STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Ol' Willy]

Aren't those killcounts busted? Like at some point they add more to random line (or it's mostly stalkers)?

I don't think so, the numbers match up

 

[NecroLord]

The actual cover system (smart cover) the AI uses, that allows them doing things like shooting through a hole in a wall or blind firing, only exists in Clear Sky, I don't know if it even still exists as a function in the CoP version of the engine. CoC modders planned on adding it into their mod, but no idea if it was ever implemented, it would require making these cover tags for all non-CS maps.

This is really a negative feature as it makes NPCs stick at one point for far longer that without it, turning otherwise good combat into popamole

And obviously, not really sound decision for bigger maps. Clear Sky is the most straightforward game of the series with fairly small combat zones, which are often scripted

Almost all maps in CS are from SoC. And even on bigger maps the fights always take place at distances of like 50-100 meters max in most games. This is also why all those mods that make "realistic" weapon accuracy and aimbot AI are made by people who don't understand game design.

So I replayed Clear Sky to remember why I (like many other people) didn't like it much.

My point stands - the combat in CS takes place in far smaller combat zones which are sublocations like forposts, farms, etc. Most of the time they are enclosed and have just a couple of entrance points.

By Jove, I forgot how terribly AI was butchered in Clear Sky.

Firstly, AI movement was capped. Bots simply don't move as much as they do in SoC. This was done because lots of combat is group on group and takes place on smaller combat zones. Vanilla SoC AI would move too much for devs liking

But on the other hand, AI now has zero reaction time. They see you, they shoot, no delay. And they now have pinpoint accuracy.

I thought my game was broken, you know, like it happened with older games without V-sync, but no. The weapon type now only deals with bot's damage, the accuracy is the same. As an example, I had Abakan fully upgraded through sniper line, I was hitting the bot like half of my shots. The bot had AKS-74U and was hitting my with every burst. I could clearly see his bursts coming to me in a straight line, no dispersion.

Bot's routine with grenades is a total clownshow. Bots have a dead-on on your location and throw grenade right in your face if you don't move, regardless of the range or line of sight. It was amusing to sit behind a cover and seeing a grenade land right on top of it.

The best part is lategame if you start jumping teleports and game spawns monoliths on you. Because bots like to open with a grenade, let's say, three monoliths are getting spawned and all three of them are throwing grenades at you. If you don't move, you will be killed by three near simultaneous grenade blasts.

AI also bugs a lot. If you sit behind shoulder level cover (it covers the lower part of your screen) AI won't see you! You can take them at ease without getting any return fire. Especially noticeable at southern blockpost at Kordon

We know that Clear Sky was made in a haste and was a cash grab, but how they managed to butcher the AI like that - simply remarkable. Clear Sky has some replayability, but even back then I finished it only once or twice

What's your take on Call of Pripyat?

 

[Ol' Willy]

What's your take on Call of Pripyat?

In terms of quest design, exploration and storyline it is the best in the trilogy. But in terms of combat it is kinda lackluster, way less combat than in previous two games.

My favorite is SoC, and CoP would be a second place

 

[NecroLord]

What's your take on Call of Pripyat?

In terms of quest design, exploration and storyline it is the best in the trilogy. But in terms of combat it is kinda lackluster, way less combat than in previous two games.

My favorite is SoC, and CoP would be a second place

Same.
CoP has really good exploration and quests, but is not as atmospheric as SoC, nor as challenging. SoC had great combat sequences. CoP has some, but not enough.

 

[V17]

I think it's a good idea to play Clear Sky with Sky Reclamation Project or what it's called. It fixes some of the issues you mention, and you can choose which ones to leave as is. At the very least letting it fix the grenade spam greatly increases the enjoyment from the game.

The ending was retarded even without the Monolith soldiers teleporting on top of you with nades in their hands. But apart from that I thought it was an enjoyable game with the SRP fixes.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Since I already replayed the first two games, there was no reason not to replay CoP as well.

Playing them back to back in a short period it is so noticeable how well crafted CoP is. SoC is really a butchered game, if you have seen the builds, if you pay attention in the game itself, you will see a lot of scars. CS is just raw. But CoP feels very different, with better thought out locations, actual quests and characters, improved mechanics and improved items, etc. I think CoP is closest thing to what GSC wanted to make when they started making Stalkers at all. It is especially noticeable if you compare OLR 2.5 with CoP

Although, in my opinion, CoP is just too short and too easy, as it has fewer combat and easier character progression overall. Also, it has the lowest replay value out of all three. SoC is worth replaying because of great combat, you can try different approaches and tactics. CS in theory is the same, and you can try joining different factions. But CoP has far less combat, and storywise, variativity is just not there. The only significant fork in the game is choosing between stalkers and bandits on Zaton, but it is very short and doesn't really affect much (moreso, it is always more profitable to side with stalkers). I think it explains why most of the mods for SoC are gameplay mods and most of the mods for CoP are story mods.

On an unrelated note, I still keep this artifact. The pristine, unpatched version of SoC with God awful Starforce strapped to it. Notice how it doesn't say "Shadow of Chernobyl" anywhere on the package since other entries were not yet released

Notice how it is called a "survival FPS"

 

[Ol' Willy]

As I write stuff over here, I will also say few things about NLC although I played it a while ago. Very interesting mod, well made, but I had mixed feelings about it.

The amount of new mechanics in it is impressive. The inventory autism is top notch; I liked the reworked, barter oriented economy; the manipulations with artifacts; etc, in regards to survival FPS features NLC is very rich. There are features that filter away many new players but nothing impossible once you know tactics or hacks to overcome them. Damage model in the mod is awesome by the way, the head alone is divided in several damage zones for each creature.

And the writing too. Usually, muh hardcore mods have barely writing at all, but not NLC. NLC has reworked main plot which I like and consider to be very decent, dialogues could be overly verbose but nothing to scare us (still far cry from Planescape levels). Different factions have different styles of talking which is quite remarkable.

But the gameplay itself... The amount of fetching in NLC is insane. You do fetch quests to finish fetch quests to finish fetch quests... You want equipment, you fetch, you want progress, you got it, you had to fetch more, a true courier simulator.

Because of this, the amount of running around the Zone is absolutely bonkers. My playthrough was around 200 hours, and of them, maybe 40 were of actual gameplay and dialogues. The rest was walking, grinding artifacts and trophies. And mind you, I was playing 3.0 which is considered to be easier, with guides and edited ACTOR file for speed so without it you can easily clock closer to 300 hours.

The main enemies in the game are low tier critters that are spawned non-stop in mindboggling amounts which reminds me of some oldest Stalker mods where spawns were simply broken. Of course, critter spawn zones are well defined so if you know the routes you may walk around without getting ever close to them. But sometimes (read - often) you will need trophies, so you would have to kill them. I think I fragged over a thousand of dogs, rodents, hogs, pigs and other shit over my run. Top tier critters, though, are victims of the mighty knife. You can kill anything at all with one knife attack, even pseudogiant. Just save nearby.

A-Life is absent. Aside from relentless critter spawns, nothing really happens in the Zone and the only change happens as you disable the brain scorcher.

Another problem is that NLC is very linear. When you do quests, it's the right way or highway. Either you farm the best outcome, or end up with very subpar rewards and brickwalled questlines. Add right here that key characters could be killed or disappear from the game because of some bugs. Regarding the amount of new stuff put into the game and amount of crutches needed to enable it, the stability is generally fine, but far from being perfect.

Now a point of criticism you want see very often. Despite muh hardcore approach, NLC still (as far as 3.0 goes) lacks the mag mechanics. Not a revelation that many muh hardcore FPSes and milsims don't draw ammo from a general pool but instead simulate mags (ArmA is good example), so you reload mags instead of just some abstract ammo. Some games, like Hideous Destructor for Doom, have proper mag manager where you can unload and reload mags you have in your inventory. Not sure if Anomaly or Misery have such mechanics, but not having it in muh hardcore mod is simply not right.

Because NLC is such a mixed bag, I sometimes have the urge to replay it, but then remember about endless walking and waves of trash mobs and decide not to. I know that lite version of NLC exists, but it feels self defeating

 

[Baron Dupek]

I've read somewhere they restored (in NLC) that old feature where NPCs could finish quests if you weren't fast enough.

And mags in ShoC? There was an attempts in Zone of Alienation. To call it "buggy" would be understatement of the last century...

 

[Ol' Willy]

I've read somewhere they restored (in NLC) that old feature where NPCs could finish quests if you weren't fast enough.

This was definitely not the case in 3.0. If you fail the quest you either brickwall the future quests from this character or take a hit to reputation, that's all

I am not sure if such feature ever existed at all. As far as I know, not a single of released builds has it. The only exception is artifact hunting quests from Boroda in CoP

 

[Gerrard]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

 

[deuxhero]

You get reload speed penalties if your load bearing equipment forces you to do multiple mags in one pouch. Done. That's a soft limit of ~four spare mags ready for common web gear options, with option to double it if you are willing to take slower reloading.

 

[Gerrard]

You get reload speed penalties if your load bearing equipment forces you to do multiple mags in one pouch. Done. That's a soft limit of ~four spare mags ready for common web gear options, with option to double it if you are willing to take slower reloading.

Good job immediately proving me right.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

The first obvious advantage is to enable the use of different types of mags.

The "ammo capacity increased" type of upgrade in maтy games annoys me to no end. How can you "upgrade" a mag, it's a fucking replaceable part!

The old trusty AKM can take 30 and 45 mags plus 75 drums

With mag manager you can choose whatever mags you want given the situation. Drum feels like a good choice, but it is heavy, thus, penalties to reload or draw speeds

- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading

As I said, this is done well in Hideous Destructor:

- Assault rifle there uses caseless ammo, so when you unload the mag a round may accidentally go off, causing little damage
- if you press R shortly, you throw away the mag. But if you hold R for a while, you retain it

Isn't it great?

 

[cretin]

As I write stuff over here, I will also say few things about NLC although I played it a while ago. Very interesting mod, well made, but I had mixed feelings about it.

The amount of new mechanics in it is impressive. The inventory autism is top notch; I liked the reworked, barter oriented economy; the manipulations with artifacts; etc, in regards to survival FPS features NLC is very rich. There are features that filter away many new players but nothing impossible once you know tactics or hacks to overcome them. Damage model in the mod is awesome by the way, the head alone is divided in several damage zones for each creature.

And the writing too. Usually, muh hardcore mods have barely writing at all, but not NLC. NLC has reworked main plot which I like and consider to be very decent, dialogues could be overly verbose but nothing to scare us (still far cry from Planescape levels). Different factions have different styles of talking which is quite remarkable.

But the gameplay itself... The amount of fetching in NLC is insane. You do fetch quests to finish fetch quests to finish fetch quests... You want equipment, you fetch, you want progress, you got it, you had to fetch more, a true courier simulator.

Because of this, the amount of running around the Zone is absolutely bonkers. My playthrough was around 200 hours, and of them, maybe 40 were of actual gameplay and dialogues. The rest was walking, grinding artifacts and trophies. And mind you, I was playing 3.0 which is considered to be easier, with guides and edited ACTOR file for speed so without it you can easily clock closer to 300 hours.

The main enemies in the game are low tier critters that are spawned non-stop in mindboggling amounts which reminds me of some oldest Stalker mods where spawns were simply broken. Of course, critter spawn zones are well defined so if you know the routes you may walk around without getting ever close to them. But sometimes (read - often) you will need trophies, so you would have to kill them. I think I fragged over a thousand of dogs, rodents, hogs, pigs and other shit over my run. Top tier critters, though, are victims of the mighty knife. You can kill anything at all with one knife attack, even pseudogiant. Just save nearby.

A-Life is absent. Aside from relentless critter spawns, nothing really happens in the Zone and the only change happens as you disable the brain scorcher.

Another problem is that NLC is very linear. When you do quests, it's the right way or highway. Either you farm the best outcome, or end up with very subpar rewards and brickwalled questlines. Add right here that key characters could be killed or disappear from the game because of some bugs. Regarding the amount of new stuff put into the game and amount of crutches needed to enable it, the stability is generally fine, but far from being perfect.

Now a point of criticism you want see very often. Despite muh hardcore approach, NLC still (as far as 3.0 goes) lacks the mag mechanics. Not a revelation that many muh hardcore FPSes and milsims don't draw ammo from a general pool but instead simulate mags (ArmA is good example), so you reload mags instead of just some abstract ammo. Some games, like Hideous Destructor for Doom, have proper mag manager where you can unload and reload mags you have in your inventory. Not sure if Anomaly or Misery have such mechanics, but not having it in muh hardcore mod is simply not right.

Because NLC is such a mixed bag, I sometimes have the urge to replay it, but then remember about endless walking and waves of trash mobs and decide not to. I know that lite version of NLC exists, but it feels self defeating

NLCs biggest weakest IMO is the lack of A-life, attempting to make up for it with a sort of mixed spawn system of fixed spawn 'gulags' along with random and scripted ambush spawns as you well know. I have mixed feelings about the system, on the one hand, being bumrushed out of the bushes by 20 dogs, two pseudos and a pack of tushkanos is pure adrenaline and classic high octane shooter gameplay. The scripted spawns can sometimes provide an exciting punctuation to quest beats. On the other hand, it's definitely less dynamic and immersive than the classical A-life system, and feels much more gamey.

My general opinion of NLC has soured much over the years. The fetch quest guantlet is annoying, and fans would point out, obviously, that the real game is the gameplay in between - fighting muties, managing resources, thinking about efficient trade routes - but the grind is insane and these days feels like a waste of time to me. I especially hate the plethora of quests that involve transporting something ridiculously heavy. Apparently russians love this sort of shit and think its a braniac exercise on efficient use of labor or something, when in reality its just tedium that involves either repeatedly sprinting to max exertion and then dropping your backpack over and over, or dropping the item on the ground and attempting to literally push it and hoping like hell it doesn't encounter a physics bug somewhere along the way. Either way will turn a completely uninteresting section of gameplay into something that takes up the better part of an hour.

 

[Gerrard]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

The first obvious advantage is to enable the use of different types of mags.

The "ammo capacity increased" type of upgrade in maтy games annoys me to no end. How can you "upgrade" a mag, it's a fucking replaceable part!

The old trusty AKM can take 30 and 45 mags plus 75 drums

The weapon upgrade system itself was due for a rework, I was honestly surprised it hasn't been done in base Anomaly. It should work with weapon parts, the same way that attachments currently do, that you could add and remove at will (at a workbench), instead of the current one that upon closer inspection seems to be quite hacked together.

 

[cretin]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

The first obvious advantage is to enable the use of different types of mags.

The "ammo capacity increased" type of upgrade in maтy games annoys me to no end. How can you "upgrade" a mag, it's a fucking replaceable part!

The old trusty AKM can take 30 and 45 mags plus 75 drums

The weapon upgrade system itself was due for a rework, I was honestly surprised it hasn't been done in base Anomaly. It should work with weapon parts, the same way that attachments currently do, that you could add and remove at will (at a workbench), instead of the current one that upon closer inspection seems to be quite hacked together.

You want to look into stalker desolation

its an offshoot of anomaly that intends to have the most advanced weapon modificaiton system, like as advanced as EFT's, not the sort of hackjob that is currently present in mainstream anomaly.

 

[Ol' Willy]

especially hate the plethora of quests that involve transporting something ridiculously heavy. Apparently russians love this sort of shit and think its a braniac exercise on efficient use of labor or something, when in reality its just tedium that involves either repeatedly sprinting to max exertion and then dropping your backpack over and over, or dropping the item on the ground and attempting to literally push it and hoping like hell it doesn't encounter a physics bug somewhere along the way. Either way will turn a completely uninteresting section of gameplay into something that takes up the better part of an hour.

The general idea is to drastically limit your mobility so you won't just sprint through locations but think carefully about the route and possible dangers.

Which, of course, doesn't really work like that and becomes just a massive chore

 

[Baron Dupek]

Played Dead Air Revolution a bit

At the beginning I was fighting hordes of mutants with my melee weapons.
At the end of my adventure (not the in-game, just gave up at some point) I was fighting hordes of mutants with my melee weapons.
And that never changes because you need to be neutral with the army and bandits for their quest and safe passage.
No disguise available either. Got lucky with the latter by giving med to some laying (but still alive) bandit, which gave me enough rep boost. Still had to pay ransoms when they can't be avoided. If you miss any bandit asking for them (because you're blind or they started fighting with another wave of mutants) they become aggresive again.
No idea how I've got 80rep with the hogs, lol. Their heli can still randomly attack me, when they got decimated by mutants or stalkers, and I've been spotted nearby.
Some mutants can get random loot table including meds, ammo or artifacts. Is that the effect of Hunter's Kit? No idea. It's a decent backpack. Your inventory is limited by weight, but also space. Like in Road to the North.
Stalkers are looting stashes sometimes - better not dropping anything here.
New quests are decent - no map marking, but also sketchy translation. Not the first time for me.
Price rising (inflation) is there, but not so bad when you gather all those parts and find some spare artifacts - to get better detector you have to finish eggheads questline in Jupiter. Detectors can be upgraded to find more artifacts.
The most annoying part is mutants completely ignoring everyone nearby and rushing at us. They just run past stalkers squads firing at them to get you. They can decimate NPCs easily. Oh and important NPCs are not immortal. Have fun spending time in a game where it cuts you from quests.

 

[deuxhero]

You get reload speed penalties if your load bearing equipment forces you to do multiple mags in one pouch. Done. That's a soft limit of ~four spare mags ready for common web gear options, with option to double it if you are willing to take slower reloading.

Good job immediately proving me right.

How many mags do you think people can carry without sacrificing speed of access to some degree? Once you go beyond tactical tacos you need multiple mags to a pouch, which makes them much harder to access. The standard infantry loadout now is ~7 (3 double pouches, one in rifle).

 

[Ol' Willy]

Since this is a mod thread - my little rant about Stalker modding.

In general, most of the mods could be divided in two categories: muh HARDCORE and story mods. Of which we have:

I usually like hardcore shooters and milsims, stuff like ArmA, early Rainbow Six, early Insurgency, or aforementioned Hideous Destructor. But muh HARDCORE mods for Stalker have one major difference from such games - economy. And of course, economy in muh HARDCORE mods is fucked beyond any belief. The loot is so trashy that it is literal garbage not worth hauling around, the quest rewards are similarly shit - all the while prices are insane. What does it mean? Grind, a lot of grind. Gee, do you guys like to grind to afford any baseline normal stuff? Personally, not a fan

My second gripe is that lots of new mechanics and limitations apply to player, and player only. It's not ArmA where every unit on the map is subject to the same rules, in muh HARDCORE mods it's only you who suffer from jamming, weapon condition, only you can run out of ammo, only you suffer from hunger, radiation, psi, etc. Area is the worst in this regard, player is burdened by a plethora of new limitations including limb damage, while bots and critters behave just like in vanilla. It's always so pleasant to kill some guy and find out that he has a gun with 10% condition and 11 rounds on him... 11 rounds - do you need more to survive in the Zone?

For story mods... it would be easier to name good story based mods. Mods by Zhekan (Golden Sphere, Escape from the Zone, Return to the Zone) could be batshit insane, but at least they are enjoyable. OLR has some of the best quest design. NLC has good writing in dialogues and the reworked plot I like a lot, but NLC is a thing in itself and not really a "story mod".

For the rest... Either the writing is awfully bad, plotlines are cringe inducing or the quest that make no sense whatsoever. Even some mods with relatively high production values, Shards of the Past is concentrated cringe while Another Story has dull storyline with nonsensical quests... And then there is a stuff like Reborn trilogy, oh man... and Lost Alpha...

For now I installed CoC, rolled over STCoP weapon pack + EOC to play some faction warfare; no grind, no plot, just lots of combat with good weapons to chill out in the evenings

 

[Baron Dupek]

 

[jebsmoker]

true stalker is here. i tried some and i am actually surprised by how good its production quality is and how challenging the gameplay is

 

[Taim]

I had forgotten about this - this is awesome news.

For those who aren't as looped in: It's a mod made by a group of very high profile people in the modding community that is supposed to have some of the best production values this side of Anomaly. It comes with an english translation built in (although a cursory glance onto some player feedback shows its not perfect - alas).

For the 2 people who might be interested that aren't already on the C-Con discord - I'm posting a bunch of links for more information - hope your browser has auto-translate.

TRUE STALKER Socials and download links:

https://vk.com/wall-15844953_724374
https://ap-pro.ru/forums/topic/6273-true-stalker/

Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LEUr5o4g-4ptzcZgOt4MbgJ6j9hyIKcT
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sp-R4N2I1cDc8e4_oEDOrcZUp7X-gSrx (Backup Link)

Torrent link:
magnetxt=urn:btih:21CC20DC7309912ADA09222B91E9EE3F99C85F8C&dn=TrueStalker&tr=wss%3a%2f%2fwstracker.online

Torrent file was also provided by Meztinos (use something like qbittorrent)

Cloud.mail.ru:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/Zx9K/76gMdDvaU
Yandex:
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/TR2oA5bocAIlyQ

 

[Gerrard]

I only saw this and it was enough.

 

[cretin]

yeah that fucking UI is atrocious. Absolutely modern AAA cancer, I really hate it.

True Stalker might be the biggest drop on the scene in a while but for some reason I just cant bring myself to care about. It's probably good, I dont know. I'm more interested in prosectors at the moment.