Stalker - The Good, The Bad, & The Ukranian

[EvoG]

Best gun in the game is Vintar sniper rifle btw...thats the gun that puts everyone and every thing down.

• It makes zero noise (quietest silenced weap)
  
  Scope is long range
  
  Its automatic (despite the tiny 10 round mag)
  
  It fires highly visible tracers

Whats great about that last one is that you can easily adjust your next shot and, you can see that this game REALLY does have ballisitics modeling. There's some great satisfaction from 'lobbing' a round from way the fuck off and pinging somene in the head. Doubly so when you snap shot lob a round at a moving target with trajectory and lead compensation. Also, firing this gun at night and watching the rounds skip off of hard surfaces looks exactly like anything you'd see on the Military Channel showing off night vision weapons firing. :D


...ending still sucks btw...

 

[suibhne]

I got as far as Strelok's stash and the controller there before the patch was released, but that was early enough in the game that I just restarted. I'm enjoying it even more now. Respawning is cooled down slightly (at least at the car park - I went to bed last night before entering the Garbage), loot drops are a little more reasonable (a little less loot, that is), and combat is slightly easier even tho I'm now playing at a higher difficulty.

The armor degradation is a huge bummer, tho. Armor takes damage far too quickly in my opinion. I'd be fine with this if armor could be repaired and/or drops were more common; in fact, I could even get into it, as it would mean firefights had a more realtistic downside than simply using a medkit to heal yourself back to 100%. As it is now, tho, it's hardly worth paying top dollar for armor that seriously degrades after only a few firefights.

Still, I'm enjoying this more than any other FPS in years, with the exception of HL2 and Ep. 1. Atmosphere and world design are fantastic.

 

[JrK]

The armor degradation is a huge bummer, tho. Armor takes damage far too quickly in my opinion. I'd be fine with this if armor could be repaired and/or drops were more common; in fact, I could even get into it, as it would mean firefights had a more realtistic downside than simply using a medkit to heal yourself back to 100%. As it is now, tho, it's hardly worth paying top dollar for armor that seriously degrades after only a few firefights.

Then again, this does give one a little incentive to collect money... You're going to need to buy a few new armors after a while. What is sad is how one firefight can reduce your armor rating by 15% or so. Considering you'll be in numerous firefights...

 

[Astromarine]

Just started playing the game today, I'm still wandering around in the Cordon doing jobs. So far, the atmosphere of the game is awesome. I loved the first main mission to free that stalker, though being my first serious combat and having started at Veteran, it took me a while to finish :D

I didn't think accuracy was too much of a problem, by the way. With CTRL+shift on, and looking through the weapon sights, I managed to make a couple nice long range kills. Sure, you waste a lot of ammo, but it's plentiful enough

 

[suibhne]

Then again, this does give one a little incentive to collect money... You're going to need to buy a few new armors after a while. What is sad is how one firefight can reduce your armor rating by 15% or so. Considering you'll be in numerous firefights...

Some of the armor flavor texts actually refer to self-modification of armor, so I just don't understand why it can't be repaired in-game. Even if you can't do it on your own, the service should be provided. It could even be an interesting gameplay mechanic, requiring you to give up your armor for a day (maybe) and pay a pile o' money.

The upside is that this was only introduced in the patch and may be retuned in future updates.

Btw, the CRPG.ru interview posted above is great.

 

[Fez]

I wish I didn't have to hold two keys to do the full duck. I feel like I need an extra finger to work the moves.

 

[suibhne]

I wish I didn't have to hold two keys to do the full duck. I feel like I need an extra finger to work the moves.

+1

And there's also the fact I can't figure out a good reason to do the full duck - it's not really prone, and it doesn't usually give any advantages over the half-duck. One way to make the controls a bit easier is to get rid of the half-duck and instead bind it to the duck toggle, then use the lower duck on its own after toggling.

...Er, I think.

 

[mister lamat]

i never thought accuracy was really a problem in the first place. asking for a pistol to be effective at 40+ yards is really stretching what they're capable of. same goes for all the russian variant assault rifles and subs... they are what they are, dirt cheap and functional. it's not one of those things where realism is getting in the way of fun, if anything the realism actually adds to it.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

I wish I didn't have to hold two keys to do the full duck. I feel like I need an extra finger to work the moves.

+1

And there's also the fact I can't figure out a good reason to do the full duck - it's not really prone, and it doesn't usually give any advantages over the half-duck. One way to make the controls a bit easier is to get rid of the half-duck and instead bind it to the duck toggle, then use the lower duck on its own after toggling.

...Er, I think.

Well, some objects only provide cover, or enough cover, if you do a full duck. And I think you make less noise and are less visible while on the move in the full duck. Plus you're a smaller target.

 

[Dpayne]

Fuck it, I just bought the game. It was only 35 bucks at Best Buy anyway.

 

[Micmu]

I'm really enjoying this one, a great FPS+. I even like it more than FarCry.
After I wasted money on generic crap like HL2 and Doom 3, this is really money well spent.
What bothers me so far is the obnoxious respawning of bandits, they really shouldn't pull this arcadish element along. Other than that, It's pretty neat.

 

[Jasede]

This is a great game and was VERY cheap too, only 39 EUR, which is only 52$, pretty cheap for a new game in Germany. It's the first game I've bought in a long, -long- time that doesn't feel like a waste of money.

Absolutely recommended. It gets the furry stamp of approval.

 

[Dpayne]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who was massively disappointed in Half Life 2.

 

[Blacklung]

Man, what is up with GSC right now? Their forums have been down for maintenance for over 2 days now. I can't even find any good technical support for my single game problem. That's right, just one. Everything works fine in the game except for one area which is unplayable for what I can only assume to be due to bad programming (actually has fewer hiforms, polys, statics, and particles than a bunch of other places, but the render and r_dump have skyrocketed for no apparent reason).

 

[suleo]

Their forums have been under "maintenance" for 90% of the time this past week. And when they actually work, they are horribly slow.

You might have some luck asking or searching around at the gamefaqs forums.

 

[Kingston]

Wee, I got it working. Patched it to v1.0001 and started playing. I can play with almost everything at full detail except for the lighting! I thought my radeon x600 would at least be capable of the object lighting (dynamic wouldn't obviously work) seeing as its done just that on games like F.E.A.R. It won't allow me to change the setting... boohoo.

Still, the game is pretty kickass. I got the shit scared out of me when I thought I had wiped out all the bandits in some house and started scavenging. I entered some small room and some bandit was hiding there and blew me away with his shotty.

 

[suibhne]

One of the game's strengths is that it's extremely moddable, and the user mod scene is already picking up.

 

[Blacklung]

Well, I think I finally fixed some of my speed issues and the game is still beautiful at a high DX8 settings. Don't know, didn't check out the Wild Territories again yet, but I did plumb the depths of Lab X16 in the lake area. That place alone has payed for the game. It made FEAR seem like a picnic in the park (no puns intended). Let others say what they will, this is probably the best FPS game I have ever played. It's definitely true when they say the more you play the more it just opens up. Taking out Snorks with one hit to the noggin is shooter fun at its best. Now I just need to take a break though. Haven't slept in over...36 hours (not all playing of course: Class, trying to find tweaks, installing new drivers). If you guys even like FPS's a little bit and have at least a great 4 or 3 year old rig, I highly reccomend this game. Death to old school hit boxes.

 

[ibo]

I read the book, seen the movie and maybe I am to much influenced by them.
What I liked is the game atmosphere, but there are quite few things I did not like.

In no particular order:

The ZONE is no Detroit downtown, or mountain of Mordor, so why is so overcrowded? I can not move without geting harassed by people. More than 3 peoples in an area is already a crowd, this was supose to be the ZONE.
Since when you use a gun in the zone to solve the problems? The area was suposed to be full of traps, not of retardation. If shooting need to be done, that should happen outside the ZONE, with the military and the bandits/stalkers.
What the military is doing there? The area was suposed to be closed to public and military went inside once and nobody got out to tell the story. Since then, baricades, guns and patrools stays outside not inside.
The respawning is stupid.
Why they have to put a beeping anomaly detector to ruin the atmosphere?
The anomalies should be fewer and much more deadly, harder to spot, and some of them constantly changing places and apearing new ones.
The artifacts, it should make sense to hunt for rare artifacts, and the comercial system sucks. No financial motivation.
The mission based exploration ruin the game for me. The world should be open to exploration from the begining without artificial bariers, and the only things stoping you should be the equipment and the anomalies.
Equipment should be available in store from the begining, the money should make the difference of what you can and you can not buy and where you can or can not go.

If someone can MOD this game and remove the missions constrain, the peoples from inside the ZONE and 90% of the monsters, I would gladly explore the game world looking for artifacts.

 

[Marsal]

form:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewto ... c&start=40

Search for user.ltx, make a backup, replace original values with these (c&p & replace)

ph_frequency 85.00000
ph_iterations 16
r1_dlights on
r1_dlights_clip 35.
r1_glows_per_frame 8
r1_lmodel_lerp 0.1
r1_pps_u -1.
r1_pps_v 0.
r1_ssa_lod_a 64.
r1_ssa_lod_b 48.
r1_tf_mipbias 0.
r2_aa off
r2_aa_break 0.800000,0.500000,0.000000
r2_aa_kernel 0.5
r2_aa_weight 0.250000,0.250000,0.000000
r2_allow_r1_lights off
r2_gi off
r2_gi_clip 0.001
r2_gi_depth 1
r2_gi_photons 16
r2_gi_refl 0.9
r2_gloss_factor 1.
r2_ls_bloom_fast off
r2_ls_bloom_kernel_b 0.7
r2_ls_bloom_kernel_g 4.
r2_ls_bloom_kernel_scale 0.63
r2_ls_bloom_speed 75.
r2_ls_bloom_threshold 0.08
r2_ls_depth_bias -0.0003
r2_ls_depth_scale 1.00001
r2_ls_dsm_kernel 0.7
r2_ls_psm_kernel 0.7
r2_ls_squality 0.5
r2_ls_ssm_kernel 0.7
r2_mblur 1.
r2_parallax_h 0.04
r2_slight_fade 0.1
r2_ssa_lod_a 48.
r2_ssa_lod_b 32.
r2_sun off
r2_sun_depth_far_bias -0.00001
r2_sun_depth_far_scale 1.
r2_sun_depth_near_bias 0.00001
r2_sun_depth_near_scale 1.
r2_sun_details off
r2_sun_focus on
r2_sun_lumscale 1.
r2_sun_lumscale_amb 0.3
r2_sun_lumscale_hemi 1.1
r2_sun_near 12.
r2_sun_near_border 0.75
r2_sun_tsm on
r2_sun_tsm_bias -0.01
r2_sun_tsm_proj 0.3
r2_tf_mipbias 0.
r2_tonemap on
r2_tonemap_adaptation 1.
r2_tonemap_amount 0.7
r2_tonemap_lowlum 0.0001
r2_tonemap_middlegray 0.6
r2_wait_sleep 0
r2_zfill off
r2_zfill_depth 0.5
r2em 0.
r__detail_density 0.44
r__geometry_lod 1.
r__supersample 4
r__tf_aniso 4
renderer renderer_r2
rs_c_brightness 1.
rs_c_contrast 1.
rs_c_gamma 1.2
rs_fullscreen on
rs_refresh_60hz off
rs_stats off
rs_v_sync off
rs_vis_distance 1.5

And near the bottom:
texture_lod 3

Should double the frame rates for dynamic lightning. It did for me. My config: A64 3000+, 1GB RAM, 6600GT, played on 1024*768, medium settings (can go higher but want smoot performance).

 

[Kingston]

Why the fuck won't object lighting work with my x600? I know it isn't a 9.0c (its 9.0b) card but object lighting shouldn't require it. I can do without all the fancy parrallax mapping etc.

Specs: AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1 gig ram, Ati Radeon x600 256 mb.

 

[Ladonna]

If anyone here enjoyed Far Cry, and they own Stalker, please give me a rundown on which you prefer and why.

Also a run down on differences please.

And I couldn't give a hoot about multiplayer.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

If anyone here enjoyed Far Cry, and they own Stalker, please give me a rundown on which you prefer and why.

Also a run down on differences please.

And I couldn't give a hoot about multiplayer.

Even though Far Cry is a damn good game, I prefer STALKER, so that should go to say something.

- The AI is better.
- I think the weapons are cooler, and there are many more of them.
- There's the survival aspect that's absent from Far Cry (In STALKER you manage your inventory; weapons, ammo, multiple types of medical supplies, food, et cetera).
- The atmosphere is a lot cooler too.
- Your flashlight doesn't have its batteries run down.
- There are proper ballistics compared to Far Cry.
- In STALKER you don't have to kill anything that moves (contrary to Far Cry); you can make or break alliances, contacts.
- STALKER has a world that you can explore. You can go back to old areas, et cetera. While Far Cry relied on levels, IIRC. The world is also alive. You'll see mutant boars fighting with mutant dogs, mutants eating their vanquished enemies, et cetera. It's all quite believable.

 

[wizard]

Why the fuck won't object lighting work with my x600? I know it isn't a 9.0c (its 9.0b) card but object lighting shouldn't require it. I can do without all the fancy parrallax mapping etc.

Specs: AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1 gig ram, Ati Radeon x600 256 mb.

Object lighting might use FP16-blending which your X600 doesn't support iirc but this is just pure guess, don't know anything how the stalker engine handles lighting.

 

[Nicolai]

Anyone up for some juicy STALKER multiplayer?