Part 63: Sneaking Mission: Update 3
Sneaking Mission - Update 3"Otacon, I've been found. They've got me surrounded I need an escape route!
"Got it Snake! Head into the cave, you can lose them in the tunnels."
" this is not an improvement. Any more bright ideas?"
"Afraid not. I guess the only thing you can do is take off running as soon as you're back out of the cave and hope they don't shoot you to many times."
"The sad part is, that's only the third worst escape plan I've ever heard."
One miraculous escape later..
"Otacon, it looks like negotiations have broken down can I take this guy down?"
"I think you've got to, at this point sorry Snake, asking him if love could bloom on the battlefield was probably the wrong thing to do."
"Eh oops. I think I might have missed my chance. He was kind of quick on the trigger."
"No? Otacon, what does she mean by core?"
"That's not a good sign. Wait, Snake, there's something about this "
"Is that going to cause some kind of major problem? Normally I try to disable the power when I'm sneaking into places, but "
"It's not good, but something's wrong Snake. You're not even supposed to be at this part of the simulation yet!"
"Huh. That makes me feel better about screwing it up. Just a little bit."
"Get ready there. I've reverted the simulation back to an earlier point. Your next mission is in a mining town on the way to the New California Republic, not at the NCR itself."
"But if I've got memories of the next part of the mission, did it really not happen?"
"In one way it did, and in another way it didn't computers are great that way."
"This is definitely giving me a headache."
Heading in to Broken Hills, now that we know that the best reward is from releasing the criminals and then turning them in we have some additional options. If you sneak up on the mutant guarding the cells you can pickpocket a key and use it to open the doors without any of the trouble of trying to use your lockpick skill.
Other than that the most interesting things to steal in town are some drugs and a bit of petty cash, although there is one exception...
"Wait, Snake how did you pickpocket a scorpion?"
"Very carefully. Surprised he caught me, since I'd already stolen his glasses. And his stinger."
"I'm not even going to ask."
"Snake, be careful in the next area. The most dangerous enemies aren't necessarily the most obvious."
"That sounds like something Mei Ling would say. Are you sure we can't get her back for platitudes?"
"Afraid not, but don't worry! I've got a list of sayings to pull out at appropriate times."
"Somehow I don't see this working out."
Not much to report for thieving, but it's amusing to find that almost all of the prostitutes are packing shivs in addition to their pocket change. You can also steal fixed dice
"Otacon! What's a donkey punch?"
"Donkey punch?!"
"Donkey punch!"
Uh.. Snake, remember how I told you there were things on the internet that you didn't want to know about? This is one of them."
"Okay what about Snootchie Bootchies?"
"I'll admit, I'm lost on that one there's a lot of hidden references in here."
"Are the exploding cows some kind of reference too?"
"Those.. those might be a bug. I'll go ahead and report that."
"What about these guys? What king? And I think one of them is banging coconuts together "
"You know, Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"
"Monty what?"
" okay, now I know what we're doing next weekend."
Moving through the mines, we can actually evade most of the encounters on the way to fix the mine equipment.
On the way out we grab the refined ore from Chuck Stodgers. The refinery is actually located past the stockyard/general store.
You have to pay $1000 up front, but you can get it all back with an extra $500. There's also a bug where you can keep refining the ore and reselling it for a profit.
"Snake, are you going through with the boxing challenge?"
"It's not CQC, but code name, RAGING BULL!"
Doing this one more time game me a chance to observe the difference between using regular gloves and weighted gloves. Using regular gloves gives this result...
While weighted gloves give this bonus. It's a substantial improvement in Laser resistance, and a slight improvement in normal damage resistance. You'd almost think it would be the reverse, where fighting through the hard way would give better results.
The other way to exploit this is to throw the championship. You get resistance points for participating in matches, not for winning them. Running up to the champ and punching him square in the dick will get you out of the fight with your ear and your bonuses.
Instead of fighting The Masticator we get an easier match against a ripoff of Evander Holyfield, who won't try to bite your ear off.
Despite that, he's still worth just as much experience and you get a message saying that you beat the Masticator. Considering the amount of coding issues with some of the special areas in the game, I can't say I'm surprised.
Even better, Stuart ends up with his half of the winnings in his pocket, where you can steal it at your leisure. Since it's money, it doesn't even have a real weight to add an element of difficulty.
"Snake, is this okay?"
"Hey, he's not the one who almost had his virtual ear bitten off."