STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Stavrophore]

My guess is that it was made on purpose to nerf weapons with a silencer like the op SVD-Dragunov.

Afaik, its an engine feature/bug, some values are not stored permanently in the save[like viewcone position] and are reinitialized upon load, the ai viewcone do a 360 degree so you are technically loading into the game already detected. If you are behind them in sufficiently thick bush on reload, the ai won't see you, but if you are behind them but in the open you are soiled. Why would they design it in this way, or omit such bug, idk.

 

[Gerrard]

When you load or enter a level your character does a weapon swap which is loud as fuck (the actual loudness is completely separate from how far away NPCs can hear it) and alerts enemies. I think it's fixed in ZRP though.

 

[Ol' Willy]

My guess is that it was made on purpose to nerf weapons with a silencer like the op SVD-Dragunov.

Nah, bots already have anti-sniper pattern of behavior

If you are behind them in sufficiently thick bush on reload, the ai won't see you, but if you are behind them but in the open you are soiled.

Nah too, they will get detection on you even if you are behind walls

When you load or enter a level your character does a weapon swap which is loud as fuck (the actual loudness is completely separate from how far away NPCs can hear it) and alerts enemies. I think it's fixed in ZRP though.

And not this too, sound will never alert bots

AI has three states:
calm - least awareness, moving along fixed paths
suspicious - triggered by seeing dead comrades, sound or gunfire, AI starts roaming around (loud sounds) or looking at the source (quieter sounds). This state is individual for each bot, they return to calm soon
alert - triggered by bots seeing you, all bots in the group get alerted and move in combat patters

Most likely reason is that saving bug is a crutch to avoid saving states of every bot in the area.

In fact, if you kill like half of a given group without getting them to alert, move sufficiently far away, save and reload, and then return - bots will remain at calm

 

[Gerrard]

Imagine being so confidently wrong.

 

[Ol' Willy]

There are people who play pure stealth in Stalker (without getting bots to alert)

If you want to try this at home, be warned, this requires a lot of meta and trial. I had no patience for this kind of thing

 

[Ol' Willy]

Imagine being so confidently wrong.

nigger, sound doesn't turn bots to alert

In fact if you are not detected you may shoot with silenced weapons under their feet and they still won't see you, just freak out

 

[Stavrophore]

Yeah, but they will be in suspicious state, and their detection improves, so they might detect you if the bush alpha transparency[which engine uses for detection values] is not enough.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Yeah, but they will be in suspicious state, and their detection improves, so they might detect you if the bush alpha transparency[which engine uses for detection values] is not enough.

In the video you can see how the guy abuses this thing.

If you make a little noise, the bot will look at the direction of it - allowing you to kill or avoid him

Just don't do too much noise or bot will roam around

suspicious has two sub-stages after all

 

[flyingjohn]

So after downloading a 100 gb of mods, i had a revelation. I am not even gonna play 10 of these things because of machine translation/misery survival wank/ horrible custom quest lines.
Anybody here who has played a lot of Stalker mods can recommend their top 10 in terms of major changes to the vanilla or custom stories?

 

[Stavrophore]

So after downloading a 100 gb of mods, i had a revelation. I am not even gonna play 10 of these things because of machine translation/misery survival wank/ horrible custom quest lines.
Anybody here who has played a lot of Stalker mods can recommend their top 10 in terms of major changes to the vanilla or custom stories?

I think most of story featuring mods are in russian, so if you dont know russian you will be at mercy of machine translators and that's a complete wank.
I would recommend

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

https://www.moddb.com/mods/chernobyl-chronicles
and photographer mod.
True Stalker is ok. but nothing groundbreaking as community was hyping, it is very polished and very modern, with nice UI and QoL.

 

[Silva]

 

[razvedchiki]

live?!

 

[ferratilis]

True Stalker is ok. but nothing groundbreaking as community was hyping, it is very polished and very modern, with nice UI and QoL.

Honestly, I thought True Stalker is terrible, and removes all the dynamic things that made Stalker interesting. It's a mostly linear experience that relies too much on cutscenes and has limited AI. While playing it, I thought "this is what Stalker 2 will be like, just with better graphics" which is not a good feeling to have while playing a Stalker game.

 

[Stavrophore]

Honestly, I thought True Stalker is terrible, and removes all the dynamic things that made Stalker interesting. It's a mostly linear experience that relies too much on cutscenes and has limited AI. While playing it, I thought "this is what Stalker 2 will be like, just with better graphics" which is not a good feeling to have while playing a Stalker game.

Its very true to SoC that had very limited non-roaming AI tied to certain zones, the ai couldn't roam between ai-life zones or maps like we see with anomaly derivatives. People who hail SoC as holy grail forgets about stuff like this, mostly because of nostalgia. No one also remembers the arcade shooting mechanics.

 

[Ryzer]

I only play vanilla Stalker personally, I don't bother with mods desecrating the experience. It's fine as it is.

 

[Silva]

live?!

Yes except for Viktor's voice which is recorded. Halfway through the song there's a beautiful homage to him in the big panel. I didn't even know the guy and got emotional.

Btw, I discovered KINO through Stalker radio mods. Always loved the atmosphere of the Skadovski or Sidorovics bunker under rain with this song in the background. I thought it's songs were present in all mods by now?

 

[Taim]

Honestly, I thought True Stalker is terrible, and removes all the dynamic things that made Stalker interesting. It's a mostly linear experience that relies too much on cutscenes and has limited AI. While playing it, I thought "this is what Stalker 2 will be like, just with better graphics" which is not a good feeling to have while playing a Stalker game.

Its very true to SoC that had very limited non-roaming AI tied to certain zones, the ai couldn't roam between ai-life zones or maps like we see with anomaly derivatives. People who hail SoC as holy grail forgets about stuff like this, mostly because of nostalgia. No one also remembers the arcade shooting mechanics.

SoC still allowed for dynamic stuff to play out in the admittedly limited way it presented it.

In True Stalker there's a quest where you go to hunt a bunch of flesh and you quickly realize the entire QUEST is scripted - you literally are wasting bullets by firing them - all of the flesh are programmed to die with our without your input.

Other quests literally spawn you into the line of fire of 4 bandits at once.

I have never played such a polished mod that enforces absolutely 0% player agency at any given point. What a disappointment.

 

[jebsmoker]

If anyone wants to play SoC i recommend autumn aurora, or radiophobia for more modern[and buggy] rendition. Vanilla SoC aged poorly.

vanilla soc is perfectly fine. if you care about it being a more polished experience, then all you need is the Zone Reclamation Project

 

[cretin]

In True Stalker there's a quest where you go to hunt a bunch of flesh and you quickly realize the entire QUEST is scripted - you literally are wasting bullets by firing them - all of the flesh are programmed to die with our without your input.

I knew this mod was gay just from looking at it, but I didnt know it was that bad. That's actually appalling

 

[Konjad]

Oblivion Lost aka Shadow of Chernobyl (? The first STALKER) is the only real STALKER you can experience, everything else is a cheap imitation, mods or games.

 

[Ryzer]

Oblivion Lost aka Shadow of Chernobyl (? The first STALKER) is the only real STALKER you can experience, everything else is a cheap imitation, mods or games.

Bullshit, Clear Sky and Call of prypriat are good experiences too.

 

[Twiglard]

When installing AMK 1.4 (ENG) should I first install ZRP or is it an either-or thing?

Thanks.

 

[ferratilis]

It's been such a long time since I played AMK by itself it's hard to remember. But if you play AMK Autumn Edition, there's no need for it, just follow the instructions and you're set.

Or if you're just looking for a way to easily play SoC, Memories of the Zone might be good, it includes AMK ballistics by default (+Russian voices)

 

[ferratilis]

I just finished a vanilla run of Clear Sky and, while my experience is still fresh, have started another playthrough but with ABR mod installed, since it promises to fix a lot of problems with vanilla, namely the faction war. Some early impressions:

-Bandits are now removed from the equation when it comes to faction war, they are the default enemy (no more Garbage robberies). In vanilla, because of them, faction war can never end. Now that's possible, will see as I progress. Good change.
-Just like in CoP ABR, combat is more lethal. You can die in 1 hit, but so can enemy. No more fights against bullet sponges in the early game. This still doesn't fix the absurd accuracy of enemies, so you'll still die a lot.
-No more stupid flash drive quests for technicians, all blueprints are unlocked from the start and all technicians can do upgrades. Upgrades have also been changed so that they make more sense. This doesn't trivialize the game because you're getting less money. Overall a good change.
-Stashes were removed, now they are only given as rewards for quests. Random stuff can still be found in crates, making exploration useful. It felt stupid finding a bunch of empty stashes around the world, so the change is good, now the rewards make more sense.
-Carry weight was decoupled from artifacts, now they only give stamina. Inventory is unlimited, basically, artifacts just make you run longer if you want that. This might be controversial, but having just finished a vanilla run, it's a godsend.
-Because of previous change you might think that you'll become Zone's janitor by collecting every weapon. Not really, because most income comes from artifact hunting, which is what makes sense in the lore.
-You can now sell mutant parts for money, and all mutants drop them. Killing mutants now makes sense. You won't get rich doing this early, but it's income nonetheless. I like it. Mutants are not just a silly obstacle anymore.
-All weapons models were changed, some new ones were added (F2000 with detector scope, yay). Most of them are from a combination of OWR, STCOP, AO, very nice mix and they fit well together.
-NPC models were not changed, thank god. A lot of modders are so autistic that they include HD models which stick out like a sore thumb. This mod changes things more tastefully.
-Less grenade spam from SRP, this is an amazing change after playing vanilla.
-Great optimization, this is something where CoP ABR excelled as well. Sacrifice is that some effects were removed and settings menu is hidden by default (can be enabled if you desire so, but the mod creator doesn't recommend it), but now you can actually get stable 120fps with few stutters.

Overall, I like everything compared to vanilla: combat is more lethal and rewarding, upgrades are now cheaper and make more sense, economy has been tweaked, faction war is not a PITA anymore. The mod has set out to make Clear Sky more of a shooter (which is what it was supposed to be, what with linear objectives and neverending faction war), and it mostly achieved its goals. I'd say this is the way to play CS for people who bounced off vanilla for whatever reason. Give it a chance. Yes, it removes some of the graphical charm, but the gameplay changes more than make up for it.

 

[Gerrard]

-Bandits are now removed from the equation when it comes to faction war, they are the default enemy (no more Garbage robberies). In vanilla, because of them, faction war can never end.

Skill issue. In my last CS game Loners took out the garbage bandits by themselves, I barely made it there in time to qualify for rewards as there were only 3 bandits left alive.

combat is more lethal.

Combat is already the most lethal in CS out of all vanilla games, and you can get deleted without warning by an unlucky headshot even while wearing the exo. It's actually fucking awful because it only means you have to reload the game more often. Why would you want it to become even worse?