STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Curratum]

i want the most sandbox, endless stalker experience possible. excluding misery which is just retarded, which mod should i look for?

Anomaly, obviously. It's basically Misery dialed down a bit but still too much for my taste. It's shaping into something pretty nice, though.

 

[deuxhero]

MotherMachinae
Where is this addon? I don't see it on either the RttN or TAZ page on ModDB.

 

[Baron Dupek]

MotherMachinae
Where is this addon? I don't see it on either the RttN or TAZ page on ModDB.

still WIP
and considering the fact that this TAZ package took another year after Misery 2.2 release tp come out - that will take a while...

 

[Edija]

I've been playing Anomaly on my channel again and after 10 or so hours in it really feels like Stalker modding is pushing it's limits. The fundamental problem always was and is the following: how to add artificial difficulty to Call of Chernobyl, and the question is always answered by making the economy harsher and repairs ever more expensive and dependent on items. Dead Air added the whole malfunctions or whatever that were very hard (read expensive) to remove, while Anomaly added another layer to the hopelessly confused repair system. The whole concept is limited by the fact that you're basically in the late game once you get a fully repaired gun and ammo. Dead Air tried the whole obnoxious spawns, limited mobility, rads to the roof thing and it still was not enough to add anything that would represent a way of keeping the player back. I have over 50+ hours of recorded Dead Air let's plays on my channel and I can tell you that I've always felt like I'm fighting the economy and repairs more than the Zone itself. A staple feature of this whole tradition of Misery-like mods is the devaluation of Artifacts. They are merely a source of money, not even a good one, and I haven't seen much use to them in the sense of their properties.

I think the only way to have fun with the setup of mods we have right now is to eventually start treating it like a Roguelike (and maybe modders moving in that direction). Challenge runs, ironmen, more random spawns and anomalies. That would also be a way to treat the whole repair and economy program. If you haven't already, try playing Anomaly with a roguelike mindset and I think you'll understand. I hope someone realizes this and fine tunes some mods in that direction.

 

[Edija]

https://youtu.be/TIZWlW1YhbU

 

[Invictus]

That new Chernobylite game looks interesting although more like a Firewatch style adventure game than Stalker or Metro... what do you guys think? Planning on picking it up?

 

[Puukko]

Brief reviews of some mods I have enjoyed over the years:

SOC
Autumn Aurora 2: The ultimate graphicsfag mod. AA2 changes a lot but leaves the vanilla story and quests unmolested. Mainly the changes are visual (and some of them very unsuitable, for example, npc models shamelessly ripped from metro) but also makes the gunplay snappier and adds in misery-lite features such as medkits/bandages taking time to use, and brings the detectors from subsequent games to SOC (which in my opinion, is not welcome). AA2 is notoriously hard to complete, not because of its difficulty, but because you will eventually get corrupted saves. There are some mitigating measures recommended, but honestly I think those are just placebo. Overall its very well presented mod, but since one component of the graphicsfaggotry doesnt work with windows 10 (enb) and other mods have stolen the rest of the visual components (such as the flora, shaders and retextures) you might as well play other mods.

AMK Autumn Edition: In my mind this is one of the finest mod compilations put together. AMK combines one of the original, and arguably still the best, stalker mods with the visuals and weapons/gunplay of AA2. AMK changes a LOT: it lets the A-life of the leash, blowouts, new dialogues and quests, it introduces new mutants and restores cut ones, it adds new artifacts and artifact "recipes" (a system of creating unique artifacts), it removes the annoying bullet sponge npcs of vanilla while compensating by making them react significantly faster and shoot much more accurately. Theres a lot more I wont go into to save on space, but they all amount to AMK making the zone feel a lot more "alive" and lived in, with a hell of a lot more activity going on. This is why it was such a beloved mod for SoC, the new kids on the block probably think such things are blase these days with all the coc shit. I've played a hell of a lot of mods and yet I always come back to some variant of AMK for the true stalkan experience. For the best visuals, make sure the included user.ltx gets installed properly, as sometimes stalker can be tricky as to where it keeps the real appdata (in my case, its in the /bin folder).

Narodnaya Solyanka 2016: frequently and unfortunately mistaken for its meme-mod derivatives (joint pak/OP, DMX, stalkersoup etc) NS is actually a legitimately good mod that brings a lot of fresh content to stalker. This is actually probably one of the largest mods, and the changes are too exhaustive to list and it adds levels from the subsequent games as well as a few of its own. 2016 is the most polished version, and has an english translation that is about 90% complete. NS is a good choice for salty veterans whove exhausted vanilla content, and a very bad choice for new players as the amount of new quests and artifacts can be overwhelming.

Golden ball aka Gold Sphere: By far the most interesting mod I've played, it is totally unique on the scene. While golden ball uses the levels of SOC it is a totally new story, with new scripted events and creative use of the assets to make the world feel new. This is a much more cerebral experience than a straight up shooter, involving puzzles and convoluted questlines with C&C, and a deadly zone that much more centered around avoiding death from anomalies than it is about shooting muties in the face. Golden sphere is very much in the vein of "roadside picnic" even actually featuring characters from that book (thankfully, it is done a way that does not feel like fan service). For me this mod totally reintroduced the feeling of alieness and mystery in SoC that i had long since lost.

Zone of Alienation: ZoA is a derivative of AMK that is notable for introducing a magazine system and polishing the ballistics. The magazine system is a bit of a gimmick, but a welcome one that adds to the immersion and feeling of having to prepare for trips into the zone, but it also has important tactical consequences in the gameplay as you now dont have magical pools of ammo and cant simply spam reload to top up whenever there is a lull in the action. ZoA is a fun mod focused on realism/tacticool-nerdery, but the problem is it is notoriously unstable. It is in fact, one of the least stable mods I have ever played. And its never going to be fixed: the creator is one of those "i cant do this anymore!!!" faggots who starts projects and then leaves them very unfinished, a habit he has continued ever since which has earned him a bit of reputation as a meme in the stalker community.

I just gave AMKAE a spin since I was looking for a mod with a nice mix of grafix/atmosphere and gameplay improvements. I'm not going to knock the mod yet but I made a few... observations:

1) holy shit, Strelok's a world class sprinter! And he can just keep going! At least he starts panting at 50% stamina and can't sprint anymore at 20% which leaves me a bit unsure what the remaining stamina is for...
2) sneaking around is apparently very exhausting since he starts panting quite quickly but it sounds like the panting is coming from somewhere a meter to the side which made me look for enemies around the corner.
3) there's a fair amount of ambient animal screeching and yelling but it really doesn't sound very believable. Dog barking in particular sounds like it's coming from 10 meters away from where I am despite the fact there's obviously no dog in town...

The gunplay felt good though, playing on Master obviously.

 

[Edija]

Dead Air has had some news recently:

(Shameless self-insert)

or you can read them at:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/dead-air/news/dead-air-news-3

 

[Young_Hollow]

As someone who has Clear Sky but hasn't played it and is a beginner to Stalker modding, which among CoP and SoC should I get for a good beginner's experience, diversity of gameplay mods from easy to difficult/realistic and stable / less buggy to play on vanilla for a first playthrough? Thanks Codex!

 

[Edija]

As someone who has Clear Sky but hasn't played it and is a beginner to Stalker modding, which among CoP and SoC should I get for a good beginner's experience, diversity of gameplay mods from easy to difficult/realistic and stable / less buggy to play on vanilla for a first playthrough? Thanks Codex!

You played Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat? If not, play those first.
When it comes to modding you can ease yourself in by playing Call of Chernobyl, when it becomes too easy and boring you should probably play Stalker: Anomaly. You can also try out Dead Air at that point if you're all about that Russian Slav jank and getting gently caressed and made love to next to a camp fire in the Zone by Monolith and mutants.

 

[Young_Hollow]

Haven't played either. So Shadow of Chernobyl then? Not Pripiyat? I do intend to play vanilla like you said to ease myself into the game, so a good vanilla is important.

 

[Edija]

Play Shadow of Chernobyl first, Clear Sky is usually seen as the worst vanilla game so you might as well skip that one if you don't like it, but I recommend playing it as well if you actually can take it, Call of Pripyat is very good and the last official Stalker game that came out.

Play mods only after playing these, starting with Call of Chernobyl, a mod that merges the maps of all three official games and let's you do whatever you want on them, a freeplay mod. The rest of my previous post applies after that.

 

[Tweed]

Clear Sky is still worth playing, it just has....issues.

 

[Tacgnol]

My current build in shadow chernobyl.

[/IMG]

Which mod is that?

 

[CappenVarra]

@Young_Hollow if you haven't played Shadow of Chernobyl, you have not played stalker - many other iterations exist and bring tasty treats to the table, but without playing the original you are not one of us

 

[cretin]

https://www.moddb.com/games/stalker...mastered-ogsr-english-edition-beta-main-files

Gave this a spin, seems very good so far and is bascially what I wanted earlier this year. If you're confused, there was a an official update for OGSE 0693 that ported it to the 64 bit "OGSR" engine. This mod is a further updated engine and is a heavily modified OGSE 0693, mainly featuring a new weapon arsenal (including 3d PiP scopes) and much needed rebalancing of the gunplay and mutants. Its not really what I'm looking for at the moment (the latest Anomaly currently has my attention, which i did not expect) but from the little I played, it runs great and looks great. OGSE, improved, basically.

 

[cretin]

My current build in shadow chernobyl.

[/IMG]

Which mod is that?

looks like OP 2.1 (aka joint pak 2.1) which is a massive, absolutely insane soup with no standards, taste or restraint whatsoever.

 

[cretin]

christ, the latest anomaly is a piece of shit optimization wise. This laptop I've got (1660ti 6gb, 16gb ram, I7) is capable of running notoriously badly optimized games like Insurgency on high at 90 frames and 70s during intense scenes, meanwhile Anomaly, i had to ditch dx10 for dx9 enhanced, and even then, when it gets to the evening in this mod, i get drops down into 30-45 fps range. Ridiculous. I'm dropping this and going to OGSR instead where i can enjoy high frames and DX11. I guess I'll wait for dead air for a freeplay mod.

edit: reinstalling it seems to have fixed the problem, what the fuck. Guess I'm playing anomaly again, thanks for reading my blog

 

[normie]

 

[Baron Dupek]

Gunslinger beta is out
https://www.moddb.com/mods/gunslinger-mod/videos/gunslinger-mod-stalker-call-of-pripyat-beginning

that's surprise tbh, it was too good to come out

 

[jebsmoker]

i'm currently helping out with the translation for goldenball. i'm tempted to help out with gunslinger's translation, which, realistically, wouldn't take long at all, but i have a feeling someone else is gonna beat me to the punch since its insanely popular

 

[cretin]

Gunslinger beta is out
https://www.moddb.com/mods/gunslinger-mod/videos/gunslinger-mod-stalker-call-of-pripyat-beginning

that's surprise tbh, it was too good to come out

I must be the only person on the scene not even a little hyped for this. Half the features that were hyping gunslinger are no longer at all unique to it (3d PiP optics for example) and ultimately its just a glorified weapon pack, one the author is making quite clear he will not allow to be ported to any other project. So... Vanilla CoP with new weapons and a 3D PDA. Thats what this is. Hard pass for me.

 

[jebsmoker]

slavs well versed in the ways of x-ray are gonna reverse engineer it. mark my words

 

[Tancred]

Cool, didn't think Gunslinger was ever going to come out in any form. Time to dig out my COP disc again.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Just clicked on it. Less enthused now that it's not adding revolvers. I want to see handcannons.