Overview
This is a collection of advanced tips, tricks & strategies for Monaco. This guide assumes you are familiar with gameplay basics and dives right in to lesser-known info about items, classes, AI behavior and multiplayer team work.If you have any tips to share, please let me know in the comments.Thanks to AZengus & GewaltSam for their significant contributions to this compilation!
General Advice
Sneaking is very powerful! Sneaking frequently and keeping your cool will make your life as a thief much easier. it takes NPCs much longer to detect you when sneaking, and even after you have been pinpointed, NPCs will wait a couple of seconds before attacking.
NPCs have a specific direction and a cone of vision (roughly 90 degrees? Unconfirmed). They will notice anything within that cone and track movement beyond it, but if they’re not alerted, they will return to their original facing direction once you reach an appropriate range outside of it.
You can run circles around guards with even the slightest cover. Even a pillar is enough to confuse the guard, they will lose sight of you once you get behind it. Play with the angles to evade redetection. Don’t get too cocky though, this gets tricky with more than one NPC, or laser traps.
Pay attention to the “!” marker when you are detected— it indicates where the guards will stop looking for you. If it is hovering directly over your character as you move, you are being actively tracked— if a guard is close enough you will continue to be attacked even if you step into a bush.
When you are detected, don’t panic! move away slowly and break line of sight by putting a wall, corner or door between you and the enemy, pop into a bush or vent, or slip on a disguise if one is available. If you break into a run, NPCs will instantly raise the alarm and start attacking. If you can get away before this happens, you’ll be safe.
If you do have to run, resume sneaking as soon as you’ve broken line of sight and get to a hiding spot.
Dogs will catch your scent, which means if they cross over a tile you were previously in within the last 30 seconds, they will follow that trail to you. You can break the trail by jumping into a bush or vent. If they follow you up to the bush/vent, they will not attack you and will eventually leave you alone.
Cats are proximity based, so they will make a noise if you alert them.
NPCs have terrible vision in the dark— when the lights are out sometimes you can sneak right in front of their noses.
With a hiding spot nearby, anyone can camp the breaker box (bulb). Very useful for bypassing traps entirely, albeit for short bursts of time. You can prolong the blackout length by knocking out NPCs with the Cleaner.
Always be thinking about how you will get out of a room if you are detected. Running blindly into unexplored hallways generally leads to death.
If you’re in a situation where death seems unaviodable, don’t panic— start looking for a good place to go down.
Try to die in a way that makes you easy to revive— in or near a bush, vent or doorway— not in the path of a laser or in a large open space filled with patrols.
Keep tabs on where the rest of your team is on the map. If you’re far away and alone, try to cover as much distance between you and them as possible before dying.
Players cannot move over the bodies of fallen allies without stopping to revive them. Keep this in mind.
Players can hold entryways for others by remaining directly on the icon. This helps if you need to be in and out of a room quickly. Someone should always be holding a hiding spot if the team is at risk of getting caught. NPC bodies will also hold open an entrance.
Remember to toggle shared vision. It’s useful to keep it off when sneaking around, the better to keep tabs on sight lines. Turn it on when you want intel on other rooms or need to know what’s around a downed player before reviving. Shared vision becomes less needed when the Lookout is in play.
Distractions are helpful. Try to stage distractions (alerting guards, alarms) so your teammates have an easier time doing what they need to do. Make sure you have an easy escape route or hiding place after staging distractions.
Alerting civilians is a good low-risk way to pull guards away from their post— look for areas with multiple civilians and no guards, then stage a distraction by alerting all the civilians and hoofing it.
Guns are also useful for drawing NPCs to you.
Run into a NPC body to push it. Sneak to pass over it without moving. Push bodies into vents, bushes or unpatrolled areas to conceal them (this has the added bonus of holding the bush or vent open for you).
Push bodies through alarm doors to unlock them.
Alt-tab out and back into the game to have the map update with all passages dug by the mole. Make sure you’re in a safe place first!
Pay attention to what a laser or camera will set off if tripped, and how close nearby guards are. You may be able to simply trip the alarm and then shut it off before anyone arrives.
Laser-activated guns may be safely tripped and avoided by ducking behind a corner or wall just as the laser hits you, and even sometimes by running quickly across the line of fire.
Smoke will not conceal you from lasers!
If you must cross a moving laser and have no way to avoid it, run through it in the opposite direction it’s moving and get as close to the source as possible— often you will make it through without triggering it.
Moving lasers also seem to take longer to trigger if you are moving away from the source, though the angle within which they’re able to track you becomes wider.
Remember, the Hacker is the only class that can disable a camera head-on before it goes off (unless a wrench is used).
In the pickpocket’s story, there are secret passages hidden on every level that any character can access. Try pushing on suspiciously thin areas of wall!
Items
The wrench lets you complete nearly any action instantly. This includes opening alarm doors and safes without triggering the alarm! Also handy for clubbing that pesky guard who just won’t stop following you (don’t forget to hide the body!).
One of the most powerful items in the game. Timed correctly, one smoke bomb can see you through cracking a safe or reviving a teammate, even in a crowded room. The key to effective smoke use is to activate it at the last possible second, preferably when you are just on the verge of being attacked— maximizing the amout of time you have to complete your action.
Smoke lasts long enough for the gentleman to regain his disguise.
Smoke will end the Redhead’s charm effect.
Used well, you can kill up to 6 NPCs at once. Try luring several into a hallway with a distraction and then shooting. Don’t forget to hide the bodies!
The shotgun makes a lot of noise and will alert anyone nearby. This can be useful as a distraction, even when you don’t have anyone to shoot.
Similar to the shotgun, but fires in a narrower field over a longer period and can be swept around while firing.
A skilled player can kill up to twice the number of NPCs with a machine gun than can be taken out with a shotgun.
Most useful when there is no Cleaner or Redhead in play. Use on immobile guards standing watch over cash registers, safes & trophies.
Easy to miss with, so aim carfully.
Best used to quickly clean out areas with lots of electronic security and no guards. EMP is powerful but short-lived. Make sure you have more than one of these if you’ll be doing anything that takes more than a few seconds.
For rooms with safes and multiple lasers or cameras, EMP + Wrench (or locksmith) makes for an efficient combo.
Use C4 to destroy pesky lasers, security cameras, guards that just won’t move, or open walls when there is no mole. Can also be used to open safes & lockboxes.
Will not blow through any material the mole can’t dig through (such as vault walls).
NPCs killed by C4 will not leave bodies, and C4 will destroy any bodies in the blast.
Be careful when using this around fellow players! It’s a good idea to warn people first. C4 will kill players hiding in a staircase, bush, vent or escape vehicle.
Use bandages to insta-revive downed players in tricky situations, or brute-force your way out of a bad situation or safe-crack with multiple heals.
Class Tips
Very straightforwad class and (in my opinion) the least powerful. Best on levels with lots of safes or double-locking security doors.
Remember, when you run, your allies can’t track NPCs! Try to sneak whenever possible, and if you must run, stagger in a second or two of sneaking at regular intervals— your allies will appreciate it!
Help out allies by opening vents & staircases for them when they need to make a quick getaway.
The Pickpocket will probably end up with the most coins and therefore the most item uses. Keep this in mind when choosing which items to take.
Often, the pickpocket can clear a room by entering slightly and waiting a few seconds. You can do this from bushes or vents too— just let the monkey do the work!
The monkey will hold open a door or curtain the pickpocket has just passed through, usually to his detriment. to alleviate this, move slightly toward the door and then back— your monkey will fall in behind you and the door will close.
The monkey can get stuck behind locked doors, so keep an eye out.
Knocking out NPCs makes a bit of noise and briefly alerts any other nearby NPCs. If one is too close, he will be fully alerted. keep this in mind.
Camp the breaker box! With the lights off it’s very easy to take care of the guard who comes in to reset the switch, then the next guard, and the next… power will only remain off for a certain period of time (15 seconds maximum? Unconfirmed), so remember that.
If crafty enough you can ambush NPCs right on locked/security doors to keep the door open. Note they’ll wake up at some point so try to get your business done quickly or wait on the door to drug them again.
The Cleaner has an uncontrollable urge to knock out anyone that comes close enough, and he will run out of hiding in a bush to do it. Remember to hug the wall or be quick on the draw when hiding in a bush so you get back into hiding right away.
Team up with the Redhead for maximum lulz (see Redhead below)
Digging is noisy! Dig long enough and NPCs will investigate, if they’re close enough. Their attention span is short, however. You can also stagger your digs to evade suspicion. Try to dig in such a way that you avoid drawing attention to nearby teammates.
There is a significant loss of predictability if you dig all over the place, because NPCs will take routes along your dug path, which leads to more random patrols. Your shortcuts also become NPC shortcuts, if that wasn’t obvious.
Your dug paths will not show up on the map by default, however you can reveal them by alt-tabbing out of the game and back in.
A few recommendations on what/where to dig:
- If you’re on a bush, you can dig next to it. It’s easy to hide after alerting suspicion.
- You can also try to dig to a bush.
- Try to dig deep, long paths around the outside of rooms/structures. This preserves the initial layout of the map and still grants you access to a shortcut, along with a hiding space.
- Bypass locked/security doors by digging next to it. It will preserve the map layout and NPC response time remains the same.
- If you dig a small hole in a corridor, that gives you an effective hiding space if you don’t have any nearby. Just make sure to avoid digging one that’ll get stared down by an NPC on their usual route.
Like the pickpocket, good for getting coins out from under civilians.
Smoke bombs give you enough time to refresh your disguise.
Keep a close eye on the state of your disguise— black means you’re unobserved— try to let your disguise top off whenever possible, and remember running or suspicious activities will make you burn through it very fast.
Viruses can be fickle, and won’t always go where you want them to. Try moving around to jog them in the right direction.
Even if there are no outlets around, don’t forget you can disable lasers, cameras and alarms faster than any other class.
The hacker is the only class that can disable a security camera head-on without triggering it.
Power outlets spawn randomly and are sometimes inaccessable.
The most nuanced of the classes, effective Redhead use relies upon how well you understand the charm mechanic. The redhead charms the first person she alerts, civilian or guard, so keep close tabs on who is about to spot you. You can insta-charm by simply running into the desired NPC.
You will be opening lots of doors with your charmed NPCs, so remember to hold them open for your allies!
To lose a charmed NPC, go into hiding or put on a disguise. Smoke bombs will also break the charm.
Be mindful of other players when you release charmed NPCs— if you go into hiding at the wrong time, you can create a bad situation for other players following you.
The Redhead and the Cleaner make a great team— have the Cleaner hide in a bush and lure charmed guards back to him one by one. As you enter the bush, the Cleaner will do his thing. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The Redhead’s fast-revive ability makes her the best choice for tricky revives, particularly for allies downed in front of sweeping lasers and guards.
Learn the secondary abilities of each class. See the guide below for a full list:
Character Cheat Sheet