STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Iucounu]

-Bandits are now removed from the equation when it comes to faction war, they are the default enemy (no more Garbage robberies).

So you can't join the best faction? Decline.

In vanilla, because of them, faction war can never end.

Why would you want it to end?

-No more stupid flash drive quests for technicians, all blueprints are unlocked from the start

What's stupid with those quests? Removing good content is decline.

and all technicians can do upgrades.

So you no longer have to go to a specialist technician, while having fun along the way? Decline.

-Stashes were removed, now they are only given as rewards for quests.

So you no longer need to go to stash locations, while having fun along the way? Decline.

It felt stupid finding a bunch of empty stashes around the world

Not at all, the empty tree stumps etc would have existed before NPCs hid loot in them. This gives CS's stashes a time dimension, unlike CoP where most stashes are accessible from the start, like an open buffet.

-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.

Inventory management is a valuable gameplay mechanic. Removing it is decline.

most income comes from artifact hunting, which is what makes sense in the lore.

I'd say the SoC and CS lore suggests stalkers sell artifacts outside the Zone, to get the best prices. Why sell them at a lower price inside the Zone, just to finance more stalking equipment? Sounds like bad or desperate business practice.

-Less grenade spam from SRP, this is an amazing change after playing vanilla.

Grenade spam is only a problem if you stay too long behind the same cover, of course the enemy will throw grenades at you then. It's your own fault.

 

[ferratilis]

What's stupid with those quests? Removing good content is decline.

Because those quests are the typical Ubisoft-like open world tripe. Find exactly three drives, in each location, that's some modern goyslop type quest. And it's not even like you find them through exploration, it's either from a quest or having to buy stash info, which is randomized btw. Amazing game design right there.

So you no longer have to go to a specialist technician, while having fun along the way? Decline.

If that's your idea of fun, go for it. After playing vanilla once, I wouldn't want to deal with that ever again. But it doesn't surprise me you like shuffling through trash.

So you no longer need to go to stash locations, while having fun along the way? Decline.

So you enjoy trekking across the zone to pick up a few bottles of vodka or some shotgun shells only to trek back to sell them for a few rubles? Nice.

Not at all, the empty tree stumps etc would have existed before NPCs hid loot in them. This gives CS's stashes a time dimension, unlike CoP where most stashes are accessible from the start, like an open buffet.

Yeah, but not all stashes are in tree stumps, are they? CoP did it better because exploration is more rewarding on your first playthrough.

Inventory management is a valuable gameplay mechanic. Removing it is decline.

Maybe on your first playthrough, not after. And it's not like you're managing a variety of interesting items, it's mostly about how much garbage you're willing to carry to the next trader.

I'd say the SoC and CS lore suggests stalkers sell artifacts outside the Zone, to get the best prices. Why sell them at a lower price inside the Zone, just to finance more stalking equipment? Sounds like bad or desperate business practice.

No. Traders like Sidorovich have contacts outside the zone, they're the ones who sell them. You sell them to traders. You need to brush up on your lore.

Grenade spam is only a problem if you stay too long behind the same cover, of course the enemy will throw grenades at you then. It's your own fault.

Yeah, right. Enemies lobbing grenades with pinpoint accuracy the moment they lose sight of you is great game design.

This is why an average Codexer can't be taken seriously. You'll criticize modern open world games for being too formulaic and with dumb mechanics, but any game release before 2010 will get a pass, especially if made in Eastern Europe.

 

[ciox]

Total CS Death.

 

[ciox]

Total COP Death.

 

[Iucounu]

What's stupid with those quests? Removing good content is decline.

Because those quests are the typical Ubisoft-like open world tripe. Find exactly three drives, in each location, that's some modern goyslop type quest.

I agree that exactly three per location is silly, but at least it's different drives, unlike CoP's three types of toolboxes. What else is Ubisoft/goysloppy about them?

And it's not even like you find them through exploration, it's either from a quest or having to buy stash info, which is randomized btw.

So what? Finding a seller of stash info is also a kind of exploration. If it's important to find drives by exploring say the ground, the modder could just have added that instead of removing the drives altogether.

So you no longer have to go to a specialist technician, while having fun along the way? Decline.

If that's your idea of fun, go for it.

Yes, roaming the Zone and encounter unexpected situations on the way (thanks to A-Life) is one of the main attractions.

So you no longer need to go to stash locations, while having fun along the way? Decline.

So you enjoy trekking across the zone to pick up a few bottles of vodka or some shotgun shells only to trek back to sell them for a few rubles? Nice.

Yes, the journey is the goal. And sometimes the loot is better than vodka, you never know.

Not at all, the empty tree stumps etc would have existed before NPCs hid loot in them. This gives CS's stashes a time dimension, unlike CoP where most stashes are accessible from the start, like an open buffet.

Yeah, but not all stashes are in tree stumps, are they?

Pipes, wall panels, boxes, they can all be empty.

CoP did it better because exploration is more rewarding on your first playthrough.

In CoP I just walked in a straight line, and quickly found one stash after another with no effort at all. In CS I got a stash icon pointing to an irradiated pool in the Swamps that nearly killed me. Much better!

Inventory management is a valuable gameplay mechanic. Removing it is decline.

Maybe on your first playthrough, not after. And it's not like you're managing a variety of interesting items, it's mostly about how much garbage you're willing to carry to the next trader.

When you're more experienced you learn which loot is worth bringing to a trader, and who pays best for each type of loot, so no need to bring everything you find. When I was too overloaded despite that I used quick travel. Not that you really need that much money anyway, I mostly did it for fun.

How is removing the weight limit helping with carrying garbage? It just lets you carry even more garbage.

I'd say the SoC and CS lore suggests stalkers sell artifacts outside the Zone, to get the best prices. Why sell them at a lower price inside the Zone, just to finance more stalking equipment? Sounds like bad or desperate business practice.

No. Traders like Sidorovich have contacts outside the zone, they're the ones who sell them. You sell them to traders. You need to brush up on your lore.

You're right about Sidorovich, maybe novice Stalkers do sell to him on their way out of the Zone. But I also recall the Mercs in Army Warehouses had their own client outside the Zone (maybe others as well?).

Grenade spam is only a problem if you stay too long behind the same cover, of course the enemy will throw grenades at you then. It's your own fault.

Yeah, right. Enemies lobbing grenades with pinpoint accuracy the moment they lose sight of you is great game design.

I can agree about some late game locations, like the Monolithians at the Limansk construction site. But in most of the game NPCs are not that effective, and they usually make a grenade joke before throwing (then it's time to move quickly).

This is why an average Codexer can't be taken seriously. You'll criticize modern open world games for being too formulaic and with dumb mechanics, but any game release before 2010 will get a pass, especially if made in Eastern Europe.

Stalker can be a little janky, but it's innovative and interesting unlike most modern games. It's not the innovator's fault if other developers make poor copies. Granted, if a modder thinks an originally good idea has been imitated to death, I can understand if he tries to do something different. But this mod sounds more like the modder tries to make CS more like one of those modern formulaic games? I could be wrong, I don't play them.

 

[Iucounu]

most income comes from artifact hunting, which is what makes sense in the lore.

Maybe for low-end artifacts. But if you find a good one that drastically increases your capabilities, why would you rush to sell it? Wouldn't it be better to benefit from it for as long as you stay in the Zone, and not sell until it's time to leave?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Recently did a "knife-start" run of SoC.

The idea is that you start every map without any equipment and use only whatever you could get on the map. So,you start the game as usual, but before transferring to Garbage just drop everything you have in some container. And this before every map.

For my run, I allowed only artifacts to be carried with me constantly - which puts them to a good use. Also, underground levels are considered to be the part of above levels, like Agroprom + tunnels, Dark Valley + X16, and so on.

Cordon is done as usual, I only did stick around before midnight to grab stamina artifacts. Also don't kill any soldiers like I usually do.

At Garbage, don't trigger the shakedown scene - the trio of pseudo-bandits won't turn hostile. In fact, if Yurik is killed, the trio splits and they just wander around the map. I had one of these guys fighting actual bandits at car cemetery.

You should have few stashes marked in your PDA, so makes sense to run around and grab some supplies. I had a stash with yellow jacket in the east of the map (you also can find bandit jacket in the train) and picked gun from some dead guy. Ammo is not really a problem, but I didn't go for 9x18 MP5 because of hardcore radiation.

Agroprom is easy, just wait until soldiers kill all stalkers and move to inner courtyard. Then grab merc armor, plenty of loot in corpses, and then it is a piece of cake.

Dark Valley could be hard as it has no traders and plenty of bandits around. In my run A-life helped me and spawned two bandits and dogs right as I entered it - they killed the Dolg guy and wandered off, so I got myself a nice AN-94 to go. I cleaned the smaller factory first to stock on looted ammo and then went to the Borov HQ, you can also find another merc armor in the armory there.

Wild Territory looks really tough. You have plenty of mercs waiting for you and no ways to actually get anything at all. At first.
Running past snipers is easy, the guy below could be bypassed without problems, and two guys next too. In my run I was very lucky to have the stash in cabin above on eastern side of the map. It has merc armor, AR-15 and ammo. After this, all goes smooth - though scientist didn't make it.

Yantar is piss easy, just dash to Sakharov and buy whatever you need from him. He has orange suit and SA-80, but I didn't need it as zombies dropped AR-15s with 100% quality.

Warehouses - easy too. You don't even have to stick around, but I did. Picked guns from dead Svoboda guys at the entrance, bought ammo, looted Svoboda arsenal - and I was set to go.

Radar is where you really had to work. I dashed past all Monolith guys to the forest, dodged dogs, knifed some zombies (since they're as good as blind) and thus got at least some weapons for myself. Then I go back to the first Monolith sniper, he dies, I pick Dolg armor.

Now I have armor, AR-15 and whopping 25 rounds for it, plus one grenade. I go back to the first Monolith outpost with five guys to kill them and get loot ammo. They already forgot about me and were cracking jokes around the fire. Here I was either lucky or just got good - two went down by grenade, two got headshots and fifth survived for longest, but not for too long. After that just clean the road from Monolith dudes with minimal ammo usage and grab their supplies, slowly but steadily. The map is good and you can aim better for headshots. The guy at the end of the right turn (X-10 from builds) has G-36 which helps.

In Pripyat, I stick around with stalkers to let them kill stuff and die, grab all the loot I can find and then move west. This allows me to bypass more Monolith guys and get decoder with good armor in Hotel. You can get more ammo and weapons in Pripyat but I didn't think it was necessary.

Then, I treat the rest of the game as a single map. ChAES-1 has no reasons for you to stick around, just dash to the entrance either the regular way or speedrunner detour way.

Sarcophagus-1 without armor, isn't it cool? If you did regular way on ChAES-1 you should have at least some weapon, if you did speedrunner one you have nothing but the knife. So shoot or knife the sniper in the first hallway, and make sure you get at least 10-15 rounds for Gauss. Reload if not. Then the mad dash to hidden exoskeleton. If you collected your artifacts right, you should have +20% bullet res on top of exoskeleton native 60% which means that you barely give a fuck about people shooting at you. The rest of the game is tedious, but quite doable, given plenty of 9x39 and 5.56 ammo around.

About artifacts, I carried on me a lot of them.

Five to soak radiation. Usually I equipped all five only to quickly cleanse myself, and only one to offset radiation from another artifacts. Even five -30 rad artifacts are not enough to keep you clean if you go in really hot zones (like aforementioned exoskeleton secret), but, for example, two -30 keep you clean at most of modestly irradiated places.

Five regen ones. Sometimes used if I had to save some medikits or didn't have any.

One good anti-bleeding art to stop the bleeding if I had no bandages. Not really necessary as five good regen artifacts can keep you from bleeding to death.

The combo of three -30 antirad arts and two +600 regen ones can keep you alive if you got red radiation somewhere but have no meds to flush it.

Couple of stamina arts for running around.

Five +30% electroshock res arts, good thing to have but I barely used them. You know the bug they enable, though I didn't use it.

And the very important bullet res artifacts. Necklace is the best, gives +5% res without radiation penalty but good luck finding all five of them. In my run I was limited to 2 necklaces + 2 flowers + 1 -30 rad ones for 16% bullet res. In Pripyat you can get two stars to replace stones and have 20% bullet res.

Good thing about this run is that you really have to use artifacts a lot, juggling them in the needed combos. At this point I really wished for shortcuts to quickly put artifact combos on and off

 

[Ol' Willy]

Replayed the sequence since Pripyat for a good measure.

Five guys in exoskeletons and me, naked but with the knife. I grab the AR-15 from the first dead Monolith guy and all 25 rounds (luckily it had loaded mag in it). Now I am in the game.

Even with such disadvantage I still kill more than half of Monolith guys in the starting alley. Only one death due to sneaky Monolith guy, other than that, I wasn't even hit once. But stalkers didn't survive it.

This time I turn right, the regular route. Game spawns two Dolg guys in exoskeletons, together, we kill two Monolith guys in the kindergarten. One Dolg guy decides to die in the anomaly - because why not? The other goes down to the parking and solo (!) cleans it from Monolith. Then goes up and dies from gauss sniper. The emergent situations in the game are still hilarious.

After a brief firefight in front of the hotel (still naked), I finally go up and grab decoder and Skat armor. I can go straight to stadium and ChAES-1, but in my strategy I have to visit Monolith HQ to get two night stars.

With Skat and artifacts I am at 55% + 16% bullet res, which means that Monolith guys with 5.45 weapons could barely damage me, I can knife them for rofls. I don't clean the place completely, no need for that, just blast those who are in my way and grab two stars near praying Monolith and fuck off. They don't mind by the way.

ChAES-1 is the most annoying if you don't go the speedrunner way. You have two dead soldiers and chance to grab some Vals with ammo, but no armor or anything like that. Run forward past the wall, turn left, then left again and move west away from the most heat. Helicopters are still fucking annoying, they have so many targets yet decide to shoot at the naked guy with a knife. On this map I reloaded 5-6 times, mostly due to helicopters. But the zone was merciful and I got in.

At Sarcophagus-1, the sniper is usually the first enemy. In my run, the game is full of surprises and the first one was exoskeleton guy with a rifle. Good thing that I had Val on me, knifing the guy with G-36 is not really fun. Then I knife the sniper, grab exoskeleton later and that's it. Not really much to talk about, two -30 artifacts keep me clean so I don't have to hurry, and 60% + 15% bullet res allows tanking. Sarcophagus-1 has plenty of 9x39 ammo around, for some reason even on Master difficulty the game spawns up to 20 rounds on every deader.

Sarcophagus-1 and Sarcophagus-2 are very dark maps, AI barely sees you in the dark, and it can't hear you if you crouch and use silenced weapon, so put this to a good use. Darkness, 75% bullet res and short distances allow longer aiming times for more headshots. Usually I don't bother and spray around, but this time I think at least 60% of all my frags were with headshots.

 

[Iucounu]

Recently did a "knife-start" run of SoC.

The idea is that you start every map without any equipment and use only whatever you could get on the map. So,you start the game as usual, but before transferring to Garbage just drop everything you have in some container. And this before every map.

Sounds fun, while have to try this!

I recall you can go all the way to the Bar even without a knife, not sure how much further it would be possible to proceed.

Wild Territory looks really tough. You have plenty of mercs waiting for you and no ways to actually get anything at all. At first.
Running past snipers is easy, the guy below could be bypassed without problems, and two guys next too.

Doesn't the Merc in the corridor see you approaching? Can't remember his position.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I recall you can go all the way to the Bar even without a knife, not sure how much further it would be possible to proceed.

You can speedrun the entire game without weapons, but this run is not for speedrunning. You had to do some quests and kill people, otherwise what's the point?

Doesn't the Merc in the corridor see you approaching? Can't remember his position.

He's guarding the ladder up.

The neat thing is that after seeing you he moves out of the building and starts dancing around the container. At first I tried to knife him but then decided to fuck it and ran further.

Indeed, if he had stayed in one place the run most likely would have ended right there

 

[JDR13]

I just tried Memories of the Zone for the first time, and I think it's hugely overrated.

I thought it would look a lot better than vanilla, but the visual upgrade seems subjective at best. The lighting is a bit better, and the shadows are nice, but it feels too bright somehow. I also think the sky looks better in vanilla.

Idk, maybe it didn't install right? I'm using the standalone 1.2 version. What else is out there now as far as mods that enhance the vanilla game without adding new content or significantly altering gameplay?

 

[actor]

Assembly by Sam repack on moddb

 

[JDR13]

Assembly by Sam repack on moddb

That changes way too much for my liking. I just want the vanilla experience with bugfixes and better visuals/sound.

I'm not against a few QoL or HUD tweaks, but I don't want fan-made weapons/items/levels etc.

 

[actor]

Fair enough. You should probably just install Absolute Nature and Absolute Structures

 

[Baron Dupek]

what's this?
https://www.moddb.com/mods/qualker/videos/qualker-v0-3
A STALKER... in Quake?

 

[V17]

Been playing Goldsphere, or more specifically Golden Sphere, the OGSR version that is supposed to be more stable, and so far it's been a pleasant surprise.

The internet tends to talk about it like it's some superjank experience full of weird random shit that doesn't exactly make sense. And while it does go a few steps in the weird direction when compared to the originals, especially in the beginning, it really isn't bad and it rarely feels like "haha, so random" bullshit. You do carry around a talking doll who gives you tips to finish quests if you feed her non-irradiated cheese, among other things, but it actually works within the world.

The quests really expose how utterly shit True Stalker was in this regard. It feels like TS devs took inspiration from Goldsphere in places, but made it worse. In Goldsphere you also spend quite a bit of time in Cordon and you're even gatekept in the southern half below the railway bridge, but it's not through boring fetch quests, it's through a quantity of interesting shit crammed in a relatively small space.

The game throws interesting challenges at you, which helps with the balance as well. There's a whole new Outskirts area (as in outskirts of the zone, not Pripyat outskirts) accessible from Cordon, and if you go through its questlines and search it thoroughly, you can enter with a leather jacket and a single shot flintlock pistol and leave with a Saiga, a sniper rifle, an exoskeleton and ten different artifacts on your belt at the same time. And yet the game is wild enough that it doesn't really throw off the balance because as you enter Garbage you encounter moving poisonous clouds that instakill you and in Agroprom factory you fight an invisible psionic mutant that teleports you around.

It does not use full A-Life, enemies are local and spawn in similar places, but there are many scripted spawns within quests (or just on timers) that are designed to create chaos and interesting interactions. There's a faction that wants me dead and occasionally sends assassins. I've had them shoot the invisible psionic mutant mentioned above accidentally when trying to shoot me and solve the quest for me. Once I also just found their rifles lying on the ground next to a deadly anomaly about 100 m from where I was when they likely spawned.

And it doesn't create difficulty through limiting you in annoying ways. Anomalies are deadly and often invisible, but you can get an upgraded detector that shows anomalies on the minimap straight in Cordon. Aside from the very beginning there's not really a shortage of weapons or ammo. The run energy is much more generous than in vanilla, so usually you can just run around all the time, and if that's not enough, you can often repair cars and drive around, though I haven't tried that, I don't really trust the physics. In general there's a ton of stuff to do in the game.

I don't know if it's going to hold up till the end, but even the hours I've played till now have been good fun.

 

[cretin]

Thanks for bumping and reminding me to do one of those posts I havent done in a while

Mods of interesting!

DSH mod - What would happen if you mixed OP2 with NLC7 gameplay? No, really. Thats literally what this mod is and the end result is surprisingly coherent. I cannot stand OP2's "content" so this mod isn't for me, but its definitely for a certain kind of person.

Return To The Zone - Jekan (goldsphere) mod #2, built on the COP engine. If you liked goldsphere you'll probably like this, its Jekan with more experience under his belt and a better sense of storytelling. RTTZ takes place during the decline of stalkan, some years after the events of COP iirc. If you're after totally novel content and a properly new story instead of a retread of SOC/COP, this is the mod to check out. I didnt play very much of this, but its obvious Jekan is very good at this kind of quest driven gameplay with lots of quirky side quests and minigames. Not my cup of tea however as it is very on the rails.

Improved Weapon Pack - this is the focal point in the scene currently, and its not an exaggeration to say it has probably singlehandedly revived the CoC modding scene and might even take back some ground from Anomaly. As the name implies, the central feature of IWP is an improved weapon pack that is not only diverse but also has very high quality animations across the board, arguably as good as gunslinger's. However, it is also more than this: it features a new x64 engine that is very performant, and brings many needed upgrades to the CoC platform like the sound layering system and QoL improvements. One of the major ongoing projects that has spawned from this is a port of Call of The Zone's dynamic questlines to the new engine and as far as I can tell it works very well with some minor bugs.

Anomaly custom - Yet Another Anomaly Modpack. The focus of this modpack appears to be visuals and to be fair, from everything I've seen the mod does look spectacular and very atmospheric. In addition there appears to be your standard grabbag of popular anoomaly mods. Redditors have kicked up drama around it, as redditors are wont to do, firstly because it is distracting da COOONTENT creators from making more videos about GAYMMA and secondly because the authors are patriotic russians. This has taken the typical libshit form of <x> support <y>! they are le BAD PEOPLE, if you're le GOOD PERSON you won't play their games! Whatever man, grok is French and that's way worse than supporting the invasion of Ukraine.

 

[cretin]

By the way I forgot to tell everyone (which is probably like 2 people who care, but anyway) that NLC7 is now working on linux which was the only mod I couldn't get to run on linux.

All the heartache and frustration was down to a single . in the code for the lua interceptor, btw. Not even exaggerating. A very persistent individual got into contact with a person on the russian forums who had fixed it for himself and offered to provide a patched .dll, that person in turn got into contact with the guy who created the lua-interceptor and he pushed an update that fixed the issue.

I wouldn't hold my breath on this fix being officially merged into any of the NLC forks, the guy who ostensibly runs the community these days strikes me as more than a little ignorant and had no interest when this individual originally raised the issue with him, so for now if you want to play on linux you have to manually replace the .dll, either by compiling your own (dont ask me how, I have no fucking idea) or using the user patched .dll linked here: https://github.com/alpet83/Lua-Interceptor/issues/1

After all that NLC7 is now working seemingly flawlessly. The only thing I had to do was create a bash script to replicate the actions of the launch.bat file, which mostly just cleans out shader cache, prefetch and logs, this is obviously optional and I'm not convinced it is actually necessary as routine, so I only run it every few sessions. Just like on windows, the first time you run NLC you will get some odd crashes that seem to be a rite of passage at this point (like the inevitable ctd the first time you change settings) but after that it is smooth sailing.

 

[Baron Dupek]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly/downloads/stalker-anomaly-153

an update to make Anomaly compliant with the GSC Game World Fan Content Creation Guidelines.

great, more mods to break?

 

[Gerrard]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly/downloads/stalker-anomaly-153

an update to make Anomaly compliant with the GSC Game World Fan Content Creation Guidelines.

What does that mean exactly? How about fixing shit like the broken maps like Dead City and Meadow that crash the game and cause NPC squads to get stuck?

E: according to those GSC guidelines Anomaly itself should be taken down because it's standalone and doesn't require the original games

• Creating Mods. You may create mods for our games (i.e., software that makes changes to our games or works with them – e.g., adds new mechanics, changes UI, gameplay features), however, be careful not to breach the respective EULA, specifically regarding cheating, viruses or other illegal activities. You are not allowed to use different game engines when creating modifications (e.g. remakes). Porting of the games to any other game engines and/or platforms is prohibited. Mods must require the original game in order to be playable, otherwise it should be considered as a separate game (standalone) and thus additional restrictions apply as described in the Games and Mobile Apps part below.

In case you are unsure if you are allowed to create something Mod like, please clarify beforehand with us via legal@gsc-game.com, specifically if it involves third-party intellectual property rights.

GSC is aware of existence of several Mods that do not require an original game to operate. We are grateful to the community that was creating those Mods, and we do not want your work to be outlawed and wasted. Having this in mind, we decided to grant a rectification period that shall take place starting from June 25, 2024 and ending on October 25, 2024.

For the avoidance of doubt, this rectification period is only for mods that do not require the original game to function, making them standalone. Mods that run exclusively through the original game client do not need to be whitelisted.

From June 25, 2024, to October 25, 2024, you must add the following functionality to your standalone mod for it to be whitelisted:

 

[Tacgnol]

What does that mean exactly? How about fixing shit like the broken maps like Dead City and Meadow that crash the game and cause NPC squads to get stuck?

Probably the bit about adding links to promote/purchase the original titles on the menu screen and ensuring that the branding states Anomaly is a fan made modification (though I think it already does).

 

[Ol' Willy]

Found some screens from my knife start run

Middle of the radar, not a bad gear

Pripyat before the hotel, whopping 13% bullet res. Didn't use VOG-25 duping bug by the way

 

[Baron Dupek]

Look who's back from the dead (and reached Top10 on Moddb again)
https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009

Version 1.5 is a 4K RTX HDR-ready, in-depth rework of the original mod. It showcases the finest contributions from the community over the years, alongside brand-new, original content. Every featured piece has been meticulously edited for consistency, delivering a unified aesthetic under a cohesive art direction. Designed to work with the original game's engine, the mod incorporates extensions and the DirectX 11 support, to maximize its potential and fully leverage modern hardware capabilities.

perfect mod for the 1st playthrough
again

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i spent the day before yesterday downloading anomaly. i spent yesterday downloading gamma. at least i thought it was gamma, it's an 11 gb package which becomes a 30 gb installer which apparently needs to download 100 gb more. fuck off. anomaly it is.

 

[Mercatroid]

i spent the day before yesterday downloading anomaly. i spent yesterday downloading gamma. at least i thought it was gamma, it's an 11 gb package which becomes a 30 gb installer which apparently needs to download 100 gb more. fuck off. anomaly it is.

Gamma is just Tarkov bullshit anyway. You'd probably get a more interesting experience by customizing Anomaly the way you want it.

Actually last night I saw that a guy has created an Anomaly mil-sim total conversion called "WarDogs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00ARDelQ1t4

It's still in beta but it looks pretty cool. The dev says he's an Arma fan who doesn't like Tarkov. Apparently it simulates faction war at a pretty high level, and once you gain enough rank you can actually send out orders and command your faction, which is a feature I've frequently wished EOC had.

Speaking of which, I'll post some of my thoughts about EOC here. For the uninitiated, that's Extended Offline Combat for Call of Chernobyl 1.4, developed by a Russian dude named Stason who also made a bunch of other interrelated addons.

Playing EOC is some of the most fun I've ever had with a video game in my life. It reminds me of the glory days of FPS-RTS games in the early 2000s like Natural Selection and Planetside, but on top of that it's a persistent simulation of the entire Call of Chernobyl map, which is incredibly huge. It struck me while playing it last night that the other great thing about it is that it's really like a bunch of different simulations put together, since playing each map feels different and the things that happen when you're in a given place tend to be much, much different from the things the offline sim comes up with while you're gone. Notably, the game seems significantly tilted toward sending out way more enemy squads than your faction sends, so that if you aren't on your toes in any given zone with hostiles present or adjacent, your faction can quickly become overwhelmed. This is especially true in certain highly-contested maps like Army Warehouses, which if you use the "More Active Faction War" option is typically bugfuck-insane. Like good luck defending the poorly-planned entrance to the southern base from constantly-emerging swarms of Duty and Military guys, and Monolith coming from the north on top of that. You'll be standing in the little valley where the entrance to the base is while endless Ty Cobbs throw pinpoint grenades at your head over the top of a wall.

But I disgress. The point is that it's one of the most demanding, challenging mods I have ever seen, and involves a ton of long-term planning and the kind of heavy risk/reward gameplay that makes any game satisfying, like knowing when to press on further with a bag full of loot and when to run home. Also you can mod the hell out of EOC, adding things like fast travel, which is actually great because it makes you pay for the convenience. Want to insta-travel all the way from Pripyat back to Warehouses or Dead City? Better get ready for a ton of shit being simmed during the time that walk takes, which often means losing key points you control. Likewise, if you go to sleep in a hotly contested zone you may wake up to find yourself surrounded by enemies, with your friendly vendors either dead or heavily engaged in combat. There is no hand-holding here. Often these sorts of things have forced me to take long walks, or to forego sleeping and fight through the night with a flashlight, staving off the crazy waves of guys until morning comes, when hopefully I can regroup and sort my gear and make some kind of push again. It's serious "what a horrible night to have a curse" kind of stuff.

The other fascinating thing about EOC is how much the faction values can be tweaked, and how much freedom you have to start as any faction at any point of your choosing, just like in regular CoC. This leads to the kind of gameplay where you may play a particular game for a while and just hit a wall of too much adversity in the central zones, or the opposite where your neutral allies take over too much territory and thwart your progress, so then you just reroll and start fresh as another guy in maybe another faction and have to work your way up again, often dealing with Chimeras and Burers right of the bat when you only have the starting armor and some mediocre gun. The fresh challenge each new start presents, and the totally fresh map of potential choices, is so good at keeping the game fun.

Last night I was playing as Mercs and just hit a wall of too much insanity in Warehouses, so I rerolled as a Loner in a random location, and the game stuck me in fucking Sync in Outskirts with a Groza. That's like, your first 30 seconds of the game are platforming yourself down crazy anomaly vines past a green fireball that will instakill you, and then you enter a straight up survival horror world full of heavily-armed Monolith guys and packs of bloodsuckers that will eat you alive in 2 seconds in your paper starting armor. Having a Groza just felt fair. Huge risk/reward gameplay, and it forced me to play incredibly patiently, slowly claiming Outskirts point-by-point and letting my fellow Loners take care of the mutants. I eventually pushed into Pripyat and took D.C. Energy, and bought and upgraded a Monolith scientific suit with all the money I'd made. I was like "yes, I earned that!!" Super satisfying. And it occurred to me that one of the fascinating things about EOC is that it's like real war, where most of the time you are just bored waiting, and then super-intense adrenaline moments happen, followed by more waiting. The incredibly immersive world of CoC makes that waiting bearable, especially if you have a few beers and smoke some weed. It's like, you're really forced to become not just a guy in the zone, but a pretty high-level officer who has to be patient and make very wise decisions, otherwise everything you have planned goes down the drain. And when you win major points, or use your hard-earned cash to get major weapon and armor upgrades, it's extremely satisfying.

I'd like to hear Ol' Willy and cretin's thoughts about playing EOC, and how it can be tweaked or improved with addons. I'm running a lot of addons on mine at this point, most notably "welcome in my squad." Also EOC was ported to the Improved Weapon Pack, but it doesn't work with the current Standalone version, and I can't find the old patch from July that it does work with. I talked to the modder and he said he won't work on it any further because EOC is buggy. It is--it's extremely flawed. But I think it's also the most interesting game mode in Stalker.