Torn Shoplifting Guide: Security Cycles, Notoriety and Every Store

Cameras: the mildest, and the most frequent windows

Cameras rarely stop a theft outright, they mostly inflate notoriety gain. They go offline for 30 to 60 minutes per maintenance cycle, and the more cameras a store has, the longer the gap between breakdowns. A single camera drops out around four times a day; a quadruple setup once or twice.

Checkpoints: rare windows, but long ones

Checkpoints stop you leaving with tagged goods and can cause outright failure. They break roughly every 3 to 4 days and stay down for 8 to 12 hours, so the window is generous when it arrives. Found in TC Clothing and the Pharmacy.

A checkpoint outage is the best time to clear a store out, because the window lasts most of a day rather than an hour.

Guards: the most dangerous, with the tightest windows

Guards actively cause failures. They break for only 10 to 15 minutes at a time, every 4 to 8 hours depending on how many are stationed. That makes them the hardest to catch off duty, but also the most predictable if you know when the last break was.

Everything raises it, failures raise it more

A successful theft adds a little, a failure adds more, and a critical failure sends it straight to maximum. Active security multiplies all of those gains.

It decays 1% every 5 minutes

Decay is measured from your last attempt in that location, not on a fixed timer like nerve. Going from 100% to zero takes 8 hours and 20 minutes. Walking away is the only way to bring it down.

Rotate between stores rather than hammering one. While one cools off, another is already clean.

The brackets are what matter

Notoriety splits into bands: low around 10%, high above 30%, and very high above 60%. Crossing a threshold raises failure chance, critical failure chance, and jail time. Keep it under 60% as a rule, and under 30% if you want to be careful.

Jail time scales brutally

A jail crit at low notoriety costs roughly an hour. The same crit above 30% can mean 5 to 7 hours, and above 60% it can reach 10 to 17 hours. This is the concrete reason to manage notoriety rather than ignore it.

Cyber Force, for Cracking components

This store carries nothing but Cracking components. Water blocks, HPCPUs and heat sinks all become noticeably more common when the guard is away or the cameras are down. The most efficient Cracking rigs need 30 to 50 HPCPUs, and shoplifting them here beats spending millions on the market.

Big Al's Gun Shop, for special ammunition

The best source of special ammunition in the game, and by far the most dangerous store. Most weapon and armour finds require at least one security system to be down, and special ammunition effectively requires it. With two guards active you will mostly collect broken legs.

Before hitting the gun shop, unequip everything except your best weapon. Special ammo finds follow what you are carrying.

Pharmacy, for Ipecac Syrup

Mediocre with security up, decent with it down. Ipecac Syrup lets you self-hospitalise without an education course and regardless of blood type, which is the main reason to come here.

Sweet Shop and Bits 'n' Bobs, for skill

Every location grants the same crime skill per attempt regardless of notoriety or security. That makes the two safest, lowest-notoriety stores the correct choice for pure skill grinding. Spam them whenever their single security measure is down.

Why it gets harder over time

Notoriety climbs fastest on failures, and a high crime skill means you rarely fail. Starting fresh, 250 to 300 nerve is typical. At maximum skill, one player needed 600 nerve plus several days of preparation. The addition of Cyber Force and the Pharmacy made it harder still.

Stack nerve before you start

Nerve stacks past your maximum the same way energy does, so reach full and keep drinking alcohol. It is slow and slightly wasteful, but it is the reliable route.

Roll your refills

Use a refill near the end of the day and another right after the day rolls over. Depending on your maximum nerve, that alone can carry the attempt.

Use company perks and CBD

Pubs have the best crime perks for this; meat warehouses and candle stores work if less efficiently. A few increments of the CBD stock adds nerve, and lines up well with rolled refills.

Deliberately lower your success rate

Because failures build notoriety faster than successes, move your bike and your newspaper into a display case or a ghost trade first. Removing your own bonuses is the point here.

This is the one time in the game where being worse at a crime is an advantage.

Get the notoriety honor bar first

Before your crime skill climbs. Every level you gain makes this harder and more expensive in nerve.

Then grind skill on the two safe stores

Sweet Shop and Bits 'n' Bobs give the same skill as anywhere else with the lowest notoriety cost. Hit them when their camera is down, then let notoriety cool.

Time the valuable stores to security downtime

Cyber Force for HPCPUs, the gun shop for special ammunition, the Pharmacy for Ipecac Syrup. In all three cases the loot that matters is gated behind security being offline, so attempting them at full security wastes nerve.

Rotate stores and watch the 60% line

Notoriety decays 1% per 5 minutes from your last attempt. Move to another store rather than pushing past 60%, where failure rates and jail times both jump.