each other without witnesses. it is a pretty niche use though.

Okay, that's pretty creative. I could see using it to create some multi-KOs if needed. I still doubt I'll make it part of my regular loadout or anything, but I could say the same about Fiber Wire, Coins, and loud guns.

[HoneyDrake]

Well, I use sedative poison in freelancer regularly, especially when on a timed "knockout" route.

If you know locations where someone takes a sip of water, without anyone close to them, you can just poison it with sedative vial.

I have now played certain maps enough times to know where a suspect/target will take a bite or take a sip of water and no one will join them, so I can trigger a free knockout there.

And now here are some extreme ways of doing showdowns:

- target either eats/drinks
- you have an objective which says "poison target"
-> bring the sedative vial with you, the pills AND create more from using the fish
-> bring with you a few remote controlled explosive ducks and other remote explosives
-> just poison the food/drinks of your target. Those spots are easy to find. Either remember which trigger is paired to which location or just trigger all of them at the same time once the objective triggers

Have fun with this easy "solution".

[Tesityr]

If I may add for elimination purposes:
» security/maintenance/cleaning that have drinks nearby
» target drinks in restaurant/party
especially if they are alone or even if there are more in a room - one drinks and as they drop you throw something to knock out another one, grab the one close to you and choke them out. Boom, you've cleared a room without killing anyone.
Just another idea
GL all

[Infinite_Darkness]

I've used the Kalmer quite a few times to take out 2 people in the same room if it's a situation where you can't take one out without the other seeing and getting spotted. This way they can be looking right at each other it doesn't matter. One dart to each and they are down silently no problems.

[Dirtyshadow]

If you knock someone out, and some one finds the body... you lose silent assassin, and it will trigger a security alert.

If you sedate someone (they just faint) and some one finds the body... you don't lost silent assassin, the nearest guard will be alerted to wake up the person, but after that it resets.

Once you see and understand how the guards and witnesses react to a sedation, you realise how powerful it can be.

Its great for making people drop items (especially couriers with mercers), or temporarily bypass someone who is in your way.

[Kunovega]

Additional notes to add on to what everyone else has said:

Both the pills and vials can be converted into syringes in the med lab at the safehouse. The syringes may be slightly more useful to you since you can knock out anyone and just leave the body without it breaking SA.

Also you create a sedative vial from fish (catch fish, cut in kitchen) and the version you make has a 0 gear rating. This lets you carry a sedative vial in addition to being full on other gear. And that vial works just like normal as everyone else has already covered.

---

So at any given time you could carry up to 4 sedative syringes, or 1 to 3 syringes (normal gear ratings) and 1 vial with a 0 gear rating.

---

And for those that don't know, you can also convert emetic and lethal pills/vials (and mushroom) into syringes as well.

Emetic mushroom (can be used as is, has a gear rating) or convert to lethal poison vial (with 0 gear rating) in the shed.

Then any sedative/emetic/lethal pill/vial/mushroom (that you've gathered or made around the safehouse, or any from your tool box) can be converted to syringes (so you could have 4 of any syringe type if you really wanted to) (note that if you don't use them in the next mission, you can only store 1 in the tool box)

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Dirtyshadow:

If you knock someone out, and some one finds the body... you lose silent assassin, and it will trigger a security alert.

If you sedate someone (they just faint) and some one finds the body... you don't lost silent assassin, the nearest guard will be alerted to wake up the person, but after that it resets.

Once you see and understand how the guards and witnesses react to a sedation, you realise how powerful it can be.

Its great for making people drop items (especially couriers with mercers), or temporarily bypass someone who is in your way.

One warning, sedative on a target that is found does lose SA. The non-break benefit only works on non-targets.

There's only a rare few times you would consider a sedative on a target anyway since you might as well use lethal, but sometimes you only have sedative darts with you or the chloroform (that you can throw as grenade, or the sedative explosive that's in normal but not freelancer).

Anyway I found that out when I tried using sedatives to let targets "fall over" into water and die from an accident, but a target that is sedated and seen breaks the SA before they die. Completely counterintuitive since a non-target sedated can be found without breaking it.

[Tesityr]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Additional notes to add on to what everyone else has said:

Both the pills and vials can be converted into syringes in the med lab at the safehouse. The syringes may be slightly more useful to you since you can knock out anyone and just leave the body without it breaking SA.

Also you create a sedative vial from fish (catch fish, cut in kitchen) and the version you make has a 0 gear rating. This lets you carry a sedative vial in addition to being full on other gear. And that vial works just like normal as everyone else has already covered.

---

So at any given time you could carry up to 4 sedative syringes, or 1 to 3 syringes (normal gear ratings) and 1 vial with a 0 gear rating.

---

And for those that don't know, you can also convert emetic and lethal pills/vials (and mushroom) into syringes as well.

Emetic mushroom (can be used as is, has a gear rating) or convert to lethal poison vial (with 0 gear rating) in the shed.

Then any sedative/emetic/lethal pill/vial/mushroom (that you've gathered or made around the safehouse, or any from your tool box) can be converted to syringes (so you could have 4 of any syringe type if you really wanted to) (note that if you don't use them in the next mission, you can only store 1 in the tool box)

wow - I did not know any of this - thanks for it all!

About your other note on sedating npcs vs targets; perhaps the Targets are 'suspicious' all the time, so they 'figure out' that they've been sedated by a Hitman?

Although this might already be known, I found out by not knowing you can Throw the Chloroform:

» Chloroform up close can count as Melee

I walked up to a suspect and asked "does this bottle smell like chloroform to you?" and I ended up just throwing it a few inches and as it exploded on their head, and I got the Prestige melee bounty out of it, heh