SkillfulLocks

SkillfulLocks — your Picklock skill matters

In vanilla, learning Picklock gives you more lockpicks per attempt and little else: the minigame plays the same at every skill level. This mod makes the skill change the minigame itself:

• []Untrained — vanilla locks, untouched.[/]

  []Skilled (1st level) — as many connections removed as provably safe for that exact lock (per-lock solvability table, see below). On most locks that means every connection.[/]

  []Master (2nd level) — no connections at all: every piece moves on its own.[/]

  A master thief feels like a master: no more fighting a web of linked pins on a basic chest after maxing the skill.

  How it works

  No assets are replaced, no game files are patched. The game already removes lock connections based on a hidden attribute (LockpickPrecision). When the lockpicking minigame starts, the mod detects your skill tier and writes the wanted precision value. When the minigame ends the vanilla value is restored, so your save carries no mod data and uninstalling is always safe.

  The 1. 2 safety table. The game's removal pass does not check that the lock stays solvable — layouts are only authored for the vanilla removal range (0–2 connections). Version 1. 0 could therefore leave two pieces dragging each other with no way to break the loop: an unsolvable lock (thanks to Tautellini for diagnosing this). For 1. 2 all 416 lock layouts were extracted from the game's own script cache and run through an exhaustive solver that proves, for every lock, how many connections can be removed with the lock staying solvable. The Skilled tier ("auto") uses exactly that per-lock depth and never goes beyond it; 297 of 416 locks turn out to be fully strippable, the rest get an individual safe limit. Locks the table does not know (a future game patch) fall back to the vanilla-authored maximum of 2. Master removes everything, which cannot deadlock by construction. If you hit a stuck lock on 1. 0, just update: locks are rebuilt on every attempt, your save is fine.

  1. 2 is a field-test release

  The solver's minigame model already predicted a real deadlocked chest from a bug report exactly, but broad in-game confirmation is what this release is for. If any lock ever feels unsolvable on Skilled, please post a bug report with the lock line from UE4SS.log:

  lock 'OC_Chest_XYZ_Lock': tier skilled, precision -> 4 (auto, 4 of 8 connections removed)

  and mention whether a lockpick broke during that attempt — pick breaks may remove extra connections (the game's own mechanic), and that is exactly what we want field data on.

  Requirements

  UE4SS, experimental build (the game runs Unreal Engine 5. 4. 3 — the stable UE4SS release does not support it).

  Installation

  • []Install UE4SS into ...\Gothic 1 Remake\G1R\Binaries\Win64 (dwmapi.dll lands next to G1R-Win64-Shipping.exe).[/]

    []Copy the SkillfulLocks folder from the archive into ...\G1R\Binaries\Win64\ue4ss\Mods\. The included enabled.txt activates the mod automatically; no mods.txt editing needed.[/]

    []Start the game. ...\ue4ss\UE4SS.log should show:

    1. 2. 0 loaded: 416 locks known, 416 safe depths; removes -- untrained: vanilla, skilled: auto, master: all[/]

    Configuration

    Edit SkillfulLocks\Scripts\config.lua:

    • []removeConnections — per tier: false (vanilla), a number (remove N connections, capped per lock by the safety table), "all" (remove everything) or "auto" (the per-lock proven-safe maximum). Default: untrained vanilla, skilled "auto", master "all".[/]

      []debug — per-lock decision lines in UE4SS.log (on by default)[/]

    Apply changes with a game restart (preferred) or CTRL+R (UE4SS hot reload).

    Compatibility

    Works with and without LockpickSettings: its boosted lockpick durability values are recognized automatically (the mod reads its installed config), load order does not matter. Note that its F8 connection display shows the authored lock layout, so it may paint connections this mod already removed until one of your moves disproves them.

    Any mod that changes lockpick durability to non-standard values will make the tier detection back off: the lock is then left vanilla and one line is logged — nothing breaks.

    Notes