BLACKOUT gives runners two item slots. Tools come from chests, cabinets and street pickups, rather than from character rarity. Most items use Q or R on desktop. Safes and crates are the important exception: you hold the regular action beside them, and the matching tool is spent when the crack completes.
Read the item name and the nearby prompt together. Game Accessibility Guidelines recommends clear indications of interactive objects and alternatives to color-only information. In practical terms, don't identify a tool solely by its glow when its label can tell you exactly what you are holding.
Lockpick: reserve it for a safe
A lockpick opens a safe through the normal held crack action. Pressing its item button by itself doesn't open a distant box. Get within reach, check the prompt and hold E or F. The tool is consumed on completion. If the job is nearly over, finding a safe and returning with the money may take more time than the reward justifies.
Crowbar: one tool, several competing uses
A crowbar opens a locked crate through the same held action. It can also clear a glued door when used nearby, or start a trunk job at a rival's car. A completed trunk job currently steals up to $4K from that rival's banked Take and puts the money in your bag.
The theft isn't instant. Moving out of range or being stunned can interrupt it. A crowbar is therefore both an opportunity and a commitment. Decide whether you need access, a crate reward or sabotage before spending it.
Smoke: buy a change of position
Smoke creates a short-lived cloud at your position. The police sight checks are blocked when the officer or runner is inside it. Use the opportunity to move somewhere useful; standing still until the cloud ends spends the protection without improving your route.
Smoke doesn't cancel a district closure. Cover from an officer is a different problem from being in a cordoned area after its grace period.
Disguise: slow down long enough to use it
A disguise gives a brief period in which a runner who isn't sprinting avoids the normal suspicion check. It can also break an officer's current grip. The qualification matters: sprinting throws away the quiet behavior the disguise depends on. Think of it as a short chance to reposition, not a permanent invisibility button.
Glue: delay the right interaction
Glue can affect an uncracked nearby box, doubling its crack time while the effect lasts, or block a nearby door. The current targeting checks a suitable box before a door. Look at your position before using it, especially if both are close.
A delay helps only when it serves a plan. Gluing an exit that you also need can be an expensive joke. Use it to create separation, not simply because the slot is occupied.
Spikes: interfere with a getaway
Near a rival's available car, spikes temporarily prevent that car from being used to bank. Away from a suitable target, a strip can be placed on the street; it cannot simply be planted anywhere inside a district. This is a timing tool. A car with nobody approaching may be a weaker target than the runner you could instead avoid.
Burner phone: send trouble toward a rival
The burner looks for a nearby rival in a district and an officer who can pursue them. It directs police attention toward that runner and adds heat to the district. It needs a valid situation; it isn't a general button that creates an officer wherever you want one.
Remember that you may share the same district. Making the area hotter can also make your own exit worse.
Spray: reduce heat before the Dragnet
Spray removes four bars from the district meter in the current alpha, provided the district has heat and isn't already in a Dragnet. It doesn't undo an active Dragnet. That makes early use materially different from waiting until the meter has overflowed.
Duffel: carry more, keep the same deadline
The duffel raises the load threshold from $24K to $36K. Cash progressively slows movement up to that threshold; it is not a hard ceiling that stops you collecting more. The upgrade applies when picked up without occupying a tool slot. More carrying room does not make an arrest gentler or banking unnecessary. You can still choose small, frequent deposits.
Car keys: bring the car to the plan
Keys call your car to your current position, with an arrival delay. They don't create an instant bank. If you need them for an escape, use them early enough to wait safely and finish the deposit afterward.
Two occupied slots also affect the next pickup: taking another item swaps out the first slot's tool at the pickup spot. Check what you are about to leave behind. A deliberate two-tool plan is better than discovering that the lockpick you needed stayed in the last cabinet.