| Skills | Augmentations | How fast is fast? | Cheats |
The following excellent analysis of how best to use the skills and aug systems in Deus Ex was written by one Andy Giesler and lived on a site called weenie.com. Long ago, I saved a copy of the page for my own reference. That site has long since ceased to exist, so hopefully Andy won't fault me for reviving the page here. Anyway, credit where credit is due: Giesler wrote everything below this paragraph.
| Welcome | Welcome to the Deus Ex Weenie Tactics Site. Bring us your lost, your clueless, your humiliated, your huddled masses of coordination-impaired weenies longing to survive. |
| What You'll Find Here | You'll find analysis of game mechanics. Along with a few recommendations from the Great and Powerful Exalted Weenie, an Old Man of the gaming world whose opinion is supreme and infallible once visitors have been kind enough to correct the countless bone-headed errors wrought by his growing decrepitude. |
| Disclaimer | All of the hard numbers of the site I derived the hard way -- alone with a stopwatch and my own two weak little eyes. I hereby claim full credit for any and all errors. In the event that correct figures have somehow slipped into my tables, all credit goes to Eidos. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. |
| Legal Stuff | DEUS EX and ION STORM are trademarks of ION STORM L.P. All rights reserved. EIDOS INTERACTIVE and the EIDOS LOGO are registered trademarks of EIDOS INTERACTIVE. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Like Coke, for example. And Taco Bell. You know, trademarks like that. |
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Topic: Skills | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Skills | Below are numbers and commentary on all Deus Ex
skills. More information will follow.
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| Computer | If you don't upgrade this skill at least once
you're... we'll, I don't even know what you are. It ain't good
though. I'll let you know when I think of it.
You need skill level 2 before you can hack ATMs, computers, and security panels. Skill level 3 lets you hack turrets.
Upgrades beyond level 2 are of dubious value considering the other use you could put those points to. Unless you're a legendary spaz, 15 seconds is more then enough time to get in and out before alarms go off and you get that sickly-sweet whiff of sizzling hair. And hacking turrets? Yeah. I guess that's cool or something. But those 2250 points will go a long way elsewhere. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Electronics | This one lets you use multitools more effectively to
bypass a number of security systems, such as keyed door panels. Not
much more to it that that.
And so are people dumb enough to leave key codes lying around in datacubes. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Environmental | Prolongs the duration of rebreathers, hazmat suits,
ballistic armor, and adaptive camo armor. Also increases the
protection provided by hazmat suits and ballistic armor.
You'll hardly notice the points to bump it up a level or two. And adaptive camo that lasts twice as long, or a hazmat suit that absorbs more than twice the damage, is pretty swell. Thanks to Leonardo Sabino for pointing out that I'd omitted information on Hazmat and Ballistic effectiveness. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lockpicks | Lets you pick open locks faster. Nuff said.
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| Medical | Makes medkits more effective at healing your body.
Note that your entire body has 600 health points.
Also, as of level 2 it starts reducing the duration of toxic effects. Like tranq darts, and the gobbers that those annoying little greasels like to hack up on you.
Otherwise, early in the game this is, I don't know... nice. Possibly worth one upgrade. Reduced duration of toxic effects is pretty handy. But its charm diminishes dramatically later once you pick up the Healing aug. And you will pick up the healing aug. Or I'll give agent Hermann your home address. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Swimming | Increases your water speed and the length of time
you can stay underwater.
You'll probably find it worth at least one upgrade. Bear in mind that the underwater time multiplier is cumulative with the multiplier from an AquaLung aug. So Swimming level 2 in combination with a level 1 or 2 Aqualung can really prolong your soggy time. So can environmental training. Upgrade that cheap skill once or twice, then find (or hoard) a rebreather. You'll go far.
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| Demolition | Affects the damage you do with LAMs and grenades, as
well as the time you have to disarm them.
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| Weapons: Heavy | Increases your accuracy and damage when using heavy
weapons (LAW, GEP Gun, and Plasma Gun). It also lets you move faster
when you're wielding a heavy weapon.
Note that your movement speed doesn't increase gradually. You're life-threateningly slow at levels 1 and 2, and then you move normally at levels 3 and 4. So if you're going to bother upgrading this one (I generally don't), you might as well take it at least to level 3. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weapons: Low-Tech | Improves your accuracy, damage, and "rate of fire"
with low-tech weapons such as the baton, prod, knives, swords, and
throwing knives.
This one's a personal favorite of the Exalted Weenie, who prefers to play as a sneaky pacifist minimal-force wuss. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weapons: Pistol | Increases damage, accuracy, and reload time with the
pistol, stealth pistol, and mini-crossbow.
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| Weapons: Rifle | Increases damage, accuracy, and reload time with the
sniper rifle, assault rifle, and shotguns.
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Topic: Augmentations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Augmentations | Here's a table with some basic information. For more information on adding augmentations for experimental purposes, see the Cheats section. And in case you're wondering,
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Topic: How Fast is Fast? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How Fast Is Fast? | Speed can be an important factor in DX, particularly when you're deciding where to spend your hard-earned Aug Upgrades and Skill Points. Except for you wankers who use cheats to summon them, and you don't need my help. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Raw Numbers | These speeds should be fairly accurate relative to
one another, but the absolute MPH values have a lot of jiggle room. All numbers have been rounded.
Oh. And a couple of things you shouldn't try to
run faster than. (I wasn't able to figure out how fast bullets are.)
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| Opinion: Speed Aug | When upgrading the Speed Augmentation, in terms of
speed itself you get good value for the first three levels.
Strangely, and I may be missing something here, you seem to get sort
of short changed on the last upgrade.
Of course speed is only part of the picture, the last upgrade also bring falling and jumping benefits, which may make it worth your while. But don't expect to be inhumanly faster when you drop in that third precious upgrade canister. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opinion: Run Silent Aug | You need to choose between the Speed Aug and the Run
Silent Aug. Some have argued that Run Silent is useless, suggesting
that you can simply crawl with a full speed mod and achieve the same
effect.
As the numbers above show, this isn't true. When crawling even with speed fully upgraded, you'll move only half as fast as a Silent Runner runs. That's not to dis the Speed Aug, which seems generally superior. Just don't assume that a fast crouch makes Run Silent useless. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opinion: Swimming Skill | This yields pretty consistent gains in speed up the scale. However, you may be happier overall going with low-level upgrades to both Swimming and Environmental Training, or Swimming plus a low-level AquaLung Aug. See the Skills and Augs sections for further discussion. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Topic: Cheats | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cheats | Cheating lets you learn about the game before you go
back in for your next drubbing. But Mainly it's fun.
"Cheat" is such an ugly word when you're just learning the game or messing around, but there you have it. To summon something, first you need to enable cheats. To Enable Cheats
Cheats that affect you:
Cheats that affect others:
Legend menu cheats:
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| Summoning | You can summon all kinds of interesting things into
the game. They may not do what you're used to (expect those WIBs to
just saunter on by as though you were an MIB). But you can still
have a lot of fun.
Summon yourself a few dozen friends and a barrel of ambrosia and let the good times roll, baby. To summon anything you first have to enable cheats (see above). To Summon One Thing: when summoning things, upper/lower case doesn't matter. Just go to the console, erase the "say", and type "summon (thing)":
To Summon Lots of Things: if you'd like to summon more than one thing, use "spawnmass". If you don't specify how many things you'd like to spawn, you'll get 10 of them:
To Load an Augmentation: you can't get augmentations with the Summon command. You need to yank them directly into your body.
Exercise: if you'd like to have some fun testing this out, do the following. You'll know what to do next.
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| What to Summon |
Thanks to RogueMonkey2000 for adding some new
ones, including the Earth and the Moon.
Weapons Mods Ammo Spawn-and-Shoot Dart DartFlare DartPoison EMPGrenade GasGrenade LAM NanoVirusGrenade Rocket Shuriken Wearables Usables Consumables Stars & Co-stars Supporting Cast Cast Extras Who Want to Hurt You Cast Extras Who Don't Care Much About You One
Way or the Other Critters Genetic Abominations Bots Vehicles Barrels, etc. Gadgets Furniture Plumbing Electrical Cooling Knick-Knacks Other Stuff | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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