Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Newbie Questions

Feb-20-2012 11:23

hello .i play this game for a long time,not on a daily bases,i have times when i play more , so i could use some guidance.first of all i have a pretty good detective ,i can reach RH difficulty lvl so far, i have HW&Footprint&Advanced Thread Analysis plus hair analysis with the barber as one of my contact(so i guess i wont be needing advanced hair anl for now) .the point is,having all 4 smarts skills do i need smarts equipment?from what i know about items, all they help you do is find evidence at the crime scene ,which i already know i'll find having the skills and the guarantee that having all the smarts skills one of the PE has to match the bad guy(game sais so ,right?).someone told me equipmen helps you find more PE ,but since only one PE matches the bad guy and the others match suspects with real alibis(again need confirmation) more PE would just help the case screw with me and forcing me to follow useless leads and dead ends ,wouldnt it?

Feb-20-2012 23:22

With the Smart skills you have, you will find the physical evidence. The question is whether you will be able to discern that evidence. For instance, is the thread you found from a female or male? Is the footprint from someone fat or thin?

If that information is important to your method of solving cases, then having smart equipment is important. Only you can decide if it is important enough. Since you have the barber as a contact, you don't have to worry about hair evidence. The other 3 types of evidence will be your bane or help--depending on what you learn at the crime scene.

Feb-21-2012 02:50

Ok...first of all I have to comment on one of your statements: you DO want to find all evidence at the scene as you may miss exactly the one that points to the guilty party. However, having all basic skills regarding evidence will give you all the pieces at the scene.

The handwriting and footprint analysis only have one level as skills, so if you have them you have a chance to discern more data on that types of evidence when you analyze the crime scene. For being able to do this kind of discerning on threads and hairs you need the advanced level on them. However, tou said you have advanced thread analysis skills, so that's scratched off the paper. Now, since you have the barber as contact you are right to believe you don't need to advance the hair skill...BUT only if you stay in NY. Or...if you get the barbers as contacts in all the other cities...which is technically possible but you'll get old while trying.

Bottom line: if you stay in NY your current skills are covering the CSI necessities.

Regarding the smarts equipment necessity...well...knowing advanced data regarding the evidence you find solves at least 65%-70% of the cases, as it allows you to eliminate suspects in a smart way (example: you have a heavy footprint and only 3 heavy suspects out of which 2 have a fake alibi; if you check the one with the real alibi and the footprint proves not to be his, your 6-7 list of suspects is dramatically narrowed down to only 2). The rest of 30%-35% of the cases are solved by...lucky assumptions based on each case's variables.

You see now...all I've been talking about is the second part of solving the case and actually the one who gets you the killer when the odds are 50-50 or lower. The persuation equipment is mostly useful for the first part of a case when you need to open up all suspects and alibies while leaving enough questions open on all suspects and witnesses for the second part.

Feb-22-2012 04:17

that should help,thanks queen for the hot pic and good short answer ,thanks joey for the good&long answer :P since im not subscribed yet i dont have to worry about traveling ,and mostly thats the way i solved cases until now,with smart ways of eliminating suspects ,so i simply didnt pay much attention to equipment so far,but cases are getting harder every day so i might soon need every help i can get .happy sleuthing .