STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Plisken]

I went with dead air instead of anomaly because it was a smaller download

I'm surprised; I don't hate it, despite it being MEMERY derivative stuff. The visual changes and audio are actually quite impressive, they've really managed to get extra juice out of that old 32 bit executable. It feels different enough that I'm actually enjoying the misery style elements instead of rolling my eyes at how modders manage to find various ways of raping STALKER. Of course, it still has those utterly tedious elements - animations and black screens that actually serve to do the opposite of immersing the player and become incredibly annoying by about the 10th time.

Do you think the mod would cater to an old Misery 1 fan (instead of the masochistic shit that was 2.0 forward) ? From what I've seen of it, looks interesting.

hmm i cant remember misery 1 very well

its definitely got a lot of misery 2 features, but its expanded and changed a fair bit. Its somewhat masochistic in the beginning but i dont feel like its a chore the way misery 2 was because youve also got environmental drops (its actually worthwhile checking out houses or train carts or small camps etc).

If you find it too overbearing (i definitely found the stamina system to be ridiculously obnoxious) theres plenty of ready made tweak packages on the moddb page. The one I'm using is https://www.moddb.com/mods/dead-air/addons/dead-air-tweaks-rebalanced

 

[cowking]

Do you think the mod would cater to an old Misery 1 fan (instead of the masochistic shit that was 2.0 forward) ? From what I've seen of it, looks interesting.

The start is honestly worse than Misery 2. Don't know about mid/late game because I'm not very thrilled to continue.

Any amount of radiation (and I mean any) will kill you by damage over time. Your only way to heal it is by drinking vodka which costs 1k and you start with 3k (which drops to 2k instantly as you need a backpack). This basically forces you to avoid all metal and exploration of any kind. Have fun quick saving before entering anywhere because you can't afford to take rads. Your only way to get money because of this is to follow other stalkers and wait for them to die. How very exciting.

You can't heal for shit. Medkits are ridiculously expensive and heal 30%, sleep 25% or something (but you die to DoT if you have any radiation whatsoever). This is compounded by constant life drain from radiation and random hits from mutant chihuahuas. There is a medic npc but he seems to be wandering totally random and I've only seen him in the cordon area once. When I tried entering the swamp where I read he's located I got instantly attacked by a pack of 8 dogs.

Your run speed is incredibly slow and the starting areas are very barren so it's very boring. If you carry "too much" your char turns into a cripple and has to stop every 10m to catch his breath. Unless you have a backpack you can't carry 10kg without turning into a wheelchair patient.

If you want to enjoy the start of the mod in any capacity you're practically forced to buy the artifact kit with 40 char points out of 100 so you get a dosimeter (detect radiation) and a gas mask.

It has the same inventory clutter as misery, doesn't bother me except for the fact you can't stop to read item descriptions because your fucking life is draining away by radiation. Also dual ammo for all ammo types is just awful inventory clutter.

The smart way to play involves only fighting against mutants until you meet monolith. Attacking military/bandits/stalkers is just handicapping yourself.

Graphically it's ok but trees look like shit no matter what you do. Forced AA doesn't fix them and FXAA looks like shit obviously. SMAA from sweetfx doesn't help either.

 

[Edija]

Do you think the mod would cater to an old Misery 1 fan (instead of the masochistic shit that was 2.0 forward) ? From what I've seen of it, looks interesting.

The start is honestly worse than Misery 2. Don't know about mid/late game because I'm not very thrilled to continue.

Any amount of radiation (and I mean any) will kill you by damage over time. Your only way to heal it is by drinking vodka which costs 1k and you start with 3k (which drops to 2k instantly as you need a backpack). This basically forces you to avoid all metal and exploration of any kind. Have fun quick saving before entering anywhere because you can't afford to take rads. Your only way to get money because of this is to follow other stalkers and wait for them to die. How very exciting.

You can't heal for shit. Medkits are ridiculously expensive and heal 30%, sleep 25% or something (but you die to DoT if you any radiation whatsoever). This is compounded by constant life drain from radiation and random hits from mutant chihuahuas. There is a medic npc but he seems to be wandering totally random and I've only seen him in the cordon area once. When I tried entering the swamp where I read he's located I got instantly attacked by a pack of 8 dogs.

Your run speed is incredibly slow and the starting areas are very barren so it's very boring. If you carry "too much" your char turns into a cripple and has to stop every 10m to catch his breath.

If you want to enjoy the start of the mod in any capacity you're practically forced to buy the artifact kit with 40 char points out of 100 so you get a dosimeter (detect radiation) and a gas mask.

The smart way to play involves only fighting against mutants until you meet monolith. Attacking military/bandits/stalkers is just handicapping yourself.

Graphically it's ok but trees look like shit no matter what you do. Forced AA doesn't fix them and FXAA looks like shit obviously. SMAA from sweetfx doesn't help either.

I personally tweaked the game quite a bit with a custom combination of mods to make it more bearable. Firstly, I made it so that you start with a sleeping bag and dosimeter, because what idiot would go to the radioactive zone without that. I've found that the Artifact kit is a must because of the gas mask first and foremost, there is no way to play it without it. I've bumped up medkit uses as well, because they are too expensive for one use. Here is my specific mod setup that I use in my youtube LPs as well, if someone really wants I can upload the whole gamedata folder.

Addons that I'm using (in this specific order!):
TRX Sound Revamp
TRX Dynamic News Revamp 4.3.
Dead Air Easier Tweaks (0.98b compatible)
- Cheaper Perks and Loadouts
- Healthier food and drinks
- Longer lasting shotguns and Snipers
Hardcore Recored (Currently not ported to 0.98b)
- Dosimeter and Sleeping bag
- 2 times use medkits
- Loadout changes
Lootmoney (compatible with 0.98b)
NPC detection range fix (Dead Air Tweaks, ported to 0.98b)
- I only use the m_stalker file from this addon!
New UI indicators and Ammo info
- Variant A2

I've found the game to be enjoyable this way. Another thing is that the Great Swamp is a lot easier in Dead Air than in most mods, its treated as a rookie zone, the water isn't radioactive and Clear Sky pays really well for mutant parts. Grinding artifacts in the car park in Garbage is one way of making some money, especially if you complete the "hey dude are you lucky at finding stuff bring me this artifact quests". 1000 (max) rep with Loners is pretty easily achievable in the first hours of the game by killing all the bandits in the Garbage and doing some missions. That will allow you to have a companion if you're into that and will give you discounts at loner merchants. Since there is no weapon disassembly (which is rather annoying) your best bet is to haul broken weapons to Nimble and exchange them for fuel, then sell the fuel. The stalker barter system (stalkers only trade in stuff for items) is a cool idea but it's beyond me why they wouldn't accept money. Food is your main early game issue, you want to buy/craft a portable stove and cook up all the meat you have. I usually eat after I wake up (trash zone meat that gives rads then vodka and then carbon pills), this is important since the vodka removes the rads and the carbon removes "toxins" and the drunken effects. All in all its manageable. The hobo phase is endless, there is another system for broken weapons that was implemented. It's not only the % of durability but there is stuff that breaks on your gun (broken recoil spring, dirty/deformed barrel). All these malfunctions have to be removed by repair/cleaning kits which are expensive, or each of them costs approximately 6000 RU to repair on top of the initial repair costs. Not to spoil anything but the content of the maps has been changed drastically in some areas, so some of the stuff you're used to is not viable anymore. It certainly is the hardest mod I've played but it's rather enjoyable after you get used to the rhythm, but I don't think I would play it without my tweaks although they mostly alleviate the horrible early game, later on the difficulty is almost unchanged.

 

[Black Angel]

Feeling like diving into proper apocalyptic experience, and I'm planning to play the game in order of release (SoC -> CS -> CoP). Any specific mods and tweaks to apply to SoC? I'm taking a look at the page from PCGamingWiki and Steam guide, but the guy at Steam said that its version might break some mods, which are the versions I got. What should I do? Is there a way to prevent Steam from breaking mods, or just following simple tweakings would suffice??

 

[unfairlight]

No word on SoC or CS, but for CoP you should want to install the Arsenal Overhaul mod. It basically just makes every gun look, feel and play more realistic. In CoP all the early guns have fucking abysmal accuracy, an AK won't be able to shoot at 50m. That entirely killed my experience at the second hour, but after I installed Arsenal Overhaul all the guns felt realistic, fun and there was a wide variety of them with many different roles and purposes.

 

[Edija]

Road to the North has been released. It's basically a mix of your standard Stalker modpack mod D) and a few custom additions like a totally new storyline, genders (I mean, whatever floats your boat Stalker), new and old mechanics as well as a bunch of other stuff. The areas of the Zone have been rearranged (to be more like real life I guess?). The feature list is pretty long. It plays pretty well for me, I've been playing it on my channel a bit. New storyline is always promising and a massive incline in Stalker modding. As far as I understand two of the bigger dedicated mods have now included new questlines. Dead Air has a main storyline of sorts, Anomaly (1.5. when it comes out) has included "Lost to the Zone" now, and Road to the North has a totally new storyline which seems to feature a new faction.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/zoneexpanded-road-to-the-north

 

[Baron Dupek]

That Road to the North sounds neat, no grey-tier depressing look but what's that? You can play as a woman?? Like what, you don't like bloodsuckers already?

I still have Anomaly to test but I'm waiting for a new GPU, these CoM mods, especially 64bit engine powered, straigh up refuse to launch with my current graphic card (GF 650 GTX ti Boost).

 

[Edija]

I don't know if there is a "whore yourself out for money/ammo/gear" option. Probably would work... for both genders, you know, tastes differ.

But seriously, the best laugh with the Bloodsucker meme I had was in Dead Air. If you go into the Arena and get to the Bloodsucker fight and decline it, the guy says something like: "What? Since when do you love Bloodsuckers? When did you join Freedom?" Top Duty banter

 

[Beastro]

Do you think the mod would cater to an old Misery 1 fan (instead of the masochistic shit that was 2.0 forward) ? From what I've seen of it, looks interesting.

The start is honestly worse than Misery 2. Don't know about mid/late game because I'm not very thrilled to continue.

Any amount of radiation (and I mean any) will kill you by damage over time. Your only way to heal it is by drinking vodka which costs 1k and you start with 3k (which drops to 2k instantly as you need a backpack). This basically forces you to avoid all metal and exploration of any kind. Have fun quick saving before entering anywhere because you can't afford to take rads. Your only way to get money because of this is to follow other stalkers and wait for them to die. How very exciting.

You can't heal for shit. Medkits are ridiculously expensive and heal 30%, sleep 25% or something (but you die to DoT if you have any radiation whatsoever). This is compounded by constant life drain from radiation and random hits from mutant chihuahuas. There is a medic npc but he seems to be wandering totally random and I've only seen him in the cordon area once. When I tried entering the swamp where I read he's located I got instantly attacked by a pack of 8 dogs.

Your run speed is incredibly slow and the starting areas are very barren so it's very boring. If you carry "too much" your char turns into a cripple and has to stop every 10m to catch his breath. Unless you have a backpack you can't carry 10kg without turning into a wheelchair patient.

If you want to enjoy the start of the mod in any capacity you're practically forced to buy the artifact kit with 40 char points out of 100 so you get a dosimeter (detect radiation) and a gas mask.

It has the same inventory clutter as misery, doesn't bother me except for the fact you can't stop to read item descriptions because your fucking life is draining away by radiation. Also dual ammo for all ammo types is just awful inventory clutter.

The smart way to play involves only fighting against mutants until you meet monolith. Attacking military/bandits/stalkers is just handicapping yourself.

Graphically it's ok but trees look like shit no matter what you do. Forced AA doesn't fix them and FXAA looks like shit obviously. SMAA from sweetfx doesn't help either.

Fuck that shit. When mods do that to me I just open the console for money and get what I need to counter that BS.

 

[Gerrard]

Do you think the mod would cater to an old Misery 1 fan (instead of the masochistic shit that was 2.0 forward) ? From what I've seen of it, looks interesting.

The start is honestly worse than Misery 2. Don't know about mid/late game because I'm not very thrilled to continue.

Any amount of radiation (and I mean any) will kill you by damage over time. Your only way to heal it is by drinking vodka which costs 1k and you start with 3k (which drops to 2k instantly as you need a backpack). This basically forces you to avoid all metal and exploration of any kind. Have fun quick saving before entering anywhere because you can't afford to take rads. Your only way to get money because of this is to follow other stalkers and wait for them to die. How very exciting.

You can't heal for shit. Medkits are ridiculously expensive and heal 30%, sleep 25% or something (but you die to DoT if you have any radiation whatsoever). This is compounded by constant life drain from radiation and random hits from mutant chihuahuas. There is a medic npc but he seems to be wandering totally random and I've only seen him in the cordon area once. When I tried entering the swamp where I read he's located I got instantly attacked by a pack of 8 dogs.

Your run speed is incredibly slow and the starting areas are very barren so it's very boring. If you carry "too much" your char turns into a cripple and has to stop every 10m to catch his breath. Unless you have a backpack you can't carry 10kg without turning into a wheelchair patient.

If you want to enjoy the start of the mod in any capacity you're practically forced to buy the artifact kit with 40 char points out of 100 so you get a dosimeter (detect radiation) and a gas mask.

It has the same inventory clutter as misery, doesn't bother me except for the fact you can't stop to read item descriptions because your fucking life is draining away by radiation. Also dual ammo for all ammo types is just awful inventory clutter.

The smart way to play involves only fighting against mutants until you meet monolith. Attacking military/bandits/stalkers is just handicapping yourself.

Graphically it's ok but trees look like shit no matter what you do. Forced AA doesn't fix them and FXAA looks like shit obviously. SMAA from sweetfx doesn't help either.

This is the kind of autism that keeps me from playing overhaul mods.

 

[Invictus]

Holy shit so now Ubisoft is coming out with its own take on the radioactive apocalypse
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-post-apocalyptic-far-cry-announcement-is-coming-at-the-game-awards/
And still no news on Stalker 2

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So at this point, how is call of Chernobyl? Have they updated a new version of it or what?

 

[mwnn85]

OpenXRay seems to be making good progress.

I'm able to build and run the game under Linux now and it's semi-working with my Radeon R9 285.
https://imgur.com/a/ZqKzDf8
https://imgur.com/a/qfsnif7

Early days - performance isn't there yet and it's prone to crashing but it's very promising.
It'd be fantastic to be able to run all three games under an updated engine especially if they add Vulkan support and other improvements.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Played Road to the North a bit and have mixed feeling.
Easiest Misery-based project so far. You can't dismantle weapons into parts. There are missions but they are mostly copy-pasted from original STALKER trilogy so....
Tushkanos (those little rats) deal almost no damage.
Best thing? More varied weapons condition for every faction, including zombies and bandits. No more "95% of weapons are plain junk" Misery inanity.
That mean you can now farm zombies for loot. Easy money.

So at this point, how is call of Chernobyl? Have they updated a new version of it or what?

it's okay but still unplayable for people that need storyline with dozen of missions or something like that. It's still in R6 release stage or something.
Frankly - there is not much to do with this project and not much to add. After all - CoCh is just a base for other mods and compilations.

There is Road to the North which is so far the only project that have some kind of single player campaign

 

[Baardhaas]

Just before Christmas, Lost Alpha 1.4007 got released without any fanfare, just a small post on Moddb. Apparently it is the final release of the mod that everyone was hyped for, got leaked/released as a buggy mess and after disappointing everyone with it vast empty spaces and ridiculous plot, was quickly forgotten.

Did it get any better since its release? Well, I doubt they could've done much worse than 1.3, which was the latest I've played so I decided to give it a shot. I haven't progressed very far yet, currently at Agroprom. But so far it actually seems pretty decent. It has incorporated features from the newer instalments like artefact hunting and upgrading gear, lots of quests and a decent variety of A-life. The zombies are no longer boring bulletsponges (still boring just not as spongy) and I haven't noticed any really bad writing so far. But Sin is still in, so I assume the weird Illuminati crap will be there too. Haven't had the chance to drive a car yet either.

It comes bundled with some mods which I've turned off for the most part. An interesting one is free roaming A-life, so the AI is no longer bound to their camps and can actually track all across the map. This will probably cause story-essential npc's to die prematurely but it sounds good fun for freeplay. Anyway, it's still Stalker so I suppose I can recommend it to anyone who has the itch to roam about the zone for a couple of hours.

 

[Baron Dupek]

They said Illuminati ending was removed from final release, also - there is still Boris youtuber.
Tried to play and dropped after leaving the Cordon, just boring slow slug.

 

[Stavrophore]

Anomaly would be great if it wasnt for that over minute loading time between maps.

 

[Baardhaas]

Been playing some more, just done most of the stuff in Dark Valley except entering the underground lab. I must say this is turning out to be one of the best full overhaul mods yet, if they'd only released this 3 years ago... Found out you get skillpoints after doing certain missions which you can allocate to four different attributes to customise your character somewhat. One of the best features they've implemented by far is that anomalies actually spawn artefacts if a mutant dies in it. Game runs fairly stable, but does tend to crash on reload when there's a psi-creature nearby. This has the potential to be game stopping since later levels probably swarm with those type of mutants.

Tried to play and dropped after leaving the Cordon, just boring slow slug.

Most mods are about mucking around in the zone, kill some mutants, grab some loot, gear up etc. The difficulty may vary but they all boil down to the same concept whether it's call of Chernobyl, misery or, in this case, lost alpha. I get why you say it's a boring slog though, the progression is a lot slower than in the original. It takes a while to even leave Cordon in LA whereas in a mod like CoC you can go and run everywhere from the get go. But, once you've reached dark valley the game opens up and provides you with a car for faster transport and convenient loot stashing.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Played some more STALKER Anomaly 1.5 v2.4 beta, some notes were collected.

It have two major advantages. First - it's on 64bit engine. Second - it works on Static Lighting which mean that with any SSD drive and cheap powersaving GPU it can work for hours without crash. Noice.

Misery mods were known for being slow and overwhelming (so many items jfc) then Anomaly removed some and added their own items to sort things out, for good results.
Despite common prejudice to Misery-like projects its pretty forgiving. Even smallest quest rewards are enough to buy food, some ammo and small repairs.
There are 3 difficulty settings and they mostly affect economy and how long you want to live hobo life.
Some new type of quests - deliver package (some of them take almost 10kg) or find missing squad. You must buy RC receiver (new item in 1.5, which shows NPCs on map), set to required frequency and find the squad on the map).
I got one bug with mutant hunt, same group connected to two quests from Butcher, Barkeeper and Duty trader. Money is money so whatever.

Oh and bandits are no longer bullet sponges, you can easily dispatch them with a pistol.
Hunting mutants is profitable when you have Hunting kit, own shotgun and haul all mutant parts to the Butcher in Garbage hangar. He also sell buckshots for lower price. People complained about medkit prices did not bought them from medics (which are like 1539rubles).

There is this feature from old STALKER games where high ranked masters were actually smart and cunning deploying different tactics - running away to come back from different direction and then sneak behind you to unleash accurate full auto is terrifying. You can find more of them here, they have better equipement in better condition making journey to the north more profitable.

Broken weapons and suits can be dismantled with multitools, weapon parts can be sold to mechanics.
For some reason pistol parts are always in best condition (even from rusty Makarov that was sunbathing in the Great Swamps for eternity) and sells for most money. Armor parts can be used for upgrades or sold.

Ammo system looks complicated - you have normal, damaged and old ammo, they worn out weapons faster.
Remember "Broken Ammo" item? It was useless item found in dead bodies but here its called "Ammo Parts" and you can use it to change Damaged/Old ammo into normal one with Gunsmith Tool.

You can stack items like cigaretes and medkits with 1/5 charges, hold Ctrl and then move them in the inventory.
I found broken pump action shotgun on 38% durability, costs 11k rubles to repair. Cheapest shotgun repair kit costs 33k rubles. I don't get it.
One thing they borked up - hip fire accuracy. I could play Misery without aiming down sight most of the time (usually on short and medium range), but in Anomaly it feels off?
Items icons are smaller, traders are specialists now so they don't sell everything for the same hight price etc. Way less clutter and now most items have purpose.

Overall - it's best Misery mod since Misery 1.2

 

[Invictus]

Damn right!
It is the best Stalker I have played in a looong time
I have to say it might be better than Stalker 2

 

[Ivan]

Overall - it's best Misery mod since Misery 1.2

It is the best Stalker I have played in a looong time

 

[Fenix]

There is this feature from old STALKER games where high ranked masters were actually smart and cunning deploying different tactics - running away to come back from different direction and then sneak behind you to unleash accurate full auto is terrifying.

Yeah, I rememeber these mercenaries from that waste recycle station or wat it was near bridge... I tried to do them without saveload, in one go - one of them did this many times... Died from spi-storm in the end lol. Facking scary, horribly scary.
I mean in was in Misery.

 

[Echo Mirage]

Since Metro Exodus is off the cards. Anomaly vs Dead Air which is the better mod and why?

 

[Curratum]

Neither. Dead Air is an abhorrent pile of shit, Anomaly has good intentions but gets bogged down in all the horrible Misery shit that it chose to drag along for some reason.

 

[Edija]

There is no going back from the Stockholm syndrome that is Dead Air. I hated it, called it bullshit, died a thousand times, complained... Now I can't go back to easier mods because even survivalist Anomaly feels like a cakewalk.