kts.PickLock – attempt to pick a lock
kts.PickLock(probability, waiting_time)
kts.Can_PickLock(probability, waiting_time)
kts.PickLock will try to find a locked door or chest tile in the square directly in front of the current actor (cxt.actor). If found, then with the given probability (which must be a number between 0 and 1), the door or chest will immediately be unlocked and opened; otherwise, nothing happens.
Whether lock picking is successful or not, the actor will be stunned (unable to perform other actions) for the given waiting_time. (If the actor is a knight with Quickness, then this time will be multiplied by 100 / Q, where Q is the quickness_factor from the MISC_CONFIG table; this means that knights with Quickness can pick locks faster than normal.)
kts.Can_PickLock returns true if a lock picking action is currently possible (e.g. this checks that cxt.actor is not nil and that the square ahead of the actor does contain at least one valid "pickable" door or chest tile). The probability and waiting_time arguments are ignored in this case (although they must still be valid numbers).
kts.PickLock returns nothing, and kts.Can_PickLock returns a boolean as described above.
Errors will occur if probability is not a number between 0 and 1 or waiting_time is not a valid number.
"Special-locked" doors are ignored by this function (i.e. lock-picking them will not be possible). In general, the only way to open such doors is by using switches found in the dungeon. See also the special_lock property of kts.Tile.
kts.PickLock and kts.Can_PickLock are usually used as the action and possible functions (respectively) of a Control.
In the standard Knights files, the action function of the "Use Lock Picks" control calls kts.PickLock, with a waiting time of 140 ms, and then plays a sound. In theory, this means the "lock picking" sound should play once every 140 ms in a regular rhythm. In practice, in network games, there are slight variations in ping times which means that the sound is played with a slightly irregular rhythm instead. This isn't a hugely serious bug, but it is annoying to listen to. Perhaps some way should be found to smooth this out on the client.
The standard Knights items.lua file defines lock picks here; this shows a good example of kts.PickLock and kts.Can_PickLock being used.