Thief 2/Game Mechanics and Glitches

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

General

Straferunning: just like in Doom, straferunning is faster than normal running. Also works under water.

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.

Use forward lean to get closer to doors to be able to open them sooner.

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).

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: Other than frogbeasts you can use any item you can throw, e.g. 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.

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.

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 (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 into it or otherwise making it swing inside the door, then grabbing it and jumping off can lodge you inside the door. The exact procedure is difficult to describe cause it kind of just tends to happen. Next you need to jump up and down around the edges a bit to glitch yourself out again. Might work with windows etc. Some amount of crouching and jumping while looking in the direction you were coming from, leaning around, or other general weirdness may help (the game pushes you slightly whenever you start to mantle something). Slowfall potions look to help you get unstuck when you're already half 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.

For NewDark it seems you can't jump-mantle into the door, thus preventing you from making headway.

So far this has been done (1.07): -glitching into and out of a double door using just a rope arrow (in building adjacent to Garrett's flat on Ambushed) -glitching into a multiple single doors by using a rope arrow, wriggling your way halfway through and out of it using a slow fall potion

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.

You may be able to get slightly more out of it if you use a slow-fall potion b

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 or fire or noisemaker arrows. They have to get armed first unless it's a fire arrow you're using for it.

You can sometimes fire a noisemaker arrow and make its sound play even after retrieving it. Not well understood at the moment.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.
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.
It is fastest to call Basso at the end of the mission after Jenivere has been alerted after hitting her door.
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.
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 have it even if they're in full alert (and chasing after 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.

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.

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. 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.