Stable vs Experimental (Potential spoilers)

[B33rHunt3r]

After 100+ hours in stable I decided to try the experimental branch. Some comments and hidden questions ...

1) A few crashes in experimental while playing, especially when the game auto pause to load a new area. This never happened in stable. Also FPS drops and general stuttering in experimental I never had in stable.

2) The town and cities are all "messed up" in the sense that I know them very well from stable, but in experimental they are completely different due to the new ranger shops. For example, the World's End player buyable tower is no longer available, leaving only small shacks to buy.

3) The thievery skill split into lock pick and stealing skills is killing me. It makes a lot of sense, but levelling stealing is a ♥♥♥♥♥. At low levels it is extremely hard to steal anything and when you succeed the skill only increases by a very small amount. Unless you actually try to level your toughness increasing your stealing skill is only an exercise in frustration. Unless I am missing something important here ...

4) The previously "free to loot" abandoned labs now provide some additional challenges, which I enjoy. One thing however that almost got me were some spiders that managed to get back into a building after I lured them out and closed the gate behind me. Quite a scary experience when you are looting the top floor of a lab only to see spiders come up the stairs ...

5) The new limb system is fun. I started as the one arm rock bottom guy. Took me a while to get an arm, but it sure felt good when I eventually attached it. Just remember to remove your new limbs before you visit HN cities. I found that they still attacked me when I removed my arm while traveling. It seems you have to stop out of sight, remove your limbs and then travel into their cities. Just setting your destination and removing the limbs while running is not enough, even if you do it well before you get there.

I am back on stable now, but would really like to try experimental again. While the new towns and cities, the overabundance of crossbows everywhere and the occasional game crashes are annoying, the show stopper for me is levelling stealing. I mostly play and control only a solo character and have to rely on stealing things to survive. Any tips on levelling stealing without getting caught 90% of the time will be greatly appreciated.

[Skeldarkday]

What you should do is join the shinobi thieves and practice your lockpicking there. Make sure you also practice your sneaking around town. Try to get some clothes that helps you with sneaking. If the clothes you are wearing do not give you stats to improve your stealth take them off. Use a thieves backpack.

When you steal something make sure to check on the left side you are committing a crime. Do not move before that gets to 0. When it says caught stealing wait the person that heard you get back to sleep. Then try again. Don't over do it . Take a few things even if it's not something you would steal. Anything you steal gets your thievery up. Also even if you can't open a chest just working on it helps you. Always check the time it is. Hope this helps.

[B33rHunt3r]

Thank you, but that is how it works in stable. In experimental they split the thieving skill into a lock picking skill and a stealing skill. Leveling lock picking works as usual, but to level stealing you have to actually steal stuff. At low levels you almost always get caught and if you succeed the skill only increases by a very small amount. Now, when you try to level stealing on a brand new character, you are going to end up with very high toughness from all the beatings you get.

[Yograin]

Steal from downed enemies. Also if you import which I do not see why you shouldn't you will have the stealing from stable and its lockpicking which you need to level.

At least thats how it was for my squad.

[Skeldarkday]

Yes when you import from stable only the lockpicking you need to start over. Regarding the stealing the stealth is very important.

[Velkaa]

The only good ways to train thieving all seem like exploits. The best one that makes sense in universe is to steal off shelves to level up until you like the odds of taking something from a chest/safe. %chance seems to be based on the chest's proximity to the owner on top of level.

There are two easy ways to powerlevel thieving, but they're definitely exploits. For one, you need to find a knocked out person who's playing dead, or a conscious person in a cage. All you do is pause the game loot them, which the game counts as stealing when they're awake. When you get caught it will close the loot window but if the game's paused you can just continue to loot them with no consequenses. Easy 60 thieving in a minute or two.

The other way involves pickup up a stolen item off the shelf, then dropping it by dragging it out of your inventory, then pick it up again. Rinse and repeat until 60 or so thieving.

[Prysak 𒉭]

Originally posted by Velkaa:

The only good ways to train thieving all seem like exploits. The best one that makes sense in universe is to steal off shelves to level up until you like the odds of taking something from a chest/safe. %chance seems to be based on the chest's proximity to the owner on top of level.

There are two easy ways to powerlevel thieving, but they're definitely exploits. For one, you need to find a knocked out person who's playing dead, or a conscious person in a cage. All you do is pause the game loot them, which the game counts as stealing when they're awake. When you get caught it will close the loot window but if the game's paused you can just continue to loot them with no consequenses. Easy 60 thieving in a minute or two.

The other way involves pickup up a stolen item off the shelf, then dropping it by dragging it out of your inventory, then pick it up again. Rinse and repeat until 60 or so thieving.

The picking things from shelves is what Im doing and it seems to be the only legit way to lv theiving right now.

[Prysak 𒉭]

Originally posted by B33rHunt3r:

2) The town and cities are all "messed up" in the sense that I know them very well from stable, but in experimental they are completely different due to the new ranger shops. For example, the World's End player buyable tower is no longer available, leaving only small shacks to buy.

This bother me a bit, I love the watchtower in world's end, for me it was the perfect place to have a base if you didn't want to build a hole outpost just to explore the north. Same happened to a lots of city's. I guess mongrel and the hub are the ones left with really big buildings to buy.

On a positive note the blood and lost limbs makes all battle's way more fun and exciting. Exploring cannibal territory and have a one or two guys lost their legs and have to carry them while trying to escape from the cannibals was one of the best experience I had yet.

[NexAngelus *X*]

ya same i joined shinobi right from the bat. *mine 10k worth minus any food required for life and purchase loyalty :)* u can use ALL their trainners to make ur LIFE way easier. i have only stolen a few things but it levels very fast and i have had around 60-70% chance STARTING out, after the dummies of course. if it bothers u that much im pretty sure u can even research a better version to build urself in a house or base to further increase it. stealth is just running through a main street in a town for 20-30m. i can stealth and have someone know i was stealing but cant find me? then daylight comes and i just walk out lol. of course they wont sell to me but if u are importing to get mroe recruits of a certain kind or any other reason its not an issue. *also if u practice stealing in an area u dont care about*