FMs - Ghost/Perfect Thief Results (Part 6)

 

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1.            18th Jul 2008, 02:50 #201

goldsla

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Broken Triad, Part 1: Arkford

FM: Broken Triad, Part 1: Arkford (BrokenTriadv1_0.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 3:30:54

Loot - 2010/2010

Pockets Picked - 4/4

Locks Picked - 26

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 1

Secrets Found - 8 of 8

Consumables - 1 water arrow, 1 moss arrow

 

Comments:

This was a mission that I was supposed to beta test. Unfortunately my PC decided to have a brain tumor and heart attack at the same moment. So I was out of action for the crucial testing months.

 

Now that I am back up and running, rather than try and resume where I left off with ghosting walkthroughs, I thought I would try this new mission. It continues the story line of Ominous Bequest in the City of Arkford, where Garrett is contemplating a museum heist.

 

Ghosting this mission, was not too bad. There were a couple of tricky spots, and finding all the loot was exceptionally challenging, at least for me.

 

I got slightly over halfway through the mission when a bad load of the FM locked me out from interacting with some of the loot, books, and switches. In retrospect, this was a good thing, as it allowed me to restart the mission with a better understanding of what I was doing and that allowed me to discover 4 secret areas that I had previously missed, including one that had some rather nifty puzzles to solve. I rather doubt I would have discovered the Riddler's Tomb without having to re-explore that catacombs. This is a mission where it really pays dividends to look at everything, up, down, and sideways, and on my first partial run through, I was more than a little sloppy!

 

As I said, most of the ghosting was routine, with only a couple of tricky spots.

 

Looting the casino, for me, was hard. There were very few dark areas, and no way to dim or eliminate the lights. While the casino cashier was reasonably oblivious, the croupier and gamblers were exceptionally sensitive. Looting the slot machines took careful leaning while lock picking to make sure that no one alerted. (I was fortunate in that I noticed a slot machine's slot was frobable, otherwise I might never have thought to pick them. When I looted this area before my first load when belly up, I missed that entirely.)

 

But the casino paled in comparison to the crematorium. This is towards the end of the mission. Garret has been dumped in a furnace, escapes, only to discover insubstantial zombie-like creatures wandering about. They appear to be composed of cremated remains, and are quite alert and nasty. Getting by the first two is not too bad. The first one materializes from an urn behind you, and if you pick the lock on a door quickly enough it never notices that you were there. The next one is wandering a hallway. If you pick the right shadows to hide in, it passes you by. (If you pick the wrong shadow and it bumps into you, it tears out your throat.) But the third one is standing on a ramp, facing down, blocking you from getting by. If you try to creep past, it nails you. Fortunately, there is an elevator with a gurney on it at the top of the ramp. A water arrow (for silence) to the down button, and a perfectly timed rush to the shadows by the elevator (hard to time because it is hard to determine where this guy is looking, being insubstantial and all), up onto the gurney, press the button, ... and did I mention another of these ashen zombies is upstairs wandering the halls? You need to time your appearance upstairs so that he does not see you. Then hiding in the shadows at the top of the ramp, you tail the last fellow through a door and to another elevator. If you stay on the zombie's right hand, he will not see you as he turns left for a return circuit.

 

The moss arrow went to a good cause in silencing a noisy floor patrolled by a giant spider. His pattern seemed almost random. Fortunately, there were a few giveaways as to when to make the run for a gate switch and back. But I could not run on that surface without alerting the spider. Not for lack of trying. Finally I remembered that I had some moss arrows, and that using one was not a sin. After that realization the spider was easy to deal with.

 

Near the end of the mission, a demon has run amok, killing nearly everyone in town. You are clearly supposed to take a specific action to end the mission, but I decided that as long as everyone was dead and out of the way, I would see if I could find any more loot. One item was behind a previously impassible door, the key to which I discovered in the crematorium.

 

But that is not what intrigues me. What intrigues me is that everyone is dead, whether or not a door was open to allow the demon access, except for the folk at the casino. They continue, merrily gambling on, oblivious to the havoc outside the casino doors. Weird. Was that intentional or an oversight?

 

While this is not the tightest mission that Eshaktaar has created, it is a good one, clearly designed to allow ghosting, but not a complete ghosting giveaway either. There are a couple of spots where you have to be careful to succeed.

 

The real challenge in this mission was not ghosting, however, it was in finding all those bloody secrets! I literally had to just be looking just right while evading a guard or three to see the triggers. I would like to think that the secrets are easier to find on a blackjack run. There you would not be under time pressures while looking about. But ghosting ... I was just very lucky to find them all. It was definitely not any special skill on my part, just old fashioned luck.

 

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2.            18th Jul 2008, 12:07 #202

Klatremus

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Great to see you back in action Larry!  Your reports are entertaining to read as always. I am attempting to Supreme BT in a few weeks time; excited to see how that goes.

Klatremus' Supreme Thief Site - Walkthroughs, Loot Lists & Ghost Reports

 

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3.            18th Jul 2008, 12:23 #203

Klatremus

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FM: A Night In Rocksbourg - A New Beginning (part 1)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Failed

Supreme Ghost - Failed

Perfect Supreme - Failed

Time - 1:50:59

Loot - 2968/3068 (Supreme: 2306)

Pockets Picked - 4/11

Locks Picked - 17

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 2/2

Consumables - 2 Water Arrows (in Namez' courtyard)

 

Over two months since my last report, but here it is! 

 

Comments:

 

After all the fuzz around DrK’s newest mission in his Rocksbourg-series, I decided to check out this campaign for real. I got way more than I bargained for...

 

After a while spent in the city of Rocksbourg, it was time to leave. My main goal was to make it past the city walls toward the hammer cathedral. Along the way I needed to find a sample of the mechanists’ newly extracted metal ore, as well as Lord Namez’ prized statuette, plus 2,000 in loot. I had already finished the campaign looking for all the loot, so I knew I was up for a real challenge.

 

To the North

Brought my tools from the bedroom and a rope arrow from the stash in the armory. Read the keepers’ note and Geribald’s letter for closer instructions; dropped them back after use. Also returned the hideout key and locked the door when leaving. In case I needed to return I knew about the secret entrance through the attic crawlspace. An early easy-to-miss stack of coins rested on a desk in the neighboring apartment (see image). I descended to the streets, stole the purse off Andrew and planned my travels from there.

 

Neither the drunk nor Walley the guard alerted to my presence, so I could walk the streets surrounding the hideout quite freely. Looted the narrow hallway below the hideout first. It included a locked study with coin stacks, and a very hard-to-see purse in the corner behind some crates (see image). I appreciate a proper amount of hard loot if they are placed logically, and this mission provided just that (as opposed to the sequel, which I will come to in a later report). Other FMs scatter loot in seemingly random locations leading to nothing but frustration for the player; but I digress. Overheard the important conversation between the guards at the northeastern gate. My objectives changed to include finding the source of Namez’ insanity, plus locating the cellar with the strangely behaving statues. Note that these statues are totally separate from the statuette in the initial objective. From this location I also heard a female guard settling from an alert. Later realized it was the dark-skinned woman in the unreachable alley east of the gate. [Actually, she is reachable through some acrobatic rope arrow maneuvers; thanks to Aspirin and DrK] She can be seen from the basement workshop, a continuation of the aforementioned hallway system. She also alerted to the pickable chest there. I thus had to skip this artifact and the coins from the study for Supreme, totaling 92 gold.

 

The situation by the northeast gate got a little tricky. To reach Roebuck’s apartment I had to cross the courtyard somehow. Quickly realized Supreme was in for another skip. I only had 1,068 gold to work with, and figured it would be tight in the end for that mode. Biggs’ purse I easily grabbed from the shade. To cross the street I found a path so that the torch got blocked by the pillar closest to the wagon. Experimenting, I managed to avoid any comments from the sentry Flint. I quickly jumped onto the wagon and backpedaled into the dark doorway; still no alerts. I could not reach the tunnel to the west of here without him grumbling though. I accepted the bust and skipped the remainder of this section for Supreme, another 340 gold. For Ghost I entered the basement unbothered. Also reached through the bars and stole the bum’s purse. Entered Roebuck’s room by roping up by the wooden fence (see image); that way I didn’t have to deal too much with the restless archer outside. Had to dodge him crossing the rafters to the south though. Waited for him to turn east and went for it. Flint grumbled some but all within the rules. Stole the goblet leaning across the fence. Had to wait on the rafters for the perfect moment to drop down, when Biggs headed down the tunnel and the archer had his back turned. Flint gave another unsettling remark as I exited to the west.

 

Heading Southwest

Three paths existed into the south and western part of the city. One was through a mechanist basement in the southeast, a road leading past the entrance doors of Namez’ main courtyard. A civilian here always commented on me passing the street corner, so this route was quickly discarded. The second path utilized the sewer watchman’s apartment in the center of the map. Another civilian guarding the opposite side made this route equally impossible. The third route through the sewer canal therefore became the only viable option. It involved several obstacles, in particular a female archer on a bridge to the north and the canal patrolman carrying a lantern. Before worrying too much about them though, I had to grab the vital library key behind the sewer grate (see image) and attempt to steal the only piece of loot in this part of the map. It was located west of the bridge, in a rundown area by one of the entrances into the Farglow district. I dropped over the metal fence north of the bridge, as the archer looked elsewhere. She had two general angles but shifted quite unpredictably, so it was a case of much saving and reloading. After stealing the key I hid in the doorway at the top for the lantern guy to pass. There was an additional patroller in the streets occasionally stopping by the lady to have a chat. They didn’t actually say anything, but gesticulated now and then to simulate a conversation. I timed him and the lady’s angle in order to enter the alley by the homeless girl Tramp. She was sleeping very lightly, and the smallest noise gave me away. The doorway entering the streets from the side alley was metal and I had to go real slow to keep her from waking. Each of the pillars by her “bed” had dark spots protecting me from the streetlights, and I used these to reach the crowded area further west. Once there, obtaining Sinth’s purse was relatively effortless (see image).

 

After returning to the canal the problem was how and where to pass the watchman. His lantern eliminated all benefits of shade, so I had to find a physical barrier instead. Realized I could use the wooden foundation of the building south of the bridge as attachment for a rope arrow. AIs have limited vertical eyesight so I figured climbing a fair ways up while letting the guard pass could let me off the hook. It certainly did (see image). I turned around and retrieved my arrow without a peep from the lady on the bridge. Had to sprint-tap through the water to the opposite end before the watchman’s return. There was another pair starting a convo on the deck above, but I managed to lurk my way up the stairs and around the corner undetected.

 

Scouring Around

The nobleman from the previous conversation had a route around the streets afterwards. He periodically stopped outside a woman’s balcony in the west. As he left I managed to steal the loot from her patio table. There was a sleeping archer on a ledge to the north of this, only reachable from the woman’s balcony railing. A flaming torch made me clearly visible, but a nearby pillar blocked part of her view. It made me able to mantle the staircase railing unseen. Problem was, the railing surface was metal and the woman was facing my way. There was a large enough gap in the metallic fence above to reach the roof, but my clunky boots didn’t make the job easy. In the end I had to drop onto the balcony’s “sweet edge” and make the mantling jump from there. The balcony’s archway then obstructed her line of sight and my boots kept still. The guard didn’t mind me passing, though his neck will definitely feel it after that nap! Robbed his bedroom, including the well-hidden purse beside the shelving unit (see image).

 

Returning to the said balcony was harder. First I had to time the nobleman and the swordsman’s patrol routes. Second I had to use the sweet edge of the top ledge to hop onto the sweet edge of the lower fence (see image). It was tough to find the right angle and speed to make the landing silent, plus it had to be at the spot where I was covered by the pillar to the right. Lastly I had to get fully onto the railing in order to drop onto the stairs quietly. This scenario had a lot of nifty moves that required knowledge on a few taffy tricks, all manageable within Supreme rules though.

 

Another thing, there was a rather funny quarrel by the gate in the southwest. An archer ended up running away scared, finally positioning himself by the crates beside the woman’s balcony. There he stood looking rather pissed, fidgeting around. I imagine the area to be much harder to Ghost with him there, so I would make sure not to trigger that conversation too early.

 

Had to skip some loot in a basement close to the southern gate. Two black spiders inside alerted to my lockpicks, no chance for Supreme. The valuables were easy to obtain for normal Ghost. Cleaned the rest of the southwest without trouble. Had to skip a purse on a civilian at the southwestern gate. DrK definitely didn’t have Perfect Thief in mind when inserting that one. No extinguishable lights around and no less than seven AIs overlooking the courtyard. An invisibility potion would’ve been nice, to at least get a chemical success. In fact, that would have been brilliant!

 

An Easter egg ring lay in the streets on the metal bridge in the south (see image). I had to come via the door above the bum to avoid alerts. Another secret was just east of this, a jewelry box in a barrel (see image). I barely avoided the looks of the civilian through the double doors. Had to watch the patrolling mechanists also.

 

Getting Down to Business

Entered the ventilation system through the grate above the homeless guy. The air ducts were noisy but not worse than usual. Had a little trouble retrieving the ore from the mechanist study; both patrollers outside the window could hear the lockpicks working. Got it in the end, along with the rest of the loot from the office and the attic apartment across the street. Ended up by the door to Namez’ courtyard.

 

Initially I had great problems picking the door without alerting the man outside to full alarm. The woman always commented, so Supreme was busted right there, but I couldn’t see how a lockpick would bust plain old Ghost. I honestly thought this mission was unghostable, until he suddenly didn’t give a peep and the door was unlocked. I haven’t found a pattern which determines his alert level; it seems highly random to me. The lady now patrolling the metal bridge (the one involved in the conversation in the southwest earlier) also heard the picking occasionally, so I listened for her footsteps and timed it accordingly. To traverse the courtyard I realized I needed to douse the two torches. The sorceress was extremely wary and detected the tiniest flickers in the light gem. Ultimately I had to reload and bring two arrows from the water trough southwest of the metal bridge. The thief there was one of those that doesn’t alert per se, but gives settling comments like “I’m getting too jumpy!” Don’t know how the Supreme rules affect those alert states, but I try to avoid them altogether. Inching down the incline to his right and leaning forward I managed to steal the water arrows without any comments. The sorceress in Namez’ courtyard gave another comment (two total) when I doused the torch right outside the door. Another inevitable Supreme bust, in addition to putting out the flames of course, which isn’t allowed in that mode. She kept quiet putting out the torch in the far corner though. I could now traverse the yard to the opposite side at will (see image).

 

There was more trouble inside. I couldn’t enter the kitchen for Supreme; the servant heard the sound of the swinging gate. I could, however, reach four pieces of loot through the barred window on the bedroom side. I could almost reach the fourth goblet through the main door, but, alas, my fingers were too short. A well-hidden purse lay behind the servant’s bed also (see image). Cleaned the kitchen for plain Ghost. The two people in the yard also commented on closing the tower door, further busting Supreme. Somehow this made more sound than opening it.

 

There was quite a surprise in store when finding the cellar key in the burnt mansion. Got transported to an insane torture chamber, with a giant zombie coming to get me. The zombie stopped at a certain location on its way to the cage (see image). I assume the purpose from DrK was for the zombie to catch you and chase you around the chamber until the portcullis got high enough. However, the southeast corner of the cage was a little darker than the rest, allowing the zombie to enter the cage without having spotted you. It then crossed the chamber, made a pivot turn and usually caught me heading back out. Normally it turned right, so I managed to sprint to the southwest corner (luckily the grated walkway here was silent) and evade its looks as it left (see image). I could even follow it and explore the rest of the tunnels, without much reward I’m afraid. Exiting to the west took me back to Namez’ mansion. The cellar key was stuck to the inventory and impossible to put back.

 

Returned all keys except the library key, and left the mansion doors open but locked. The tower key couldn’t be put back to the library corner; it alerted the mechanist in the kitchen downstairs. Instead I had to put it on one of the sheets of paper on the floor.

 

I could now return to the north part of the city unbothered, as a new way had opened up through Namez’ mansion. I collected the remaining loot, including a secret money cache in the ceiling of the sewer watchman’s apartment (see image). This completed the loot objective for all modes.

 

Last thing to do was to return the library key. I took the same method as before, plunging into the water above the right ledge. Quickly dropped the key and headed up the stairs to the doorway before the lantern guard appeared. Realized I couldn’t follow the guy through the sewer like before; the noble at the opposite end was now facing the waterway (after the convo) and would catch me instantly. I noticed, however, that the female archer on the bridge always swung to her right when turning from east to west. So I waited by the lamppost corner for the perfect moment (see image). As the swordsman walked by I snuck out and headed for the bridge. With a little luck the lady would turn as I stood by her side so I could sneak into the tunnel and beyond. I got caught by the returning swordsman about 5-6 times before she finally turned at the right moment.

 

I headed back through Namez’ mansion and entered the air ducts. Emerged at the homeless guy’s place and from there the road to the cellar was easy.

 

Great mission! 

 

 

Summary:

- Had to skip three coin stacks in the small study below the hideout, and an artifact in the workshop further below for Supreme (92 gold). The dark-skinned woman in the “unreachable” side street heard the commotion.

- Had to skip more loot (340 gold) in Roebuck’s apartment to the northeast, a purse from the bum in the gutter, and a goblet on the balcony across the street for Supreme. Couldn’t avoid a comment from Flint the guard entering the tunnel.

- The next loot skipped was in the spider basement to the south; a hammer and two statues (105 gold). The critters alerted to me picking the window.

- A purse worth 100 gold by the southwestern gate had to be skipped for all modes. Its owner couldn’t be reached without detection. Busts Perfect Thief.

- Had to use two water arrows to pass Namez’ back courtyard. Also got two comments from the sorceress; one from picking the door and one from dousing the closest torch.

- Had to skip a goblet and three plates (125 gold) from Namez’ kitchen for Supreme. Opening the entry gate alerted the servant.

- The man and the woman in Namez’ courtyard also commented on closing the tower door. More Supreme busts.

- Couldn’t return the tower key to its original position, the guard downstairs heard the racket. Put it on the sheet of paper instead. Supreme bust.

Klatremus' Supreme Thief Site - Walkthroughs, Loot Lists & Ghost Reports

 

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4.            19th Jul 2008, 02:57 #204

goldsla

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Broken Triad, Part 2: Tempest Isle

FM: Broken Triad, Part 2: Tempest Isle(BrokenTriadv1_0.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Failure

Time - 4:13:04

Loot - 1460/2010

Pockets Picked - 0/0

Locks Picked - 4

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 1

Secrets Found - 8 of 8

Consumables - 1 "Spirit Fire" arrow

 

Comments:

This mission is more of what I have come to expect of Eshkataar from prior missions: great scenery, opportunities for climbing and exploring, a reasonably complex plot, and a few tricky puzzles. The only dissappointment was that the ghosting was rather pedestrian, and there was one rather buggy bit that should have been cleaned up during beta testing.

 

Thinking over the mission, there really were no difficult spots to ghost that I recall. If you pay attention to the sounds around you there really is no reason to have difficulty ghosting this mission.

 

Again, with this mission I had some graphics problems. This time at the very end. There is an optional objective to discover and loot the palace treasury. Discovery of the treasury, I think, counts as one of the secrets, and involves interpreting a series of clues to a special lock. I got the lock open, recieved credit for the secret, and headed down the passageway, but there was no loot that I could find. The passage just dead ended. And when I tried to return my graphics display went kablooie and locked up. After restoring from a save file, I tried it again and again and again, and each time it locked up my game.

 

One more minor item, there is a special ritual that you can perform to "open your eyes to the unssen." Unfortunately, I did not see anything that looked remotely unseen throughout the entire mission, despite completing the ritual and getting a message that tells me I will now see unseen stuff. Oh well.

 

In all this was a resonable good romp.

 

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5.            19th Jul 2008, 03:00 #205

goldsla

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Best of luck in your Supreme Attempt

Originally Posted by Klatremus

Great to see you back in action Larry!  Your reports are entertaining to read as always. I am attempting to Supreme BT in a few weeks time; excited to see how that goes.

Thinking over the two missions, I can't think of anything that would prevent supreme. I look forward to your report. Your reports are always exceptionally complete and great reading!

 

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6.            19th Jul 2008, 11:05 #206

Yandros

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Goldsla, your two issues are related. The root seems to be that the "seeing unseen" part didn't work. Once you stand under the waterfall and get the message, you should start seeing phantom scarabs in some places, who mostly direct you to secrets and things of that nature. One place they help you is guiding you through the trick hallway which leads to the treasury - had you been able to see the scarabs in that "dead end" you'd have realized it isn't one, and would have found the treasury. As to why you didn't see the scarabs, I don't know - but we didn't have that problem in beta testing.

 

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7.            19th Jul 2008, 12:54 #207

goldsla

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Originally Posted by Yandros

Goldsla, your two issues are related. The root seems to be that the "seeing unseen" part didn't work. Once you stand under the waterfall and get the message, you should start seeing phantom scarabs in some places, who mostly direct you to secrets and things of that nature. One place they help you is guiding you through the trick hallway which leads to the treasury - had you been able to see the scarabs in that "dead end" you'd have realized it isn't one, and would have found the treasury. As to why you didn't see the scarabs, I don't know - but we didn't have that problem in beta testing.

Ah. I just went back and restarted the mission, went through the "seeing unseen" part again, and went back to the hall, with the same problem after I go to the end and turn around and come back halfway my screen looks like this:

 

Interesting, but not very useful!

 

Did I mention that GarrettLoader cannot convert the mission's ogg files into WAV files on my machine? I don't know what that is about. I would try and see if I have similar problems running under DarkLoader, but I can't get DarkLoader to work on my new, multi-core, 64-bit Vista machine just yet.

 

Any thought on how to get DarkLoader working would be welcome.

 

Oh, and that "should have been cleaned up in Beta testing" crack, was not a criticism of the great volunteer work that the Beta testers did. It was a dig at myself for not having my PC up and running during Beta testing, and thus not finding this problem then.

 

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8.            19th Jul 2008, 14:30 #208

Yandros

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So you don't see any scarab beetles after bathing in the waterfall? If not, I'd say GL may have messed up more than just the OGG files. You should keep trying to get DL working... 

 

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9.            19th Jul 2008, 15:36 #209

Peter_Smith

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You can blame this flaky behavior on Vista. Beta testers probably did not have Vista. Even if they had, my guess is that there would probably have been no way to fix it. Maybe you should have dual boot. This bug discussion really belongs in a separate thread. Sorry for adding to the clutter. 

 

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10.          20th Jul 2008, 20:07 #210

Klatremus

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Originally Posted by goldsla

Consumables - 1 "Spirit Fire" arrow

Just curious Larry, where and why did you use your spirit arrow?

Klatremus' Supreme Thief Site - Walkthroughs, Loot Lists & Ghost Reports

 

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11.          21st Jul 2008, 02:58 #211

goldsla

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Originally Posted by Klatremus

Just curious Larry, where and why did you use your spirit arrow?

The sprit fire arrow is necessary to destroy the keeper medallion.

 

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12.          21st Jul 2008, 07:59 #212

Klatremus

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Originally Posted by goldsla

The sprit fire arrow is necessary to destroy the keeper medallion.

Lol of course, I am getting old. Played it a couple of weeks ago but still forgot. 

Klatremus' Supreme Thief Site - Walkthroughs, Loot Lists & Ghost Reports

 

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13.          23rd Jul 2008, 18:47 #213

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The Legend of the Four Elements (Legende der Vier Elemente)

FM: The Legend of the Four Elements (LegendofFourElements,The_LDVE-v11-DeEn.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Failure

Time - 3:09:50

Loot - 2545/2660

Pockets Picked - 2/3

Locks Picked - 5

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 1 of 1

Consumables - 6 water arrows

 

Comments:

I planned on reporting this on Sunday, and even started the write-up, but then my brand new, high-powered PC crashed during my editing of the write-up. Seems my CPUs are running too hot ... oh well.

 

Anyhow, This is a fairly easy but still interesting mission. Your job is to find the four elemental tokens and use them to steal a special plate. On the way you traverse a rather odd mansion. There is a tavern in one room, and indoor archery range in another, and nothing is quite what you would expect it to be.

 

The ghosting is relatively simple except for a couple of areas.

 

The first is the aforementioned tavern room. Inside opposite the entrance is a bar with barmaid. She is behind the bar, but facing the wall behind the bar. At the bar is one guard looking at the barmaid's ... ahem ..., apparently enjoying himself. Behind and to one side of him is an archer and behind to the other is a drunk. The archer and the drunk can both see each other and both can see the guard. The guard can see behind the bar. There are various loot items about, some of which can be tricky to retieve, and no way to dim the lights at all, any, none. You need to get behind the bar to steal the decorative plates that the barmaid is admiring, but to reach them you have to stand up. But if you stand up, the guard sees you ... unless ... you wedge yourself under the bar, creep behind the barmaid, nudge her a bit, then stand up in the only bit of shadow along the bar. Then you need to crouch down again, nudge her some more to pass behind her, and creep to the very end of the bar. On the other side of the bar are a stash of water arrows in a rack which you will need in just a bit, so you stand up and lean out and grab them.

 

The second ghosting challenge is with a hammerite who is guarding a special gem and a chest. This time the lighting can be put out with water arrows, but it'll take four, and you don't know how many more places need to be dimmed later on. My approach was to nudge the Hammerite across the room, so that he is standing just in front of the chest. For some reason he does not notice me picking its lock from behind him, nor looting the rest of the room.

 

 

 

The third ghosting challenge was a guard in the hall, off of which is the hammerite room. He is standing smack-dab in the middle of the hallway. My solution: nudge him into an empty storage room. Here are a series of shots as I move him out of my way.

  

 

Somewhere along the line I missed a pickpocket, which is probibly 100 of the missing loot, and there must be something else for the final 15. I looked around for a while, but did not see it.

 

I suppose all that nudging was gratuitious, but I enjoyed it, and at the time, I wanted to husband my water arrows. I tend to do that.

 

________________________________________

14.          25th Jul 2008, 00:19 #214

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The Monastery of St Fera (T1 Version)

FM: The Monastery of St Fera (Monastery of St Fera,The.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 1:33:56

Loot - 1629/1629

Pockets Picked - 4/4

Locks Picked - 9

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 0 of 0

Consumables - 3 water arrows, 3 moss arrows

 

Comments:

I have decided to try some of the earlier FMs that I missed by finding the community late. This one is from 1999.

 

The mission starts with Garrett outside the monastery of St. Fera. Sneaking in is no big deal. A key to pick from a patrolling monk, a stationary guard to get by. No problem. Inside, there are several buildings: a workshop, a chapel, a cloister, living quarters, and a dining room. And what seems like hundreds of patrolling monks, inside an out.

 

OK. There are probably no more than 15 or so throughout the mission, but they move about like squirrels. (No they don't climb trees or chew nuts, but they do go from place to place, chattering to themselves every once in a while.)

 

Anyhow, the three key objective are

1. to find a spiffy glowing jewel called the "Morning Stone"

2. to find out about another cool stone

3. to get St. Fera's sacred rosary

 

To accomplish this you need to do a lot of lurking and scurrying.

 

I cleaned out all of the above ground loot in all the buildings, including four loaves of bread, two cheeses, and a haunch of venison, before I ducked down one of several ladders and explored the nether regions of the monastery. The ghosting above ground was pretty easy. I just had to pay attention to the sounds and sights of patrolling monks and remember to go slow and quiet.

 

The ladder I decided to duck down had a Hammerite monk standing facing it. Fortunately he was nearsighted, and I was able to sneak out with him none the wiser. There is a whole underground complex below the monastery grounds, but eventually I found my way to the tomb of St. Fera.

 

The good news was that her remains (and rosary) were only guarded by two patrolling monks and one rotating priest. The bad news was that they were very sharp of hearing, and her casket was surrounded by a moat, with no silent way to enter the water and wade to it. It took me a bit of head scratching before I settled on my approach. First I mossed the casket pedestal on the inside of the moat, and then I mossed the outside of the moat at the spot to which I would want to return. Leaning over the moat I sank a rope arrow into the ceiling. Then I ran to the rope (jumping was not on because of some low archways surrounding the moat), grabbed, and jumped to the mossy casket to retrieve the rosary (objective #3 accomplished). A jump back to the rope and then a low jump to the mossed section under an arch, and I was home free. Fortunately, I had placed the rope arrow such that I could retrieve it by jumping up on the outside of an arch and frobbing at the top of the jump, landing back on the moss.

 

The next tricky bit was getting down a stone staircase to an open area with a big red spider and three little white ones. The stairs went all the way around the inside wall of the open area, with the lowest step quite a fall from the uppermost landing. I tried sneaking down the stairs, but at one spot, no matter what I did, one or more of the white spiders would spot/hear me, and start questing. Bust! So I decide to try jumping from the top landing to a shady spot beneath, skipping the stairs entirely. Unfortunately, as I suspected, I took quite a bit of damage. But also, as I had hoped, the spiders did not alert. So I restored to before the jump, and pulled out my trusty food stuffs (bread, cheeses, and venison). I tossed them over the edge to where I planned to land, took a deep breath, and stepped off. It worked. I landed silently on some stale bread. I retrieved the bread, cheeses, and venison, before continuing on my way.

 

The next problem was how to steal the glowing Morning Stone. You see, it was guarded by three patrolling fire elementals, and they bring their own candles.

 

This is the spot where I finally decided that using a couple of water arrows wasn't a bad idea. I took out the torches, dashed to the alter when the fire elements were heading away from it and snagged the jewel. I then hung about in the shadows to make sure I had not been spotted. So far so good. One of the torches was relit by an elemental, but I had already been down that side, and it didn't matter.

 

The next bit which required a little finesse involved a tunnel guarded by two stationary Craymen and two more patrolling Craymen.

 

For some reason, the Craymen had very acute hearing. I could not put out that torch from a distance without them hearing the arrow strike. So I had to sneak up as close as I could, half draw the bow, and let fly. That was quiet enough to let me proceed. After that, jumping the molten lava that came next was a piece of cheesecake.

 

But now I had to brave the spiders again. Landing on veggies worked again to avoid alerting them at the bottom of the stairs. But the same spot I had trouble with coming down the stairs gave me troubles going up. My ultimate solution was to moss the area, then run-jump over it.

 

I needed moss on the run part and on the landing, and I needed to time the run such that the visible spiders were all looking elsewhere. But that worked. (Just to find out, I tried to reverse this and use the moss going downhill. No workee. The spiders were on to that trick.)

 

From there, it was all "home again, home again, jiggity-jig" to end the mission. On the way back, I went on a climbing expedition. There is a wooden roof that you can rope arrow onto, and then explore the outside of the mission. Not much to see, but you can roof hop all the way around.

 

A pretty good mission, with some trick bits for ghosters. Oh. There were two loot items behind a Hammerite banner. Fortunately you can reach through the banner and snag them.

 

________________________________________

15.          25th Jul 2008, 20:27 #215

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The Library

FM: The Library (Library,The.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Failure

Time - 1:05:22

Loot - 875/925

Pockets Picked - 6/6

Locks Picked - 4

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 0 of 0

Consumables - 3 water arrows, 2 rope arrows

 

Comments:

This is a nice little T1 mission from 1999. Your job is to steal a book from a ridiculously complex Hammerite library (or maybe that is a rediculous Hammerite library complex ... no, I was right the first time, the Hammerite library complex is ridiculously complex). In any event, you need to steal a book and a minimum of 800g. You also need to pick up a chisel (why? who knows!). And while you are there pick up the gold skull of St. Bentano.

 

So, what do we have to contend with? The first challenge is to get past three Hammerites whose patrol paths overlap. If you want to be a wuss, you can put out all the torches, but you really don't need to. There is one hallway where, if you don't put out a torch, however, you don't have enough time to pick two door locks. So I used up one water arrow. That netted me some loot (a diamond behind a hidden door panel and a tiarra left in plain sight) and a golden key. There is another Hammerite in a dormatory, guarding the chisel (why?). I found it easier to go back outside and use one of the keys I pickpocked to get by him from an outside door, than to get by from the inside.

 

The next stop was the Hammerite chapel, to take a long look at the golden skull. It was up on a pedistal, under a bright light. A priest stood nearby, facing the entrance, and two Hammerites patroling among the pews. Phew-ee. A frontal assault was definately not on. A little roaming about took me to a broom closet with a ladder going up. This in turn lead to a narrow ledge above the chapel. Unfortunately, I could not move very far along the ledge without someone alerting. It was about then that I remembered the 12 (!) rope arrows I was lugging about.

 

[The mission starts you with 10, and I had bought two more (as well as some moss arrows that I never needed). You see, the mission briefing (written) said "... Warren mentioned something about catacombs in the tower and great heights but I'm not sure what he meant by this. I'd better bring a few extra rope arrows just in case ..." so I decided to by a couple more to add to the 10 I was given. You never know.]

 

Anyhoo, I noticed there were three main roof beams running from the back of the chapel to the front and the left one went right over the golden skull. Whadayaknow? I decided to shoot a series of 10 arrows along the center beam (more shadows since it was higher up) and one in the left beam, just above the golden skull. Shooting them evenly spaced was not easy since I could not get too far along the ledge without being spotted. My intent was to make it such that when I was done, I could retrieve them all for reuse. Unfortunately, I spaced a couple of them too far apart from the others, and had to leave them behind. But I was able to get the skull without setting foot into the chapel.

 

Next it was a trip upstairs to the library. Again there were Hammerite guards, four patrolling and one stationary. While I could have avoided using any water arrows, I decided that I had them to use, and it would make my life easier, so I doused two torches on either side of the stationary guard. He stood in front of the locked entrance to the library tower. (Used the golden key to get in)

 

Sheesh! This was an amazing maze of wooden ramps, passages, rooms, stairs, up, down, left, right, and, yes, patrolling Hammerites. Not too many Hammerites. But enough to keep me honest as I proweled about looking for loot and the book.

 

I'm pretty sure that perfect thief is possible for someone more dedicated to walking that maze of rooms. But once I had passed the loot objective and found the book, I was grateful to find may way back out again, let alone hunt for the final 50g. Just my luck, and it would be in the chapel, and not in the libarry at all. Nah. I had enough of the the mission, so I cut out. 

 

In all, I think this is a pretty good mission to ghost. Not terribly difficult, but it had its moments.

 

________________________________________

16.          25th Jul 2008, 23:35 #216

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Poor Lord Bafford

FM: Poor Lord Bafford (PoorLordBafford.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Failure

Time - 0:28:16

Loot - 3860/3870

Pockets Picked - 2/2

Locks Picked - 1

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 0 of 0

Consumables - 3 water arrows, 2 moss arrows

 

Comments:

This is another nice little T1 mission from 1999. Your job is to break into Lord Bafford's country house and steal everything. Simple.

 

Outside are two patrolling guards, one of which has the key to the front door. But don't be so hasty. Let's try around back first. Whadayaknow, the back door is open! A much stealthier approach, and lo, you find out that there are two guards standing facing the front door, just waiting to get a piece of anyone opening it who shouldn't have oughta had done that.

 

It's all normal ghosting, sneak, sneak, crouch, crouch, until you get to the back area where most of the loot is kept. There you will find a patrolling guard who walks a hall and enters two rooms, one at each end of the hall.

 

The hall is mostly marble with a two runners up the middle. Two runners? Yep, there is a pillar in the middle of the hall, so you are forced onto the marble no matter what. The trick was to only get on the marble for the few seconds that the guard was in one of the rooms at the end with the door closed. There are four doors on the hall, no, I lie, there are five, five doors on the hallway. Four on one wall and one acrooss from the others, at the left end. Two of the doors are locked. I did not have a compass, so I can only say that by ducking into the 2nd room on the right from that end, you can wait out the guard until he is at the other end, and then get into the room at the very end. Your reward? A loaf of bread! Back to the 2nd room on the end. The next room over is locked, but one of the keys you lifted from guards opens it. So be swift. That room is a barracks, and has three chests. A flash bomb and a land mine are your reward. The next room over is a metal door. Fortunately you found a special key in a special chest earlier. Open and in. Duck behind the open metal door. There is a patrolling archer inside who wants a little archery practice. He'll see you if you don't put something solid between you and he. There is lots of light and no way to douse it. When you hear the patrolling guard in the hallway exit the final hall room that you have not been to, sneak over and grab a hammerite document (an objective) and two gold vases. If you are quick and quiet, you can make it back behind the open metal door before anyone is the wiser.

 

Now to find the treasure room. Tail the archer into an open area with a strange set of ramps. Get to the top, then down two ladders. Here you play sneak, sneak, crouch, crouch some more. 5 water arrows are thoughtfully provided in a chest just before you reach a stone stairway with a guard directly in front. I guess the thought was that you would have used all 20 arrows you started with by now, and might need 5 more to finish the mission. To this point I had not needed any.

 

In any event, disdaining the water arrows, you sneak behind the guard and up the stairs to a room with two moss arrows (you now have five) and a closed door. Opening the door you see two guards facing each other over a pile of loot. There is one torch in that room, and above the loot is an electric light. There are two torches in the room you are standing in, one near and one far. Now is the time to use two water arrows. One for the near torch and the other for the one in the room with the guards. Then a moss arrow. The floor in that room is marble, and those guards have their hearing aids turned up almost to the point of feedback. So moss is appropriate. If you place your arrow well, you can reach all the loot if you lean about.

 

When the lights were on I noticed some more loot in one corner. So another moss arrow. You might be able to skip using this 2nd arrow. It seems the guards are mainly focused on the entrance to the room. Just to be sure there was no more loot in the room, I slithered all around it without setting them off.

 

So all that is left is to get home. I got lazy and used one more water arrow outside to save lurking time.

 

The only thing that kept this from a perfect thief was 10g in a chest in the servant's quarters. There is a servant in there facing the entrance. And the entrance is lit with an electric light. No way to sneak in without him alerting.

 

One more thing. There is a banner in the servant's quarters which if you slash reveals a secret passage to the hallway with the five doors. There is another banner to slash on the other end of that passage. Ghosting, the passage is impossible to use, what with slashing being a no-no. If slashing were allowed, it might offer a way to get at the last 10g without clobbering the servant . . .

 

I thought this was another nice, light romp. Not too easy, but not too hard.

 

* * * * * *

U P D A T E

* * * * * *

I just checked Hexameron's FM's List - Ghost/Perfect Thief Status, and this mission was listed as a failure (Poor Lord Bafford). Apparantly Vanguard kept alerting the guards in the treasury room when trying to put out the far torch. All I can say is that I put out the near torch in the room I was in. After I did that, I was able to sneak up to the doorway and douse the far torch in the room with the guards, and then moss the floor. It is possible also that Vanguard had made enough noise before he opened the door, that the guards were a little hyper. Not alerted yet, but thinking about it. I don't know. But Poor Lord Bafford has definately been ghosted now!

 

Oh, Vanguard also said

Pretty straight forward ghosting. Can't douse any torch in the front foyer room or any in the next hallway since that alerts the guards in there, so the 100 loot for the gold vase had to be skipped.

I did not have any trouble sneaking behind the guard on the right, next to the vase, and lifting it without anyone altering.

 

________________________________________

17.          1st Aug 2008, 03:48 #217

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The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr.Zeppelinger, Mission 2

FM: The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr.Zeppelinger, Mission 2(FlyingAgev1_18.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 1:35:19

Loot - 2200/2200

Pockets Picked - 1/1

Locks Picked - 4

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 10, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 1, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 8 of 8

Consumables - 1 water arrow

 

Comments:

This was, for me, a real challenge to ghost. Finding all the loot was not so bad, but navigating the Duke's mansion with all those guards, noisy floors, lights ... that was a challenge. Sterlino has a real winner with this one. I can't imagine that the remaining missions in the pack are as good, because from my standpoint this mission was spectacular. The only downside to the mission for me was having to copy down strange hieroglyphics. I'm sorry, but I am not an artist, and making my copies look enough like the clues to be useful in solving a puzzle is not my strong suit. I much prefer it when the symbols I have to manipulate are recognizable as numeral and letters. Keep it alpha-numeric for me please!

 

In any event, Mission 1 is either unghostable (by design) or trivial to ghost, depending on your perspective. Personally, I would rather not have wasted the bytes on Mission 1. Allegedly you are to stow yourself away aboard a zeppelin, but the door is gimmicked so that you get captured.

 

Mission 2 starts with you in jail. Your sole resources are a bit of cheese and a well trained rat. You give the cheese to the rat, the rat gets the cell door key, and off you go. Eventually you end up in the mansion of Duke Von Braum, a colleague of Dr. Zeppelinger. The Duke has had a tragedy in his life with the loss of his family. You get to unravel that mystery as you loot the place and find a way to escape back to the zeppelin to complete the objective from Mission 1 (I think).

 

The mansion is teaming with guards so you really have to be careful. Most of the looting is straightforward sneakity-sneak-sneak. But some is just plain diabolic for a ghoster. The dining room is one such place. A guard enters at one end, circles through the room, and exits at the other end. Now that doesn't sound tough, does it? Just wait until he exits, rush in and loot, right? Wrong. The floor is marble, and guards in adjacent areas hear you and alert to the sound of any footsteps. Plus there is no way to reduce illumination in the room, and no place to hide inside the room. Then top make matters worse, if you unlock the 3rd door to the room, additional guards and a servant will start cycling through the room as well. My solution? 1) unlock the side door, enter to the alcove prior to the room, and lock the door behind. 2) dash and loot one item at a time. There were seven items in the room, five plates and two candlesticks, I believe. 3) use a run-one-step pause-a-breath run-another-step pause-a-breath type motion to travel quickly and silently while the guard was gone. 4) After 7 forays you get rather good at the sort of slithery rum motion! Which is good, 'cause you need it elsewhere.

 

The next tough spot is the main entry hall to the mansion. There is a large chandelier overhead and several wall sconces. I located the switch for the chandelier, and during a relatively guard-free moment, switched it off. That made it possible to get to the other side of the entry (needed for looting), and up the central staircase (thankfully carpeted!).

 

Upstairs the entry to the master bedroom is guarded by a stationary and alert guard. Fortunately, there is a light switch here too. Unfortunately, it is not enough. This was where I used the water arrow, putting out a wall sconce. Even then, you have to approach the guard from the correct side to keep him from alerting when you open the doors to the bedroom. I had to nudge him out of the way of the opening doors before unlocking them, otherwise he alerted as I tried to enter the room.

 

Inside the bedroom is the lady of the house, snoring away. She awakens and stands up beside the bed when you pick the lock of her jewelry box. But she does not alert. If this bothers you, you can skip the jewels. If I recall correctly, that's only 200g. The trick here, however is to discover the secret on the bedpost before you awaken her. Otherwise she is likely to alert when you discover it after she is up off the bed. I did not get the clue to the presence of a secret in that room until later, realized that I had not searched as thoroughly as I thought I had, and had to restart from a save to search better before getting her out of bed. That was a pain!

 

In all, I think I had to shuttle back and forth between the upstairs and the down about five times. I got rather good at it by the end, knowing what to look for, what patterns to avoid, and when to make my moves.

 

There are several nifty missions-within-a-mission in this one. Which really kept my interest. The kill was the result of one such. That objective, thankfully, was pretty explicit. "The servant is the killer, stop him at any costs! (Find a way to kill him.)" Had I known earlier that triggering that objective would have loosed a killer on the mansion, wiping out most of the guards, I would not have sweated over some of the ghosting. I could have just waited for him to kill them all, and done my looting after. But that would not have been half as challenging, fun, or in the true spirit of ghosting. So it is just as well that I did not know.

 

It was rather spooky stalking a killer in the now-silent mansion. Fortunately for me, when I did find him, he was busily engaged in killing some plants, so I was able to sneak up and fell him with a single overhand blow. He never knew he was dead.

 

One more really cute bit in this mission: you can steal a sword from any of the guard's sword belts. I've never seen that in any mission before, but always thought you should be able to do so. It just happened that I was tailing a guard rather closely and noticed that the sword on his belt illuminated as though it were frobbable. And it was! Cool. Most missions have the guards with sword in hand, but this one puts it on their belts, and it makes a really cool noise when they draw the sword (or you steal it).

 

A tough mission to ghost, but a fun one! Thank you Sterlino.

 

________________________________________

18.          3rd Aug 2008, 02:19 #218

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The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr.Zeppelinger, Mission 3

FM: The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr.Zeppelinger, Mission 3 (FlyingAgev1_18.zip)

 

Ghost - Failed 

Perfect Thief - Failed (but I got all the loot ...) 

Time - 0:31:25

Loot - 1000/1000

Pockets Picked - 4/4

Locks Picked - 0

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 1 of 1

Consumables - none

 

Comments:

This, the third mission in the campaign, starts with you aboard a biplane. You have a few seconds to decide if you should fly right, left, or straight ahead in order to dock the plane on the Zeta One zeppelin. There really are no clues, so pick one. If you pick wrong, you die and have to restart the mission. Hardly seems fair. Either through luck or persistence you pick correctly. Then, when the controls freeze up, the plane self-docks to the zeppelin. If you hurry you can get out before the plane detaches and falls to the ground.

 

Now you have to figure out how to get inside without falling to your death or alerting the guards (apparently crashing a biplane into the zeppelin is an every day occurance, since no one aboard seems bothered by this. Hmm.

 

Eventually you hit upon the secret to extending a walkway around the tail of the zep. (Doesn't every zep have a secret switch for this disguised as an anchor?) (Is my suspension of disbelief showing frayed sleeves from over use?)

 

Next you have to remember a long lever-type switch that you saw in mission one from the ground, and lean over to frob it. In Mission 1 it was deactivated, as was the next switch that you throw to open an air grate and enter the gondola (if that is what it is called). From here there is a rather mundane ghosting around the gondola, up an elevator and more ghosting in the gas bag area.

 

Really, all is pretty easy until it falls apart. The plot of the mission has you enter a code into a locked contol box. But when you do, an alarm sounds and a speaker blares forth with a recorded message for you, threating bodily harm. Needless to say any guards aboard the zep should be alerted by this. But at the time that you key in the code to locked control box and the alarm is sounded, you are also locked inside the room you are in, and cannot go outside to check on alerts. I did not hear any, but I am certain that they took place unless the designer specifically made the room soundproofed so that the alarm inside and speaker could not be heard.

 

In any event, you now have a new task: "The plan has been thwarted, your priority now is to escape using the parachute." In addition, a readable has provided information that there is a weak pipe, that, if broken, will stop a piston which is preventing your escape from the room. Clearly the intent is that you break the pipe, escape, and jump off the zep using a parachute.

 

So, is this mission ghostable? Forget about the "if an AI is alerted in a forest but no one is there to witness it, was it alerted?" philosophical debates. Rule 6 is pretty clear "No property damage is allowed. No banners cut, no doors bashed in, no things burnt or destroyed, and no broken glass." Rule 11 states "Any mission objective that explicitly requires that one of the above rules be broken, such as 'Kill the Haunts,' is OK to complete and does not bust the ghost so long as no AI are alerted in the process." But there is no explicit objective to break the pipe, just a clear intent.

 

My position: This mission is not ghostable within the rules.

 

Afterthought: I tried to stack boxes so that the sole guard on the level with Garrett when the alarm goes off falls to the next lower level. I succeed in this once, but every other attempt met with failure. My intention was to get the guard out of range for hearing of the alarm (assuming it was just local), then prop open the door with crates to prevent getting trapped inside. That way I could escape the zep by retracing my steps to the begining and jumping off from there. But I was foiled by not being able to get the guard out of the way. I plan to try it again, and will report how it goes, success or failure.

 

- - - - - several frustrating hours later - - - - -

 

Well, that failed too. The door was constructed such that it could not be propped open. I even went back down to the 2nd floor to get a huge ducting sort of a thing. Very heavy. Very large. Much more indestructable and immovable than crates. The door just ignores it and pushes it out of the way, regardless of how you position it. I was able to barricade the guard away from the source of the alarm without alerting (it took five crates, four of them stacked two high), but I was not able knock her down a level. That one time was a fluke.

 

So I could not find a way to complete the objectives without breaking the pipe, and without, at least theoretically, alerting the entire crew of the zep to my presence. Busted for sure.

 

________________________________________

19.          3rd Aug 2008, 18:44 #219

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 The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr.Zeppelinger, Mission 6

FM: The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr.Zeppelinger, Mission 6(FlyingAgev1_18.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 0:54:06

Loot - 1000/1000

Pockets Picked - 0/0

Locks Picked - 13

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 3 of 3

Consumables - none

 

Comments:

In my last report, I had just escaped from the nefarious trap of the extremely wicked Dr. Zeppelinger by parachuting from the zeppelin. Since then I have built a couple of flying machines from spare parts (who knew I was so mechanically inclined?), crashed one of them, successfully flown the other, silently docked with another zeppelin, and snuck / sneaked (?) into a storage container destined for the Zeta One zeppelin, all without alerting any guards. (I did not bother reporting these actions in separate reports because modesty prevents me from mentioning such trivial endevours.) Ahem.

 

Now, in this, the last of the Abominable Flying Machine missions, I was presented with a connumdrum: one of the optional mission objectives is stated as "Extra Bonus: KO them' all." Clearly this is an anti-ghosting objective. But just as clearly it falls within the purvue of rule 11: "Any mission objective that explicitly requires that one of the above rules be broken, such as 'Kill the Haunts,' is OK to complete and does not bust the ghost so long as no AI are alerted in the process." So what to do? To claim ghosting credit where you KO all the opposition, even if you can do so without altering any AIs in the process, defeats the purpose ghosting the mission. What to do?

 

My solution was first to complete the mission without KOing anyone and without any alerts. That is what is reported above. Then going from a saved game, just before the point of no return and completing the mission, I went back and attempted the KOing as a ghost, i.e. no alerts. The following reflects my limited success.

 

Ghost - Success (sort of)

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 1:16:15

Loot - 1000/1000

Pockets Picked - 0/0

Locks Picked - 13

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 13

Damage dealt - 13, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 3 of 3

Consumables - none

 

In my initial ghosting of the mission, I was looking at the areas where there might be a problem of alerting an AI when KOing either it or another AI, and there really was only one spot, the conference room. This is a room which is lit by an overhead chandelier as well as wall sconces. I had taken care of the wall sconces earlier, but the chandelier cannot be turned off. Beneath the chandelier, slightly to the left and right are two AIs, one of which is facing the other. The 2nd is facing a desk and looking at a 3rd AI on the other side of the desk, who is looking at the other two.

 

As you can see, this is a bit of a problem. So I KO'd everyone outside of this room first, just to be sure I did not alert anyone when I tried to deal with this problem. I then returned to the room and looked it over.

 

A deep breath, and I took out the chappie on my left first. knocking him so that he fell behind the chappie on the right. Scooped him up as soon as I was able to, and took him out of sight, all before anyone noticed.

 

I then took out the chappie on the right. Same approach, KO him and grab as fast as possible, and the gent behind the desk does not notice.

 

Now comes the hard part. You can't approach the desk. Not from in front, not from either side, not without getting illuminated by the chandelier. And once illuminated, it is a scant second before the gent in the suit begins to get suspicious.

 

This next part I did fifteen or twenty times from each side of the room because I was never 100% satisfied with the results. My goal was to KO the last AI without it uttering a peep or making any kind of motion which could have been interpreted as an alert. In the latter, I suceeded many times, but in the former, I failed every time.

 

I know that this AI can make almost-alerted noises and then not alert. I tested that by stepping in and out of the light and watching its reactions. It was very clear that I could get it to say something like "Huh ..." and not have it alert afterwards. But if it said anything like "Who are you?" or "Is that a thief I see before me?" it always alerted afterwards.

 

My approach, from each side, was to sneak as close as I could to the desk without getting in the light, then, when the AI looked away, I would leap onto the desk and KO it in one motion.

 

No matter how I tried I never was able to do it such that the AI did not mutter something as I was in the air or landing on the desk. Many times it go no farther than "Huh ..." and would have said more had I not knocked it out, I am sure. Many times it got further, and while not physically alerting before getting knocked out, the words it uttered led me to believe that it had, in fact alerted.

 

I stake my tenuous claim to ghosting this mission with the KO objective on the times that all it managed was the "Huh ..."

 

I was able to accomlish that repeatedly. But I never managed to get it knocked out without it uttering a peep. 

 

I will leave this to your judgement. I clearly ghosted the mission without that objective. It was not hard to do. With the optional objective added in after the mission had been ghosted, it becomes a judgement call. 

 

On the positive side, with the KO objective, there are three loaves of bread, a carrot, and an apple which you can acquire from the kitchen. You could never get a snack in this mission without KOing the cook! 

 

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20.          5th Aug 2008, 21:58 #220

goldsla

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 Saturio rentre au pays

FM: Saturio rentre au pays (SaturioRentreauPays_FR.zip)

 

Ghost - Success (better living through chemistry)

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 2:31:57

Loot - 1922/1922

Pockets Picked - 5/8 (??) What did I miss?? I swear I picked every pocket!

Locks Picked - 9

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 0 of 0

Consumables - 2 water arrows, 4 moss arrows

 

Comments:

Well, this one was a seriously difficult mission to ghost and get all the loot. To begin with, my French language skills are from three years of HS French that I got straight Cs in over 40 years ago. But between what I remembered and what Babblefish was able to turn into garbled English, I was able to figure out that the goal was to rescue this guy, Saturio, from a cell and place him beside his dying mother. This is apparently so that they can die together, as Saturio is in seriously ill and unconscious in his cell. There must be something Gallic about the plot that I don't understand. Dead is dead, no?

 

* * * * * *

Just to give you a taste of what I was working with as a translation, this is from the introduction. First the French, then my butchered translation.

Son nom est Saturio Machado. Il est revenu il y a tout juste une semaine apres avoir combattu pendant des mois, a la guerre dans les territoires des Hilldrim.

 

His name is Saturio Machado. He returned just a week ago after to have fought during months, at the war in the territories of Hilldrim.

* * * * * *

 

Anyhow. The first part of the mission is routine—find out how to get into the chateau. There are your typical Chateau features to deal with, guards, graveyards, underground cisterns, haunts, zombies, and so on. Along the way you pick up some loot, moss arrows, and a key or two. Eventually you find yourself inside. My first stop after getting in turned out to be fortunate for me. It was the guard station with the shut-offs for the 1st floor watchers. I then looted the 1st floor, sneak-sneak-sneak. Then I went upstairs through the guard quarters, across an exterior balcony/patio and back inside. The second level was more sneakity-sneak-sneak, up until I found a safe that I could not open. I tried picking it and every key I had collected (and I had several by this time) but none of them worked. I chalked it up as a place to come back to later, and went across the hall. There were two doors to this room; I went in one and out the other. I then opened the door across the hallway, to the library.

 

Apparently I was too noisy, because when I opened the library door, a gent sitting down at a library desk, got up and faced me. This would not do! So I reloaded from an earlier save, and tried opening the door from the other room, across the hall, by leaning out. Whew. He stayed seated. I took a step to cross the hall, and he got up! I restored and tried it again, and again, and again. Eventually I realized that he had more patience for this game than I did, and that I was going to have to outsmart him.

 

So the first thing I did was put out the hallway torch. I have noticed that sometimes light makes AIs sharper of hearing. That may not be what is happening, but it seems that way to me. Anyhow, by putting out the light I was able to cross the hallway without getting the level one alert. This was important, not because of ghosting, a level one alert is OK, but because with him standing and facing me in a brightly lit library, there would be no way to check him out for pick pocketing.

 

The next thing I did was spread some moss around. I may have been able to baby-step my way to him without that, but I had had enough of his foolishness. Two moss arrows seemed right. It must have been, since I was then able to mince my way over and back. It was worth the effort. It turns out he has the key to the safe I couldn't open. And as this photo shows, he is on the verge of slipping out of his chair at any minute. Maybe that's why he is so alertable?

 

In any event, I opened the safe, continued looting the 2nd floor, and eventually found my way to another set of stairs (in the library, but only accessible from the back entrance due to old desk guy.) Up the stairs I go.

 

The third floor is mostly empty, except for the walkers, guards, and a watcher. It soon becomes clear that the intended route is to take a ladder up to an attic, break a window, and crawl along a ceiling beam to then do some roof climbing and get into the tower where Saturio is unconscious in his cell. Breaking a window was definitely out for the ghosting to succeed. But I could see how, with enough crates, I could get to the beam without having to break a window.

 

I had seen eleven crates in various locations about the joint. So I took about 45 minutes to collect them all and bring them up to where I needed them. On the way, I noticed that there was a window in a different tower (not the one with Saturio) which should be reachable now that I had all these crates handy. I took a few, went up and in, and found an engagement (? - "de fiancaille") ring in the otherwise empty cell up there. That ticked off an objective I had not begun to worry about yet.

 

Here is my crate stack to get up to the beam.

 

As you can see, I did not stint in the number of crates used. I figure I worked hard enough to get them there, why not use as many as would make the climbing easy?

 

The beam had areas of light and shadow. I crept as close as I could to the first area of light, and tried simply to run through it as fast as I could. I was on wood, and a good ways away, and I have found that there are times to go slow and times to go fast. But that did not work perfectly. The Walker below heard me, and that alerted the guards. Restore. This time I mossed the beam before I ran, and that worked. I was able to get all the way down the beam and outside without anyone even grumbling. From there, I walked over to the tower window, mantled in, carried Saturio to an elevator, traveled down a flight to an exterior window. And tried jumping out.

 

Death. Restore. Death. Restore. Death. Restore.

 

That got old. I emptied my pockets.

3 loaves of French bread

2 carrots

2 wedges of camembert

1 crumpled up note (something about Saturio being sick in his cell)

2 cucumbers

2 legs of venison

3 torches

2 grenades

1 holy water

1 note from the family lawyer

a bunch of keys

a bottle of wine

an engagement ring

lots of loot

a land mine

a healing potion

2 slowfall potions

3 spheres d'obsevation

 

Oh what to do, what to do?

 

I decided to jettison everything that might be soft to land on out the window. I aimed for the shrubbery below, and built up quite a stack of goodies down there.

 

Unfortunately, it was not enough. Jump. Die. Restore. etc.

 

Finally I gave up and chugged a slowfall, grabbed Saturio, and drifted down. From there it was a trivial hike to get him to his mama's bedside, and then make my way to the sewers to escape.

 

Ta da!

 

Thank you Robin G. for a great mission to ghost. It was a challenge. The mission may be old (30 December 2000), but like fine wine, it has aged well!

 

________________________________________

21.          5th Aug 2008, 22:39 #221

Klatremus

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Never played this one, so I don't wanna spoil the fun by reading too much, but isn't this available in English? I checked and found it both at the Keep and thiefmissions.com as 'Saturio Returns Home'.

 

Wow I cannot keep up with your pace to say the least Larry! Just started a new job, so that naturally takes some time. And my wife deserves some priority as well, but I am getting a few minutes in here and there. I played the 'Flying Age'-campaign this spring, but never Ghosted it. I only saw mission 2 as a potentially good Ghosting mission anyhow, although I liked the campaign overall. Perhaps I will go back and give that mission a shot.

 

My next one is Ominous Bequest Gold; about halway done I'd say. Until then, have a good one! 

Klatremus' Supreme Thief Site - Walkthroughs, Loot Lists & Ghost Reports

 

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22.          5th Aug 2008, 23:30 #222

goldsla

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Originally Posted by Klatremus

Never played this one, so I don't wanna spoil the fun by reading too much, but isn't this available in English? I checked and found it both at the Keep and thiefmissions.com as 'Saturio Returns Home'.

Oh. I guess I'm just making things harder for myself. I picked it out because it was the oldest T2 FM on a set of FM CDs from Ben Ramsey-Komag. I didn't think that there would be an English translation, so I didn't look. It was definately different trying to figure out the readables. Sort of a bonus puzzle for the language impared.

 

Ominous Bequest is a good one. Enjoy.

 

By the by, I just checked the old Ghosting threads. I found two that indicate success ghosting 'Saturio Returns Home' but none that got all the loot (see Ghost1 and Ghost2). So I may have that solitary distinction, at least until you give it a shot. It looks like I took a slightly different approach to getting up to Saturio's cell than the other two. I think they took a much more difficult route, at least it seems that way to me.

 

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23.          6th Aug 2008, 21:55 #223

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More Time To Foil Karrass

FM: More Time To Foil Karrass (MoreTimeToFoilKarrass.zip)

 

Ghost - Failure

Perfect Thief - Failure

Time - 3:16:01

Loot - 2823/3113

Pockets Picked - 25/27

Locks Picked - 8

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 67

Damage dealt - 67, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 1

Secrets Found - 1 of 2

Consumables - lots

 

Comments:

Well, this was different.

 

I'm reporting on this mission just because Hexameron does not have it on his list of impossible to ghost missions. This mission was constructed with the intent of forcing mahem. Watchers are set up such that you cannot get by them. Rooms are set up with guards facing the door as it opens so that they will rush you. This mission was really not intended for the ghoster. That's the bottom line. I stuck with it out of bloody mindedness, but I would warn you away from it if you are a ghoster.

 

The architeture is crude. And the mission has the subtlty of a hammer. Plus there is a bug in one of the objectives such that it does not tick off after you complete it.

 

Give this one a pass.

 

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24.          15th Aug 2008, 11:22 #224

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 Gathering at the Inn

FM: Gathering at the Inn (Gati_Mission_HighRes.zip)

 

Ghost - Success

Perfect Thief - Success

Time - 1:09:24

Loot - 1048/1048

Pockets Picked - 2/3

Locks Picked - 0

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 3 of 3

Consumables - 2 water arrows

 

Comments:

Cool movies! Cool mission! Getting perfect thief took some doing. The mission has lots of breakables, so I assume the intended path for most thieves was to break in to the Inn. But I took the path less traveled.

 

A note about the secrets: they are more difficult to find loot in "plain sight" than secret areas. Nuff said.

 

My approach was simple:

Step 1) loot the city outside of the Inn

Step 2) Loot the Inn

Step 3) Take care of loose ends

Step 4) Complete the mission

 

Looting outside is not so tough. No one is alarmed by your presence, so walk where you will. Unless you are seen doing something nefarious, you're OK. Just explore everywhere, remember where you can't get in, so that you can come back to it later with a key. (Note: this thief has no lock picks.) I had to do a little nudging of a townsman in order to loot his chest without alerting, or at least I think he should have alerted without it, I did not try without, but it was nothing major in any event.

 

I then took to the rooftops via a rain gutter. From there you can enter the Inn via a chimney with a ladder inside it. There is a veritable chimney highway in there! Every fireplace connects, so you can visit almost every guest room via their fireplace. Loot, loot, loot. I used one water arrow getting from one room to another which does not have a fireplace, and another to darken a hallway on my way to a difficult to access piece of loot in a closet. Be sure to explore everywhere in the Inn. There is stuff at every level, including the attic.

 

While there are hundreds of guards (well, maybe only seven or so, but only three are stationary, and the others truck right along!), there really is only one difficult spot to negitiate: the top of the stairs. Fortunately, a little experimentation with hiding spots revealed that if you stick to the banister at the top of the stairs, the guards that go down the stairs step around you most of the time (UNLESS A GUARD-GUARD COLLISION SENDS ONE OFF THE NORMAL TRACK - WATCH OUT FOR THAT) Just trail a guard downstairs to the kitchen where you are safe.

 

One more tricky bit is turning off all the electric lights in the Inn withhout having a guard go down to the generators and turn them back on. Judicious use of boxes at the top of the cellar stairs keeps him from getting down there to turn the generators back on. Just hide behind the door to make sure that he is stuck, then sneak back out to the kitchen.

 

It took me the longest time to figure out how to solve one of the goals. Ruining Lady Verrilli's Ice Sculpting business was not easy. But eventually I guessed right, and got it. A clue or two would have been nice. The numerous false steps I took doing that objective do not show up in the time stats, as at some point I reloaded to an earlier game once I figured out how to address the generator, but it seemed like hours to determine what the mission author had in mind for this.

 

After that objective was done, it was just a careful reading of the final objective to end the game.

 

Thank you Markus Mokkis Lappalainen & Totality for a great romp!

 

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25.          23rd Aug 2008, 03:40 #225

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 What Lies Below

FM: What Lies Below (WC_WhatLiesBelow_v1.zip)

 

Ghost - Failure (but moral success)

Perfect Thief - Failure

Time - 1:45:31

Loot - 975/1085

Pockets Picked - 0

Locks Picked - 7

Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0

Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0

Healing taken - 0, Kills - 0, Bodies Discovered - 0

Secrets Found - 3 of 3

Consumables - none

 

Comments:

Let me cover the "moral success" claim up front. There is a place in the mission where you must fall down a waterfall into a large pool of water (reservoir). Standing near the reservoir, above and to your right as you enter the water, is a haunt facing a door. This haunt always goes on a low level alert when you fall into the water. I tried over 20 times, and no matter how I tried to control the fall, the haunt would put his hand to his eyes and peer forward. He would not move his feet, but he clearly heard something and reacted to it. This would last a few seconds, and then he would put his hand down and do nothing else. This was my only alert on the mission, and I don't see how I could do anything to quiet my fall into the water. So, while busted, the bust was "minor." Too bad that the FM designer couln't have made that one haunt less touchy.

 

Other than that spot, there are a couple of tough to ghost areas. The hardest, for me, was getting by the ghost of a Hammerite that the Keepers locked in a room to die of thirst / starvation (nice guys!). He is facing the door, slightly off to the left as you face the entry. There is a flickering light, which is irregular in nature. That is, the periods of light between the periods of darkness get longer and shorter, apparently without a discernable (by me) pattern. I just had to wait for when I thought the period of light between two periods of darkness would be just a flash, and make a run to get behind him before the light came back on. It took a good 10-15 tries before I hit the right timing. Getting back out of there was no problem, as a glyph on the wall, which I thought would lead to a secret room, instead put the ghost out of his misery. I suppose I could have reloaded and tried to sneak back out the same way I got in, but the ghosting had already been busted by the waterfall fall, and I regarded his death as a mercy killing, scripted by the author, and not a conscious action on my part.

 

The next hardest spot was a section where you have to activate "light poles" to get up into an area with a glyph puzzle. I ghosted past the area before I discovered the switch to activate the light poles, which entailed making it past three semi-invisible haunts, and then back again on a search for a way to get the light poles going. If I had figured out the activation earlier, the ghosting would have been much easier, but I didn't, and it wasn't. Oh well.

 

Shame about the reservoir haunt. Otherwise this was a great mission to ghost. Challenging from begining to end. I don't know who the author was. This was a contest mission, and the author is only identified as "anon." But the mission was very well crafted and fun. Whoever is responsible for "What Lies Below": Great Job.

 

PS After you complete the main objective of the mission, all the haunts and ghoulies disappear, and you can trapse back to the begining looking for loot. I did that, but quickly got tired of looking. I'm sure it is all there somewhere, and a better thief than I can go looking for it all. Had I managed to ghost it, I might of tried harder for perfect thief. But without being able to do that, it just did not seem worthwhile.