Any special places where the Camera Jammer is really useful?

[ciox]

What are all of the places where the Camera Jammer is useful? And I mean truly useful as in it lets you accomplish something that you couldn't do just by sneaking around.

From my experience trying to make something happen even with a very high Hack skill, it kinda doesn't do anything interesting. Maybe it helps a little if your character is very slow or something and can't just dodge camera cones. But that's about it.

[harperfan7]

I imagine if you're sneaking through a hostile grey army base, it would help, especially at the magatzin gate if youre hacking it.  In Arke, you can't kill the cameras and the patrols are endless, so there as well.  I could see it helping in the nexus a bit, but I dont have a specific example. 

I think its one of those things where if you dont mind savescumming (or metagaming), you wont see the point.

[yako]

I think it is easier to destroy cameras using any silent weapon and restealth or run away. Throwing knife can kill the one at the magatzin gate without any consequences (the nearest soldiers will just check the camera mount and return back).

The device would probably be far more useful if it also increased "camera ping" to make factions hostile only after the camera turns red and reports you.

In Arke, you can't kill the cameras

You can destroy them if you took Phreak's glove (energy siphon attack bypasses their resistances).

[Phr3ak]

I mean truly useful as in it lets you accomplish something that you couldn't do just by sneaking around.

That's a pretty narrow definition of "useful", more like "required". I remember only one place that may qualify: hacking two SGS room doors closest to Tanner's if you don't have Burglar. You could also destroy the camera with a TNT (standing in the bathroom doorway while arming it), but that feels like a bug since normally dealing damage to SGS cameras makes SGS hostile. BTW, Waylon comes out to investigate the destroyed camera, and I like to use this moment to pickpocket his keycard and lock him out of the surveillance room. The same prank also works with Masha at Engineering Level, but you don't even need to destroy the camera, just start doing something suspicious like arming a trap, and Masha will come out to investigate once you're detected (and in contrast to Private Quarters, being detected here won't turn SGS hostile).

Potentially, Camera Jammer could also be needed to steal the Freighter from Ray's pier, but sadly, the weird anti-theft mechanic there allows you to spend only a small amount of game ticks riding a stolen jet ski in the camera range regardless of whether you're seen, and the Freighter speed is capped so you can't bypass this limit even if you install the best engines in the game. You still need Camera Jammer to steal the Scrap Jet since you have to be in the camera range to hotwire it, but there is no reason to do that given that you can steal the Skimmer or the Scooter instead.

[Phr3ak]

I remember only one place that may qualify: hacking two SGS room doors closest to Tanner's if you don't have Burglar.

I thought I'd checked that long ago, but looks like it's a false memory. I dug up an old save and went to check, and it turns out Camera Jammer's slowdown is capped at 100%, which is not enough to hack those doors (in contrast, Burglar gives you 4x speed up).

[ciox]

I mean truly useful as in it lets you accomplish something that you couldn't do just by sneaking around.

That's a pretty narrow definition of "useful", more like "required". I remember only one place that may qualify: hacking two SGS room doors closest to Tanner's if you don't have Burglar. You could also destroy the camera with a TNT (standing in the bathroom doorway while arming it), but that feels like a bug since normally dealing damage to SGS cameras makes SGS hostile. BTW, Waylon comes out to investigate the destroyed camera, and I like to use this moment to pickpocket his keycard and lock him out of the surveillance room. The same prank also works with Masha at Engineering Level, but you don't even need to destroy the camera, just start doing something suspicious like arming a trap, and Masha will come out to investigate once you're detected (and in contrast to Private Quarters, being detected here won't turn SGS hostile).

Potentially, Camera Jammer could also be needed to steal the Freighter from Ray's pier, but sadly, the weird anti-theft mechanic there allows you to spend only a small amount of game ticks riding a stolen jet ski in the camera range regardless of whether you're seen, and the Freighter speed is capped so you can't bypass this limit even if you install the best engines in the game. You still need Camera Jammer to steal the Scrap Jet since you have to be in the camera range to hotwire it, but there is no reason to do that given that you can steal the Skimmer or the Scooter instead.

Well I phrased it like that because what Camera Jammer does by default, is more like a small QoL boost, as cameras are rarely that hard to sneak past.

I was hoping there's more stuff you can do but thanks for the input anyway guys, at least we'll have a reference thread on Camera Jammer or something.