Stalker - The Good, The Bad, & The Ukranian

[Blacklung]

It's the only site I can find so far.

 

[opium fiend]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but this thread is insanely long. So, anybody can recommend me a good stealth mod that doesn't add bugs or imbalances to the game? Also does anybody know how to make nights dark when playing without dynamic lightning, other that lowering gamma?

 

[Nicolai]

There's a "Darker Nights" mod over at the official STALKER forum. Bet it works with static lightning.

 

[Fez]

Does it work on the NPCs too, or will they then have super night vision?

 

[Ladonna]

The stealth mod I downloaded gets rid of the NPC 'night vision'. It allows them to see what the player can see, but not make a positive ID on you. Its better than the stock game for sure.

No, I don't have a link to it. Check in the mod forums over at the Stalker forums.

 

[opium fiend]

Ok, thanks. Do they work well? I'm a little paranoid and don't want to have to start over again, because of a buggy mod. Also, did any of you try that realism mod?

 

[Ladonna]

It works well.

I myself am waiting for the patch though. Not due to this mod, but due to the games lagginess later on.

 

[Sarvis]

The only problem with Ladonna's mod (assuming I found the same one) is that it turns dynamic lighting on. I've got to edit the settings to keep it off I think, and then I'm not 100% sure the mod will work properly. I mean, either that or I have to buy a much better video card.

 

[opium fiend]

I got Detection mod from oblivion-lost and it doesn't do that. The only problem is that it makes me too stealthy sometimes. Will have to try it more to see if its too unbalancing.

 

[Grandpa Gamer]

Easter egg in STALKER

This is probably old news to some, but I'd like to share it anyway.
Having reached three different endings, I was just exploring the gameworld and sightseeing in general, when I stumbled upon the corpse of Gordon Freeman in a parking garage. On it was a diary confirming his identity as well as containing some slightly funny complaints about working conditions, and a very powerful gun with the accuracy value set to zero. :shock:

 

[Ladonna]

I got Detection mod from oblivion-lost and it doesn't do that. The only problem is that it makes me too stealthy sometimes. Will have to try it more to see if its too unbalancing.

Sounds about right. Mine can do this, though the second version isn't horrid, it still causes the same thing. Wish they would hurry up with the damn patch.....

Grandpa, what garage was that in?

 

[Sarvis]

I've noticed with my stealth mod that there are times when the enemy is staring right at me from like 5 feet away and not shooting. I think it may be tied to night-time (which I don't really notice with everything turned all the way down) but it seems to happen indoors as well, when the area should be lit up.

*shrug*


Also, has anyone else noticed how ungodly powerful the knife is? I ran completely out of ammo fighting zombies in Yantar (right?) and got trapped. Figured I'd at least try a Resident Evil type stabfest with the knife, and ended up killing the zombies in 1 hit. WTF!?!

 

[Fez]

The knife is very good, but the obvious bad side is that if you don't drop them with that first hit then you could be in trouble when they let rip with the guns or some beast tears you apart. Satisfying to use if you can get away with it.

I've had moments where a pack of blind dogs came at me and all I had was a knife. Now that was fun.

 

[Grandpa Gamer]

Grandpa, what garage was that in?

It was in the "Wild territory" on the way from Duty headquarters to the mobile science lab. An underground parking garage not far from the burning helicopter. You have to jump over some cars and junk to get to the body. There are a few electrical anomalies as well.

By the way, next to the burning helicopter is an interesting gravity anomaly that I didn't notice the first time through. If you drop a gun there, the gun will hover and hurl itself towards you. I only encountered that kind of anomaly in underground labs before, where metal canisters and human bones attack you. (That freaked me out a bit the first time. Just about the scariest moment in any game I've played.) I didn't realise it worked on dropped equpment, though.

 

[Sarvis]

That's not an anomaly, it's a mutant. Poltergeist to be exact, you should see a little electrical looking cloud floating around, shoot it.

Yes, it definately freaked me out in the underground labs... haven't seen them elsewhere yet though.

 

[Atrokkus]

I only encountered that kind of anomaly in underground labs before, where metal canisters and human bones attack you. (That freaked me out a bit the first time. Just about the scariest moment in any game I've played.)

Ha! Reminded me of Ocean House in Bloodlines -- it has even more of that stuff. Weird how that this kind of "scary" shit is, perhaps, the only way to actually scare the player in a FPS game heh.


I'm somewhere in the middle of the game (havent yet visited the labs) and the only thing that gives me trouble (playin on Master difficulty) is mutants, especially bloodsuckers (the stealthy ones)...
Everything else (including heavily armed and exoskeleton using elite troopers) is easy to take care with my beautiful G36 assault rifle (i dont even need a sniper rifle, really).

 

[EvoG]

Just a quick update to that machine I was going to build...well, a...

MSI mobo (nForce SLI)
E6600 Core2Duo
4 gigs mem
800 gigs SATAII
1 8800GTS w/640megs


...gets you a REAL silky smooth Stalker with EVERYTHING set to MAX. Just absolutely trounced my old machine (3.4 ghz P4, 2 gigs mem, 6800GT w/256 megs), and I was still pushing through on it to completion. Its SO fluid and gorgeous that I'm now going to play again simply for the 'ride' of it, enjoying everything I went through as it should be enjoyed. OH! ...and it loads in like 20 seconds, first time start...versus LITERALLY 5+ minutes on the old fucking machine...

Whats rather impressive on a side note, the Core2Duo's dont get hot...ever. Where the 3.4 ghz sat at a fairly consisten 50 C, upwards of 60 - 70 on load, this thing never leaves 29 - 31 C, and on load 38 C...thats fucking remarkable. I can put the side of the computer back on!

On yet another note, XP Pro 32bit doesn't recognize the full 4 gigs of mem...I have 3.x gigs despite what BIOS and Belarc say, but when our development shit finally runs on Vista, we'll be upgrading. This mobo supports 8 gigs and Vista goes up to 128 gig now so it should be sick.

I haven't been this impressed with a computer in a LONG time...all for a mere grand from Newegg (consider I already had teh PSU, case and other misc. peripherals)


Cheers!


Cheers

 

[Atrokkus]

Lol, that's a huge overkill of a machine for a game like stALKER.
It runs VERY Smoothly on some pentium4, 1 gig ram and radeon 9600 (of course on medium settings only, no full lighting etc).

And it runs perfectly well on maximum settings with a rig like Core2duo 6300 (not overclocked), 2 gigs of ram and geforce 7600 GS.

Hah, in fact I actually managed to run it on an athlon 1600 (or something), 512 ram and geforce 3 Ti 200, on absolute minimum settings, and it was running relatively well. Of course laggy but playeable.

 

[EvoG]

Overkill eh? Well good thing I need it for work then!

...as for it 'running very smooth'...yea sure you can get anything to run when you turn down the features; the operative words are maximum settings (this means every slider railed to the right, with grass shadows turned on), as full dynamic lighting makes the world of difference in atmosphere. I don't consider it "Stalker" without it and/or with minimal settings, but yea, getting it to simply run on lesser machine is simple enough.


Cheers

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Nuts. I followed the arrows right to the end thinking everything would be tied up in one neat hit. Now I find the last save I have doesn't let me head back South (which is kinda annoying really as I don't see why they'd do that) and I have to start all over if I want to get the other endings (All I got was rich - which is what I already was).

Question is, is it worth starting all over again for those endings? I can't say the whole "Strelok" thing really interested me. No idea who he is or why I'd want to kill him and no real desire to find out either. Seems I made a mistake in writing that off as the "typical amnesia plot line"?

To be honest, I can't say I'm really that "wowed" by it now it's all over. The atmosphere is there (especially like the groups of birds and the dogs and the AI is EXCELLENT) but for example, I just didn't get those "Monolith" guys. Why they were there etc... It just seems not much is really explained about who these people are, other than they're there and you want to kill you, so you have to kill them. Very annoyed I couldn't get a Gauss Rifle in Pripyat off one of those guys who was using them against me, considering there are 5 or so guys in there with them. Seems they decided to make those bits inaccessable. Again, powerful weapon that you never use. What's the point?

I also ended up with far too much money and I wasn't even trying. The money is useless for the most part unless you're buying ammo (though I did buy a few suits of armour when they were better than what I was wearing). The best weapons are at the end in the part you can't get out of and overall, it felt like any other FPS. That is, it's railed. If I play again, I'll just be doing the same missions, won't I? Though mind you, I did skip the whole Freedom vs Duty business because A) I didn't know what was going on between those two and B) I wanted to do that later only seeing as my save won't let me go back there, I'm kind of screwed. I don't think picking either of those sides is going to change anything though, other than giving me a few more "kill more people" quests.

Is it worth playing again to see the different endings? Did I miss the point of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

 

[Kingston]

Graffix wh0res.

 

[Jasede]

Is it worth playing again to see the different endings? Did I miss the point of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

Yes.
Sadly, only -one- ending of all seven explains the story and brings a [very, very] satisfying conclusion. Hint: There is more game after the monolith.

 

[Jason]

The 1.0003 patch is out. Anyone try it? Any problems?

Saved games from 1.0001 version will work with 1.0003 version.

Connectivity.
Connecting to the server will be possible only if the host's version of the game is the same as yours.

The patch addresses the following changes:

* Added some textures of certain objects (for technical purposes).
* Added console command 'sv_listmaps' to view the list of maps queue.
* Added the support for additional mouse buttons (now they can be bound to certain actions).
* Fixed bugs with player's character health bar in Multi-player.
* Fixed the crash upon making the screenshot to a saved game.
* Fixed the bug with standing dead bodies upon connecting to the game.
* Fixed inventory items placing system (Free for all and Team play modes).
* Fixed the enumeration of the game's version.
* Fixed the crash with using Numpad in some localizations.
* Fixed the crash on the level "Military warehouse".
* Fixed the crash while idling on the pause menu
* Fixed the crash in dialog with Professor Sakharov on the Yantar level.
* Fixed the storyline task "Meet with the Guide", now you can get it by searching Ghost's corpse.
* Fixed the bug with NPCs spawning in front of the player.
* Fixed the A-life reaction time. Now A-life spawns new NPCs more seldom. Also NPC movement speed is decreased when NPC are on different level then the player.
* Binary files are now compiled with large address aware flag that supports up to 3GB address space (relevant for Windows VistaT users).
* Added the possibility to record/play the camera fly-around ('demo_record'/'demo_play' commands). Now Stalker is ready for benchmarks.
* Fixed aspect ratio 16/9. Now the owners of the widescreen displays will have the benefit from greater viewing radius.
* Fixed various crashes with dedicated server.
* The network packets have been merged. This will make the ping reduce twice or more.
* The correctness of map name is now verified when changing the map using the console.
* Fixed the dragging of dead bodies by monsters.
* Now dumps will be saved upon the game crashes.
* Fixed the in-game patching system for all localizations.
* Fixed the problem with the exceedingly long players' names.
* Fixed textual problems for 16/9 video format.
* Fixed game freezing upon trying to connect to a different version.
* Fixed binocular Spectator crash.
* Fixed non-existent grenade launcher firing.
* Fixed players turning invisible when reduced to a minimal amount of health.
* Fixed pre-selected skin not allowing for player spawn.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Well, I would install the patch but those Ukranian morons thought it would be a good idea to fuck up saved games from 0 to 0.1 versions. There's no way in hell I'm playing through the same bloody "Save the Hangar at the Garbage" 5 times again (plus every other "mission") just to install a patch. Their much talked about "save game converter" is also yet to materialise.

 

[Sarvis]

Very annoyed I couldn't get a Gauss Rifle in Pripyat off one of those guys who was using them against me, considering there are 5 or so guys in there with them. Seems they decided to make those bits inaccessable. Again, powerful weapon that you never use. What's the point?

You can get gauss rifles in Chernobyl itself. Though all the ones I found were in poor condition... possibly due to me being a little grenade happy.