SDA Knowledge Base - User contributions [en]

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2019-07-21T22:24:36Z

Jakeplissken: /* Casing the Joint */ Added Casing IL

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. We will outline the strategy for each run by discussing necessary or recommended purchases, providing a step-by-step guide for the fastest strategies, and finally providing a synopsis of the run and a summary on which aspects to practice to achieve record times.

There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more rare playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

'''TIMING:''' Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate, demonstrated by frame-counting many runs, and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but most of these can be traced to save/load indiscretions, and so far no definitive proof has been put forward. Likewise, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind. There is some debate regarding how Sabotage at Soulforge should be timed, since it is significantly faster in real time with one save/load than with a single segment, but currently single-segment runs are standardized.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. This is not as critical in other levels, as most levels place Garrett slightly above the ground and allow him to fall into place; on Running Interference however, Garrett begins in contact with the ground and thus getting a fast start by spamming is possible.

Do not blow the birdcall at this point. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about optimizing this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is relatively uncommon; grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, and drop one of them by the first door on your right. The guards hear the noise and open that door; then tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. If he is alerted by the box, he's actually less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by than if he were unalerted, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

A newer, faster, and more ersatz method is to retain both keys in your inventory, and drop them both in quick succession while moving your mouse downward so that the keys impact each other, thus making the noise necessary to alert Jenivere. This takes a significant amount of practice and binding the "drop item" command to your mousewheel can allow you to drop the keys quicker. With this method, you do not need to get close to the door; you can drop the keys half way through the hallway and turn back immediately. This method saves up to two seconds and is the current world record method.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. You do not need to leave as fast as possible; taking the time to crouch and KO a guard or two will usually save time as Jenivere will have less obstacles on her way out. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:04, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05]on the original "OldDark" engine in 2013. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed, forcing the player to sit through the fade-out. On 1.07 or 1.18 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:03 or even 1:02 is possible using the new methods.

==Shipping and Receiving==
There are no items for sale that are particularly necessary to get the fastest times here, so a money run is not especially helpful. If you are having trouble with guards, you might wish to buy extra invisibility potions or health potions for the purposes of practice, but they will not help you achieve a faster time.

The first jump over the large gap is very hard if you are not straferunning. Use the ladders to climb to the roof. It is slightly faster to mantle to the top of ladders rather than climbing up and over the top. Note that sometimes you can get a "floaty" ladder grab where you are not totally on the ladder. This is hard to identify visually unless you are quite experienced with this section, but if it happens to you, it can be remedied by jumping twice to mantle. Once on the roof, try to drop down into the office in such a way that you land close to the vase. Then jump onto the table and over the wall. Take a brief moment to align yourself for the jump onto the table as it is smaller than it looks. If you jump too far to the left, you'll slide off; too far to the right, and you won't be able to jump, instead only able to mantle onto the bench by the wall.

Grab the loot from the small box on top of the mail slots and proceed to the front office where you will grab the '''Building A Key'''. Go outside and across the catwalk to the opposite wing of the building. You will need to perform a glitch known as key transmigration. Essentially, when a key is equipped and readied to unlock a door, its area of interaction is actually significantly in front of Garrett. This means you can activate the lockboxes through the wall. You will need to practice and find visual cues to help you locate the lockbox as everyone approaches the doors in a slightly different way. There's nothing I can tell you to help you line it up, although on Normal you will see different red tutorial text when you highlight the lockbox, so use that to aid you.

Grab everything on the shelves to your right (note that one bowl is just a clutter object) and drop down the elevator shaft. It is slower to hit the button and drop onto the rising elevator, but you take less damage. Normally you should just drop down (remember that you do have one healing potion). Head up into the office and grab the gem in the wall behind the banner (utilizing a glitch known as banner transmigration). You now want to exit this bay by operating the lever and heading to the right out into the courtyard. Use your invis potion here to avoid complications with the guards.

The patrolling sword guard who walks around the corner of the boxes outside of this bay is your benchmark; if he hasn't appeared around the corner yet when you approach the corner, you are on a good pace. If he has or has already rounded the corner, your run has some imperfections and you will not be on record pace. Continue to the open bay. Use the Building A Key on the lockbox to open the door, letting you exit this bay slightly faster. Grab the 3 statues on the shelves and the two loot pieces under the desk, then exit out of the door. If you didn't manage to open the door, just exit out the bay door rather than fiddling with the lock as it's not worth the time. Head around the building back towards the beginning of the level.

Grab the statue inside of the open-able crate by the crawlspace, then crouch to go under the boxes. You have one more key transmigration left, on the door to the inventor's workshop closest to you. This one is slightly harder and again you will need to establish your own visual cues. Grab the two loot pieces on the shelves and return to the inside of the box pile to end the mission. There are several ways to climb the boxes, but the best is to mantle up first, then jump to the low box without mantling, then moving inwards to finish the stage.

This level is all about execution and the difference between a 1:47 and a 1:54 or 1:55 can come down to something as simple as having fast key transmigrations and optimal movement. It's tricky and one of the most optimized stages in the game, so expect to practice quite a bit before you start cracking the 1:50 barrier.

==Framed==
Since you have at least 500 gold from the previous stage, you can afford a Slowfall potion. Buy it, as it enables several skips at the beginning of the stage. If you are doing the rooftop route, you will need to buy an extra Scouting Orb as well. Nothing else is really required, as you are given a very generous 2 Invisibility potions to start.

There are 3 approaches to the beginning of this mission.

Primary route: Run towards the front gates (you will see the Watchers and turrets). As soon as the Watcher sees you, pop an Invisibility potion. You will need to mantle on top of one of the lights on the front gate which have very small hitboxes. The only way to reach them is with a Slowfall jump. I like to stand on the elevated section on the side of the bridge right in the middle on the crest and slightly to the right (you can see a seam where the crest is, stand on that). Then you must begin running diagonally for a split second, pop the slowfall potion and jump, in that precise order. Center the light on the middle of your screen. If you are lucky, you will grab it and mantle on top of the gate, and can continue the mission. This is extremely tricky to learn, and heavily dependent on developing good muscle memory, but once you master it you will be able to do it fairly consistently.

Rooftop "Expert" route: This is a very old method which is still the best solution for an Expert speedrun, since you do not start with an invisibility potion. It's only a few seconds slower than the primary route. Buy an extra Scouting Orb and Slowfall as described, then run over to the wall-fence. Elevator up onto the top of the wall using the Scouting Orb (as described in the Game Mechanics and Glitches link above) and then jump onto the series of roofs until you reach the one closest to the police station walls. Slowfall jump (drink the potion and immediately jump while straferunning) to reach the outer wall. If you land just short, you're screwed because you will be stuck on an invisible ledge and have to reset. Proceed to the front of the police station.

Ancient "Intended" route: This route is barely worth mentioning but for completeness, here it is. Pick the lock into the pump room, enter the sewers, and swim to the circular room. Look up and you will see the exit of the well. Rope arrow up into the courtyard and go through the double doors. You will find yourself behind the gate. This route is about a minute slower than the others.

Assuming you did one of the faster routes, you will need to trip the lever through the gate to enter the police station, which is as simple as clicking on it. You can optionally do a gate boost glitch here, also in the guide. Head through the double doors to the left. Open the door at the end of the hallway, you will be going through it on your way out. Head up the stairs and pop your invisibility potion. Turn right. You need to grab 3 items in this hallway. You need to grab the handkerchief in the first room on the right, then pickpocket the yellow key off the belt of the guard, then grab the vault key in the first door on the left. The patrolling guard is another benchmark; a fast run will be able to get the handkerchief and pickpocket and enter the left room before he blocks you from entering. Then continue down the hallway and use the yellow key to open the door to the spiral staircase.

At the top, you can jump over the desk to the metal door which you must also open with the yellow key. Enter 4026 into the keypad and equip the vault key; use this to open the vault door. Drop the handkerchief and grab the strongbox. Continue back down, jumping over the desk again. Return the strongbox to the room where you found the handkerchief and return back downstairs to the door you opened earlier, and sprint out to the front door. You need not open the door, simply pressing up against it is enough to trigger the end of the level.

==Ambush==
This level relies heavily on memorizing the correct path through the city, and the easiest way to do that is to watch any of the myriad videos of runs available online. Ambush, along with Running Interference, has one of the longest histories as a time trial level in Thief 2 and besides a minor find in 2017 the route has not changed since 2006. The route is very optimized, and is identical for all three difficulties.

From where Garrett starts, you can turn right 90 degrees and immediately mantle onto the street. Continue forward to the two female NPC's and mantle on top of the elevated garden. On New Dark you can mantle straight onto the garden from the ground level; on Old Dark it may help to jump on top of one of the boxes first, although it is still possible to mantle straight from the street.

On Hard or Expert difficulty, where health management is more vital, you can either enter the door on top of the garden and exit out the window of that building for less of a fall, or you can jump from the garden onto one of the guards' heads, which will break your fall and result in no damage. This guard is not present on Normal.

The fastest way to traverse the market is to jump across the fountain. If your timing is perfect you can jump straight onto the fountain without needing to mantle. It's also possible to take it safe and jump early, intending to mantle; this method is slower but the timing is far less demanding. Naturally, this method is much more reliable in New Dark. If you are unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge of the fountain where you can neither mantle nor make it onto the fountain itself. Decide which method works for you to avoid this situation.

At the next forking path you can run around the building to the right or climb the ladder to the left; climbing the ladder is faster. Unfortunately there is no consistent way to prevent fall damage here.

When making your way across the water ways, using jumps to straighten your path through the level is faster than running along the bridges. You can pickpocket a guard patrol here for an extra health potion if you need it. The precise patrol path of these guards is pseudorandom. On an optimal run, you will have to pass them right as they enter an alleyway at a left turn. Sometimes you can get by them on the left, which is ideal; if their patrol path strays too close to the left corner, you'll have to pass them on the right.

As you approach Garrett's apartment you will want to enter the building across the street and jump to Garrett's apartment window. The door to this building opens towards you so activate it as soon as possible. Head all the way up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. You do not need to be strafe-running to make the jump to Garrett's windowsill, but it helps. While in mid-air, try to open the windows so you don't waste time fiddling with them on the windowsill.

Garrett's apartment has very intrusive geometry and the only way to become fast at moving through it is to practice. Upon entering, head to his closet and frob the left-most coat hanger to open the stash. The secret door does not need to be fully open to grab the items behind it, so you will want to memorize the location of each item so you don't have to wait for the door to open. You need to grab the Shalebridge key for the objective (even though you will not use it), and the speed potion.

Exiting Garrett's apartment can be tricky due to the very large bed hitbox; just try and find a movement pattern that is fast and feels natural. Now you have two options to reach the end level trigger, both involving out-of-bounds tricks.

The classic method is to drop down from Garret's window and head east until you get to the waterway. Turn around, and on your right there should be a window texture on a building next to some stone battlements. The frame of this window is wood; use a rope arrow to climb up to this window, then jump to and mantle upon the battlements. You are now out of bounds.

The newer method involves retrieving the slowfall potion from the stash as well, and jumping back onto the windowsill of the adjacent apartment building, instead of dropping down. Run to the edge of the windowsill, then use the slowfall potion to jump across the street to the roof of the building and then walking over to the battlements. Slowfall jumping is an art in and of itself and requires separate treatment elsewhere.

Both methods get you to the same place - out of bounds on top of the battlements. Drop down and continue heading east. You will eventually reach a wooden section of wall next to a building with a red sloped roof. Use another rope arrow to get on top of the wooden pillar, then mantle on top of the red sloped roof. While standing on this roof, you will slowly slip off. Thus, you need to drink your speed potion to help counteract the slide, and continue along the roofs. You will eventually drop into the Shalebridge area from completely the opposite of the intended direction, completing the mission.

A note of caution: If you are able to end the mission while still out of bounds, it is because you have installed the Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e, included as an optional install in most Tafferpatcher versions. Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e is explicitly BANNED because of its demonstrated illicit changes to the levels, and thus runs including this exit are not considered valid.

==Eavesdropping==
The three speed potions, three health potions, four flash bombs, and the single invisibility potion will make this mission (slightly) more tolerable during a money run.

Immediately drink a speed potion. Run forward and turn left, then right, and enter the door straight ahead at the end of the corridor. Turn left again, remembering to grab the purse on one of the chairs lining the right side of the hallway, and you will find one of the eavesdropping doors in a little alcove in the corner. If you moved quickly, a guard will also come through the door in the other corner of the room, and you can get to the shadows quickly enough to kill him with a broadhead. Cribby's method is to wait until this guard opens the door to the Acolytes' Quarters so that in the event of an Acolyte's key, this door remains open.

Some notes on the mechanics of the conversation. The entire unskippable section, from the bells to the reveal of the correct key location, is approximately 5 minutes 44 seconds long, but it varies based on which key you get (the last unskippable sound files revealing the key locations vary in length). Of note is that the French translation of the game is 19 seconds faster, however no consensus has been reached as to whether or not it is allowed in speedruns (thanks to SuicideMachine for measuring both versions). This section is surprisingly well-programmed. A box made of fail lines, roughly the size of the framing of the alcove which you stand in, limits your travel outside for the duration of the conversation. Crossing any of these lines is an instant mission failure. Many other randomly placed fail lines exist in the level as well, limiting your potential travels even more. There exists a similarly sized fail line box at the other, less convenient door. The game checks at various times whether or not the player is inside the box. If after any check the player is not inside the box, the mission instantly fails because you "missed" part of the conversation. It is known that one of the checks is run whenever a new sound file plays, but there are also additional checks as it appears impossible to stray too far from the box. Checking the objective screen will reveal whether or not a player has failed.

All attempts to bypass, shorten, or otherwise skip this waiting period have failed. It's even possible to embed oneself in the ceiling and move Garret's torso hitbox into the eavesdropping box, but leaving either of the designated boxes is an instant fail. This particular section is so well programmed that is appears impossible to skip with currently-existing knowledge of the game.

Thus the only recourse is to entertain oneself until the "cutscene" is over. If being forced to wait almost 6 minutes was not enough, what follows is one of the only truly random elements of the game. When the level loads, the game pulls a value from the computer's system time to determine which key will be the Safe Deposit box key (in other words, the correct key is decided when the level loads, and cannot be manipulated by saving/loading - only be restarting the entire level). There are 9 possible key locations on Normal: Factory, Acolytes' Quarters, Guards' Quarters, the pulpit in the Church, the closet near the pulpit the Church, the shed atop the Acolytes' Quarters, the office on the second floor of the church, West Tower, and East Tower, listed here from best to worst in terms of speed. You must retrieve the key from the given location, bring it down to the factory, use it on the wax block, and use the nearby putty knife to cut the wax impression from the block before returning the key to its original location, while also obtaining the requisite 800 loot. Note that after the "key reveal" voice line plays, you are free to leave, even though Karras speaks a few additional lines, but be careful not to leave too early. Many runs have been lost by overzealous players leaving the box mere frames before the end of the voice line, resulting in a failure.

While individual variations exist for each key location, the only viable keys for IL's are the first two - Acolytes' Quarters and Factory, with Factory being ideal. Acolytes' Quarters is approximately 6-8 seconds slower than a Factory key. For these keys, immediately grab the key and head to the wax, using your invisibility potion and KO'ing one of the guards in the basement. If they follow you to the wax, there's a good chance they will block you in and kill you. Then return the key and get onto the loot route. Returning the key is usually just a matter of dropping the key in the same room you found it, although it is possible for the key to bounce or slide out of the trigger area and un-check the objective, which can be quite disappointing if you reach the end of the level only to find the key was misplaced.

A general and reliable loot route which works for most keys is as follows. After returning the key, exit outside from the back of the room with your eavesdropping door, and climb up to the roof. Grab the loot inside the shed, then head inside the chapel. Grab the statue on the bookshelf, then enter the office. Grab the loot on the table, then climb the ladder just enough to turn around and frob the chest on the floor above. Drop from the ladder, and exit the office through the opposite door you entered. Grab another statue on a bookshelf, then jump through the narrow gap down to the chapel floor. Grab the candlesticks and loot on the pulpit, as well as the crown between the pews. Then head into the west tower. Grab the loot bag on the table, and the candlestick at the top of the ladder. You should have 810/800 loot, so jump off the balcony back to the front entrance to the chapel grounds and exit.

Achieving a world record time on this stage requires clever use of speed and invisibility potions to maximize time spent at maximum speed, and almost certainly requires a factory key, which means waiting through the conversation as many times as it takes to get the correct key at 1/9 odds, and being mentally prepared to perfectly execute the loot route after much tedium. Good luck if you wish to attempt it.

==First City Bank and Trust==
There are no necessary purchases for this mission, but one option which is single-segment safe is to buy two health potions and an extra flash bomb. For money runs, extra mines are a good buy.

First mine+fire arrow to blast the door to your left open. Continue straight ahead and through the marble room. You can try and knock out the purple guard but it doesn't always work. Drop mines in an attempt to disable the mechbeast. Continue down into the basement. If you watch a few IL's you can see what we call "box strats", pioneered by SocratesJohnson. The tall boxes are hard to traverse in general, but there are ways to make them more convenient. Press up against them to mantle; straferun to cross the gap between them whilst throwing the box. If you cross the gap running straight you will almost surely fall.

Follow the side passages to the left to exit near the end of the tunnels. Continue forward until you reach the puzzle machine with a Watcher out front. Hit the lever and stand under the Watcher. Wait until there is only one vertical bar visible on the gate, then enter and open up the puzzle. The fastest combination is middle-left, middle-right, bottom right. If you are ever in doubt, just remember the "four corners" solution - just hit all four corners and the puzzle will complete. Backtrack all the way back to the marble room. You can take the side passages again if you are fast; if your run is slow up to this point, you may get blocked by one of the small mechbeasts. If you somehow get blocked on the entrance to the side passages, don't take them, as there will be another mechbeast who will also block your exit. Just take the wider route out.

Now enter the vault. Hug the right side of the room, or else the vault door will push you out of the way. Trigger the elevator and climb on top of the elevator button box. When the elevator is low enough, press the up button and jump onto the elevator; you may get stuck in the elevator if you press and jump too early and may even take damage. Jump across the corners of the second floor and climb up to the top floor. Head over to vault 11; you can grab the recording through the door, no need to use the key. Drop all the way down to the first floor, using health potions as necessary.

You will see a stairway to your right; take it and go through the first door you see. Flashbomb the mechbeast if he is there, and rope arrow to the roof of the dome. Climb the rope to end the mission. Since the "dome" section is technically above the roof of the bank, the game reads you as being outside and trips the end level trigger. If this fails or if you get blocked, just run out the ground level floor where you came in.

==Blackmail==

For money runs, buy 2 invisibility potions, 2 flash bombs, and 2 fire arrows. For any% runs, you will most likely have 0 gold available.

Blackmail has a reputation as a "run-killer" and is a very difficult and touchy mission. AI patterns can affect your time greatly in ways that appear, to be but are not truly, random. Consistency is very important.

Immediately equip a rope arrow and fire it into the wooden edge of the left tower at the front gate. Climb this gate, and hit the lever to open the front gate as you drop down to the other side (the lever is in the right tower). Enter the mansion through the double doors; it is highly recommended to hit the patrolling archer with your blackjack to either stun or KO him. Once inside the foyer, head immediately to the upper level.

Notably, the routes for the money run and the any% route are significantly different. On money runs, you have fire arrows to blow open the double doors to the second floor. Launch the arrows as you are approaching the door and climbing the stairs; do it fast enough that you don't have to stop and wait for the final arrow to blow open the door. As you enter, drop a flash bomb and hug the left edge of the door way to make your way in. You will collect the loot around the balcony on your way out.

In the any% route, you need to alert the pair of guards on the other side of the door in such a way that they will patrol into the double doors, automatically unlocking them. Due to the gear-based lock system in this level, the guards are incapable of re-locking any doors they unlock. You can do this in several ways, similar to Jenivere's door in Running Interference. You can hit the door with your blackjack or broadhead arrows. However, depending on where you hit the door, the guards will perceive the sound as coming from different areas, altering their patrol pattern. An important thing to note about Thief AI is that their patterns are not random. If you were to repeat the same set of perfectly precise actions with perfect timing, the guards would react the same way every time. But in a game as complicated as Thief, the small human errors involved - a slightly misplaced arrow shot, a slight increase in the amount of draw you used, a slight change in timing - can make their AI appear random. It is not, and as such you must determine which areas of the door cause the guards to open the door reliably for you. Some runners have found success shooting the darkened part of the left door immediately under the doorknob, but your own personal timing and movement may cause this to not work reliably for you. In any case, once you have hit the door with a suitable object, you can only hope the guards will open the door; in the meantime, collect the loot around the balcony while you wait.

Once you are through the double doors, continue left, then right. Grab the statue at the end of the hallway and head towards the casino, stopping in one of the rooms on the right to grab a vase. There are many loot paths through the casino. Grab the loot from the roulette tables, as well as the gold bottle on the bar and Benny's purse. Keep it quiet in this room, as you cannot pickpocket Benny's purse when he is alerted unless you are very lucky with your positioning.

Another pair of routes present themselves to you here. The in the modern route, you must pickpocket the female guard patrolling through the casino for her key. Then, enter the bathroom, grabbing the loot along the perimeter. Return to the casino, through the double doors near the bar, and out onto the balcony. Mantle on top of the open door and onto the sloped roof. It helps if your camera is perfectly level, not looking up or down, before you attempt this mantle. Then jump onto the third floor balcony and use the key to enter Truart's room.

In the classic route, you do not need the key from the female guard's belt. Instead, after gathering the bathroom loot, grab the silver gear from the bottom of the bathtub. Then exit the bathroom to the left, and use the silver gear to enter the passageway to the third floor. From here you can work your way to Truart's room. This route is slower, but less reliant on maintaining high speed throughout the run.

Whichever route you take, grab the key ring and the bronze gear from Truart's room. You will exit the mansion by using the bronze gear stairwell to return to the foyer. From Truart's room, there are two ways to the common room, which you must pass through to access the stairwell. The right route is a narrow passageway, and if a single NPC is in this hallway, your chances of pushing through are very low, especially with the civilian NPC. Sometimes guards can be manipulated to step backwards against the wall, allowing you to pass; the civilian will almost always back up in fright for long enough to ruin your run. This is an opportune time to use an invisibility potion if the situation allows for it. In the modern route, you must do everything earlier in the run as fast as possible to beat the civilian NPC from entering the hallway and blocking you, making the timing extremely tight. If this route is blocked or full of guards, as it often is, you will have no choice but to take the left route through the bathroom, losing a massive amount of time. From the common room, proceed to the stairwell and ready the bronze gear.

Open the bronze gear lock and you're back in the foyer; if you did the money run route, collect the balcony loot now and jump down; if you did the any% route, just jump down right away. Exit through the double doors back towards the beginning of the level.

Often, you will find that the front gate is closed again, despite you having opened it with the lever earlier. This loses approximately 4 seconds. The reasons for a closed gate are again related to AI patterns. The front gate guard will always see you when you climb the rope over the front gate, and the Watchers will always trigger the alarm. Since you opened the gate, the front gate guard will chase you through the open gate into the grounds. When he loses you and stops searching, he may return to his post right away, in which case he will close the front gate behind him. In short, it can be beneficial to keep this guard chasing you as long as possible, as it delays his return to his post and the closing of the gate.

==Trace the Courier==

Buy two speed potions and an invisibility potion for money runs; for any%, just buy the two speed potions.

Lieutenant Mosely follows a predetermined path through the level and only strays from that path when alerted. However, her AI will also skip over certain actions when alerted, and this can be used to your advantage to speed up her stroll.

First a quick recap: If an NPC is "first alerted," they will continue whatever they were doing and make a comment, before returning to their base alert level. When they are "second alerted," they will actively search for the player and taunt them, before returning to their base alert level. When NPC's are "third alerted," they have seen the player and will chase them down attempting to kill them; when they lose sight of the player, they will enter second alert status, before returning to their base alert level.

Mosely will occasionally stop and do a "searching animation," and this can be prevented by first alerting Mosely such that her time spent in first alert status overlaps with her AI's search trigger. The easiest way to do this is to shoot her with a water arrow, or land a water arrow near her. Broadheads often make a loud enough noise to second alert her and are not reliable. Noisemakers have a special effect on AI and are also not useful as they pull Mosely from her route.

On normal difficulty, Mosely only stops to search once, right before she makes a left turn at the beginning of the level. First alert her and she'll pass right through. Mosely is not the most alert NPC ever, but you want to give her a wide berth. It isn't necessary to collect any loot even in any% as there is not enough for useful purchases in Life of the Party.

As Mosely enters the marketplace she will drop the letter near a streetlight. If you are following her closely, you have one frame to grab the letter from her hand without waiting for it to reach the ground. This is because items in Thief can only be grabbed if they are not moving. When Mosely drops the letter, it is momentarily immobile before accelerating towards the ground. Having mousewheel grab helps here. Once you have the letter, being seen by Mosely is no longer a failure condition. Read the letter, drink a speed potion and across the market by way of the fountain. If you are running any%, there is an invisibility potion that can be grabbed in one of the covered market stalls near Mosely's dead drop. You do not need to drop the letter again, since you will have ended the mission well before the Pagan reaches the market.

Drink your second speed potion when the first runs out, and head to the cemetery. Since you arrived so fast, the Pagan will not have left the cemetery yet, much less reached the market, so the scripted sequence with the Mechanists will not play. However, being seen by the Pagan fails the mission. So use your invisibility potion and head to the back wall of the cemetery. Using the grave stones, mantle over the wall and head into the catacomb, and through the portal.

The original, now obsolete strategy involves shooting a noisemaker into the cemetery to distract the Pagan in lieu of an invisibility potion. The ideal location is into one of the fake catacombs in the first cemetery courtyard. Because noisemakers significantly reduce the senses of NPC's, you can sometimes slip by. The unreliability of this method caused it to be nicknamed "The Colt .45 Shot" by SocratesJohnson: "It gets them every time, but only if you put it in the right place."

==Trail of Blood==
Since your items from Tracing the Courier carry over to Trail of Blood, make sure to replay Tracing the Courier without using any items that would benefit your Trail of Blood run, namely Speed and Invisibility potions.

This run is pretty much a straightforward blast to the finish with one difficult trick around the midway point. Start by heading down the hill towards the river. Note that while the developers mostly removed Bunnyhopping from Thief 2, you can still get a little bit of a boost if you jump right as you land while descending a slope. This stage features liberal use of these slopes, so use this to get as many boosts as possible. Note that while getting a map is marked as an objective, it's completely optional, so ignore the map at the bottom of the river. When you reach the river, jump across and land on the slope underwater to climb up on the other side - the first ruby is next to a tree on your left. Grab it, then turn around and head towards the bridge which leads back across the river. If you were fast up to this point, the Mechanist will not quite be at the bridge yet. You can walk halfway across the bridge and mantle the left side to easily bypass him, or you can use the Onegin method of jumping straight across along the right side of the bridge and landing on a small patch of land. It's not as hard as it looks. The second ruby is inside the house on this bank of the river under the stairs. Now ascend the stairs, there's a speed potion at the top which saves time. Jump out of the window at the top, but note that you will lose about half of your health from the fall.

Head back across the river and up to the temple on top of the hill, pickpocketing the flare from the Mechanist along the way. Grab the slowfall potion from nearby the fallen Pagan inside the temple if you are doing the old skip method. Navigating the face to place the rubies can be tricky until you map out your precise inputs. Place the first ruby as you are mantling onto the face, then ready the second ruby. Hold forward the entire time, place the second ruby, then while still hugging the "nose" of the statue, slide over to the mouth and enter the portal.

There's another short downhill section here, which every runner does differently. There's no best way, just try to squeeze in as many boosts as possible and don't jump too far off track. At the bottom, there's an eye-plant to your left onto which you can jump to cut the corner a bit. These eye-plants have large hitboxes so you just have to learn where to run. As you follow the blood trail, you'll reach a right-hand turn alongside a river of blood (?). Grab the vine arrow here. Across the river is a pyramidal slope, and opposite of that is a ledge which leads to your goal. A significant shortcut follows which requires a speed potion, and a slowfall potion for the old method. Pop the speed potion, then jump across the river to the pyramidal slope. From either face of the structure, you can lean forward to rapidly accelerate up the slope and RUN (NOT JUMP) off the edge to reach the ledge. With the old method, you do the same but instead of leaning, you use a slowfall potion immediately prior to leaving the slope, which will allow you to reach the ledge. Perfectly executed, either method will allow you to land flat on the ledge and continue. However, most of the time, you will fall short and have to mantle up. If you are very unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge, making it impossible to land flat on the ledge and also impossible to mantle.

Once on top of the ledge, continue past the two ape-beasts. Once you enter the meadow with the trees, vine arrow up to one of the catwalks and turn left - there's yet another speed potion in here which you can skip if you brought a bunch to this point. Then turn around, and proceed left, then right, then right again at each possible junction until you approach the icicle hall. As you approach from two catwalks away, throw a few flares at the icicles. If they have enough momentum, they will melt the icicles, which is much faster than hitting them with the sword. If you have any speed potions left, you can use them and smash into the icicles, Garrett's momentum will break them as well. If any are left, jump before drawing your sword at the ideal time to inherit momentum and minimize the slow sword-walking speed, then smack the icicles you missed. There are 5 icicles, only 4 of which need to be destroyed. Hopefully you got at least 2 with flares. Now just keep right and continue down the hill to the Pagan, you do not need to read his letter.

==Life of the Party==

==Precious Cargo==

==Kidnap==

==Casing the Joint==
Buy two speed potions, two invisibility potions, and two frogbeast eggs.

All variations of this IL are based on how you get onto the second floor courtyard and then onto the third floor balcony.

The most modern version by iamquetzalcoatl involves jumping onto the edge of the fountain, and then mantling onto the wall-mounted lamp on the perimeter wall, then mantling onto the perimeter wall. Immediately drink a speed potion. A straferunning leap from the perimeter wall allows you to mantle onto the second floor courtyard. In midair, equip and draw back a vine arrow and shoot it to the third floor balcony, and climb up.

The classic method involves climbing up to the second floor courtyard via the front door. This method, a variation of which is still the standard for single-segment, is also quite tricky and requires practice. Drink a speed potion, and run towards the front door, grabbing a crate along the way. Throw the crate to the left corner of the front door structure, then jump on top of it and elevator using a scouting orb. Then mantle on top of the structure. Placing the crate, jumping on top of it while under the effects of a speed potion, and elevatoring quickly require some practice to do efficiently. Unlike the above method, the guards will be looking your way. So use an invisibility potion and ready your vine arrow. Vine arrow up to the third floor balcony. Another slower variation which saves an invisibility potion is to fire a noisemaker arrow into the far right corner instead. After the noisemaker arrow hits, the guards will be distracted, and you can vine up to the balcony.

Once on the third floor balcony, drink another speed potion and continue straight ahead. Go through the doors to the end of the long hallway. Drink another invisibility potion, then pass the patrolling guard, turn left, then right, drink another speed potion, and turn right again. At the end of this hallway is the switch to open up the secret passageway, your main objective. After you frob the switch, turn around and move through the wooden hallway into the lock-puzzle room. There is a breakable window here. Smash it with your blackjack and leap out the window, using the frogbeasts to break your fall. You can also blackjack fall cancel, which is more stylish but riskier, or just edge your way along the windowsill until the game counts you as being outside, but without falling all the way to the street, which is slightly slower. Note that the whole reason why you can't just leap out is because your landing alerts guards on the first floor, which fails the mission.

==Masks==

==Sabotage at Soulforge==

Thief 2: The Metal Age

2019-07-21T20:28:28Z

Jakeplissken: Undo revision 43222 by Jakeplissken (talk)

[[Category:PC]]
[[Category:Games]]

{{sda run|http://speeddemosarchive.com/Thief2.html}}

[https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/thief_2_the_metal_age_verifiers_needed.html The Forum Thread] (starts with Poesta's old times).

= Categories =

Always check to see that GOG or Steam have adopted the latest patches if you want to run those versions! Any version that has been on GOG or Steam is fine. See the "version differences" subpage at the bottom of this page.

Here are the currently accepted categories. If you want to do runs in a different category bring it up in the thread first. The generic category is any% WITHOUT resets. This means you can't save/load at all (deaths most likely waste too much time and result in a reject) and may not use the Infinite Speed Potion unless you can do so without the reset. The ILs are always so called "money runs" which means you start with either max loot collected from the previous mission, or any and all useful items that you could possibly have when leaving "Trace the Courier" when playing "Trail of Blood", or "Precious Cargo" when playing "Kidnap". Obviously you should also have collected the extra loot you can get from all throughout the two pairs of linked missions when advancing to the missions that follow.

100% means all loot, all secrets and all pickpockets and any optional goals have to be completed, including the bonus ones: the rings in Running Interference, the Truart burial in Blackmail, getting 900+ loot in Trail of Blood (already part of the definition), finding Cavador's diary and the drill in Kidnap and leaving the library corpses where they'll be found in Casing the Joint. If you know of another bonus goal besides these, add it to this list. NB! 100% runs should be run on '''Expert only''' to avoid redundancy.

Low% (normal difficulty only) is defined as follows:
*no shopping 
*get '''precisely''' the least amount of loot that allows finishing the mission 
*otherwise your goal is to finish the level with the lowest combined total of the following statistics that are all listed in the end mission summary screen:
:* Pockets picked
:* Locks picked
:* Back stabs
:* Knockouts/while airborne (count separately)
:* Damage dealt
:* Innocents killed/others killed (separately)
:* Iron Beasts destroyed/disabled (separately)
:* Bodies discovered by enemies
:* Secrets found
*if someone else manages to get a lower % for a given mission, their run will obsolete yours barring awful execution

There is currently some controversy around whether the statistics "damage taken" and "healing taken" should also count towards your % so if you want to take up the low% challenge, please open this issue up again in the thread.

Note that you can run any version of the game for any% runs, but only v. 1.18 or later for 100% and low%. This is to restrict the number of categories from expanding too big (and the earlier versions don't list all those statistics).

Segmented any%/100%/low% are categories and you should run whichever version is fastest for the any% and v. 1.18+ for 100% and low%, however you can't segment IL submissions. Segmented runs are expected to make use of all kinds of obscure and difficult boosts and tricks not seen in SS or IL runs.

Lastly there will be separate any% (SS, ILs and segmented) slots for the fastest version if that's v. 1.07 or v. 1.18 and the next fastest, readily available version because v. 1.07/1.18 are difficult to set up. v. 1.19+ can obsolete v. 1.07/1.18 but not vice versa.

Here are some prepared pages for you to fill in when you're planning a run in a given category:

* [[Thief 2/any % normal SS|Any % normal - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % normal ILs|Any % normal - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % hard SS|Any % hard - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % hard ILs|Any % hard - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % expert SS|Any % expert - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % expert IL|Any % expert - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/100 % expert SS|100 % expert - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/100 % expert ILs|100 % expert - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/low % normal SS|low % normal - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/low % normal ILs|low % normal - ILs]] 

= Additional Information =
[[Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] - All the known tricks and glitches in all the versions of the game. 
[[Thief 2/Source Code|Source Code (Parts Thereof)]] - If you want to see exactly what the code does. 
[[Thief 2/Additional Resources|Additional Resources]] - Links to other helpful resources. 
[[Thief 2/Version Differences|Version Differences]] - Differences between various versions of the game.

Thief 2: The Metal Age

2019-07-20T23:16:50Z

Jakeplissken: /* Categories */ Clarified unused categories.

[[Category:PC]]
[[Category:Games]]

{{sda run|http://speeddemosarchive.com/Thief2.html}}

[https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/thief_2_the_metal_age_verifiers_needed.html The Forum Thread] (starts with Poesta's old times).

= Categories =

Always check to see that GOG or Steam have adopted the latest patches if you want to run those versions! Any version that has been on GOG or Steam is fine. See the "version differences" subpage at the bottom of this page.

Here are the currently accepted categories. If you want to do runs in a different category bring it up in the thread first. The generic category is any% WITHOUT resets. This means you can't save/load at all (deaths most likely waste too much time and result in a reject) and may not use the Infinite Speed Potion unless you can do so without the reset. The ILs are always so called "money runs" which means you start with either max loot collected from the previous mission, or any and all useful items that you could possibly have when leaving "Trace the Courier" when playing "Trail of Blood", or "Precious Cargo" when playing "Kidnap". Obviously you should also have collected the extra loot you can get from all throughout the two pairs of linked missions when advancing to the missions that follow.

100% has been variously defined at different times to mean all loot, all pickpockets, and even all knockouts, all kills, all iron beasts destroyed. Many bizarre and arbitrary combination of any of the above have been suggested, as well as "Expert Only" or "Any Difficulty". Additional stipulations sometimes mention that any optional goals have to be completed, including the bonus ones: the rings in Running Interference, the Truart burial in Blackmail, getting 900+ loot and the map in Trail of Blood (already part of the definition), finding Cavador's diary and the drill in Kidnap and leaving the library corpses where they'll be found in Casing the Joint. If you know of another bonus goal besides these, add it to this list.Due to the lack of a true percentage counter and the arbitrary nature of such a category in a game like Thief, such definitions are left to the player's discretion, but unless sufficient interest exists to develop an agreed-upon criteria, such runs will not be considered for verification.

Low% (normal difficulty only) is defined as follows:
*no shopping 
*get '''precisely''' the least amount of loot that allows finishing the mission 
*otherwise your goal is to finish the level with the lowest combined total of the following statistics that are all listed in the end mission summary screen:
:* Pockets picked
:* Locks picked
:* Back stabs
:* Knockouts/while airborne (count separately)
:* Damage dealt
:* Innocents killed/others killed (separately)
:* Iron Beasts destroyed/disabled (separately)
:* Bodies discovered by enemies
:* Secrets found
*if someone else manages to get a lower % for a given mission, their run will obsolete yours barring awful execution

There is currently some controversy around whether the statistics "damage taken" and "healing taken" should also count towards your % so if you want to take up the low% challenge, please open this issue up again in the thread. How each statistic contributes towards obsoleting prior runs is undecided.

Note that you can run any version of the game for any% runs, but only v. 1.18 or later for 100% and low%. This is to restrict the number of categories from expanding too big (and the earlier versions don't list all those statistics).

Segmented any%/100%/low% are categories and you should run whichever version is fastest for the any% and v. 1.18+ for 100% and low%, however you can't segment IL submissions. Segmented runs are expected to make use of all kinds of obscure and difficult boosts and tricks not seen in SS or IL runs.

Lastly there will be separate any% (SS, ILs and segmented) slots for the fastest version if that's v. 1.07 or v. 1.18 and the next fastest, readily available version because v. 1.07/1.18 are difficult to set up. v. 1.19+ can obsolete v. 1.07/1.18 but not vice versa.

Here are some prepared pages for you to fill in when you're planning a run in a given category:

* [[Thief 2/any % normal SS|Any % normal - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % normal ILs|Any % normal - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % hard SS|Any % hard - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % hard ILs|Any % hard - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % expert SS|Any % expert - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/any % expert IL|Any % expert - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/100 % expert SS|100 % expert - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/100 % expert ILs|100 % expert - ILs]] 
* [[Thief 2/low % normal SS|low % normal - SS]] 
* [[Thief 2/low % normal ILs|low % normal - ILs]] 

= Additional Information =
[[Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] - All the known tricks and glitches in all the versions of the game. 
[[Thief 2/Source Code|Source Code (Parts Thereof)]] - If you want to see exactly what the code does. 
[[Thief 2/Additional Resources|Additional Resources]] - Links to other helpful resources. 
[[Thief 2/Version Differences|Version Differences]] - Differences between various versions of the game.

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2019-07-20T22:34:08Z

Jakeplissken: /* Trail of Blood */ Finished up Trail of Blood

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2019-07-20T22:32:32Z

Jakeplissken: /* Trail of Blood */

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. We will outline the strategy for each run by discussing necessary or recommended purchases, providing a step-by-step guide for the fastest strategies, and finally providing a synopsis of the run and a summary on which aspects to practice to achieve record times.

There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more rare playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

'''TIMING:''' Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate, demonstrated by frame-counting many runs, and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but most of these can be traced to save/load indiscretions, and so far no definitive proof has been put forward. Likewise, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind. There is some debate regarding how Sabotage at Soulforge should be timed, since it is significantly faster in real time with one save/load than with a single segment, but currently single-segment runs are standardized.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. This is not as critical in other levels, as most levels place Garrett slightly above the ground and allow him to fall into place; on Running Interference however, Garrett begins in contact with the ground and thus getting a fast start by spamming is possible.

Do not blow the birdcall at this point. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about optimizing this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is relatively uncommon; grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, and drop one of them by the first door on your right. The guards hear the noise and open that door; then tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. If he is alerted by the box, he's actually less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by than if he were unalerted, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

A newer, faster, and more ersatz method is to retain both keys in your inventory, and drop them both in quick succession while moving your mouse downward so that the keys impact each other, thus making the noise necessary to alert Jenivere. This takes a significant amount of practice and binding the "drop item" command to your mousewheel can allow you to drop the keys quicker. With this method, you do not need to get close to the door; you can drop the keys half way through the hallway and turn back immediately. This method saves up to two seconds and is the current world record method.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. You do not need to leave as fast as possible; taking the time to crouch and KO a guard or two will usually save time as Jenivere will have less obstacles on her way out. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:04, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05]on the original "OldDark" engine in 2013. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed, forcing the player to sit through the fade-out. On 1.07 or 1.18 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:03 or even 1:02 is possible using the new methods.

==Shipping and Receiving==
There are no items for sale that are particularly necessary to get the fastest times here, so a money run is not especially helpful. If you are having trouble with guards, you might wish to buy extra invisibility potions or health potions for the purposes of practice, but they will not help you achieve a faster time.

The first jump over the large gap is very hard if you are not straferunning. Use the ladders to climb to the roof. It is slightly faster to mantle to the top of ladders rather than climbing up and over the top. Note that sometimes you can get a "floaty" ladder grab where you are not totally on the ladder. This is hard to identify visually unless you are quite experienced with this section, but if it happens to you, it can be remedied by jumping twice to mantle. Once on the roof, try to drop down into the office in such a way that you land close to the vase. Then jump onto the table and over the wall. Take a brief moment to align yourself for the jump onto the table as it is smaller than it looks. If you jump too far to the left, you'll slide off; too far to the right, and you won't be able to jump, instead only able to mantle onto the bench by the wall.

Grab the loot from the small box on top of the mail slots and proceed to the front office where you will grab the '''Building A Key'''. Go outside and across the catwalk to the opposite wing of the building. You will need to perform a glitch known as key transmigration. Essentially, when a key is equipped and readied to unlock a door, its area of interaction is actually significantly in front of Garrett. This means you can activate the lockboxes through the wall. You will need to practice and find visual cues to help you locate the lockbox as everyone approaches the doors in a slightly different way. There's nothing I can tell you to help you line it up, although on Normal you will see different red tutorial text when you highlight the lockbox, so use that to aid you.

Grab everything on the shelves to your right (note that one bowl is just a clutter object) and drop down the elevator shaft. It is slower to hit the button and drop onto the rising elevator, but you take less damage. Normally you should just drop down (remember that you do have one healing potion). Head up into the office and grab the gem in the wall behind the banner (utilizing a glitch known as banner transmigration). You now want to exit this bay by operating the lever and heading to the right out into the courtyard. Use your invis potion here to avoid complications with the guards.

The patrolling sword guard who walks around the corner of the boxes outside of this bay is your benchmark; if he hasn't appeared around the corner yet when you approach the corner, you are on a good pace. If he has or has already rounded the corner, your run has some imperfections and you will not be on record pace. Continue to the open bay. Use the Building A Key on the lockbox to open the door, letting you exit this bay slightly faster. Grab the 3 statues on the shelves and the two loot pieces under the desk, then exit out of the door. If you didn't manage to open the door, just exit out the bay door rather than fiddling with the lock as it's not worth the time. Head around the building back towards the beginning of the level.

Grab the statue inside of the open-able crate by the crawlspace, then crouch to go under the boxes. You have one more key transmigration left, on the door to the inventor's workshop closest to you. This one is slightly harder and again you will need to establish your own visual cues. Grab the two loot pieces on the shelves and return to the inside of the box pile to end the mission. There are several ways to climb the boxes, but the best is to mantle up first, then jump to the low box without mantling, then moving inwards to finish the stage.

This level is all about execution and the difference between a 1:47 and a 1:54 or 1:55 can come down to something as simple as having fast key transmigrations and optimal movement. It's tricky and one of the most optimized stages in the game, so expect to practice quite a bit before you start cracking the 1:50 barrier.

==Framed==
Since you have at least 500 gold from the previous stage, you can afford a Slowfall potion. Buy it, as it enables several skips at the beginning of the stage. If you are doing the rooftop route, you will need to buy an extra Scouting Orb as well. Nothing else is really required, as you are given a very generous 2 Invisibility potions to start.

There are 3 approaches to the beginning of this mission.

Primary route: Run towards the front gates (you will see the Watchers and turrets). As soon as the Watcher sees you, pop an Invisibility potion. You will need to mantle on top of one of the lights on the front gate which have very small hitboxes. The only way to reach them is with a Slowfall jump. I like to stand on the elevated section on the side of the bridge right in the middle on the crest and slightly to the right (you can see a seam where the crest is, stand on that). Then you must begin running diagonally for a split second, pop the slowfall potion and jump, in that precise order. Center the light on the middle of your screen. If you are lucky, you will grab it and mantle on top of the gate, and can continue the mission. This is extremely tricky to learn, and heavily dependent on developing good muscle memory, but once you master it you will be able to do it fairly consistently.

Rooftop "Expert" route: This is a very old method which is still the best solution for an Expert speedrun, since you do not start with an invisibility potion. It's only a few seconds slower than the primary route. Buy an extra Scouting Orb and Slowfall as described, then run over to the wall-fence. Elevator up onto the top of the wall using the Scouting Orb (as described in the Game Mechanics and Glitches link above) and then jump onto the series of roofs until you reach the one closest to the police station walls. Slowfall jump (drink the potion and immediately jump while straferunning) to reach the outer wall. If you land just short, you're screwed because you will be stuck on an invisible ledge and have to reset. Proceed to the front of the police station.

Ancient "Intended" route: This route is barely worth mentioning but for completeness, here it is. Pick the lock into the pump room, enter the sewers, and swim to the circular room. Look up and you will see the exit of the well. Rope arrow up into the courtyard and go through the double doors. You will find yourself behind the gate. This route is about a minute slower than the others.

Assuming you did one of the faster routes, you will need to trip the lever through the gate to enter the police station, which is as simple as clicking on it. You can optionally do a gate boost glitch here, also in the guide. Head through the double doors to the left. Open the door at the end of the hallway, you will be going through it on your way out. Head up the stairs and pop your invisibility potion. Turn right. You need to grab 3 items in this hallway. You need to grab the handkerchief in the first room on the right, then pickpocket the yellow key off the belt of the guard, then grab the vault key in the first door on the left. The patrolling guard is another benchmark; a fast run will be able to get the handkerchief and pickpocket and enter the left room before he blocks you from entering. Then continue down the hallway and use the yellow key to open the door to the spiral staircase.

At the top, you can jump over the desk to the metal door which you must also open with the yellow key. Enter 4026 into the keypad and equip the vault key; use this to open the vault door. Drop the handkerchief and grab the strongbox. Continue back down, jumping over the desk again. Return the strongbox to the room where you found the handkerchief and return back downstairs to the door you opened earlier, and sprint out to the front door. You need not open the door, simply pressing up against it is enough to trigger the end of the level.

==Ambush==
This level relies heavily on memorizing the correct path through the city, and the easiest way to do that is to watch any of the myriad videos of runs available online. Ambush, along with Running Interference, has one of the longest histories as a time trial level in Thief 2 and besides a minor find in 2017 the route has not changed since 2006. The route is very optimized, and is identical for all three difficulties.

From where Garrett starts, you can turn right 90 degrees and immediately mantle onto the street. Continue forward to the two female NPC's and mantle on top of the elevated garden. On New Dark you can mantle straight onto the garden from the ground level; on Old Dark it may help to jump on top of one of the boxes first, although it is still possible to mantle straight from the street.

On Hard or Expert difficulty, where health management is more vital, you can either enter the door on top of the garden and exit out the window of that building for less of a fall, or you can jump from the garden onto one of the guards' heads, which will break your fall and result in no damage. This guard is not present on Normal.

The fastest way to traverse the market is to jump across the fountain. If your timing is perfect you can jump straight onto the fountain without needing to mantle. It's also possible to take it safe and jump early, intending to mantle; this method is slower but the timing is far less demanding. Naturally, this method is much more reliable in New Dark. If you are unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge of the fountain where you can neither mantle nor make it onto the fountain itself. Decide which method works for you to avoid this situation.

At the next forking path you can run around the building to the right or climb the ladder to the left; climbing the ladder is faster. Unfortunately there is no consistent way to prevent fall damage here.

When making your way across the water ways, using jumps to straighten your path through the level is faster than running along the bridges. You can pickpocket a guard patrol here for an extra health potion if you need it. The precise patrol path of these guards is pseudorandom. On an optimal run, you will have to pass them right as they enter an alleyway at a left turn. Sometimes you can get by them on the left, which is ideal; if their patrol path strays too close to the left corner, you'll have to pass them on the right.

As you approach Garrett's apartment you will want to enter the building across the street and jump to Garrett's apartment window. The door to this building opens towards you so activate it as soon as possible. Head all the way up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. You do not need to be strafe-running to make the jump to Garrett's windowsill, but it helps. While in mid-air, try to open the windows so you don't waste time fiddling with them on the windowsill.

Garrett's apartment has very intrusive geometry and the only way to become fast at moving through it is to practice. Upon entering, head to his closet and frob the left-most coat hanger to open the stash. The secret door does not need to be fully open to grab the items behind it, so you will want to memorize the location of each item so you don't have to wait for the door to open. You need to grab the Shalebridge key for the objective (even though you will not use it), and the speed potion.

Exiting Garrett's apartment can be tricky due to the very large bed hitbox; just try and find a movement pattern that is fast and feels natural. Now you have two options to reach the end level trigger, both involving out-of-bounds tricks.

The classic method is to drop down from Garret's window and head east until you get to the waterway. Turn around, and on your right there should be a window texture on a building next to some stone battlements. The frame of this window is wood; use a rope arrow to climb up to this window, then jump to and mantle upon the battlements. You are now out of bounds.

The newer method involves retrieving the slowfall potion from the stash as well, and jumping back onto the windowsill of the adjacent apartment building, instead of dropping down. Run to the edge of the windowsill, then use the slowfall potion to jump across the street to the roof of the building and then walking over to the battlements. Slowfall jumping is an art in and of itself and requires separate treatment elsewhere.

Both methods get you to the same place - out of bounds on top of the battlements. Drop down and continue heading east. You will eventually reach a wooden section of wall next to a building with a red sloped roof. Use another rope arrow to get on top of the wooden pillar, then mantle on top of the red sloped roof. While standing on this roof, you will slowly slip off. Thus, you need to drink your speed potion to help counteract the slide, and continue along the roofs. You will eventually drop into the Shalebridge area from completely the opposite of the intended direction, completing the mission.

A note of caution: If you are able to end the mission while still out of bounds, it is because you have installed the Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e, included as an optional install in most Tafferpatcher versions. Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e is explicitly BANNED because of its demonstrated illicit changes to the levels, and thus runs including this exit are not considered valid.

==Eavesdropping==
The three speed potions, three health potions, four flash bombs, and the single invisibility potion will make this mission (slightly) more tolerable during a money run.

Immediately drink a speed potion. Run forward and turn left, then right, and enter the door straight ahead at the end of the corridor. Turn left again, remembering to grab the purse on one of the chairs lining the right side of the hallway, and you will find one of the eavesdropping doors in a little alcove in the corner. If you moved quickly, a guard will also come through the door in the other corner of the room, and you can get to the shadows quickly enough to kill him with a broadhead. Cribby's method is to wait until this guard opens the door to the Acolytes' Quarters so that in the event of an Acolyte's key, this door remains open.

Some notes on the mechanics of the conversation. The entire unskippable section, from the bells to the reveal of the correct key location, is approximately 5 minutes 44 seconds long, but it varies based on which key you get (the last unskippable sound files revealing the key locations vary in length). Of note is that the French translation of the game is 19 seconds faster, however no consensus has been reached as to whether or not it is allowed in speedruns (thanks to SuicideMachine for measuring both versions). This section is surprisingly well-programmed. A box made of fail lines, roughly the size of the framing of the alcove which you stand in, limits your travel outside for the duration of the conversation. Crossing any of these lines is an instant mission failure. Many other randomly placed fail lines exist in the level as well, limiting your potential travels even more. There exists a similarly sized fail line box at the other, less convenient door. The game checks at various times whether or not the player is inside the box. If after any check the player is not inside the box, the mission instantly fails because you "missed" part of the conversation. It is known that one of the checks is run whenever a new sound file plays, but there are also additional checks as it appears impossible to stray too far from the box. Checking the objective screen will reveal whether or not a player has failed.

All attempts to bypass, shorten, or otherwise skip this waiting period have failed. It's even possible to embed oneself in the ceiling and move Garret's torso hitbox into the eavesdropping box, but leaving either of the designated boxes is an instant fail. This particular section is so well programmed that is appears impossible to skip with currently-existing knowledge of the game.

Thus the only recourse is to entertain oneself until the "cutscene" is over. If being forced to wait almost 6 minutes was not enough, what follows is one of the only truly random elements of the game. When the level loads, the game pulls a value from the computer's system time to determine which key will be the Safe Deposit box key (in other words, the correct key is decided when the level loads, and cannot be manipulated by saving/loading - only be restarting the entire level). There are 9 possible key locations on Normal: Factory, Acolytes' Quarters, Guards' Quarters, the pulpit in the Church, the closet near the pulpit the Church, the shed atop the Acolytes' Quarters, the office on the second floor of the church, West Tower, and East Tower, listed here from best to worst in terms of speed. You must retrieve the key from the given location, bring it down to the factory, use it on the wax block, and use the nearby putty knife to cut the wax impression from the block before returning the key to its original location, while also obtaining the requisite 800 loot. Note that after the "key reveal" voice line plays, you are free to leave, even though Karras speaks a few additional lines, but be careful not to leave too early. Many runs have been lost by overzealous players leaving the box mere frames before the end of the voice line, resulting in a failure.

While individual variations exist for each key location, the only viable keys for IL's are the first two - Acolytes' Quarters and Factory, with Factory being ideal. Acolytes' Quarters is approximately 6-8 seconds slower than a Factory key. For these keys, immediately grab the key and head to the wax, using your invisibility potion and KO'ing one of the guards in the basement. If they follow you to the wax, there's a good chance they will block you in and kill you. Then return the key and get onto the loot route. Returning the key is usually just a matter of dropping the key in the same room you found it, although it is possible for the key to bounce or slide out of the trigger area and un-check the objective, which can be quite disappointing if you reach the end of the level only to find the key was misplaced.

A general and reliable loot route which works for most keys is as follows. After returning the key, exit outside from the back of the room with your eavesdropping door, and climb up to the roof. Grab the loot inside the shed, then head inside the chapel. Grab the statue on the bookshelf, then enter the office. Grab the loot on the table, then climb the ladder just enough to turn around and frob the chest on the floor above. Drop from the ladder, and exit the office through the opposite door you entered. Grab another statue on a bookshelf, then jump through the narrow gap down to the chapel floor. Grab the candlesticks and loot on the pulpit, as well as the crown between the pews. Then head into the west tower. Grab the loot bag on the table, and the candlestick at the top of the ladder. You should have 810/800 loot, so jump off the balcony back to the front entrance to the chapel grounds and exit.

Achieving a world record time on this stage requires clever use of speed and invisibility potions to maximize time spent at maximum speed, and almost certainly requires a factory key, which means waiting through the conversation as many times as it takes to get the correct key at 1/9 odds, and being mentally prepared to perfectly execute the loot route after much tedium. Good luck if you wish to attempt it.

==First City Bank and Trust==
There are no necessary purchases for this mission, but one option which is single-segment safe is to buy two health potions and an extra flash bomb. For money runs, extra mines are a good buy.

First mine+fire arrow to blast the door to your left open. Continue straight ahead and through the marble room. You can try and knock out the purple guard but it doesn't always work. Drop mines in an attempt to disable the mechbeast. Continue down into the basement. If you watch a few IL's you can see what we call "box strats", pioneered by SocratesJohnson. The tall boxes are hard to traverse in general, but there are ways to make them more convenient. Press up against them to mantle; straferun to cross the gap between them whilst throwing the box. If you cross the gap running straight you will almost surely fall.

Follow the side passages to the left to exit near the end of the tunnels. Continue forward until you reach the puzzle machine with a Watcher out front. Hit the lever and stand under the Watcher. Wait until there is only one vertical bar visible on the gate, then enter and open up the puzzle. The fastest combination is middle-left, middle-right, bottom right. If you are ever in doubt, just remember the "four corners" solution - just hit all four corners and the puzzle will complete. Backtrack all the way back to the marble room. You can take the side passages again if you are fast; if your run is slow up to this point, you may get blocked by one of the small mechbeasts. If you somehow get blocked on the entrance to the side passages, don't take them, as there will be another mechbeast who will also block your exit. Just take the wider route out.

Now enter the vault. Hug the right side of the room, or else the vault door will push you out of the way. Trigger the elevator and climb on top of the elevator button box. When the elevator is low enough, press the up button and jump onto the elevator; you may get stuck in the elevator if you press and jump too early and may even take damage. Jump across the corners of the second floor and climb up to the top floor. Head over to vault 11; you can grab the recording through the door, no need to use the key. Drop all the way down to the first floor, using health potions as necessary.

You will see a stairway to your right; take it and go through the first door you see. Flashbomb the mechbeast if he is there, and rope arrow to the roof of the dome. Climb the rope to end the mission. Since the "dome" section is technically above the roof of the bank, the game reads you as being outside and trips the end level trigger. If this fails or if you get blocked, just run out the ground level floor where you came in.

==Blackmail==

For money runs, buy 2 invisibility potions, 2 flash bombs, and 2 fire arrows. For any% runs, you will most likely have 0 gold available.

Blackmail has a reputation as a "run-killer" and is a very difficult and touchy mission. AI patterns can affect your time greatly in ways that appear, to be but are not truly, random. Consistency is very important.

Immediately equip a rope arrow and fire it into the wooden edge of the left tower at the front gate. Climb this gate, and hit the lever to open the front gate as you drop down to the other side (the lever is in the right tower). Enter the mansion through the double doors; it is highly recommended to hit the patrolling archer with your blackjack to either stun or KO him. Once inside the foyer, head immediately to the upper level.

Notably, the routes for the money run and the any% route are significantly different. On money runs, you have fire arrows to blow open the double doors to the second floor. Launch the arrows as you are approaching the door and climbing the stairs; do it fast enough that you don't have to stop and wait for the final arrow to blow open the door. As you enter, drop a flash bomb and hug the left edge of the door way to make your way in. You will collect the loot around the balcony on your way out.

In the any% route, you need to alert the pair of guards on the other side of the door in such a way that they will patrol into the double doors, automatically unlocking them. Due to the gear-based lock system in this level, the guards are incapable of re-locking any doors they unlock. You can do this in several ways, similar to Jenivere's door in Running Interference. You can hit the door with your blackjack or broadhead arrows. However, depending on where you hit the door, the guards will perceive the sound as coming from different areas, altering their patrol pattern. An important thing to note about Thief AI is that their patterns are not random. If you were to repeat the same set of perfectly precise actions with perfect timing, the guards would react the same way every time. But in a game as complicated as Thief, the small human errors involved - a slightly misplaced arrow shot, a slight increase in the amount of draw you used, a slight change in timing - can make their AI appear random. It is not, and as such you must determine which areas of the door cause the guards to open the door reliably for you. Some runners have found success shooting the darkened part of the left door immediately under the doorknob, but your own personal timing and movement may cause this to not work reliably for you. In any case, once you have hit the door with a suitable object, you can only hope the guards will open the door; in the meantime, collect the loot around the balcony while you wait.

Once you are through the double doors, continue left, then right. Grab the statue at the end of the hallway and head towards the casino, stopping in one of the rooms on the right to grab a vase. There are many loot paths through the casino. Grab the loot from the roulette tables, as well as the gold bottle on the bar and Benny's purse. Keep it quiet in this room, as you cannot pickpocket Benny's purse when he is alerted unless you are very lucky with your positioning.

Another pair of routes present themselves to you here. The in the modern route, you must pickpocket the female guard patrolling through the casino for her key. Then, enter the bathroom, grabbing the loot along the perimeter. Return to the casino, through the double doors near the bar, and out onto the balcony. Mantle on top of the open door and onto the sloped roof. It helps if your camera is perfectly level, not looking up or down, before you attempt this mantle. Then jump onto the third floor balcony and use the key to enter Truart's room.

In the classic route, you do not need the key from the female guard's belt. Instead, after gathering the bathroom loot, grab the silver gear from the bottom of the bathtub. Then exit the bathroom to the left, and use the silver gear to enter the passageway to the third floor. From here you can work your way to Truart's room. This route is slower, but less reliant on maintaining high speed throughout the run.

Whichever route you take, grab the key ring and the bronze gear from Truart's room. You will exit the mansion by using the bronze gear stairwell to return to the foyer. From Truart's room, there are two ways to the common room, which you must pass through to access the stairwell. The right route is a narrow passageway, and if a single NPC is in this hallway, your chances of pushing through are very low, especially with the civilian NPC. Sometimes guards can be manipulated to step backwards against the wall, allowing you to pass; the civilian will almost always back up in fright for long enough to ruin your run. This is an opportune time to use an invisibility potion if the situation allows for it. In the modern route, you must do everything earlier in the run as fast as possible to beat the civilian NPC from entering the hallway and blocking you, making the timing extremely tight. If this route is blocked or full of guards, as it often is, you will have no choice but to take the left route through the bathroom, losing a massive amount of time. From the common room, proceed to the stairwell and ready the bronze gear.

Open the bronze gear lock and you're back in the foyer; if you did the money run route, collect the balcony loot now and jump down; if you did the any% route, just jump down right away. Exit through the double doors back towards the beginning of the level.

Often, you will find that the front gate is closed again, despite you having opened it with the lever earlier. This loses approximately 4 seconds. The reasons for a closed gate are again related to AI patterns. The front gate guard will always see you when you climb the rope over the front gate, and the Watchers will always trigger the alarm. Since you opened the gate, the front gate guard will chase you through the open gate into the grounds. When he loses you and stops searching, he may return to his post right away, in which case he will close the front gate behind him. In short, it can be beneficial to keep this guard chasing you as long as possible, as it delays his return to his post and the closing of the gate.

==Trace the Courier==

Buy two speed potions and an invisibility potion for money runs; for any%, just buy the two speed potions.

Lieutenant Mosely follows a predetermined path through the level and only strays from that path when alerted. However, her AI will also skip over certain actions when alerted, and this can be used to your advantage to speed up her stroll.

First a quick recap: If an NPC is "first alerted," they will continue whatever they were doing and make a comment, before returning to their base alert level. When they are "second alerted," they will actively search for the player and taunt them, before returning to their base alert level. When NPC's are "third alerted," they have seen the player and will chase them down attempting to kill them; when they lose sight of the player, they will enter second alert status, before returning to their base alert level.

Mosely will occasionally stop and do a "searching animation," and this can be prevented by first alerting Mosely such that her time spent in first alert status overlaps with her AI's search trigger. The easiest way to do this is to shoot her with a water arrow, or land a water arrow near her. Broadheads often make a loud enough noise to second alert her and are not reliable. Noisemakers have a special effect on AI and are also not useful as they pull Mosely from her route.

On normal difficulty, Mosely only stops to search once, right before she makes a left turn at the beginning of the level. First alert her and she'll pass right through. Mosely is not the most alert NPC ever, but you want to give her a wide berth. It isn't necessary to collect any loot even in any% as there is not enough for useful purchases in Life of the Party.

As Mosely enters the marketplace she will drop the letter near a streetlight. If you are following her closely, you have one frame to grab the letter from her hand without waiting for it to reach the ground. This is because items in Thief can only be grabbed if they are not moving. When Mosely drops the letter, it is momentarily immobile before accelerating towards the ground. Having mousewheel grab helps here. Once you have the letter, being seen by Mosely is no longer a failure condition. Read the letter, drink a speed potion and across the market by way of the fountain. If you are running any%, there is an invisibility potion that can be grabbed in one of the covered market stalls near Mosely's dead drop. You do not need to drop the letter again, since you will have ended the mission well before the Pagan reaches the market.

Drink your second speed potion when the first runs out, and head to the cemetery. Since you arrived so fast, the Pagan will not have left the cemetery yet, much less reached the market, so the scripted sequence with the Mechanists will not play. However, being seen by the Pagan fails the mission. So use your invisibility potion and head to the back wall of the cemetery. Using the grave stones, mantle over the wall and head into the catacomb, and through the portal.

The original, now obsolete strategy involves shooting a noisemaker into the cemetery to distract the Pagan in lieu of an invisibility potion. The ideal location is into one of the fake catacombs in the first cemetery courtyard. Because noisemakers significantly reduce the senses of NPC's, you can sometimes slip by. The unreliability of this method caused it to be nicknamed "The Colt .45 Shot" by SocratesJohnson: "It gets them every time, but only if you put it in the right place."

==Trail of Blood==
Since your items from Tracing the Courier carry over to Trail of Blood, make sure to replay Tracing the Courier without using any items that would benefit your Trail of Blood run, namely Speed and Invisibility potions.

This run is pretty much a straightforward blast to the finish with one difficult trick around the midway point. Start by heading down the hill towards the river. Note that while the developers mostly removed Bunnyhopping from Thief 2, you can still get a little bit of a boost if you jump right as you land while descending a slope. This stage features liberal use of these slopes, so use this to get as many boosts as possible. Note that while getting a map is marked as an objective, it's completely optional, so ignore the map at the bottom of the river. When you reach the river, jump across and land on the slope underwater to climb up on the other side - the first ruby is next to a tree on your left. Grab it, then turn around and head towards the bridge which leads back across the river. If you were fast up to this point, the Mechanist will not quite be at the bridge yet. You can walk halfway across the bridge and mantle the left side to easily bypass him, or you can use the Onegin method of jumping straight across along the right side of the bridge and landing on a small patch of land. It's not as hard as it looks. The second ruby is inside the house on this bank of the river under the stairs. Now ascend the stairs, there's a speed potion at the top which saves time. Jump out of the window at the top, but note that you will lose about half of your health from the fall.

Head back across the river and up to the temple on top of the hill, pickpocketing the flare from the Mechanist along the way. Grab the slowfall potion from nearby the fallen Pagan inside the temple if you are doing the old skip method. Navigating the face to place the rubies can be tricky until you map out your precise inputs. Place the first ruby as you are mantling onto the face, then ready the second ruby. Hold forward the entire time, place the second ruby, then while still hugging the "nose" of the statue, slide over to the mouth and enter the portal.

There's another short downhill section here, which every runner does differently. There's no best way, just try to squeeze in as many boosts as possible and don't jump too far off track. At the bottom, there's an eye-plant to your left onto which you can jump to cut the corner a bit. These eye-plants have large hitboxes so you just have to learn where to run. As you follow the blood trail, you'll reach a right-hand turn alongside a river of blood (?). Grab the vine arrow here. Across the river is a pyramidal slope, and opposite of that is a ledge which leads to your goal. A significant shortcut follows which requires a speed potion, and a slowfall potion for the old method. Pop the speed potion, then jump across the river to the pyramidal slope. From either face of the structure, you can lean forward to rapidly accelerate up the slope and RUN (NOT JUMP) off the edge to reach the ledge. With the old method, you do the same but instead of leaning, you use a slowfall potion immediately prior to leaving the slope, which will allow you to reach the ledge. Perfectly executed, either method will allow you to land flat on the ledge and continue. However, most of the time, you will fall short and have to mantle up. If you are very unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge, making it impossible to land flat on the ledge and also impossible to mantle.

Once on top of the ledge, continue past the two ape-beasts. Once you enter the meadow with the trees, vine arrow up to one of the catwalks and turn left - there's yet another speed potion in here which you can skip if you brought a bunch to this point. Then turn around, and proceed left, then right, then right again at each possible junction until you approach the icicle hall. As you approach from two catwalks away, throw a few flares at the icicles. If they have enough momentum, they will melt the icicles, which is much faster than hitting them with the sword. Jump before drawing your sword at the ideal time to inherit momentum and minimize the slow sword-walking speed, then smack the icicles you missed. There are 5 icicles, only 4 of which need to be destroyed. Hopefully you got at least 2 with flares. Now just keep right and continue down the hill to the Pagan, you do not need to read his letter.

==Life of the Party==

==Precious Cargo==

==Kidnap==

==Casing the Joint==

==Masks==

==Sabotage at Soulforge==

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2019-07-20T00:33:40Z

Jakeplissken: Added Eavesdropping.

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. We will outline the strategy for each run by discussing necessary or recommended purchases, providing a step-by-step guide for the fastest strategies, and finally providing a synopsis of the run and a summary on which aspects to practice to achieve record times.

There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more rare playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

'''TIMING:''' Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate, demonstrated by frame-counting many runs, and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but most of these can be traced to save/load indiscretions, and so far no definitive proof has been put forward. Likewise, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind. There is some debate regarding how Sabotage at Soulforge should be timed, since it is significantly faster in real time with one save/load than with a single segment, but currently single-segment runs are standardized.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. This is not as critical in other levels, as most levels place Garrett slightly above the ground and allow him to fall into place; on Running Interference however, Garrett begins in contact with the ground and thus getting a fast start by spamming is possible.

Do not blow the birdcall at this point. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about optimizing this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is relatively uncommon; grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, and drop one of them by the first door on your right. The guards hear the noise and open that door; then tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. If he is alerted by the box, he's actually less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by than if he were unalerted, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

A newer, faster, and more ersatz method is to retain both keys in your inventory, and drop them both in quick succession while moving your mouse downward so that the keys impact each other, thus making the noise necessary to alert Jenivere. This takes a significant amount of practice and binding the "drop item" command to your mousewheel can allow you to drop the keys quicker. With this method, you do not need to get close to the door; you can drop the keys half way through the hallway and turn back immediately. This method saves up to two seconds and is the current world record method.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. You do not need to leave as fast as possible; taking the time to crouch and KO a guard or two will usually save time as Jenivere will have less obstacles on her way out. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:04, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05]on the original "OldDark" engine in 2013. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed, forcing the player to sit through the fade-out. On 1.07 or 1.18 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:03 or even 1:02 is possible using the new methods.

==Shipping and Receiving==
There are no items for sale that are particularly necessary to get the fastest times here, so a money run is not especially helpful. If you are having trouble with guards, you might wish to buy extra invisibility potions or health potions for the purposes of practice, but they will not help you achieve a faster time.

The first jump over the large gap is very hard if you are not straferunning. Use the ladders to climb to the roof. It is slightly faster to mantle to the top of ladders rather than climbing up and over the top. Note that sometimes you can get a "floaty" ladder grab where you are not totally on the ladder. This is hard to identify visually unless you are quite experienced with this section, but if it happens to you, it can be remedied by jumping twice to mantle. Once on the roof, try to drop down into the office in such a way that you land close to the vase. Then jump onto the table and over the wall. Take a brief moment to align yourself for the jump onto the table as it is smaller than it looks. If you jump too far to the left, you'll slide off; too far to the right, and you won't be able to jump, instead only able to mantle onto the bench by the wall.

Grab the loot from the small box on top of the mail slots and proceed to the front office where you will grab the '''Building A Key'''. Go outside and across the catwalk to the opposite wing of the building. You will need to perform a glitch known as key transmigration. Essentially, when a key is equipped and readied to unlock a door, its area of interaction is actually significantly in front of Garrett. This means you can activate the lockboxes through the wall. You will need to practice and find visual cues to help you locate the lockbox as everyone approaches the doors in a slightly different way. There's nothing I can tell you to help you line it up, although on Normal you will see different red tutorial text when you highlight the lockbox, so use that to aid you.

Grab everything on the shelves to your right (note that one bowl is just a clutter object) and drop down the elevator shaft. It is slower to hit the button and drop onto the rising elevator, but you take less damage. Normally you should just drop down (remember that you do have one healing potion). Head up into the office and grab the gem in the wall behind the banner (utilizing a glitch known as banner transmigration). You now want to exit this bay by operating the lever and heading to the right out into the courtyard. Use your invis potion here to avoid complications with the guards.

The patrolling sword guard who walks around the corner of the boxes outside of this bay is your benchmark; if he hasn't appeared around the corner yet when you approach the corner, you are on a good pace. If he has or has already rounded the corner, your run has some imperfections and you will not be on record pace. Continue to the open bay. Use the Building A Key on the lockbox to open the door, letting you exit this bay slightly faster. Grab the 3 statues on the shelves and the two loot pieces under the desk, then exit out of the door. If you didn't manage to open the door, just exit out the bay door rather than fiddling with the lock as it's not worth the time. Head around the building back towards the beginning of the level.

Grab the statue inside of the open-able crate by the crawlspace, then crouch to go under the boxes. You have one more key transmigration left, on the door to the inventor's workshop closest to you. This one is slightly harder and again you will need to establish your own visual cues. Grab the two loot pieces on the shelves and return to the inside of the box pile to end the mission. There are several ways to climb the boxes, but the best is to mantle up first, then jump to the low box without mantling, then moving inwards to finish the stage.

This level is all about execution and the difference between a 1:47 and a 1:54 or 1:55 can come down to something as simple as having fast key transmigrations and optimal movement. It's tricky and one of the most optimized stages in the game, so expect to practice quite a bit before you start cracking the 1:50 barrier.

==Framed==
Since you have at least 500 gold from the previous stage, you can afford a Slowfall potion. Buy it, as it enables several skips at the beginning of the stage. If you are doing the rooftop route, you will need to buy an extra Scouting Orb as well. Nothing else is really required, as you are given a very generous 2 Invisibility potions to start.

There are 3 approaches to the beginning of this mission.

Primary route: Run towards the front gates (you will see the Watchers and turrets). As soon as the Watcher sees you, pop an Invisibility potion. You will need to mantle on top of one of the lights on the front gate which have very small hitboxes. The only way to reach them is with a Slowfall jump. I like to stand on the elevated section on the side of the bridge right in the middle on the crest and slightly to the right (you can see a seam where the crest is, stand on that). Then you must begin running diagonally for a split second, pop the slowfall potion and jump, in that precise order. Center the light on the middle of your screen. If you are lucky, you will grab it and mantle on top of the gate, and can continue the mission. This is extremely tricky to learn, and heavily dependent on developing good muscle memory, but once you master it you will be able to do it fairly consistently.

Rooftop "Expert" route: This is a very old method which is still the best solution for an Expert speedrun, since you do not start with an invisibility potion. It's only a few seconds slower than the primary route. Buy an extra Scouting Orb and Slowfall as described, then run over to the wall-fence. Elevator up onto the top of the wall using the Scouting Orb (as described in the Game Mechanics and Glitches link above) and then jump onto the series of roofs until you reach the one closest to the police station walls. Slowfall jump (drink the potion and immediately jump while straferunning) to reach the outer wall. If you land just short, you're screwed because you will be stuck on an invisible ledge and have to reset. Proceed to the front of the police station.

Ancient "Intended" route: This route is barely worth mentioning but for completeness, here it is. Pick the lock into the pump room, enter the sewers, and swim to the circular room. Look up and you will see the exit of the well. Rope arrow up into the courtyard and go through the double doors. You will find yourself behind the gate. This route is about a minute slower than the others.

Assuming you did one of the faster routes, you will need to trip the lever through the gate to enter the police station, which is as simple as clicking on it. You can optionally do a gate boost glitch here, also in the guide. Head through the double doors to the left. Open the door at the end of the hallway, you will be going through it on your way out. Head up the stairs and pop your invisibility potion. Turn right. You need to grab 3 items in this hallway. You need to grab the handkerchief in the first room on the right, then pickpocket the yellow key off the belt of the guard, then grab the vault key in the first door on the left. The patrolling guard is another benchmark; a fast run will be able to get the handkerchief and pickpocket and enter the left room before he blocks you from entering. Then continue down the hallway and use the yellow key to open the door to the spiral staircase.

At the top, you can jump over the desk to the metal door which you must also open with the yellow key. Enter 4026 into the keypad and equip the vault key; use this to open the vault door. Drop the handkerchief and grab the strongbox. Continue back down, jumping over the desk again. Return the strongbox to the room where you found the handkerchief and return back downstairs to the door you opened earlier, and sprint out to the front door. You need not open the door, simply pressing up against it is enough to trigger the end of the level.

==Ambush==
This level relies heavily on memorizing the correct path through the city, and the easiest way to do that is to watch any of the myriad videos of runs available online. Ambush, along with Running Interference, has one of the longest histories as a time trial level in Thief 2 and besides a minor find in 2017 the route has not changed since 2006. The route is very optimized, and is identical for all three difficulties.

From where Garrett starts, you can turn right 90 degrees and immediately mantle onto the street. Continue forward to the two female NPC's and mantle on top of the elevated garden. On New Dark you can mantle straight onto the garden from the ground level; on Old Dark it may help to jump on top of one of the boxes first, although it is still possible to mantle straight from the street.

On Hard or Expert difficulty, where health management is more vital, you can either enter the door on top of the garden and exit out the window of that building for less of a fall, or you can jump from the garden onto one of the guards' heads, which will break your fall and result in no damage. This guard is not present on Normal.

The fastest way to traverse the market is to jump across the fountain. If your timing is perfect you can jump straight onto the fountain without needing to mantle. It's also possible to take it safe and jump early, intending to mantle; this method is slower but the timing is far less demanding. Naturally, this method is much more reliable in New Dark. If you are unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge of the fountain where you can neither mantle nor make it onto the fountain itself. Decide which method works for you to avoid this situation.

At the next forking path you can run around the building to the right or climb the ladder to the left; climbing the ladder is faster. Unfortunately there is no consistent way to prevent fall damage here.

When making your way across the water ways, using jumps to straighten your path through the level is faster than running along the bridges. You can pickpocket a guard patrol here for an extra health potion if you need it. The precise patrol path of these guards is pseudorandom. On an optimal run, you will have to pass them right as they enter an alleyway at a left turn. Sometimes you can get by them on the left, which is ideal; if their patrol path strays too close to the left corner, you'll have to pass them on the right.

As you approach Garrett's apartment you will want to enter the building across the street and jump to Garrett's apartment window. The door to this building opens towards you so activate it as soon as possible. Head all the way up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. You do not need to be strafe-running to make the jump to Garrett's windowsill, but it helps. While in mid-air, try to open the windows so you don't waste time fiddling with them on the windowsill.

Garrett's apartment has very intrusive geometry and the only way to become fast at moving through it is to practice. Upon entering, head to his closet and frob the left-most coat hanger to open the stash. The secret door does not need to be fully open to grab the items behind it, so you will want to memorize the location of each item so you don't have to wait for the door to open. You need to grab the Shalebridge key for the objective (even though you will not use it), and the speed potion.

Exiting Garrett's apartment can be tricky due to the very large bed hitbox; just try and find a movement pattern that is fast and feels natural. Now you have two options to reach the end level trigger, both involving out-of-bounds tricks.

The classic method is to drop down from Garret's window and head east until you get to the waterway. Turn around, and on your right there should be a window texture on a building next to some stone battlements. The frame of this window is wood; use a rope arrow to climb up to this window, then jump to and mantle upon the battlements. You are now out of bounds.

The newer method involves retrieving the slowfall potion from the stash as well, and jumping back onto the windowsill of the adjacent apartment building, instead of dropping down. Run to the edge of the windowsill, then use the slowfall potion to jump across the street to the roof of the building and then walking over to the battlements. Slowfall jumping is an art in and of itself and requires separate treatment elsewhere.

Both methods get you to the same place - out of bounds on top of the battlements. Drop down and continue heading east. You will eventually reach a wooden section of wall next to a building with a red sloped roof. Use another rope arrow to get on top of the wooden pillar, then mantle on top of the red sloped roof. While standing on this roof, you will slowly slip off. Thus, you need to drink your speed potion to help counteract the slide, and continue along the roofs. You will eventually drop into the Shalebridge area from completely the opposite of the intended direction, completing the mission.

A note of caution: If you are able to end the mission while still out of bounds, it is because you have installed the Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e, included as an optional install in most Tafferpatcher versions. Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e is explicitly BANNED because of its demonstrated illicit changes to the levels, and thus runs including this exit are not considered valid.

==Eavesdropping==
The three speed potions, three health potions, four flash bombs, and the single invisibility potion will make this mission (slightly) more tolerable during a money run.

Immediately drink a speed potion. Run forward and turn left, then right, and enter the door straight ahead at the end of the corridor. Turn left again, remembering to grab the purse on one of the chairs lining the right side of the hallway, and you will find one of the eavesdropping doors in a little alcove in the corner. If you moved quickly, a guard will also come through the door in the other corner of the room, and you can get to the shadows quickly enough to kill him with a broadhead. Cribby's method is to wait until this guard opens the door to the Acolytes' Quarters so that in the event of an Acolyte's key, this door remains open.

Some notes on the mechanics of the conversation. The entire unskippable section, from the bells to the reveal of the correct key location, is approximately 5 minutes 44 seconds long, but it varies based on which key you get (the last unskippable sound files revealing the key locations vary in length). Of note is that the French translation of the game is 19 seconds faster, however no consensus has been reached as to whether or not it is allowed in speedruns (thanks to SuicideMachine for measuring both versions). This section is surprisingly well-programmed. A box made of fail lines, roughly the size of the framing of the alcove which you stand in, limits your travel outside for the duration of the conversation. Crossing any of these lines is an instant mission failure. Many other randomly placed fail lines exist in the level as well, limiting your potential travels even more. There exists a similarly sized fail line box at the other, less convenient door. The game checks at various times whether or not the player is inside the box. If after any check the player is not inside the box, the mission instantly fails because you "missed" part of the conversation. It is known that one of the checks is run whenever a new sound file plays, but there are also additional checks as it appears impossible to stray too far from the box. Checking the objective screen will reveal whether or not a player has failed.

All attempts to bypass, shorten, or otherwise skip this waiting period have failed. It's even possible to embed oneself in the ceiling and move Garret's torso hitbox into the eavesdropping box, but leaving either of the designated boxes is an instant fail. This particular section is so well programmed that is appears impossible to skip with currently-existing knowledge of the game.

Thus the only recourse is to entertain oneself until the "cutscene" is over. If being forced to wait almost 6 minutes was not enough, what follows is one of the only truly random elements of the game. When the level loads, the game pulls a value from the computer's system time to determine which key will be the Safe Deposit box key (in other words, the correct key is decided when the level loads, and cannot be manipulated by saving/loading - only be restarting the entire level). There are 9 possible key locations on Normal: Factory, Acolytes' Quarters, Guards' Quarters, the pulpit in the Church, the closet near the pulpit the Church, the shed atop the Acolytes' Quarters, the office on the second floor of the church, West Tower, and East Tower, listed here from best to worst in terms of speed. You must retrieve the key from the given location, bring it down to the factory, use it on the wax block, and use the nearby putty knife to cut the wax impression from the block before returning the key to its original location, while also obtaining the requisite 800 loot. Note that after the "key reveal" voice line plays, you are free to leave, even though Karras speaks a few additional lines, but be careful not to leave too early. Many runs have been lost by overzealous players leaving the box mere frames before the end of the voice line, resulting in a failure.

While individual variations exist for each key location, the only viable keys for IL's are the first two - Acolytes' Quarters and Factory, with Factory being ideal. Acolytes' Quarters is approximately 6-8 seconds slower than a Factory key. For these keys, immediately grab the key and head to the wax, using your invisibility potion and KO'ing one of the guards in the basement. If they follow you to the wax, there's a good chance they will block you in and kill you. Then return the key and get onto the loot route. Returning the key is usually just a matter of dropping the key in the same room you found it, although it is possible for the key to bounce or slide out of the trigger area and un-check the objective, which can be quite disappointing if you reach the end of the level only to find the key was misplaced.

A general and reliable loot route which works for most keys is as follows. After returning the key, exit outside from the back of the room with your eavesdropping door, and climb up to the roof. Grab the loot inside the shed, then head inside the chapel. Grab the statue on the bookshelf, then enter the office. Grab the loot on the table, then climb the ladder just enough to turn around and frob the chest on the floor above. Drop from the ladder, and exit the office through the opposite door you entered. Grab another statue on a bookshelf, then jump through the narrow gap down to the chapel floor. Grab the candlesticks and loot on the pulpit, as well as the crown between the pews. Then head into the west tower. Grab the loot bag on the table, and the candlestick at the top of the ladder. You should have 810/800 loot, so jump off the balcony back to the front entrance to the chapel grounds and exit.

Achieving a world record time on this stage requires clever use of speed and invisibility potions to maximize time spent at maximum speed, and almost certainly requires a factory key, which means waiting through the conversation as many times as it takes to get the correct key at 1/9 odds, and being mentally prepared to perfectly execute the loot route after much tedium. Good luck if you wish to attempt it.

==First City Bank and Trust==
There are no necessary purchases for this mission, but one option which is single-segment safe is to buy two health potions and an extra flash bomb. For money runs, extra mines are a good buy.

First mine+fire arrow to blast the door to your left open. Continue straight ahead and through the marble room. You can try and knock out the purple guard but it doesn't always work. Drop mines in an attempt to disable the mechbeast. Continue down into the basement. If you watch a few IL's you can see what we call "box strats", pioneered by SocratesJohnson. The tall boxes are hard to traverse in general, but there are ways to make them more convenient. Press up against them to mantle; straferun to cross the gap between them whilst throwing the box. If you cross the gap running straight you will almost surely fall.

Follow the side passages to the left to exit near the end of the tunnels. Continue forward until you reach the puzzle machine with a Watcher out front. Hit the lever and stand under the Watcher. Wait until there is only one vertical bar visible on the gate, then enter and open up the puzzle. The fastest combination is middle-left, middle-right, bottom right. If you are ever in doubt, just remember the "four corners" solution - just hit all four corners and the puzzle will complete. Backtrack all the way back to the marble room. You can take the side passages again if you are fast; if your run is slow up to this point, you may get blocked by one of the small mechbeasts. If you somehow get blocked on the entrance to the side passages, don't take them, as there will be another mechbeast who will also block your exit. Just take the wider route out.

Now enter the vault. Hug the right side of the room, or else the vault door will push you out of the way. Trigger the elevator and climb on top of the elevator button box. When the elevator is low enough, press the up button and jump onto the elevator; you may get stuck in the elevator if you press and jump too early and may even take damage. Jump across the corners of the second floor and climb up to the top floor. Head over to vault 11; you can grab the recording through the door, no need to use the key. Drop all the way down to the first floor, using health potions as necessary.

You will see a stairway to your right; take it and go through the first door you see. Flashbomb the mechbeast if he is there, and rope arrow to the roof of the dome. Climb the rope to end the mission. Since the "dome" section is technically above the roof of the bank, the game reads you as being outside and trips the end level trigger. If this fails or if you get blocked, just run out the ground level floor where you came in.

==Blackmail==

For money runs, buy 2 invisibility potions, 2 flash bombs, and 2 fire arrows. For any% runs, you will most likely have 0 gold available.

Blackmail has a reputation as a "run-killer" and is a very difficult and touchy mission. AI patterns can affect your time greatly in ways that appear, to be but are not truly, random. Consistency is very important.

Immediately equip a rope arrow and fire it into the wooden edge of the left tower at the front gate. Climb this gate, and hit the lever to open the front gate as you drop down to the other side (the lever is in the right tower). Enter the mansion through the double doors; it is highly recommended to hit the patrolling archer with your blackjack to either stun or KO him. Once inside the foyer, head immediately to the upper level.

Notably, the routes for the money run and the any% route are significantly different. On money runs, you have fire arrows to blow open the double doors to the second floor. Launch the arrows as you are approaching the door and climbing the stairs; do it fast enough that you don't have to stop and wait for the final arrow to blow open the door. As you enter, drop a flash bomb and hug the left edge of the door way to make your way in. You will collect the loot around the balcony on your way out.

In the any% route, you need to alert the pair of guards on the other side of the door in such a way that they will patrol into the double doors, automatically unlocking them. Due to the gear-based lock system in this level, the guards are incapable of re-locking any doors they unlock. You can do this in several ways, similar to Jenivere's door in Running Interference. You can hit the door with your blackjack or broadhead arrows. However, depending on where you hit the door, the guards will perceive the sound as coming from different areas, altering their patrol pattern. An important thing to note about Thief AI is that their patterns are not random. If you were to repeat the same set of perfectly precise actions with perfect timing, the guards would react the same way every time. But in a game as complicated as Thief, the small human errors involved - a slightly misplaced arrow shot, a slight increase in the amount of draw you used, a slight change in timing - can make their AI appear random. It is not, and as such you must determine which areas of the door cause the guards to open the door reliably for you. Some runners have found success shooting the darkened part of the left door immediately under the doorknob, but your own personal timing and movement may cause this to not work reliably for you. In any case, once you have hit the door with a suitable object, you can only hope the guards will open the door; in the meantime, collect the loot around the balcony while you wait.

Once you are through the double doors, continue left, then right. Grab the statue at the end of the hallway and head towards the casino, stopping in one of the rooms on the right to grab a vase. There are many loot paths through the casino. Grab the loot from the roulette tables, as well as the gold bottle on the bar and Benny's purse. Keep it quiet in this room, as you cannot pickpocket Benny's purse when he is alerted unless you are very lucky with your positioning.

Another pair of routes present themselves to you here. The in the modern route, you must pickpocket the female guard patrolling through the casino for her key. Then, enter the bathroom, grabbing the loot along the perimeter. Return to the casino, through the double doors near the bar, and out onto the balcony. Mantle on top of the open door and onto the sloped roof. It helps if your camera is perfectly level, not looking up or down, before you attempt this mantle. Then jump onto the third floor balcony and use the key to enter Truart's room.

In the classic route, you do not need the key from the female guard's belt. Instead, after gathering the bathroom loot, grab the silver gear from the bottom of the bathtub. Then exit the bathroom to the left, and use the silver gear to enter the passageway to the third floor. From here you can work your way to Truart's room. This route is slower, but less reliant on maintaining high speed throughout the run.

Whichever route you take, grab the key ring and the bronze gear from Truart's room. You will exit the mansion by using the bronze gear stairwell to return to the foyer. From Truart's room, there are two ways to the common room, which you must pass through to access the stairwell. The right route is a narrow passageway, and if a single NPC is in this hallway, your chances of pushing through are very low, especially with the civilian NPC. Sometimes guards can be manipulated to step backwards against the wall, allowing you to pass; the civilian will almost always back up in fright for long enough to ruin your run. This is an opportune time to use an invisibility potion if the situation allows for it. In the modern route, you must do everything earlier in the run as fast as possible to beat the civilian NPC from entering the hallway and blocking you, making the timing extremely tight. If this route is blocked or full of guards, as it often is, you will have no choice but to take the left route through the bathroom, losing a massive amount of time. From the common room, proceed to the stairwell and ready the bronze gear.

Open the bronze gear lock and you're back in the foyer; if you did the money run route, collect the balcony loot now and jump down; if you did the any% route, just jump down right away. Exit through the double doors back towards the beginning of the level.

Often, you will find that the front gate is closed again, despite you having opened it with the lever earlier. This loses approximately 4 seconds. The reasons for a closed gate are again related to AI patterns. The front gate guard will always see you when you climb the rope over the front gate, and the Watchers will always trigger the alarm. Since you opened the gate, the front gate guard will chase you through the open gate into the grounds. When he loses you and stops searching, he may return to his post right away, in which case he will close the front gate behind him. In short, it can be beneficial to keep this guard chasing you as long as possible, as it delays his return to his post and the closing of the gate.

==Trace the Courier==

Buy two speed potions and an invisibility potion for money runs; for any%, just buy the two speed potions.

Lieutenant Mosely follows a predetermined path through the level and only strays from that path when alerted. However, her AI will also skip over certain actions when alerted, and this can be used to your advantage to speed up her stroll.

First a quick recap: If an NPC is "first alerted," they will continue whatever they were doing and make a comment, before returning to their base alert level. When they are "second alerted," they will actively search for the player and taunt them, before returning to their base alert level. When NPC's are "third alerted," they have seen the player and will chase them down attempting to kill them; when they lose sight of the player, they will enter second alert status, before returning to their base alert level.

Mosely will occasionally stop and do a "searching animation," and this can be prevented by first alerting Mosely such that her time spent in first alert status overlaps with her AI's search trigger. The easiest way to do this is to shoot her with a water arrow, or land a water arrow near her. Broadheads often make a loud enough noise to second alert her and are not reliable. Noisemakers have a special effect on AI and are also not useful as they pull Mosely from her route.

On normal difficulty, Mosely only stops to search once, right before she makes a left turn at the beginning of the level. First alert her and she'll pass right through. Mosely is not the most alert NPC ever, but you want to give her a wide berth. It isn't necessary to collect any loot even in any% as there is not enough for useful purchases in Life of the Party.

As Mosely enters the marketplace she will drop the letter near a streetlight. If you are following her closely, you have one frame to grab the letter from her hand without waiting for it to reach the ground. This is because items in Thief can only be grabbed if they are not moving. When Mosely drops the letter, it is momentarily immobile before accelerating towards the ground. Having mousewheel grab helps here. Once you have the letter, being seen by Mosely is no longer a failure condition. Read the letter, drink a speed potion and across the market by way of the fountain. If you are running any%, there is an invisibility potion that can be grabbed in one of the covered market stalls near Mosely's dead drop. You do not need to drop the letter again, since you will have ended the mission well before the Pagan reaches the market.

Drink your second speed potion when the first runs out, and head to the cemetery. Since you arrived so fast, the Pagan will not have left the cemetery yet, much less reached the market, so the scripted sequence with the Mechanists will not play. However, being seen by the Pagan fails the mission. So use your invisibility potion and head to the back wall of the cemetery. Using the grave stones, mantle over the wall and head into the catacomb, and through the portal.

The original, now obsolete strategy involves shooting a noisemaker into the cemetery to distract the Pagan in lieu of an invisibility potion. The ideal location is into one of the fake catacombs in the first cemetery courtyard. Because noisemakers significantly reduce the senses of NPC's, you can sometimes slip by. The unreliability of this method caused it to be nicknamed "The Colt .45 Shot" by SocratesJohnson: "It gets them every time, but only if you put it in the right place."

==Trail of Blood==

==Life of the Party==

==Precious Cargo==

==Kidnap==

==Casing the Joint==

==Masks==

==Sabotage at Soulforge==

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2019-07-19T00:37:02Z

Jakeplissken: /* Eavesdropping */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07+New Dark): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet. Known to work in 1.07 as well as all versions of the New Dark engine.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

Another method of activating the ISP bug involves finding a door which closes on its own after a certain period of time, such as Cavador's double doors in Kidnap and the elevator doors in Life of the Party. It is suspected that such doors use a similar timer to the TrigFlicker object. Find such a door, and open it all the way. Close the door manually, then quickly save/load, and drink a speed potion before preventing the door from closing fully with your body or some other object. Then open the door again, and you should have ISP. This effect is currently poorly understood, inconsistent, and awaiting further testing, although it has been confirmed to work on Precious Cargo and Casing the Joint on the New Dark engine.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off
** re-rolls the randomly selected death/KO animation of an NPC if the game was saved during their death/KO animation

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
**There are nine possible key locations on Normal and Hard: Factory, Acolytes' Quarters, Guards' Quarters, the pulpit in the Church, the closet near the pulpit the Church, the shed atop the Acolytes' Quarters, the office on the second floor of the church, West Tower, and East Tower.
**Expert adds a tenth location, the Catacombs.
**Unused sound files left in the release version of the game imply that originally at least three other locations were planned - the Kitchen, the Gallery, and the Loft. Another unused line mentions the Storage Shed - it is unknown if this file was intended to be a new location, or if it refers to the shed atop the Acolytes' Quarters and the line was merely re-recorded later for added clarification as to its location.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2019-07-18T23:18:05Z

Jakeplissken: /* General Tricks */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07+New Dark): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet. Known to work in 1.07 as well as all versions of the New Dark engine.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

Another method of activating the ISP bug involves finding a door which closes on its own after a certain period of time, such as Cavador's double doors in Kidnap and the elevator doors in Life of the Party. It is suspected that such doors use a similar timer to the TrigFlicker object. Find such a door, and open it all the way. Close the door manually, then quickly save/load, and drink a speed potion before preventing the door from closing fully with your body or some other object. Then open the door again, and you should have ISP. This effect is currently poorly understood, inconsistent, and awaiting further testing, although it has been confirmed to work on Precious Cargo and Casing the Joint on the New Dark engine.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off
** re-rolls the randomly selected death/KO animation of an NPC if the game was saved during their death/KO animation

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-17T09:46:50Z

Jakeplissken: /* Potions */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07+New Dark): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet. Known to work in 1.07 as well as all versions of the New Dark engine.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

Another method of activating the ISP bug involves finding a door which closes on its own after a certain period of time, such as Cavador's double doors in Kidnap and the elevator doors in Life of the Party. It is suspected that such doors use a similar timer to the TrigFlicker object. Find such a door, and open it all the way. Close the door manually, then quickly save/load, and drink a speed potion before preventing the door from closing fully with your body or some other object. Then open the door again, and you should have ISP. This effect is currently poorly understood, inconsistent, and awaiting further testing, although it has been confirmed to work on Precious Cargo and Casing the Joint on the New Dark engine.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-17T09:44:19Z

Jakeplissken: /* Potions */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07+New Dark): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet. Known to work in 1.07 as well as all versions of the New Dark engine.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

Another method of activating the ISP bug involves finding a door which closes on its own after a certain period of time. It is suspected that such doors use a similar timer to the TrigFlicker object. Find such a door, and open it all the way. Close the door manually, then quickly save/load, and drink a speed potion before preventing the door from closing fully with your body or some other object. Then open the door again, and you should have ISP. This effect is currently poorly understood and is awaiting further testing, although it has been confirmed to work on Precious Cargo and Casing the Joint on the New Dark engine.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-17T09:19:39Z

Jakeplissken: /* Potions */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07+New Dark): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet. Known to work in 1.07 as well as all versions of the New Dark engine.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

Another method of activating the ISP bug involves finding a door which closes on its own after a certain period of time. It is suspected that such doors use a similar timer to the TrigFlicker object. Find such a door, and open it all the way. Close the door manually, then quickly save/load before activating a speed potion, allowing the door to close on its own. Then open the door again, and you should have ISP. This effect is currently poorly understood and is awaiting further testing, although it has been confirmed to work on Precious Cargo and Casing the Joint on the New Dark engine.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-17T09:13:31Z

Jakeplissken: /* Boosts */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07+New Dark): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet. Known to work in 1.07 as well as all versions of the New Dark engine.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-04T08:25:58Z

Jakeplissken: /* Guards and Other NPCs */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07?): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you as long as you are straferunning. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-04T08:24:00Z

Jakeplissken: /* General Tricks */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07?): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources, including the GameFaqs cheats page, mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07 or any New Dark version. It is possible that these were merely troll posts to trick players into killing themselves repeatedly from high falls. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2018-07-04T08:20:48Z

Jakeplissken: /* Blackmail */

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. We will outline the strategy for each run by discussing necessary or recommended purchases, providing a step-by-step guide for the fastest strategies, and finally providing a synopsis of the run and a summary on which aspects to practice to achieve record times.

There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more rare playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

'''TIMING:''' Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate, demonstrated by frame-counting many runs, and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but most of these can be traced to save/load indiscretions, and so far no definitive proof has been put forward. Likewise, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind. There is some debate regarding how Sabotage at Soulforge should be timed, since it is significantly faster in real time with one save/load than with a single segment, but currently single-segment runs are standardized.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. This is not as critical in other levels, as most levels place Garrett slightly above the ground and allow him to fall into place; on Running Interference however, Garrett begins in contact with the ground and thus getting a fast start by spamming is possible.

Do not blow the birdcall at this point. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about optimizing this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is relatively uncommon; grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, and drop one of them by the first door on your right. The guards hear the noise and open that door; then tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. If he is alerted by the box, he's actually less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by than if he were unalerted, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

A newer, faster, and more ersatz method is to retain both keys in your inventory, and drop them both in quick succession while moving your mouse downward so that the keys impact each other, thus making the noise necessary to alert Jenivere. This takes a significant amount of practice and binding the "drop item" command to your mousewheel can allow you to drop the keys quicker. With this method, you do not need to get close to the door; you can drop the keys half way through the hallway and turn back immediately. This method saves up to two seconds and is the current world record method.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. You do not need to leave as fast as possible; taking the time to crouch and KO a guard or two will usually save time as Jenivere will have less obstacles on her way out. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:04, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05]on the original "OldDark" engine in 2013. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed, forcing the player to sit through the fade-out. On 1.07 or 1.18 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:03 or even 1:02 is possible using the new methods.

==Shipping and Receiving==
There are no items for sale that are particularly necessary to get the fastest times here, so a money run is not especially helpful. If you are having trouble with guards, you might wish to buy extra invisibility potions or health potions for the purposes of practice, but they will not help you achieve a faster time.

The first jump over the large gap is very hard if you are not straferunning. Use the ladders to climb to the roof. It is slightly faster to mantle to the top of ladders rather than climbing up and over the top. Note that sometimes you can get a "floaty" ladder grab where you are not totally on the ladder. This is hard to identify visually unless you are quite experienced with this section, but if it happens to you, it can be remedied by jumping twice to mantle. Once on the roof, try to drop down into the office in such a way that you land close to the vase. Then jump onto the table and over the wall. Take a brief moment to align yourself for the jump onto the table as it is smaller than it looks. If you jump too far to the left, you'll slide off; too far to the right, and you won't be able to jump, instead only able to mantle onto the bench by the wall.

Grab the loot from the small box on top of the mail slots and proceed to the front office where you will grab the '''Building A Key'''. Go outside and across the catwalk to the opposite wing of the building. You will need to perform a glitch known as key transmigration. Essentially, when a key is equipped and readied to unlock a door, its area of interaction is actually significantly in front of Garrett. This means you can activate the lockboxes through the wall. You will need to practice and find visual cues to help you locate the lockbox as everyone approaches the doors in a slightly different way. There's nothing I can tell you to help you line it up, although on Normal you will see different red tutorial text when you highlight the lockbox, so use that to aid you.

Grab everything on the shelves to your right (note that one bowl is just a clutter object) and drop down the elevator shaft. It is slower to hit the button and drop onto the rising elevator, but you take less damage. Normally you should just drop down (remember that you do have one healing potion). Head up into the office and grab the gem in the wall behind the banner (utilizing a glitch known as banner transmigration). You now want to exit this bay by operating the lever and heading to the right out into the courtyard. Use your invis potion here to avoid complications with the guards.

The patrolling sword guard who walks around the corner of the boxes outside of this bay is your benchmark; if he hasn't appeared around the corner yet when you approach the corner, you are on a good pace. If he has or has already rounded the corner, your run has some imperfections and you will not be on record pace. Continue to the open bay. Use the Building A Key on the lockbox to open the door, letting you exit this bay slightly faster. Grab the 3 statues on the shelves and the two loot pieces under the desk, then exit out of the door. If you didn't manage to open the door, just exit out the bay door rather than fiddling with the lock as it's not worth the time. Head around the building back towards the beginning of the level.

Grab the statue inside of the open-able crate by the crawlspace, then crouch to go under the boxes. You have one more key transmigration left, on the door to the inventor's workshop closest to you. This one is slightly harder and again you will need to establish your own visual cues. Grab the two loot pieces on the shelves and return to the inside of the box pile to end the mission. There are several ways to climb the boxes, but the best is to mantle up first, then jump to the low box without mantling, then moving inwards to finish the stage.

This level is all about execution and the difference between a 1:47 and a 1:54 or 1:55 can come down to something as simple as having fast key transmigrations and optimal movement. It's tricky and one of the most optimized stages in the game, so expect to practice quite a bit before you start cracking the 1:50 barrier.

==Framed==
Since you have at least 500 gold from the previous stage, you can afford a Slowfall potion. Buy it, as it enables several skips at the beginning of the stage. If you are doing the rooftop route, you will need to buy an extra Scouting Orb as well. Nothing else is really required, as you are given a very generous 2 Invisibility potions to start.

There are 3 approaches to the beginning of this mission.

Primary route: Run towards the front gates (you will see the Watchers and turrets). As soon as the Watcher sees you, pop an Invisibility potion. You will need to mantle on top of one of the lights on the front gate which have very small hitboxes. The only way to reach them is with a Slowfall jump. I like to stand on the elevated section on the side of the bridge right in the middle on the crest and slightly to the right (you can see a seam where the crest is, stand on that). Then you must begin running diagonally for a split second, pop the slowfall potion and jump, in that precise order. Center the light on the middle of your screen. If you are lucky, you will grab it and mantle on top of the gate, and can continue the mission. This is extremely tricky to learn, and heavily dependent on developing good muscle memory, but once you master it you will be able to do it fairly consistently.

Rooftop "Expert" route: This is a very old method which is still the best solution for an Expert speedrun, since you do not start with an invisibility potion. It's only a few seconds slower than the primary route. Buy an extra Scouting Orb and Slowfall as described, then run over to the wall-fence. Elevator up onto the top of the wall using the Scouting Orb (as described in the Game Mechanics and Glitches link above) and then jump onto the series of roofs until you reach the one closest to the police station walls. Slowfall jump (drink the potion and immediately jump while straferunning) to reach the outer wall. If you land just short, you're screwed because you will be stuck on an invisible ledge and have to reset. Proceed to the front of the police station.

Ancient "Intended" route: This route is barely worth mentioning but for completeness, here it is. Pick the lock into the pump room, enter the sewers, and swim to the circular room. Look up and you will see the exit of the well. Rope arrow up into the courtyard and go through the double doors. You will find yourself behind the gate. This route is about a minute slower than the others.

Assuming you did one of the faster routes, you will need to trip the lever through the gate to enter the police station, which is as simple as clicking on it. You can optionally do a gate boost glitch here, also in the guide. Head through the double doors to the left. Open the door at the end of the hallway, you will be going through it on your way out. Head up the stairs and pop your invisibility potion. Turn right. You need to grab 3 items in this hallway. You need to grab the handkerchief in the first room on the right, then pickpocket the yellow key off the belt of the guard, then grab the vault key in the first door on the left. The patrolling guard is another benchmark; a fast run will be able to get the handkerchief and pickpocket and enter the left room before he blocks you from entering. Then continue down the hallway and use the yellow key to open the door to the spiral staircase.

At the top, you can jump over the desk to the metal door which you must also open with the yellow key. Enter 4026 into the keypad and equip the vault key; use this to open the vault door. Drop the handkerchief and grab the strongbox. Continue back down, jumping over the desk again. Return the strongbox to the room where you found the handkerchief and return back downstairs to the door you opened earlier, and sprint out to the front door. You need not open the door, simply pressing up against it is enough to trigger the end of the level.

==Ambush==
This level relies heavily on memorizing the correct path through the city, and the easiest way to do that is to watch any of the myriad videos of runs available online. Ambush, along with Running Interference, has one of the longest histories as a time trial level in Thief 2 and besides a minor find in 2017 the route has not changed since 2006. The route is very optimized, and is identical for all three difficulties.

From where Garrett starts, you can turn right 90 degrees and immediately mantle onto the street. Continue forward to the two female NPC's and mantle on top of the elevated garden. On New Dark you can mantle straight onto the garden from the ground level; on Old Dark it may help to jump on top of one of the boxes first, although it is still possible to mantle straight from the street.

On Hard or Expert difficulty, where health management is more vital, you can either enter the door on top of the garden and exit out the window of that building for less of a fall, or you can jump from the garden onto one of the guards' heads, which will break your fall and result in no damage. This guard is not present on Normal.

The fastest way to traverse the market is to jump across the fountain. If your timing is perfect you can jump straight onto the fountain without needing to mantle. It's also possible to take it safe and jump early, intending to mantle; this method is slower but the timing is far less demanding. Naturally, this method is much more reliable in New Dark. If you are unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge of the fountain where you can neither mantle nor make it onto the fountain itself. Decide which method works for you to avoid this situation.

At the next forking path you can run around the building to the right or climb the ladder to the left; climbing the ladder is faster. Unfortunately there is no consistent way to prevent fall damage here.

When making your way across the water ways, using jumps to straighten your path through the level is faster than running along the bridges. You can pickpocket a guard patrol here for an extra health potion if you need it. The precise patrol path of these guards is pseudorandom. On an optimal run, you will have to pass them right as they enter an alleyway at a left turn. Sometimes you can get by them on the left, which is ideal; if their patrol path strays too close to the left corner, you'll have to pass them on the right.

As you approach Garrett's apartment you will want to enter the building across the street and jump to Garrett's apartment window. The door to this building opens towards you so activate it as soon as possible. Head all the way up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. You do not need to be strafe-running to make the jump to Garrett's windowsill, but it helps. While in mid-air, try to open the windows so you don't waste time fiddling with them on the windowsill.

Garrett's apartment has very intrusive geometry and the only way to become fast at moving through it is to practice. Upon entering, head to his closet and frob the left-most coat hanger to open the stash. The secret door does not need to be fully open to grab the items behind it, so you will want to memorize the location of each item so you don't have to wait for the door to open. You need to grab the Shalebridge key for the objective (even though you will not use it), and the speed potion.

Exiting Garrett's apartment can be tricky due to the very large bed hitbox; just try and find a movement pattern that is fast and feels natural. Now you have two options to reach the end level trigger, both involving out-of-bounds tricks.

The classic method is to drop down from Garret's window and head east until you get to the waterway. Turn around, and on your right there should be a window texture on a building next to some stone battlements. The frame of this window is wood; use a rope arrow to climb up to this window, then jump to and mantle upon the battlements. You are now out of bounds.

The newer method involves retrieving the slowfall potion from the stash as well, and jumping back onto the windowsill of the adjacent apartment building, instead of dropping down. Run to the edge of the windowsill, then use the slowfall potion to jump across the street to the roof of the building and then walking over to the battlements. Slowfall jumping is an art in and of itself and requires separate treatment elsewhere.

Both methods get you to the same place - out of bounds on top of the battlements. Drop down and continue heading east. You will eventually reach a wooden section of wall next to a building with a red sloped roof. Use another rope arrow to get on top of the wooden pillar, then mantle on top of the red sloped roof. While standing on this roof, you will slowly slip off. Thus, you need to drink your speed potion to help counteract the slide, and continue along the roofs. You will eventually drop into the Shalebridge area from completely the opposite of the intended direction, completing the mission.

A note of caution: If you are able to end the mission while still out of bounds, it is because you have installed the Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e, included as an optional install in most Tafferpatcher versions. Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e is explicitly BANNED because of its demonstrated illicit changes to the levels, and thus runs including this exit are not considered valid.

==Eavesdropping==

==First City Bank and Trust==
There are no necessary purchases for this mission, but one option which is single-segment safe is to buy two health potions and an extra flash bomb. For money runs, extra mines are a good buy.

First mine+fire arrow to blast the door to your left open. Continue straight ahead and through the marble room. You can try and knock out the purple guard but it doesn't always work. Drop mines in an attempt to disable the mechbeast. Continue down into the basement. If you watch a few IL's you can see what we call "box strats", pioneered by SocratesJohnson. The tall boxes are hard to traverse in general, but there are ways to make them more convenient. Press up against them to mantle; straferun to cross the gap between them whilst throwing the box. If you cross the gap running straight you will almost surely fall.

Follow the side passages to the left to exit near the end of the tunnels. Continue forward until you reach the puzzle machine with a Watcher out front. Hit the lever and stand under the Watcher. Wait until there is only one vertical bar visible on the gate, then enter and open up the puzzle. The fastest combination is middle-left, middle-right, bottom right. If you are ever in doubt, just remember the "four corners" solution - just hit all four corners and the puzzle will complete. Backtrack all the way back to the marble room. You can take the side passages again if you are fast; if your run is slow up to this point, you may get blocked by one of the small mechbeasts. If you somehow get blocked on the entrance to the side passages, don't take them, as there will be another mechbeast who will also block your exit. Just take the wider route out.

Now enter the vault. Hug the right side of the room, or else the vault door will push you out of the way. Trigger the elevator and climb on top of the elevator button box. When the elevator is low enough, press the up button and jump onto the elevator; you may get stuck in the elevator if you press and jump too early and may even take damage. Jump across the corners of the second floor and climb up to the top floor. Head over to vault 11; you can grab the recording through the door, no need to use the key. Drop all the way down to the first floor, using health potions as necessary.

You will see a stairway to your right; take it and go through the first door you see. Flashbomb the mechbeast if he is there, and rope arrow to the roof of the dome. Climb the rope to end the mission. Since the "dome" section is technically above the roof of the bank, the game reads you as being outside and trips the end level trigger. If this fails or if you get blocked, just run out the ground level floor where you came in.

==Blackmail==

For money runs, buy 2 invisibility potions, 2 flash bombs, and 2 fire arrows. For any% runs, you will most likely have 0 gold available.

Blackmail has a reputation as a "run-killer" and is a very difficult and touchy mission. AI patterns can affect your time greatly in ways that appear, to be but are not truly, random. Consistency is very important.

Immediately equip a rope arrow and fire it into the wooden edge of the left tower at the front gate. Climb this gate, and hit the lever to open the front gate as you drop down to the other side (the lever is in the right tower). Enter the mansion through the double doors; it is highly recommended to hit the patrolling archer with your blackjack to either stun or KO him. Once inside the foyer, head immediately to the upper level.

Notably, the routes for the money run and the any% route are significantly different. On money runs, you have fire arrows to blow open the double doors to the second floor. Launch the arrows as you are approaching the door and climbing the stairs; do it fast enough that you don't have to stop and wait for the final arrow to blow open the door. As you enter, drop a flash bomb and hug the left edge of the door way to make your way in. You will collect the loot around the balcony on your way out.

In the any% route, you need to alert the pair of guards on the other side of the door in such a way that they will patrol into the double doors, automatically unlocking them. Due to the gear-based lock system in this level, the guards are incapable of re-locking any doors they unlock. You can do this in several ways, similar to Jenivere's door in Running Interference. You can hit the door with your blackjack or broadhead arrows. However, depending on where you hit the door, the guards will perceive the sound as coming from different areas, altering their patrol pattern. An important thing to note about Thief AI is that their patterns are not random. If you were to repeat the same set of perfectly precise actions with perfect timing, the guards would react the same way every time. But in a game as complicated as Thief, the small human errors involved - a slightly misplaced arrow shot, a slight increase in the amount of draw you used, a slight change in timing - can make their AI appear random. It is not, and as such you must determine which areas of the door cause the guards to open the door reliably for you. Some runners have found success shooting the darkened part of the left door immediately under the doorknob, but your own personal timing and movement may cause this to not work reliably for you. In any case, once you have hit the door with a suitable object, you can only hope the guards will open the door; in the meantime, collect the loot around the balcony while you wait.

Once you are through the double doors, continue left, then right. Grab the statue at the end of the hallway and head towards the casino, stopping in one of the rooms on the right to grab a vase. There are many loot paths through the casino. Grab the loot from the roulette tables, as well as the gold bottle on the bar and Benny's purse. Keep it quiet in this room, as you cannot pickpocket Benny's purse when he is alerted unless you are very lucky with your positioning.

Another pair of routes present themselves to you here. The in the modern route, you must pickpocket the female guard patrolling through the casino for her key. Then, enter the bathroom, grabbing the loot along the perimeter. Return to the casino, through the double doors near the bar, and out onto the balcony. Mantle on top of the open door and onto the sloped roof. It helps if your camera is perfectly level, not looking up or down, before you attempt this mantle. Then jump onto the third floor balcony and use the key to enter Truart's room.

In the classic route, you do not need the key from the female guard's belt. Instead, after gathering the bathroom loot, grab the silver gear from the bottom of the bathtub. Then exit the bathroom to the left, and use the silver gear to enter the passageway to the third floor. From here you can work your way to Truart's room. This route is slower, but less reliant on maintaining high speed throughout the run.

Whichever route you take, grab the key ring and the bronze gear from Truart's room. You will exit the mansion by using the bronze gear stairwell to return to the foyer. From Truart's room, there are two ways to the common room, which you must pass through to access the stairwell. The right route is a narrow passageway, and if a single NPC is in this hallway, your chances of pushing through are very low, especially with the civilian NPC. Sometimes guards can be manipulated to step backwards against the wall, allowing you to pass; the civilian will almost always back up in fright for long enough to ruin your run. This is an opportune time to use an invisibility potion if the situation allows for it. In the modern route, you must do everything earlier in the run as fast as possible to beat the civilian NPC from entering the hallway and blocking you, making the timing extremely tight. If this route is blocked or full of guards, as it often is, you will have no choice but to take the left route through the bathroom, losing a massive amount of time. From the common room, proceed to the stairwell and ready the bronze gear.

Open the bronze gear lock and you're back in the foyer; if you did the money run route, collect the balcony loot now and jump down; if you did the any% route, just jump down right away. Exit through the double doors back towards the beginning of the level.

Often, you will find that the front gate is closed again, despite you having opened it with the lever earlier. This loses approximately 4 seconds. The reasons for a closed gate are again related to AI patterns. The front gate guard will always see you when you climb the rope over the front gate, and the Watchers will always trigger the alarm. Since you opened the gate, the front gate guard will chase you through the open gate into the grounds. When he loses you and stops searching, he may return to his post right away, in which case he will close the front gate behind him. In short, it can be beneficial to keep this guard chasing you as long as possible, as it delays his return to his post and the closing of the gate.

==Trace the Courier==

Buy two speed potions and an invisibility potion for money runs; for any%, just buy the two speed potions.

Lieutenant Mosely follows a predetermined path through the level and only strays from that path when alerted. However, her AI will also skip over certain actions when alerted, and this can be used to your advantage to speed up her stroll.

First a quick recap: If an NPC is "first alerted," they will continue whatever they were doing and make a comment, before returning to their base alert level. When they are "second alerted," they will actively search for the player and taunt them, before returning to their base alert level. When NPC's are "third alerted," they have seen the player and will chase them down attempting to kill them; when they lose sight of the player, they will enter second alert status, before returning to their base alert level.

Mosely will occasionally stop and do a "searching animation," and this can be prevented by first alerting Mosely such that her time spent in first alert status overlaps with her AI's search trigger. The easiest way to do this is to shoot her with a water arrow, or land a water arrow near her. Broadheads often make a loud enough noise to second alert her and are not reliable. Noisemakers have a special effect on AI and are also not useful as they pull Mosely from her route.

On normal difficulty, Mosely only stops to search once, right before she makes a left turn at the beginning of the level. First alert her and she'll pass right through. Mosely is not the most alert NPC ever, but you want to give her a wide berth. It isn't necessary to collect any loot even in any% as there is not enough for useful purchases in Life of the Party.

As Mosely enters the marketplace she will drop the letter near a streetlight. If you are following her closely, you have one frame to grab the letter from her hand without waiting for it to reach the ground. This is because items in Thief can only be grabbed if they are not moving. When Mosely drops the letter, it is momentarily immobile before accelerating towards the ground. Having mousewheel grab helps here. Once you have the letter, being seen by Mosely is no longer a failure condition. Read the letter, drink a speed potion and across the market by way of the fountain. If you are running any%, there is an invisibility potion that can be grabbed in one of the covered market stalls near Mosely's dead drop. You do not need to drop the letter again, since you will have ended the mission well before the Pagan reaches the market.

Drink your second speed potion when the first runs out, and head to the cemetery. Since you arrived so fast, the Pagan will not have left the cemetery yet, much less reached the market, so the scripted sequence with the Mechanists will not play. However, being seen by the Pagan fails the mission. So use your invisibility potion and head to the back wall of the cemetery. Using the grave stones, mantle over the wall and head into the catacomb, and through the portal.

The original, now obsolete strategy involves shooting a noisemaker into the cemetery to distract the Pagan in lieu of an invisibility potion. The ideal location is into one of the fake catacombs in the first cemetery courtyard. Because noisemakers significantly reduce the senses of NPC's, you can sometimes slip by. The unreliability of this method caused it to be nicknamed "The Colt .45 Shot" by SocratesJohnson: "It gets them every time, but only if you put it in the right place."

==Trail of Blood==

==Life of the Party==

==Precious Cargo==

==Kidnap==

==Casing the Joint==

==Masks==

==Sabotage at Soulforge==

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2018-07-04T07:32:42Z

Jakeplissken: /* Running Interference */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

NB! There may currently be tricks listed here (e.g. amongst the different kinds of boosts) that are only available to those playing v. 1.07.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* v. 1.07 Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* v. 1.07 (?) Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost (v. 1.07?): This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip (v. 1.07?): Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources mention hitting ESC "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a non-zero velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event (OldDark only?) that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb in hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately. This is not recommended if you are planning to let Jenivere escape by alerting her with noise, as Basso must be outside for the mission to complete.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
** The fastest recorded method is to take both keys from the Butler's Quarters, and drop them both such that they collide with each other while you are in the hallway leading to Jenivere's room. The noise is sufficient to alert Jenivere.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 as well as 1.21 New Dark). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing". This is due to the fact that AI's actions are less precisely handled by the engine when the player is far away, meaning they are unable to kill Basso as they normally would.

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2018-07-04T07:24:50Z

Jakeplissken: /* Trace the Courier */

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2018-07-04T06:41:50Z

Jakeplissken:

Thief 2/any % expert IL

2018-07-04T06:40:40Z

Jakeplissken: Created page with "'''Any% Expert Individual Level Runs Guide''' '''By JakePlissken et al.''' ==Introduction== This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn a..."

'''Any% Expert Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. We will outline the strategy for each run by discussing necessary or recommended purchases, providing a step-by-step guide for the fastest strategies, and finally providing a synopsis of the run and a summary on which aspects to practice to achieve record times.

There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more rare playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

'''TIMING:''' Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate, demonstrated by frame-counting many runs, and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but most of these can be traced to save/load indiscretions, and so far no definitive proof has been put forward. Likewise, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind. There is some debate regarding how Sabotage at Soulforge should be timed, since it is significantly faster in real time with one save/load than with a single segment, but currently single-segment runs are standardized.

==Running Interference==

==Shipping and Receiving==

==Framed==

==Ambush==
This level relies heavily on memorizing the correct path through the city, and the easiest way to do that is to watch any of the myriad videos of runs available online. Ambush, along with Running Interference, has one of the longest histories as a time trial level in Thief 2 and besides a minor find in 2017 the route has not changed since 2006. The route is very optimized, and is identical for all three difficulties.

From where Garrett starts, you can turn right 90 degrees and immediately mantle onto the street. Continue forward to the two female NPC's and mantle on top of the elevated garden. On New Dark you can mantle straight onto the garden from the ground level; on Old Dark it may help to jump on top of one of the boxes first, although it is still possible to mantle straight from the street.

On Hard or Expert difficulty, where health management is more vital, you can either enter the door on top of the garden and exit out the window of that building for less of a fall, or you can jump from the garden onto one of the guards' heads, which will break your fall and result in no damage. This guard is not present on Normal.

The fastest way to traverse the market is to jump across the fountain. If your timing is perfect you can jump straight onto the fountain without needing to mantle. It's also possible to take it safe and jump early, intending to mantle; this method is slower but the timing is far less demanding. Naturally, this method is much more reliable in New Dark. If you are unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge of the fountain where you can neither mantle nor make it onto the fountain itself. Decide which method works for you to avoid this situation.

At the next forking path you can run around the building to the right or climb the ladder to the left; climbing the ladder is faster. Unfortunately there is no consistent way to prevent fall damage here.

When making your way across the water ways, using jumps to straighten your path through the level is faster than running along the bridges. You can pickpocket a guard patrol here for an extra health potion if you need it. The precise patrol path of these guards is pseudorandom. On an optimal run, you will have to pass them right as they enter an alleyway at a left turn. Sometimes you can get by them on the left, which is ideal; if their patrol path strays too close to the left corner, you'll have to pass them on the right.

As you approach Garrett's apartment you will want to enter the building across the street and jump to Garrett's apartment window. The door to this building opens towards you so activate it as soon as possible. Head all the way up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. You do not need to be strafe-running to make the jump to Garrett's windowsill, but it helps. While in mid-air, try to open the windows so you don't waste time fiddling with them on the windowsill.

Garrett's apartment has very intrusive geometry and the only way to become fast at moving through it is to practice. Upon entering, head to his closet and frob the left-most coat hanger to open the stash. The secret door does not need to be fully open to grab the items behind it, so you will want to memorize the location of each item so you don't have to wait for the door to open. You need to grab the Shalebridge key for the objective (even though you will not use it), and the speed potion.

Exiting Garrett's apartment can be tricky due to the very large bed hitbox; just try and find a movement pattern that is fast and feels natural. Now you have two options to reach the end level trigger, both involving out-of-bounds tricks.

The classic method is to drop down from Garret's window and head east until you get to the waterway. Turn around, and on your right there should be a window texture on a building next to some stone battlements. The frame of this window is wood; use a rope arrow to climb up to this window, then jump to and mantle upon the battlements. You are now out of bounds.

The newer method involves retrieving the slowfall potion from the stash as well, and jumping back onto the windowsill of the adjacent apartment building, instead of dropping down. Run to the edge of the windowsill, then use the slowfall potion to jump across the street to the roof of the building and then walking over to the battlements. Slowfall jumping is an art in and of itself and requires separate treatment elsewhere.

Both methods get you to the same place - out of bounds on top of the battlements. Drop down and continue heading east. You will eventually reach a wooden section of wall next to a building with a red sloped roof. Use another rope arrow to get on top of the wooden pillar, then mantle on top of the red sloped roof. While standing on this roof, you will slowly slip off. Thus, you need to drink your speed potion to help counteract the slide, and continue along the roofs. You will eventually drop into the Shalebridge area from completely the opposite of the intended direction, completing the mission.

A note of caution: If you are able to end the mission while still out of bounds, it is because you have installed the Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e, included as an optional install in most Tafferpatcher versions. Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e is explicitly BANNED because of its demonstrated illicit changes to the levels, and thus runs including this exit are not considered valid.

==Eavesdropping==

==First City Bank and Trust==
There are no necessary purchases for this mission, but one option which is single-segment safe is to buy two health potions and an extra flash bomb. For money runs, extra mines are a good buy.

First mine+fire arrow to blast the door to your left open. Continue straight ahead and through the marble room. You can try and knock out the purple guard but it doesn't always work. Drop mines in an attempt to disable the mechbeast. Continue down into the basement. If you watch a few IL's you can see what we call "box strats", pioneered by SocratesJohnson. The tall boxes are hard to traverse in general, but there are ways to make them more convenient. Press up against them to mantle; straferun to cross the gap between them whilst throwing the box. If you cross the gap running straight you will almost surely fall.

Follow the side passages to the left to exit near the end of the tunnels. Continue forward until you reach the puzzle machine with a Watcher out front. Hit the lever and stand under the Watcher. Wait until there is only one vertical bar visible on the gate, then enter and open up the puzzle. The fastest combination is middle-left, middle-right, bottom right. If you are ever in doubt, just remember the "four corners" solution - just hit all four corners and the puzzle will complete. Backtrack all the way back to the marble room. You can take the side passages again if you are fast; if your run is slow up to this point, you may get blocked by one of the small mechbeasts. If you somehow get blocked on the entrance to the side passages, don't take them, as there will be another mechbeast who will also block your exit. Just take the wider route out.

Now enter the vault. Hug the right side of the room, or else the vault door will push you out of the way. Trigger the elevator and climb on top of the elevator button box. When the elevator is low enough, press the up button and jump onto the elevator; you may get stuck in the elevator if you press and jump too early and may even take damage. Jump across the corners of the second floor and climb up to the top floor. Head over to vault 11; you can grab the recording through the door, no need to use the key. Drop all the way down to the first floor, using health potions as necessary.

You will see a stairway to your right; take it and go through the first door you see. Flashbomb the mechbeast if he is there, and rope arrow to the roof of the dome. Climb the rope to end the mission. Since the "dome" section is technically above the roof of the bank, the game reads you as being outside and trips the end level trigger. If this fails or if you get blocked, just run out the ground level floor where you came in.

==Blackmail==

==Trace the Courier==

==Trail of Blood==

==Life of the Party==

==Precious Cargo==

==Kidnap==

==Casing the Joint==

==Masks==

==Sabotage at Soulforge==

Thief 2/any % hard ILs

2018-07-04T06:39:56Z

Jakeplissken: Created page with "'''Any% Hard Individual Level Runs Guide''' '''By JakePlissken et al.''' ==Introduction== This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and..."

'''Any% Hard Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. We will outline the strategy for each run by discussing necessary or recommended purchases, providing a step-by-step guide for the fastest strategies, and finally providing a synopsis of the run and a summary on which aspects to practice to achieve record times.

There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more rare playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

'''TIMING:''' Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate, demonstrated by frame-counting many runs, and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but most of these can be traced to save/load indiscretions, and so far no definitive proof has been put forward. Likewise, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind. There is some debate regarding how Sabotage at Soulforge should be timed, since it is significantly faster in real time with one save/load than with a single segment, but currently single-segment runs are standardized.

==Running Interference==

==Shipping and Receiving==

==Framed==

==Ambush==
This level relies heavily on memorizing the correct path through the city, and the easiest way to do that is to watch any of the myriad videos of runs available online. Ambush, along with Running Interference, has one of the longest histories as a time trial level in Thief 2 and besides a minor find in 2017 the route has not changed since 2006. The route is very optimized, and is identical for all three difficulties.

From where Garrett starts, you can turn right 90 degrees and immediately mantle onto the street. Continue forward to the two female NPC's and mantle on top of the elevated garden. On New Dark you can mantle straight onto the garden from the ground level; on Old Dark it may help to jump on top of one of the boxes first, although it is still possible to mantle straight from the street.

On Hard or Expert difficulty, where health management is more vital, you can either enter the door on top of the garden and exit out the window of that building for less of a fall, or you can jump from the garden onto one of the guards' heads, which will break your fall and result in no damage. This guard is not present on Normal.

The fastest way to traverse the market is to jump across the fountain. If your timing is perfect you can jump straight onto the fountain without needing to mantle. It's also possible to take it safe and jump early, intending to mantle; this method is slower but the timing is far less demanding. Naturally, this method is much more reliable in New Dark. If you are unlucky, you will land precisely on the edge of the fountain where you can neither mantle nor make it onto the fountain itself. Decide which method works for you to avoid this situation.

At the next forking path you can run around the building to the right or climb the ladder to the left; climbing the ladder is faster. Unfortunately there is no consistent way to prevent fall damage here.

When making your way across the water ways, using jumps to straighten your path through the level is faster than running along the bridges. You can pickpocket a guard patrol here for an extra health potion if you need it. The precise patrol path of these guards is pseudorandom. On an optimal run, you will have to pass them right as they enter an alleyway at a left turn. Sometimes you can get by them on the left, which is ideal; if their patrol path strays too close to the left corner, you'll have to pass them on the right.

As you approach Garrett's apartment you will want to enter the building across the street and jump to Garrett's apartment window. The door to this building opens towards you so activate it as soon as possible. Head all the way up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. You do not need to be strafe-running to make the jump to Garrett's windowsill, but it helps. While in mid-air, try to open the windows so you don't waste time fiddling with them on the windowsill.

Garrett's apartment has very intrusive geometry and the only way to become fast at moving through it is to practice. Upon entering, head to his closet and frob the left-most coat hanger to open the stash. The secret door does not need to be fully open to grab the items behind it, so you will want to memorize the location of each item so you don't have to wait for the door to open. You need to grab the Shalebridge key for the objective (even though you will not use it), and the speed potion.

Exiting Garrett's apartment can be tricky due to the very large bed hitbox; just try and find a movement pattern that is fast and feels natural. Now you have two options to reach the end level trigger, both involving out-of-bounds tricks.

The classic method is to drop down from Garret's window and head east until you get to the waterway. Turn around, and on your right there should be a window texture on a building next to some stone battlements. The frame of this window is wood; use a rope arrow to climb up to this window, then jump to and mantle upon the battlements. You are now out of bounds.

The newer method involves retrieving the slowfall potion from the stash as well, and jumping back onto the windowsill of the adjacent apartment building, instead of dropping down. Run to the edge of the windowsill, then use the slowfall potion to jump across the street to the roof of the building and then walking over to the battlements. Slowfall jumping is an art in and of itself and requires separate treatment elsewhere.

Both methods get you to the same place - out of bounds on top of the battlements. Drop down and continue heading east. You will eventually reach a wooden section of wall next to a building with a red sloped roof. Use another rope arrow to get on top of the wooden pillar, then mantle on top of the red sloped roof. While standing on this roof, you will slowly slip off. Thus, you need to drink your speed potion to help counteract the slide, and continue along the roofs. You will eventually drop into the Shalebridge area from completely the opposite of the intended direction, completing the mission.

A note of caution: If you are able to end the mission while still out of bounds, it is because you have installed the Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e, included as an optional install in most Tafferpatcher versions. Complete Resource Fix Pack 1.1e is explicitly BANNED because of its demonstrated illicit changes to the levels, and thus runs including this exit are not considered valid.

==Eavesdropping==

==First City Bank and Trust==
There are no necessary purchases for this mission, but one option which is single-segment safe is to buy two health potions and an extra flash bomb. For money runs, extra mines are a good buy.

First mine+fire arrow to blast the door to your left open. Continue straight ahead and through the marble room. You can try and knock out the purple guard but it doesn't always work. Drop mines in an attempt to disable the mechbeast. Continue down into the basement. If you watch a few IL's you can see what we call "box strats", pioneered by SocratesJohnson. The tall boxes are hard to traverse in general, but there are ways to make them more convenient. Press up against them to mantle; straferun to cross the gap between them whilst throwing the box. If you cross the gap running straight you will almost surely fall.

Follow the side passages to the left to exit near the end of the tunnels. Continue forward until you reach the puzzle machine with a Watcher out front. Hit the lever and stand under the Watcher. Wait until there is only one vertical bar visible on the gate, then enter and open up the puzzle. The fastest combination is middle-left, middle-right, bottom right. If you are ever in doubt, just remember the "four corners" solution - just hit all four corners and the puzzle will complete. Backtrack all the way back to the marble room. You can take the side passages again if you are fast; if your run is slow up to this point, you may get blocked by one of the small mechbeasts. If you somehow get blocked on the entrance to the side passages, don't take them, as there will be another mechbeast who will also block your exit. Just take the wider route out.

Now enter the vault. Hug the right side of the room, or else the vault door will push you out of the way. Trigger the elevator and climb on top of the elevator button box. When the elevator is low enough, press the up button and jump onto the elevator; you may get stuck in the elevator if you press and jump too early and may even take damage. Jump across the corners of the second floor and climb up to the top floor. Head over to vault 11; you can grab the recording through the door, no need to use the key. Drop all the way down to the first floor, using health potions as necessary.

You will see a stairway to your right; take it and go through the first door you see. Flashbomb the mechbeast if he is there, and rope arrow to the roof of the dome. Climb the rope to end the mission. Since the "dome" section is technically above the roof of the bank, the game reads you as being outside and trips the end level trigger. If this fails or if you get blocked, just run out the ground level floor where you came in.

==Blackmail==

==Trace the Courier==

==Trail of Blood==

==Life of the Party==

==Precious Cargo==

==Kidnap==

==Casing the Joint==

==Masks==

==Sabotage at Soulforge==

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2018-07-04T06:36:50Z

Jakeplissken: /* Ambush */

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2018-07-04T06:06:41Z

Jakeplissken: /* Running Interference */

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2018-07-04T05:56:18Z

Jakeplissken: /* Introduction */

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-15T01:05:01Z

Jakeplissken:

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-15T00:44:56Z

Jakeplissken: /* Introduction */

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-15T00:43:14Z

Jakeplissken: /* Introduction */

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-15T00:41:04Z

Jakeplissken:

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-14T23:28:50Z

Jakeplissken: /* Running Interference */

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more uncommon playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate. I personally have frame-counted many of my runs and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but so far no definitive proof has been put forward. However, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is to grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, drop one of them by the first door on your right in such a way that the guards hear the noise and open that door, tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. For some reason if he is alerted by the box, he's less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:06, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05]on the original "OldDark" engine. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed, forcing the player to sit through the fade-out. On 1.07 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:04 or even 1:03 is possible.

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-14T23:26:50Z

Jakeplissken: /* Running Interference */

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more uncommon playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate. I personally have frame-counted many of my runs and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but so far no definitive proof has been put forward. However, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is to grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, drop one of them by the first door on your right in such a way that the guards hear the noise and open that door, tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. For some reason if he is alerted by the box, he's less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:06, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05]on the original "OldDark" engine. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed. On 1.07 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:04 or even 1:03 is possible.

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-14T23:26:36Z

Jakeplissken:

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more uncommon playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate. I personally have frame-counted many of my runs and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but so far no definitive proof has been put forward. However, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is to grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, drop one of them by the first door on your right in such a way that the guards hear the noise and open that door, tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. For some reason if he is alerted by the box, he's less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on. Some players open the side doors on their way out, thinking the AI's might wander into them. This may be true, but it is poorly understood and need to be tested. Run towards Basso's building and blow the birdcall. Then run back towards the stairs and stand near them. When Jenivere escapes, the mission will end.

That is really all you need to know to achieve a 1:06, which is the fastest known time on the NewDark engine. However, for those interested there is some deeper theory about the timing of this mission. Using the slower blackjack method, CatharticGaming was able to achieve a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozzf5YLVko 1:05] on the original "OldDark" engine. In the OldDark engine, if all objectives are completed and Jenivere is knocked out, the mission ends almost immediately, whereas in the NewDark engine this glitch and other objective priority bugs were fixed. On 1.07 OldDark it is not unreasonable to assume that a 1:04 or even 1:03 is possible.

Thief 2/any % normal ILs

2017-08-14T23:20:46Z

Jakeplissken: Created page with "'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide''' '''By JakePlissken et al.''' ==Introduction== This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn a..."

'''Any% Normal Individual Level Runs Guide'''

'''By JakePlissken et al.'''

==Introduction==
This guide seeks to provide up-to-date routes and tactics to help players learn and compete for IL records. There are two predominant paradigms for IL records: money runs, and "single-segment safe" IL's. The latter uses money carried over from the previous mission, usually the maximum loot available, to purchase extra supplies to make the route faster and more consistent or safe. "Single-segment safe" IL runs use only the money that you would normally have after completing the previous mission in a single-segment any% full game run, which is often 0, as only 5 of 15 missions have loot requirements on normal difficulty. "Single-segment safe" runs are more beneficial as practice than for achieving record times, so for the purposes of this guide we will only focus on money runs. There is a third, much more uncommon playstyle known as Low%, where no purchases are made at all and players collect the minimum amount of loot required to complete the mission. This is an older challenge run that is no longer commonly seen.

If you are new to Thief speedrunning, it would be beneficial for you to review the SDA [[Thief_2/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches|Game Mechanics and Glitches]] page to learn about general movement and how to perform the various glitches that will be referenced in this guide.

Thief 2 IL's are timed by in-game time, which is measured in full seconds. The timer rounds down; for example, a 2:05.97 will be displayed as a 2:05. The timer is exceptionally accurate. I personally have frame-counted many of my runs and the timer has always proven to be accurate. There exist several rumors of circumstances in which the timer is inaccurate, but so far no definitive proof has been put forward. However, saving and loading invalidates the in-game timer, because on loading the timer reverts to the time of the original save, meaning the additional game time is not added to the final game time. Hence, all IL runs must be completed in a single segment, with no saves or loads of any kind.

==Running Interference==
As the level loads, spam your strafe keys to make sure you get moving as soon as the level loads. Head inside the mansion to the Butler's Quarters. If you play with item auto-equip enabled, you want to grab the key that is resting on the wall near the door and immediately open the locked door on the left. If you do not use auto-equip, grab the key on the table with the coins instead to give yourself time to equip it and open the door.

The tricky part about this run is developing a pattern of AI manipulation that works for you, in such a way that Jenivere is less likely to get blocked by the guards as she runs through the narrow hallways. My method of choice is to grab both keys in the Butler's Quarters, drop one of them by the first door on your right in such a way that the guards hear the noise and open that door, tap the torch with my blackjack, and continue onwards. It seems to work most of the time. Knock out the obvious guard in your way. You also want to throw a box here to first alert the guard who is standing in the alcove. For some reason if he is alerted by the box, he's less likely to third alert and start chasing you when you run by, and he will second alert instead. This also gives him a favorable position for Jenivere to get past.

Next is alerting Jenivere and you can do this in one of two ways: either with a key which is faster but takes some practice, or with the blackjack, which is slower but simpler. To use the key, approach Jenivere's door while straferunning and when you get close, drop the key. It will inherit some of your momentum and hopefully hit the door. If it doesn't, it can still alert her if it hits the ground right in front of the door. This takes practice to get the angle and the timing right, but since you travel less distance it is the best way to get a fast time.

I would recommend you use the blackjack instead if you are just starting out running Thief 2. There are two ways to do this consistently. One is to hit the top-left corner of the door either with a swing or with a block-tap (performed by blocking when close enough to the door). The other is to stand with your back to the door, look straight down, and swing. You will hear a more distant, quieter "clang". This is actually the sound of your blackjack hitting the opposite side of the door due to the blackjack's unusual hitbox. Both methods are fairly consistent ways of freeing Jenivere. You can also try leaning forward to squeeze out just a little bit more time.

A quick note on why these methods open Jenivere's door. Jenivere has a very simple AI script which only knows how to idle, read a scripted line to Basso, and escape. Since Basso's "rescue" flag hasn't been activated yet, she doesn't read her line, and proceeds to just escape because her AI is no longer idling. She has the ability to unlock the door mainly to prevent buggy interactions with the player when doing the intended route.

You should exit the mansion ahead of Jenivere. Proceed to knock out anyone who presents such an opportunity to do so, as it will limit the number of guards Jenivere can get stuck on.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2016-02-20T09:41:59Z

Jakeplissken: /* Sabotage at Soulforge */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost: This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip: Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources mention hitting esc "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb at hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing".

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2016-02-20T09:36:46Z

Jakeplissken: /* Sabotage at Soulforge */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General Movement ==

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance which can help clear larger gaps or just cut corners more efficiently. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump once and wait until you've landed. (This step is only useful if there's a down slope to boost off.)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forwards lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition, if the door is not on the side you're looking and leaning towards, you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* You can go all the way around a ladder without detaching if there's room.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you will make no noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items, keys etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing this way. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

When climbing upwards, you need to push the view up to the very very top, which is difficult to do at least in v. 1.07. You have to keep moving the mouse even after the pitching initially stops to get the last few pixels.

The easiest items to use in elevatoring are all the ones with bigger hitboxes, e.g. loaves of bread, cucumbers and scouting orbs (although those have the annoying camera shift effect). Flares are seemingly a bit more difficult to make work. It's also more difficult if you're not right next to a wall that keeps the items from sliding off on that side. You should be facing the wall when dropping them.

Alternatively, it is apparently easier to lower your mouse sensitivity first before trying to move the view all the way to the apex.

* Quick Elevatoring: In this variation you just kind of spam-drop the items (the more you have the easier) above your head while also spamming jump. If you get very lucky you can get to a significant height and most significantly it happens much quicker than with slow elevatoring. This has been used to successfully scale the walls right next to the exit zone in Ambushed (using 5-6 cucumbers, apples or loaves of bread) but it's very difficult.

It is believed to be possible to do a quick elevatoring that also transports you forwards. Requires lots of luck or some more systematic method.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* Breaking a Fall: Outside of slow-fall potions, dropping items mid-air, and landing on ramps, you can break your fall by jumping onto people, [destroyed] bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

You can also use any other item you can throw, e.g. orbs and mines, to break your fall/get bumped on the side. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Quick mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

== Boosts ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost. Drinking a slow-fall potion as soon as you're in the air might also give a net time save because you keep your higher velocity for longer when you touch the ground less even if you have to endure a short period of slow running.

* Door boost: The game doesn't handle half-open doors very well. If you only open (or close) a door half-way and lean against it, you get a massive boost in the direction the door is pointing.

Remember that you can use an item to prevent the door from opening/closing all the way without having to stand in its way yourself in case that's ever faster.

* Slant Boost: This requires an object with a slanted rising facet, e.g. a half-open crate lid (crates in mission 2) or bay door (also mission 2). To activate it, you need to get underneath it, crouch, then uncrouch or jump and you get sent pretty far along the slanted surface. The bay doors even get you sliding along the ceiling for a little bit before you fall off. The effect can be increased by consuming a slow-fall potion after the jump except with the aforementioned bay doors because it gets you stuck in them unless drunk after reaching the ceiling.

By adjusting the exact angle of the open lid or other object, you can get boosts giving you varying heights and distances. Also with the bay doors you can use the bottom of the door instead of the side.

With slant boosts, remember that you can use an object to block the bay door/whatever from opening or closing all the way without having to be standing in the way yourself.

* Lean Boost: This can happen when leaning into a variety of objects, including ladders, turrets or bay doors and crate lids. If you got stuck on the object instead of leaning through it, you get sent in the direction in which you're leaning when you've rotated your view far enough out. Unleaning (which is something you can do at any time when in the air) will have the same effect in reverse, i.e. you'll be sent in the direction opposite to where you first leaned.

A particularly useful way to apply Lean Boosting is to jump into the object after having leaned so that when you perform the boost you're in the air meaning you get carried further.

There's another type of lean boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is much greater than a normal running jump would allow height of the object is quite strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping. On Shipping there's a vase stand thing next to the building A main entrance (the double doors) that gives you at best a huge boost if you lean more towards the wall so so you're not leaned too far over it when you jump.

You can combine a slant boost and a lean boost to get neat effects that both send you up and sideways (even being able to change directions when stuck in the ceiling and unleaning). If you do this well enough you should be able to guide yourself onto the upper walkway of the inventor's shop (Cid Capezza) in mission 2, on the left side. You have to move the view so when you unlean you change directions. One consistent way to set up a sideways slant boost is to crouch under the door, lean the way opposite to where you want to go but without touching the door. Then you unlean right after jumping while turning your view so the unlean gets caught in the door.

You can also lean boost off an object that's above you (a torch on the wall for example).

NCPs is another thing you can get lean boosts off.

* Gate Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a varying but generally quite big boost. This works the same when unleaning if you wanted to do that for some reason.

Can't seem to do it off rising elevators (nor lowering ones) at all.

* Ramp Boost/NPC Boost: Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope. The speed gain is proportional to your falling velocity. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall] and you bump into the object you can get a big boost up or down the rope. If you're next to an object and then rotate the view [rapidly], you either get the same effect or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately so you just have to scout around. For an example, the hanging lanterns on the ceiling inside the storage house SE of Garrett's house in mission 4 are good for getting boosts and SHASing.

If you also jump off the rope as the boost is happening you very very frequently get SHASed, but occasionally you can get boosted instead. And the nice part is this doesn't seem to be nearly as particular about where you do it, which means you could get more utility out of your rope arrows. It seems if you jump when on your way down (as normally happens when bumping on things above you while hanging off ropes), it keeps your momentum and you smash on the ground dying instantly. Probably the only thing normally preventing this when you don't jump is the rope's hit detection kicking in before you hit the ground. I presume the same will happen moving upwards.

Looks like it's still varying levels of easy to get the SHAS/boost this way depending on what you're rope boosting off.

Got a fairly consistent setup for this when the rope was next to a painting and I leaned into the rope jumping.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (or facing outwards diagonally depending on which way you're leaning). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is far higher than your normal running speed.

This boost can be done off paintings too.

NPCs work for this too.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Lean zip: Lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique (aside from a regular crouch-mantle door transgression) but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

== Items and Objects ==

=== Potions ===

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower (instantly halves any negative z-velocity), but they also slow you down on the ground (by 50%) which is why you normally have to just take as much damage as you can afford to and put those healing potions to use. Or use other techniques to prevent fall damage. On the other hand you can get longer jumps the more slowfall potions you drink in the air.

You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your horizontal velocity and get most of the height too.

Also, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your effective buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in (check the source code section of the guide for more on this). Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for 8.6 seconds. So if you take 9 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping right before you run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

** Infinite Speed Potion/ISP: This only works on Soulforge due to a special 'FlickerTrigger' present only in that mission. What is said about speed potions applies to slow-fall potions too, but not invisibility potions. All this was worked out by WheretIT:

[https://youtu.be/uZCoh9_Vhu0 Demonstration of the ISP] If this setup doesn't work for you ask about it in the thread. You should be able to move around in the starting area and outside if you never cross a trigger line right next to where the demonstration stops running ahead.

The way timed speed potions work:
- Activate effect: 'DrkInv.AddSpeedControl("Speedy", 1.75,1.25);' (Effects do not stack)
- Create a timer named 'PreEndPotion' after a duration of 7.6 seconds
- When 'PreEndPotion' triggers, play deactivation sound (optional) and create a new timer 'EndPotion' with a duration of 1 second
- When 'EndPotion' triggers, the effect is removed: 'DrkInv.RemoveSpeedControl("Speedy");'

A timer object is a numerical handle that is stored in 'PotionTimer' property of a SpeedPotion. When the last activated SpeedPotion ends, the 'PotionTimer' property is cleared.

If a potion is already activated, the current timer is removed and all steps described above are performed.

While it might not be the only way, but the way the glitch happens on Soulforge has to do with a certain TrigFlicker (FlickerTrigger) object that is only used on Soulforge.

Now it gets a bit complicated... I'm still figuring out the exact order of events, but basically, this object is incorrectly implemented - it also uses a timer and stores the handle in the properties. The issue is the way it removes the timer when it is no longer needed - it can remove the timer using a numeric handle more than once.

So, the infinite potion glitch happens when after a save/load sequence, the speed potion you activate receives the same handle ID as was used before the save by the FlickerTrigger object, and soon after load, this FlickerTrigger object removes the speed potion timer.

Detailed explanation of what happens when Soulforge is loaded up on Normal difficulty:
# -Level starts
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#2/#3)
# -Game creates some internal timers (#4-#18)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -1 second after load, Scouting Orb timers expire
# -4 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker creates a timer (#21)
# -8 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21)
# -Game is saved
# -Game is loaded (last active timer is #18 since timers #19-#21 have either expired or were destroyed)
# -Scouting Orbs create their 1 second timers (#19/#20)
# -I drink a potion that creates a timer (#21!)
# -12 seconds after the level start, TrigFlicker destroys a timer (#21) and creates a new one (#22)

Aside from the starting area, the ISP can be activated in four other areas where TrigFlicker objects are used, but it is presumed that the starting area will be the ideal location for performing the ISP for any and all speedruns.

** You can also have both slow-fall and speed active at the same time on Soulforge but even if that was desirable to do, the setup would take too much time for usage in speedruns. Still you can activate either effect in any of the five TrigFlicker areas.

=== Mines and Other Explosives ===

* Mines: You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

** You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

** You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

** Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

=== Arrows ===

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* The damage dealt by broadheads is affected by their velocity. Because some of your momentum is added to the arrow's, you're causing more damage when firing in the direction you're moving.

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons, including the hidden kind that involves dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly. Note that items may also be used. Useful in Soulforge at least and anywhere where you need to call an elevator and you have line-of-sight on the call button.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* You can get an extra high, perfectly vertical jump whenever there's things like the counter with the key on it in the mission 2 main office. You crouch and lean sideways inside the low space, then just jump. Alternatively you can do the same standing up while leaning above the thing.

* You can easily tell apart what's an object and what's architecture just by swinging a weapon at it. Only objects will thud or clang. The difference it makes comes up with tricks like the Object Boost.

* Object hitboxes: sometimes frobbable objects (such as potions, orbs and bottles) have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a normal surface (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* Crates: Crates actually have an asymmetric hitbox that makes them have considerably more servicable surface area on their top and bottom facets than on the sides. To drop the crate on its bottom, face horizontally while dropping it.

"Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently if you can't elevator.

You might also be able to use crates to create a higher jump off another type of boost but it seems very difficult to jump off a crate in full speed even when it's lying on its bottom.

** Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms. Potentially a bit faster than slow elevatoring if you don't need too much extra height. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling. This drops it on its side so it's not good for creating staircases.

In the highly unlikely scenario that you need to build a staircase out of crates (that you can get up or down), you should consider reading [http://www.greywool.com/azal/Tutorials/Staircasing/ these instructions].

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* You can throw items to achieve the same effect as arrows in any of multiple places where an arrow causes something to happen, e.g. accessing the loot stash in the art gallery of mission 2. All kinds of buttons are activated when an items hits them. Flash bombs fail to have this effect.

* Flash bombs penetrate objects as if they weren't there. This includes all sorts of things: doors, windows, portcullises, ladders, thin metal walkways etc.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards on the 1st floor next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you had the relevant button held down when it happened and if you were airborne. Dropping the item you had selected is also possible while orbed so long as you selected it before orb view kicked in. Otherwise scrolling the mouse wheel (if bound to cycling the inventory) is a fast way to disengage orb view.

* You can use mines and flares as well as fire arrows to light fires.

== General Tricks ==

* Saving/loading: Saving and loading can have a few different effects in your game state. It...
** manipulates NPC behaviour
** restarts conversation chunks (i.e. parts of conversations)
** causes you to instantly warp upwards on any rope you were hanging off

* Money Doubling: Save the game immediately before completing a mission. Complete the mission as usual, and save the game in a different save position. Reload save that was made before the mission was completed. Complete the mission again. The statistics screen will combine the money from both missions. Repeat this to earn as much as needed. (May use this in segmented runs!)

* Multiple sources mention hitting esc "right before hitting the ground" to prevent fall damage. Couldn't make it work in v. 1.07. Please report any successes.

* To quickly get to the mission you want, try ctrl-alt-shift-end to skip through them.

* Here are the [http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 in-game console commands] and instructions on how to activate it for use with testing things efficiently. Sadly there aren't that many useful console commands... Most of them activate normal commands such as "jump" or "use item".
** For some reason when I edit my user.bnd (on v.1.07 on a WinXP) and try to save it (for enabling console), something causes the text file to lose its line breaks which confuses the game. One way to fix this is to manually insert a line break after each line so there's an empty line in-between.
** Here are some useful modifications to your dark.cfg or user.cfg files:
- cash_bonus X (not console command: put in dark.cfg or user.cfg to get X extra cash at the start of each mission)
- kbd_turn_rate 1: if you map turn left and turn right on your keyboard, lowering the turn rate allows for an easier way to test if there's an angle at which you can frob something through a wall. Default is 50. Doesn't work for pitching.
** Don't forget to undo game-affecting changes before doing speedruns!

* Leaning: This can only be done while on the ground. Running forwards or backwards or landing cancels the effect but not sidestepping. No matter which way you perform a lean, the effect should be identical. When unleaning (when lean is released) the mechanics seem to be exactly the same again except in the opposite direction and you can actually unlean while airborne. These mechanics are visible in Lean Boosts and Gate Boosts. Remember that the unlean direction depends on which way you're facing just like leaning.

You can't crouch while leaned.

* Quick Rope Climb: If you place two ropes or vines right next to each other and next to a wall, you might be able to perform a quicker climb by repeatedly jumping. This activates the ropes' effect of snatching you from the air each time giving you extra height as well.

* You can jump into a rope while leaned (lean grab technique). It results in keeping the lean, but this is reset if you press forwards or backwards (as per normal), meaning you can't really climb the rope. It might be possible to use the quick rope climb while keeping the lean for the last jump. Otherwise if you jump off directly it yields effectively a lean grab.

* Rope Save/load: saving and loading while on a rope instantly snaps you higher by a good amount. Obviously segmented only.

* When you have a velocity, it's added to any items you drop or arrows you fire.

* Thin Walls/Ceilings: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings. To frob things, it's sometimes easier if you change your vertical angle by jumping or crouching. Leaning can help you find the right angle as well.

Also read the text about door transgression.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later). Also throwing certain objects, e.g. scouting orbs will do it.

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, but it's not know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the base camp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* SHAS: The Sudden Heart Attack Syndrome is still a thing in Thief 2 in every version despite being much more rare. Its only relationship with speedrunning is it often happens in situations where if it went slightly differently or if you didn't crash into something, you'd have a lot of speed off some kind of boost (such as notably Rope Arrow Boosts).

* Crouch-mantle (probably OldDark only): Crouch while facing something mantleable (or just an empty space), then jump. This can cause you to teleport a small ways backwards - or sideways if you're leaning sideways - whether or not you're actually mantling something. Used as the basis for door transgressions and such.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): What is said here about doors seems to also apply to windows! By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), [running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door?], then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through you'll need crouch-mantling which doesn't seem to work well or at all for NewDark. If you do manage to get mostly through, slowfall potions help you get unstuck.

You can even just crouch-mantle into and through the door without using a rope. This method was dubbed "Sideways Transgression". Just crouch facing outwards towards either something that you can mantle or empty space and on one side and lean on the same side so you're squeezing yourself against the door. It seems easiest if you're squeezed into the corner between the door and its frame. Then jump. Garrett should make the mantle noise. If it failed to jam you inside the door keep trying, varying the angle. After you're partially inside, all you need to do to get on the other side is crouch, lean towards the side you want to go, and jump again. This might still not bring you all the way through but once you're mostly on the other side, drinking a slow-fall potion will do the rest.

In fact there IS a way to pass through using nothing but crouch-mantling. It seems you have to be on the wrong side of the door (where you're coming from), or at least around the center of the doorway, then go all the way on one go, otherwise you can't make the last little bit. But then even that has happened, just not very often. When you're inside the door, doing a crouch-mantle without leaning can also sometimes do something.

All in all the success rate, especially without relying on slow-fall potions, seems to vary a great deal from door to door or - more likely - door type to door type. The shape of the entryway might also well be a factor.

You can use a partial transgression (definitely available in NewDark) with the rope arrow method to be able to reach something on the other side of a door or tapestry without actually transgressing it. A slow-fall potion will free you afterwards.

Note that no-one has ever been able to attach onto a rope arrow while transgressing so the intuitive method of using one to detach yourself fails.

There's one more way of doing a transgression that seems to only work in NewDark, which is to simply drink slow-fall potions while running towards the door (look up so the door isn't being frobbed). Can't make it all the way through but can make it almost there.

Found a slightly different way to transgress (in OldDark again) that might be easier than before. Calling it "Backwards Transgression". It only works if the doorframe isn't very thick. Just stand with your back against the door near the side. Crouch, then lean towards the same side you're stood on and face slightly the other way so the wall pushes you forwards around the corner and slightly away from the door. After this move you view back to a centered position (straight away from the door behind you). Now jump, and it should send you all the way through very consistently.

* Out-of-Body Experience: This is a very special event that can happen if you're most of the way through something like a door. The theoretical explanation is one half of Garrett's two-part player model has passed completely through (the bottom half with the legs) but the other half (top half) is still caught in a wall or object. You're able to walk around the area directly in front of you and on both sides and can easily free yourself from the wall completely just by crouch-mantling. This will cause you to essentially teleport to the place your legs are at.
** No real known uses. Even when you drink a slow-fall, you don't get any giant boosts even though the torso being freed causes a rapid unleaning. Very difficult to set up so probably segmented only in any case. There is also a limitation of not being able to walk around corners on the side you're stuck on. Crouching is difficult too sometimes.
** There's a possibility of doing this using non-transgression means. Did it by just getting stuck underneath a staircase in mission 2 so the torso could no longer move.
** (LotBlind) Contact me if you want a save file (v. 1.07) for messing with this.
** After experiencing this again with a scouting orb at hand, it's now clear the game draws your player model where your legs are at, not your torso.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can get to low-ceilinged places higher up than you if you bring a crate with you so you can crouch-jump up there.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state in a way that can sometimes get you unstuck. Less reliable than slow-fall potions and has never been successfully used to complete a door transgression.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

* Use manual zooming (from menu) to avoid the wait on any long range shots. Also doesn't reset the zoom after taking the shot.

* Making noise without wasting time: drop or throw an item or clang something with the blackjack.

* If you need sound cues for something difficult to make out, turn ambient sounds off.

* You can control Garrett's sword swing direction by moving the mouse to the left if you want a left swing.

* Keypads: These write in your inputs right-to-left, i.e. the new input causes everything else to shift one to the left. This means it doesn't matter if you fumble first, so long as you eventually get the correct four inputs in a row.

* There is some amount of RNG involved in fall damage meaning the same fall might sometimes hurt you, sometimes not. Remember this for low% and segmented runs.

== Guards and Other NPCs ==

* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice unless the object made a noise. Block their way with crates etc.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* NPCs have some randomness in their search patterns which means you can manipulate them to open doors quicker etc. in segmented runs with save/load.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace. They don't react to touching them at all unless already alerted.
* Guards and other NPCs can fall off ledges sometimes when wandering too close. This doesn't harm them unless they fall in water in which case they'll drown after a while.
* NPCs breathe through their abdomens, not their heads. This sometimes causes them to drown when you don't expect it.
* It only counts as a pickpocket if you get the loot before an unconscious NPC has fallen to the ground.
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just stay behind their backs for a bit)
* To kill an alerted guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse unless the key/item was out of reach. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger. Their AI is also partially frozen ("dozing") when you're far away from them, causing them to ignore things that would normally cause them to go on alert.
* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation. Particularly useful on Casing the Joint.
* After triggering a conversation between two NPCs, if you save/load you can get it to last longer if that's beneficial for manipulations in a segmented run.
* You can manipulate enemies into using the same attack animation repeatedly, manipulate them into lunging forward, blocking, etc. and some of those are actually useful in some extreme circumstances.
* You can block arrows etc. by dropping or throwing a crate in its path. Other similar objects are probably going to work also.
* NPCs waiting for entering a conversation (such as the nobleman and the Hammerite in mission 2) have lowered awareness and can't hear you at all, only see you.
* You can contravene any no-kill goals by throwing hammers and maces at NPCs. A hammer will kill e.g. an unalerted civilian in 2 throws. Carrying one around doesn't slow you down and can increase your overall damage output if so desired.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, but again doesn't always work. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.
* You can manipulate bots to hit other NPCs or fire cannonballs that explode next to a door etc. that you want to burst open.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal but it can also work with a loud sound sometimes.
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions). If you want to do this you're better off hiding to the west of the archway leading into the outer perimeter of the house so the guards are "dozing".

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most if not all of the orange locks in building A AND red locks in building B can be opened from the other side of the wall. Look for when the door itself is suddenly unselected. Most of the locks are on the right side of the door. Some of them are quite tough and can only be done by jumping or crouching which in most cases makes it easier to reach the locks anyway but is very inconvenient if you need to pick the lock. Make sure to look up or down towards the locks when jumping or crouching to highlight them. You can even hit some of the bay door levers from the wrong side but it might only be possible if the bay door is already open.
** From outside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: The two building 2 doors closest to the SW corner of building B are both very tough, especially the one leading to the secret area. Still managed to do both by spamming jump, forwards lean and use while aiming towards the lock. You have to be a little ways away from the door.
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing:
** From inside:
*** Doors difficult but possible to open: Kilgor, the lock is kinda far from the door on the right and you have to jump while standing at the right door frame; Bay 1 and 3 in building B (can be hit at the apex of the jump when on the very right)
*** Doors you CAN'T open without first half-transgressing: Bay 2 and 4 in building B: seems impossible because the frames are really thick.
* In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.
* You can reach Mynell's safe from outside his office so you don't necessarily have to open the door.
* You can do big slant boosts in this mission off half-open bay doors (and crate lids of course) Sometimes you can do something that makes you stop half-way and be stuck for a little while before falling again.
* Using the other down-facing facet of the door object (the bottom) for a similar boost works too. If in either case you get permanently stuck in the door, just hit the screenshot key.
* A slow-fall potion will exaggerate the effect for a really long boost.
* You can make the jump from the stack of crates to the South of your starting position (by the ladder) over to the higher stack around the starting zone by lean grabbing.
* If you half-transgress one of the doors to the shacks you can fire arrows or throw objects at the numbers to activate a bay door.
** You can actually even just reach some of the keypads directly through the window on the side. You may require careful positioning to reach the desired buttons.
** Even better, in OldDark you can just crouch-mantle right through the windows! It's easy because they're so thin. Use backwards transgression.
* You can do a lean boost off a bay door if you open it wide enough so there's a gap to slip yourself through. The speed is pretty ridiculous. There's also slant boost opportunities off the same doors and off crate lids.
* You can object boost off the little pedestal thing leaning on the wall to the left of the main entrance to building A. At best gives a huge boost. Best way to do it is to lean forwards while facing an angle between the wall and the thing, then jump and jump again as you land.
** Similar boost off the cart turned on its side in front of Cappezza's workshop.
* It's probably also possible to transgress bay doors.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*The seed for the key location is based on system time upon initiating the mission and thus cannot easily be manipulated outside of segmented runs.
*The possible key locations vary from difficulty to difficulty.
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door or you'll get a mission fail.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.
*You can transgress the outside gates fairly quickly (in two goes). The gate from the streets to the estate grounds is also possible to transgress with one crouch-mantle and a slow-fall potion.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable, although you cannot pick up a plate resting on an elevator while the lift is in motion.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button with an arrow or a thrown object as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where a stationary iron beast is guarding it).
*It's possible for the effects of a speed potion to become permanent on this level. At the beginning of the level, wait until Karras finishes saying "thou art Garret, are you not?" and then immediately quicksave and quickload. Use a speed potion upon reloading, and it will "stick", permanently doubling your movement speed. This effect persists through loads and the use of potions.

== Side notes ==

* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html. Read the notes on Door Transgressions for other methods of doing it.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T22:41:57Z

Jakeplissken: /* Casing the Joint */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a vine arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T22:01:55Z

Jakeplissken: /* Blackmail */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
**Alternatively, it is possible to alert the guards on the other side by firing a broadhead arrow into the door. Hitting the slightly dark section below the handles is relatively consistent, although the arrow won't alert the guards if it happens to go directly between the two doors (it won't make a sound).
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

User:Jakeplissken

2015-09-17T20:56:40Z

Jakeplissken: Created page with "I primarily speedrun Thief 2 any%."

I primarily speedrun Thief 2 any%.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T20:51:35Z

Jakeplissken: /* Trail of Blood */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge (or sometimes even making it all the way without mantling). This can be difficult to do consistently and is highly dependent on timing and angle.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T20:50:23Z

Jakeplissken: /* Trail of Blood */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, at the start of the Maw, and on the grass leading down to the pagan is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge. This can be difficult to do consistently.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T20:49:17Z

Jakeplissken: /* Framed */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. The most common way to do this is to aim for the right-hand lamp on the perimeter wall. This mantle is particularly finicky about which direction you are facing. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, and at the start of the Maw is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge. This can be difficult to do consistently.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T20:43:58Z

Jakeplissken: /* Sabotage at Soulforge */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, and at the start of the Maw is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge. This can be difficult to do consistently.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission. Steel plates can also be used to break your fall, and they are reusable.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T20:42:09Z

Jakeplissken: /* Kidnap */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, and at the start of the Maw is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge. This can be difficult to do consistently.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.
*The locked metal double doors at Site 5 leading to Cavador close automatically after a certain amount of time. It is possible to KO Cavador and carry his body back out these doors before they close. However if you're too slow, the doors will close and you'll have to drop Cavador to open the door again.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-09-17T20:35:03Z

Jakeplissken: /* Life of the Party */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Jumping: When jumping you travel at the same speed you had on the ground, so it neither speeds you up nor slows you down, except if there's ramps.

* Thief games have NO air control so pushing any buttons while flying through the air doesn't do anything. This means to succeed at a difficult jump it's just aiming well and timing it well. You can do a 360 every time you've jumped for style.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (jumping through only works in v.1.18 and later).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period, but door corners also catch the mines nicely if you want to throw them from afar.

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing. Also note that you can disable auto-equipping items.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

* Remember that you can keep rope arrows that you've used (at the cost of some health) even if you need it to remove some height from a fall by just grabbing it as you're jumping off.

* Crouching to detach from ladders has been a thing since v. 1.19. Unknown if this works with ropes too.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.
* Guards don't seem to start their cycles until you pass through a trigger.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, and at the start of the Maw is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge. This can be difficult to do consistently.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry. Two crates can be found just inside the pantry, in a corner.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.

Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

2015-08-05T08:41:31Z

Jakeplissken: /* General */

[[https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age Back to Main Page]]

If a trick applies to only some versions of the game, note which ones that is.

== General ==

With all the tricks that gain you extra speed, in order to make the best use of it you should be hopping to avoid losing it to ground friction any earlier than necessary. Practice jumping right after getting the boost.

* Straferunning: Straferunning, e.g. forwards and right, is faster than normal running. Also works under water. Testing reveals that straferunning is 20% faster than running normally, and strafewalking is 40% faster than normal walking.

* Mantling: earlier (OldDark) versions of the engine did a bad job with mantling whereas the later versions (NewDark, v.1.19-) correct this behaviour, making certain new movement possible, e.g. over fences.

* Lean Grab: There is a technique for leaning forwards while flying through the air to extend your effective jump+mantle/frob distance. Normally you're not able to lean while jumping so you have to do it before you've jumped. However, if you are also holding down forwards this will instantly cancel the lean. This is the correct technique:
** Strafe run to get to full ground movement speed.
** Jump and wait until you've just landed. (This step is optional but might make it more consistent)
** Immediately release forwards and activate forward lean while jumping again. You should now have the maximum speed but also be leaning. If it fails, make sure you're doing the other two actions slightly before jumping.

* Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner. In addition you can jump right before you turn to face the door using the lean grab technique so you don't lose any ground speed while facing the door.

* Key/wall glitch: if there's a lock on the other side of the wall (like in mission 2, the orange and red doors), you can unlock it through the wall

* Wall/window grab: it is sometimes possible to grab items/push buttons/pull levers through the wall. It is also possible to attack someone through a thin wall or door. Furthermore you can drop items through walls or ceilings.

* Crate stacking: stack crates to get somewhere you couldn't get before. You won't run any slower with a crate in your arms, so you can lug it around wherever you go until you reach an obstacle. You can't have your weapon equipped while carrying stuff though. The best way to balance yourself on a crate is to look down, drop it and jump as it's falling.

* "Carrying" more than one crate: You can just keep sliding them along the ground ahead of you. Could be good for performing a crate climb time-efficiently.

* Slowfall potions: they'll let you fall slower, but they also slow you down on the ground. If you're worried about the damage when making several long falls (without slowfall potions), put those healing potions to use. You can jump higher than normal using a slowfall potion. If you're airborne while you quaff one (just after jumping), you will keep your velocity. ALSO, when you're underwater you can drink one to suddenly increase your buoyancy by a lot. The deeper down you were the more speed you'll be able to accumulate by the time you hit the surface. You might be able to reach a ledge that you otherwise couldn't this way.

* Speed potions: they'll let you run at twice the speed for about 9 seconds. So if you take 10 seconds to get one, you're wasting time (unless it allows for some other tricks such as crossing a large gap). Remember to start hopping as you're about to run out of its effect to keep the higher speed for a little longer.

* Speed potion glitch: If you save your game on the frame the speed potion effect runs out and load the effect will be perpetuated indefinitely. Might also work for other potions.

* Soft drop: if you drop down from a ledge while crouched, you won't make any noise. This even works on tile and metal. The exception is when you take damage, Garrett will say *humpf*.

* Glass breaking: pretty obvious, but you can break glass with your weapons or by jumping onto it (only works in v.1.18?)(like in mission 2 on the roof).

* Door blocking: you can block doors from closing by placing an object next to it. This comes in handy in a mission in Thief 1, I don't know if it is usable in Thief 2.

* Portcullis blocking: you can similarly block portcullises and anything else using an item with a hitbox.

* Frogbeasting/bodyboarding: You can break your fall by jumping onto people, bots, monsters and bodies. When frogbeast eggs are available, you can use them to spawn a frog directly beneath you that will break your fall. Be careful though, you can still take some damage. Frogbeasting works best with 2 or more in your inventory; trying with only 1 in your inventory is very risky, as it doesn't break on Garrett.

* Elevatoring: you can climb up by dropping flares, scouting orbs, various food items etc. on top of your head and just jumping about 3 times to get lodged inside them, then dropping another item and continuing. If you don't have any more left when dropping an item, it will fall right through you, so you need at least two of each kind. You can use this (at least in v. 1.07) to perform various tricks including stopping your momentum when falling and jumping off the items that stopped you or just getting a mid-air bump from the item. The extension is you can traverse across the air by repeatedly hopping, dropping something you get caught inside, hopping and so on. The bigger the item is the easier it is to utilize for this. If you manage to keep picking up the items behind you you can travel an arbitrary distance or get as high as needed but it's very difficult not to fail.

* Throwing something to stop a fall: You can use any item you can throw, e.g. frogbeasts and mines, to break your fall. This is easier than trying the same by dropping them in many cases. Doesn't work with flares because you only hold one activated flare in your inventory at a time which means there isn't a collision.

* Forcing open a door: there are several ways to force open a locked wooden door: four overhead swings or 10 slashes with your sword, 2 fire arrows, 2 frogbeasts, 1 mine or 1 well-placed cannon ball will all work. Some doors with a metal texture are actually wooden doors, examples of this are the front door of Angelwatch and the door to the office in the basecamp in Kidnap. Metal doors will open up using mines or fire arrows, but frogs don't work. This works in the Sold Out version of the game, there are other versions in which it doesn't work. A very obscure method to cause damage to doors (and other objects) is to find a way to acquire a lot of speed and ram into them yourself.

* Elevator Call Shots: Like in Shipping and Receiving, you can use arrows (broadhead, fire, gas, noisemaker and rope arrows all work) to hit the call buttons from a distance in other missions too. Useful in Soulforge at least.

Ofc you can hit other buttons as well.

* Speed boosts can be gained from landing on sloping surfaces, and even more speed can be had when jumping again as soon as you land on the slope.

* Rope Arrow Boosts: If you're climbing a rope next to a solid object [other than a wall], when you turn around on the rope you can get either a big boost up or down the rope or a massive boost in the direction away from the object. Doesn't work with nearly all objects unfortunately.

* Glitching through doors = Door transgression (OldDark only?): By placing a rope arrow right next to a door (make the rope hang as close to it as possible and near a seam might also be the best), running or leaning into it to make it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. To get all the way through, some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help, but only OldDark has the effect whereby the game pushes you backwards when you try to mantle something. When you're crouched and jump you'll sometimes get sent back seemingly without having started mantling anything at all. Slowfall potions help you get unstuck when you're already able to see through on the other side, but for some reason you can't go back the way you came using them, only the way you're going.

With double doors I've managed to get all the way through without the potion.

You can even just crouch-mantle into the door without using a rope. In order to reach something that you can mantle (you don't have to be able to actually mantle it, just make Garrett say "heeeuh"), you can try leaning forwards before jumping.

* Lean Boost: If you're crouching underneath an object that's rising up, such as a portcullis, and you stand up as it's rising but already above your head, you get stuck in it in a strange way. If you then lean in any direction you get a big boost. You should keep jumping so you don't lose it to friction straight away. This may save a nice amount of time every time.

* Object Boost: Stand in front of a sufficiently high object (lamppost, statue etc.) so you're close to one of its perpendicular hitbox corners. Lean around the corner so you're facing the object diagonally (don't lean too far). Now jump. When you land, you should be sent back the direction you were standing. If done ideally, the speed you get is higher than your normal running speed but not by much.

* There's another type of object boost. If you have an object that's a height that allows you to lean over it while jumping but not too low, if you release lean and mash jump when falling it will fling you towards the side. At best the distance is greater than a normal running jump would allow but the timing and height of the object is very strict. It works well with the middle-height gravestones in Eavesdropping.

* Ramp Boost/Fall Boost: Falling on top of a slanted surface boosts you in the direction it's facing proportionate to your falling speed. Falling on NPCs has a similar effect. You also take less fall damage (up to none) and make no noise.

* NPC Boost: Leaning into NPCs also gives you a small boost. Hard to exploit.

* "Stuck Boost": The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the narrow South area on Blackmailed (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.

Currently no other known uses but they haven't been sought after very carefully at all.

* Mantling into an Object: You can in some situations mantle into a position inside an object such as a portcullis (works in Mission 4 in the canal at the Marketplace). If you could then glitch out of it on the opposite side you might be able to skip something that way.

* Deep crouching: If you crouch while trying to enter a small space, hugging a wall may allow you to get in deeper while strafing in a certain direction.

* You can simply run up a big barrel. Could be useful for a trick jump.

* You can blow up mines by throwing other objects (such as more mines) at them or with broadheads, rope, fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

* You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period...

* You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.

* Mines seem to be mapped under the same hotkey, i.e. if you've bound regular mines to 'm' but you don't have any, it will select flash or gas mines instead.

* You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood, also unclear whether guards still hear it.

* You can start mantling and turn around to mantle in the wrong direction. No known uses.

* Objects sometimes have hit detection, sometimes not. This seems to depend on whether they're on top of another object (have hitboxes) or on a surface that's been created manually (no hitboxes). This isn't perfectly understood. If there's a hitbox, the objects can be climbed too.

* In Eavesdropping if you lock yourself in the corpse pit secret and jump up and down a lot while having horizontal speed you'll sometimes glitch through the slab for a split-second. This allows you to hit the lever again to free yourself. Could this be used for something elsewhere?

* You can cause a fire arrow to detonate mid-air if you throw something and the arrow collides with it. If it's the item hitting the arrow it just bounces off.

* You can use block to cause a noise if your blackjack or sword hits something like a lantern. This is faster than swinging the item and you can ready the weapon for it in advance (so just moving in position causes the noise).

* You can use items to get weight-triggered plates to activate or to stay activated. The items must all be in direct contact with the plate or their weight isn't applied. The weight applied doesn't seem very logical (a destroyed mech doesn't do anything)... You can also get the plate to bob up and down if one of the objects involved is lying at the edge and only touches the plate when it's raised.

* Flash bombs penetrate windows, doors and portcullises as if they weren't there.

* Short mantling: When you mantle things you often don't have to hold the jump button the whole way, rather you should interrupt the process and you'll get teleported the rest of the way saving some time every time.

* Long jumps: the way to get the longest jumps is probably to drink a speed potion first, then ready a slow-fall potion and quaff it immediately after jumping. If you do it before you might lose some speed.

* Noisemaker arrows cause guards to ignore most other sources of noise for a while. The same effect is apparent when they're having a conversation.

* Scouting orbs can be used to trigger [at least some] proximity-based conversations. Observed (in v. 1.07) with the guards next to the meeting hall in First City Bank and Trust. Other conversations are clearly set to initiate when the player passes a certain trigger line (perhaps entering the relevant sound zone, for example room) and the orbs do nothing for those.

* Slowfall potions cause you somehow to dislodge from things you're stuck in. Unfortunately you are also forced off ropes.

* Slowfall potions always take away some of your fall momentum, so you can drink a second one mid-air to lose more speed.

* Combining elevatoring with a slow-fall potion may make it a bit faster or make it possible to mantle stuff earlier.

* You may sometime be able to drop an item somewhere you're going to pass through later, then collect it again when you return simply to select it faster and more easily.

* Use auto-search = on for looting bodies quicker. May only work if you were able to reach the item from where you were standing.

* Taking a screenshot (either using the in-game bind or when doing it with external software) can inexplicably affect the game state. Observed Garrett unleaning (or leaning?) in a situation where no movement, leaning, or anything else was doable.

* You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to be able to surface a little sooner.

* You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.

* Dropping or throwing an item is one way to create noise. It's faster than drawing the bow.

* Lean zip: You can lean left or right while facing something you can mantle. If you're also near a corner of that object or wall, when you press jump you might be zipped instantaneously in the direction you were leaning. If you were next to a wall, this can place your view inside the wall for a frame or two. It might be possible to zip right through something using this technique but this requires finding suitable locations, none of which are known as of yet.

* Moving While Orbed: While entering orb view, you can still carry on e.g. jumping or strafing if you never let go of those buttons.

== Guards ==

* You can run faster than they can, especially when you're straferunning.
* The behaviour of guards isn't affected by items. For example: throw a burning flare in their face, they don't notice. Block their way with crates, they don't adjust their path or come up with a solution.
* Guards can't open a locked door if they haven't got the key for it, but they certainly can if they do. In Blackmail they CAN open the gear doors even without gears.
* Guards have to be really close to sense you presence when your fully invisible, and they also have to be really close to hit you with their sword/hammer/mace.
* Guards don't climb ladders, jump, climb objects or fall down in order to chase you (except by accident).
* Guards can't be pickpocketed when they're alert of your presence (chasing you or searching for you).
* Unlike civilians, guards can't be knocked out with the blackjack if they're aware of you. (In v.1.07 they can, just get behind them first)
* To kill a guard fast: throw 2 frogbeast eggs in his face or do an overhead swing and two sideswings in quick succession.
* Turn on auto body search to quickly grab the key off a corpse, no chance of accidentally picking up the corpse. Might wanna turn this off on Kidnap.
* Even while you're carrying someone, guards can't keep up with you. Take advantage of this in Kidnap.
* If you want to pincushion guards with arrows while they're chasing you, you can right about evade their swords by strafing left/right and backwards while tapping the attack bind for as short a time as you can.

== The Mechanist Children ==

* Mechbeasts and watchers are temporarily blinded by a flash bomb.
* Combat bots can be distracted with noisemaker arrows (or other sources of sound).
* Combat bots can be destroyed with a single fire arrow if they're unaware of you, though not consistently. They can also be destroyed with two frogbeasts while unalerted, though I prefer to throw three. They can also be disabled with a single gas arrow to the furnace, or two water arrows.
* Combat bots lead their target; spider bots and sentries do not.
* Sentries can see farther than watchers.
* Watchers can't see what's underneath them. Sentries also have a blind spot, roughly the 90 degrees behind them.
* Little mechs have their eyes closed and don't react to touching them, only sound.

== Mission-specific (but not category-specific) notes: ==

=== Running Interference ===
*You can blow the birdcall as soon as you start the mission. Don't do it too quickly or it will take about 20 seconds for Basso to go. Instead, use it when Basso has walked into place and leans back, he will then run off immediately.
** Alternatively, if you DO blow it immediately, his move is delayed which means you can cut him off right as he's about to enter the building having secured Jenivere in the meanwhile.
*You can knock on Jenivere's door to alert her and cause her to run out of her room as if Basso had come to unlock it. You need to hit a spot around the top left corner. The noise the spot makes will be much quieter than normal.
** Newly discovered that it doesn't require the quiet noise necessarily, sometimes hitting a different part can get J alerted. (edit this if you know more)
** Another way to alert Jenivere is to run into the door while blocking.
** Yet another way could be to get an archer to fire an arrow at you, make it hit something it will stick to, retrieve it and quickly fire it at J's door. Might save time because you don't have to run all the way to it and back.
** Also dropping the key at a door (such as Jenivere's) can cause the required clang.
*It is sometimes even possible to set Basso on the job and make him complete the Jenivere rescue goal without doing anything yourself (observed on normal difficulty in 1.07 but suspect this to work with all versions).

=== Shipping ... and Receiving ===
*You have to get to the office even if you already have the required loot.
*Most of the orange locks in building A can be opened from the other side of the wall. When a tutorial pops up telling you to use your lock picks (normal difficulty setting) you know you've highlighted the lock.
*In Gilver's office, you can grab the diamond without slashing down the banner.

=== Framed ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the code. It's always 4026.
*If you 'elevator' yourself up the buildings at the start, you can get up onto the wall. From there you are able to climb onto the roofs and go round counter-clockwise. Finally you'll be able to cross the moat using a slow-fall jump (drink immediately AFTER jumping). Traverse a section of the perimeter wall to access the courtyard.
*If you have access to the items, the faster new way of entering the front courtyard is using an invisibility potion to get to where the front sentries are unharassed and a slow-fall potion to jump high off and mantle the perimeter wall directly. Isn't 100% consistent?
*The switch to the gate (with the two archers next to it) can be reached from the outside. If exiting the police station via this route you don't have to open the gate; standing next to it is enough to complete the objective.
*The walls around the two outside courtyard areas at the main gates and side entrance have unfilled geometry that allow you to pass through if you needed to get from the one the other or on the perimeter wall for some reason. (observed in 1.07)

=== Ambush! ===
*Items in Garrett's stash can be picked up through the wall while it is going up.
*You have to get the gate key even if you have already passed the gate by going OOB (the gate can even be mantled).
*Speed boosting on the sloping streets will shave a few seconds off.
*There's opportunities to get on the rooftops either by elevatoring or just by finding windows with wooden frames and roping your way up.

=== Eavesdropping ===
*You have to overhear the conversation even if you already have the required loot and made a wax impression of the key.
*You cannot run away from the door, and the key location will be different every time, unless you use a savegame.
*In v. 1.07 there is actually a way to get away from listening to the conversation but its uses are very limited. You have to climb the flat door canopy above the outside door you can normally listen in on the convo around and trigger it there. Avoid moving backwards or to the sides, instead mantling the high rooftop and you can get away from the door that way. Here are some more details:
**If you pass one of several fail lines around the map it causes an instant fail. The ones just around the doors work as examples but there are (for whatever reason) more of them than that.
**You can also get a fail if you're too far from the meeting hall whenever the conversation "chunk" changes. The chunks are about 15-40 seconds long segments of audio that you can recognize by the game going back to the start of the chunk whenever you save and load. During each chunk you can go anywhere so long as you're back within earshot by the time the next one starts playing. Note that when you save/load and the chunk is reset the game also performs the check then so you cannot do that anywhere you're not supposed to be.
**The areas that constitute being within earshot are immediately around the doors, the yards on the N, E and S of the meeting hall and the rooftop with the shed. You can't actually hear the conversation from every corner but the game doesn't mind.
**Going indoors if you triggered the conversation from outside always instantly fails, this includes all the sheds and the laboratory and also the room connecting to the E balcony and the entire W balcony.
**In essence the best it seems you can do with the skip is get a bit closer to wherever you want to be next. You can loot the shed rooftop although the catch is meager. You can try to take out some guards and children if you like.
**The first sound chunk (bell tolling) can be heard from anywhere on the map. For this reason it's possible to go anywhere you like (some fail lines seem to be disabled) so long as you keep resetting the chunk by save/loading and avoiding going indoors or hitting still active fail lines. Unfortunately this also delays the conversation indefinitely.
** Elevatoring off the door canopy into heights fails in the later versions.
*If you collect the right key after the conversation is finished without having heard where it is Garrett will comment on it letting you know it's the right one. It also goes into a different stack from the others (which generally seem to form about 3 different stacks in your inventory). You can only make one wax impression at a time so you need to know which one you'll need.
*In v. 1.07 there is a piece of loot (a small hammer) lodged physically inside one of the sarcophagi in the catacombs. It's the sarcophagus next to the pile of bones and the purse. You can grab it by groping about near the floor at the center.
*For style points you can drop the wax impression after completing the other objectives and it doesn't prevent succeeding at the mission.

=== First City Bank and Trust ===
*You don't have to go to the hall of records to get the vault number, even though your objectives say so. It's always 11.
*If you get stuck on the window leading to the basement, it's probably because the handle is blocking you. Hug the window frame to pass it. If that doesn't work, try closing and opening the window. The window is actually made of wood, so you can force it open.
*In version 1.07 you can force open the vault door with explosives, it will go right through the metal bar.
*You can collect the recording without opening the safety box.
*The fastest solution for unbolting the vault door has 3 steps: use the middle left, middle right and bottom right buttons in any order.
*The goal of exiting the bank can be completed by climbing up towards the top of the dome on the inside. Also reaching any balcony or the rooftop works.
*You can climb the ornamental yellow and white lamps in the fully marbled room E of the corridor leading to the vault to reach the second floor.

=== Blackmail ===
*The watchers at the start are attached to wooden beams that you can stick rope arrows in.
*You have to trigger the conversation between then guards on the 3rd floor where they uncover Truart's dead. You CAN do this after visiting the room though. They will still talk even if they're in full alert (and chasing you) so long as they're still alive.
*You can get the guards inside the double doors going up the staircase in the lobby to open the door for you for access into the area beyond.
*The guards passing through gear doors in this mission cannot re-lock them once they're through meaning it's extra useful to try to lure them into opening them. They do NOT need to have the gear in order to be able to open the doors.
*The torture room has distinct differences in v. 1.07:
**The dead lady is a zombie instead. She still has the purse, which you can snag through the bars. The bars next to the rack are stuck, the button will not withdraw them. The reward for killing the two spiders is a gas ARROW not gas mine.
*1.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
*The jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap leading into the South corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
*The door in the main entry hall of the estate to the second floor can be opened by using the Jenivere trick from Running Interference - hit the top of the door with the blackjack and the guards on the other side should open it for you.
*Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and just trying to mantle in various directions. Only seems to work in .07 or OldDark in general.

=== Trace the Courier ===
*Lt. Mosley and the pagan will stand in one place from time to time to check if they're being followed. Usually Mosley only does this once in the beginning, you can avoid this by exposing yourself a little bit, she will then skip this. Putting out torches in front of her (she doesn't have to see it happen) distracts her further and she won't stop at all.
*You can't get too far away from the letter, but when you have it in your inventory you can run around the whole map without failing the objective, at least until the pagan notices that the letter is missing.

=== Trail of Blood ===
*There is a speed potion above the second red gem (normal) that doesn't take too long to obtain.
*Speed boosting on the slopes in the beginning of the level, and at the start of the Maw is a good idea.
*Using a combination of a speed potion and a slowfall potion (can be picked up near the face portal) will skip a lot of time in the Maw by ramping up and over a large gap, grabbing the edge. This can be difficult to do consistently.

=== Life of the Party ===
*You don't have to activate the voice machine in Karras' office.
*One of the guards guarding the fort (with the merlons) has a red key that you can use to open the room with the scripture.
*You can climb onto the bank's roof from the east side and make your way south from there. When you've reached the end of the roof you need to crouch in order to get any further, there's an invisible ceiling.
*If fast enough, there is a guard that exits the room with the scripture, and you can open the door again as it's closing.
*Golden boy can be blocked by dropping a crate in the doorway to the pantry.

=== Precious Cargo ===
*There are two fire arrows at the beginning of the mission, sitting on a window sill, and can be used to blow open the door to the freezer if none were purchased.

=== Kidnap ===
*Speed boosting on slopes is beneficial.

=== Casing the Joint ===
*When you blind an unalerted guard or servant with a flash bomb, it doesn't count as a 'confrontation'. (This DOES count as a confrontation in later versions of the game, at least on v1.21)
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garrett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through. (This might be earlier versions only, as it does not work in v1.21)
*It's possible, with the use of a crate, to elevator up to the second floor, and using a rope arrow, to gain access to the third floor.

=== Masks ===
*You can exit the mansion by breaking a window. When you're on the east side of the second floor, positioning Garett just on the outside of the window frame counts as 'exited'. You can climb into the mansion through some of the windows with unbreakable glass (with the metal grates), your position has to be just right and you'll go right through.

=== Sabotage at Soulforge ===
*You have to read the correspondence from Karras to brother Kelsus, even if you put the guiding beacon in place and all of the signal towers are using signal B.
*There are many places to frogbeast in this mission.
*It's possible to clip through the gate at the top of the beacon tower, and frob the lever to open the gate. Straferun into the gate, and as soon as contact is made, stop running, and lean into it.
*If your aim is good, it's possible to hit the elevator down button as you enter the pillar room. It's also possible to hit the down button at the next elevator (where an iron beast is guarding it).

== Side notes ==

* In Thief 1, you accelerate after every bunnyjump. In Thief 2, you can keep up your velocity (speed potions) by bunnyhopping and you can increase it a little bit by hopping on a sloped surface (going downhill).
* The levels are different depending on the version you have. In principle any version that's the fastest can be accepted. Currently (April/'14) all the recent runs have been on 1.18 (or rather the GOG version which has the fan patches as well bringing it to, as for now, v. 1.22). There are some glitches present on 1.07 that might help bring down the times even further. v.1.00 hasn't been explored at all. However, because the presently available versions are all 1.18, any runs on earlier versions will go under a different category. If the choice is arbitrary, or nearly so, you should run v.1.18.
* Fraps doesn't capture the menu screens because they are rendered with DirectDraw (it does record the audio in the menus). This isn't really necessary because you can see in-game what difficulty the level is by counting the health shields, but it does make determining the time more difficult, as the final time is displayed in the stats screen after the mission. So unless you use a recorder that can properly record DirectDraw (like this one), you have to time it manually. (''Fraps has worked well with v1.21 of the game'')
* If you use ZD Soft Game Recorder to capture, be sure to use a custom video size, or else it will default to 320x240 (or 640x480 if you capture at full screen size). This is because the menu size is 640x480. Of course this doesn't matter if you also use 640x480 in-game.
* On modern hardware, the Dark Engine might look like ass. There is a utility to fix this, ddfix. I'm not sure if it will be allowed though, as it modifies certain game files. AFAIK, gameplay is unaffected. This utility also fixes problems with multiple cores and hyperthreading. (not sure about this one currently) - ''The Steam and GOG releases of the game come with ddfix.''
* There is also a utility that lets you play Dark Engine games (like Thief) in widescreen. Again, I'm not sure if it will be allowed as it modifies certain game files and also isn't mandatory for recording. You can get it here. If you use it in combination with ddfix, be sure to install ddfix first. (probably not allowed at all, affects gameplay in a sense) - ''ddfix allows custom resolutions''
* Fogging may look ugly on newer graphic cards, fortunately it can be turned off. If it looks good, you still want to turn it off on Life of the Party because it's broken in that mission.
* When hardware acceleration for audio is enabled, only the ambient sound is captured. Turn it off while recording.
* Keyholing is believed to be impossible for Thief II although there is a mention from Lytha that she managed to do it with "old-style door", presumably meaning there's a kind of door used somewhere in T2 that was present in T1. If you manage to do it let us know in the thread. Here are a set of instructions (by Luthien, 2002): http://dominikvogt.gmxhome.de/guides/keyholing.txt. For completion's sake this is Lytha's notes about how to use keyholing to "transgress" a door in T1: http://www.lytha.com/games/thief/knowledge/Doors/index.html.