STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[skacky]

Skacky, you sir deserve a custom tag! Also you said you shat your pants on video, any chance we could watch? Not so much the defecation but your play would be nice. I tried AA2 for a bit but I need a break from playing Stalker and I had mixed feelings about it. I'd still like to see how it play though.

Yeah, sure. I have an ongoing Let's Play you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqNPutTzUWGhR14g2jLk5-pHzWVZedyta. I'm currently inside the Sarcophagus and they dared to remove the Wish Granter's calls.

 

[DraQ]

I'm currently inside the Sarcophagus and they dared to remove the Wish Granter's calls.

They cut out "Idi k mnie"?


Idi w pizdu, then.

 

[Invictus]

Hehe shacky you could be one of the doubles for the mod, you sound exactly like them :D
How come you hadn't told us about these let's play? They are pretty good with just about the good balance of chatting and gameplay
AA2 looks so nice with a Misery vibe but much less hardcore...
Have any of you guys heard anything on Lost Alpha? There hasn't been an update there in months but for their calendars

 

[praetor]

dezor wrote in the comments (moddb) not long ago there'll be a gameplay video or something sometime in december, i think

 

[Invictus]

Ok so I got to playing AA2 and it so fucking good...the environments look really autum like with all sorts of desaturated browns and green and the atmosfear mod used on this is just so moody and fits perfectly with the tone of the mod, with a more greycast zone and all sorts of cool weather effects and conditions like fog banks you can actualy see coming; I had jsut a awesome fight in the middle of a storm where lightning would iluminate a bit, we would all fire our weapons for a few second and the try to scramble arround trying to flank each other in the dark...just awesome

I did some further tweakings to my config file by making the stalkers a bit more acurate and the bandits a bit less to actualy show some difference between them besides gear, plus I adjusted some of the food values, just what is it with mods trying to be realistic by having your char get hungry every 20 minutes of gameplay? Now they values are back to vanilla and I tweaked a little bit the healthkits too; the healing speed seemed fine but they where a bit too nerfed
Here is the file in case anybody is interested
https://www.mediafire.com/?r7aqnbsoa1xi9c0

 

[Echo Mirage]

I just got started playing AA2 as well and so far things have gone very smoothly. I was able to grab a Ak74 U in perfect condition before going to the garbage and a Saiga 12s in the Agroprom underground from a dead stalker near the entrance which is capable of killing almost anything with one to two shots barring the wild zone Mercs who can take half a magazine to drop. Thankfully I was also able to save the ecologists by getting lucky with a frag grenade which killed all but 2 Mercs and Wolfhound who stayed in his building and made for an easy headshot allowing me to get his F2000 assault rifle as well which does almost the same damage as the upgraded Ak74, but has a laser beam accuracy and a higher base rate of fire. Making it my rifle of choice and coupled with the M110 SaSS and a Wind of freedom suit I'm now in a good position to clear X18 and the dark Vally.

The only annoying things about the mod so far is that sometimes the grass is so long in areas that it becomes almost impossible to find dead bodies to loot especially when the Saiga 12s is so powerful that enemies just vanish into the undergrowth never to be seen again. My other issue is the low permitted carry weight which makes it seem that no matter what I'm always over encumbered. But I will have to start thinking ahead on what areas I'm going to and what I will have room to carry.

Edit: Also, Stalker had some good Knife mods but for some reason the marked one is using what looks like a short copper bar to stab things with. I still can't figure out what this thing is meant to be.

 

[Invictus]

I think the knife is still a knife but the animation looks like it is holding it the knife downwards with the butt up, so instead of the pointy side up it is using it along the side of the arm for slashing sideways rather than thrusting with a normal big knife.
I kind of liked the fact that the grass is so long because it amkes things look so more natural and while I agree it makes looting a pain its no big deal. I usually act like a fucking packrat looting everything and the going back to sell it so I like the weight limit to somehow control those tendencies but you can modify that too if you like

 

[Ninjerk]

Finally playing the OC, I think I bought this game on what was probably one of Steam's first sales ever. Just walked into X18. NOPE. So fucking scary.

EDIT: Told a friend of mine, "This is what Fallout 3 should have been [if it had to be FPS]."

 

[Invictus]

Ok so I just had a huge Misery marathon to finish it up and honestly it ranks up there with SS2 and Deus Ex for me as the top FP experiences I've had.
I am currently just getting to the barman in AA2 an it is quite a change from Complete, the enemies where a bit cheap but I tweaked that for Surf Solar and I used the same files for me.
I am taking a break right now watching shacky's AA2 and its quite interesting watching someone with quite a different approach from mine doing the same levels; I usually scavange everything I can, undload any weapon before tossing it and love sneaking arround with my silencer with my lamp off...I must have gotten as owned as him but boy is it a blast!
I have been reading that Lost Alpha is goign to be not a mod but an actual comercial release? Is this true?! Sure hope they don't go only for Steam because then I would have to obtain that througj other means but if its on GOG or their own site I am more than ready althogh it look it might still be a year away; perhaps they should do a Kickstarter? They could easily get 10k presales that way and speed up development

 

[Silva]

Ok so I just had a huge Misery marathon to finish it up and honestly it ranks up there with SS2 and Deus Ex for me as the top FP experiences I've had.

The last couple (or so) years were ones of the best EVER in my gaming life. I remember getting an INSANE sequence with Crusader Kings 2 --> Deus Ex: HR --> Dark Souls --> Sword & Sworcery. And we also got Stalker Misery mod, Faster Than Light, Limbo, Papers Please!, Skyrim, etc. I think its on-par with the late 90s/early 00s for me, where I met classics like Rainbow Six, Alpha Centauri, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Morrowind, Fallouts, PS: Torment, etc. And this newer period has the advantage of not having me wearing the pink-glasses of nostalgia.

Perhaps that explains my divorce.

 

[Invictus]

Jesus Silva that sound both awesome and harsh, sorry about your wife...and with you beign brazilian there goes your weekly dose of samba sex ;D
Oh well at least your are playing some pretty good games, thanks for the heads up of swords and sorcery it looks awesome but since it is Steam or tablet only I will have to pass on it.

 

[Ninjerk]

:SLKDDSKJF I'm in X16 on Vanilla SoC with not enough rifle ammo and it is TERRIFYING.

 

[DraQ]

:SLKDDSKJF I'm in X16 on Vanilla SoC with not enough rifle ammo and it is TERRIFYING.

TBH X18 did it better for me, but X16 wasn't half bad either.

 

[Ninjerk]

:SLKDDSKJF I'm in X16 on Vanilla SoC with not enough rifle ammo and it is TERRIFYING.

TBH X18 did it better for me, but X16 wasn't half bad either.

X18 wasn't so bad once I saw the first snork or whatever they're called, and I had plenty of ammo. X16's music is just awful, and sounds like one of the creepier songs from the Diablo 1 soundtrack (Catacombs? Caves? Idr).

 

[chestburster]

X16's music is just awful, and sounds like one of the creepier songs from the Diablo 1 soundtrack (Catacombs? Caves? Idr).

I barely noticed any music when I played vanilla STALKER in 2007. I thought it's all part of creepy background sound effects.
---This is the way proper horror music is done!
It's a shame they changed the composer for CoP. Not as good as the previous one.

 

[Silva]

So, after finishing CoP Misery I think Im ready for SoC with Autumn Aurora 2.

Are there any general tips for it, like recommended adjustments/tweaks or known bugs, etc ? Ive read a patch is about to be released soon, perhaps its advisable to wait for it ?

Jesus Silva that sound both awesome and harsh, sorry about your wife...and with you beign brazilian there goes your weekly dose of samba sex ;D
Oh well at least your are playing some pretty good games, thanks for the heads up of swords and sorcery it looks awesome but since it is Steam or tablet only I will have to pass on it.

Thanks for the nice words, man. Surely the worst is already behind me. I think I recovered pretty well from it.

 

[Invictus]

Silva, you can download the modified files I posted earlier in this thread; it adds pretty much the same tweaks for the enemy FOV and sight distance you showed me for Misery so they make the enemies less laser sighted.
AA2 is pretty good, it adds that great misery vibe along with some very nice atmosfear effects. There are no mayor chages but all the overall modifications make the game more challenging and simply beautiful.
I think the diffculty is a bit over the top on the weapon damage, but with the config tweaks it is much more manageable, especialy coming from Misery...although I would suggest waiting for the patch since there are some comments on some bugs, nothing gamebreaking but still better to wait since along with the bugfixes there will be some more balancing for combat and the economy

 

[Silva]

Thanks Invictus, I have made the suggested tweaks. The enemies accuracy was too high, I think.

Im finding the mod really really good and with the better visual treatment and atmosphere yet for SoC, much better than Complete, LURK, Oblivion Lost or the Mod Pack 2013 I was playing before. My only complaint about the visuals is that the game feels too drab sometimes. Even things that should obviously have more livid colors - like the green on camouflaged army uniforms - looks like another shade of brown.

And its interesting to see a lot of Misery elements used in more sensible manner/without the anal obsession for difficulty.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I give one chance for AA2 and actually - it's really cool.
I liked the better banditos design, compared to vanilia where they hust change color of the lonelies' jackets.
Player is a little tougher (not much progress from one-shot-kill, actually ) same to bandits. Got feelings of shooting lasers instead of bullets with weight.

After few hours it feels like ZoA but filled with gray, vanilia amunition management and else.

 

[Silva]

Mother, try to edit the Dispersion values in the creatures files, as suggested by Invictus. It helps a bit with the laser beam banditos.

Other than that, Im finding the mod economy too easy. Specially coming straight from Misery as I did.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Both ZoA and AA2 have borked economy. Well, I could live with it.

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

Is there a good english language site for Stalker? Something like NMA maybe where there are forums, news updates (for mods 'n' stuff) and maybe also host files/tweaks.

I enjoyed watching skackys AA2 LP more than I did playing it. But I always have trouble going back to SHOC so that's not meant as a criticism of the mod. Not a fan of the aesthetic myself but I can see why others might dig it. Did enjoy the beefed up shotties though. Grenades were fun too. The new banditos were pretty cool but overall I'm not a fan of changing the designs. I suck at interpreting art stuff but I believe the original designs have meaning to them. I may not know what those meanings are (derp) but I always feel like something is lost when people play around with them.

After all the talk of the original Misery I went back and played around with it. Very interesting. I actually found gun fights harder than Misery 2. And God damn those zombies man. I remember now why I never did any missions that spawned them until late on. It's not so much their difficulty although that does annoy me. They get every-bloody-where! Turns the Zone into a fekkin zombie town. Urgh. Especially when they just start camping outside the 'homebases'. Still, I had a lot of fun. Lots of really nice stashes to rediscover and I got lucky with a snowflake at the Iron Forest. Damn, with Recon speed that was nice. Also found a way up to a safe spot at the Iron Forest and about a week later someone posted it on the Misery forums. That was kinda weird but I dunno how well known it was. Maybe it was just new to me. Never really had need of it till M2 anyway.

If anyone's interested I recorded (almost said 'taped' lol) me doing some missions/areas in Zaton with just a knife. I was surprised how doable the bandit missions were. When you have other Stalkers to draw enemy fire you can creep around waiting for moments to strike. Makes me feel like a cat when they start wiggling around ready to pounce. It's very predatory, I love it! If you peeps ever play through it again I highly recommend trying it out. At least for the Stalker hit missions. I'll stick it in a spoiler thingy so it doesn't take up too much space:

Spoiler

 

[Invictus]

Very interesting Rolk's Drifter you should do more videos like that, my FPS skills are not twitchy enough for chasing mobs arround with the knife but sure looks like fun and sort of funny how some enemies can take half a pack of lead but die in a couple of knife swipes...
Nice to see you got back to this thread and if you find some cool Stalker site or news do please post em here too
Regard

 

[Silva]

Shit, Rolk is a maniac with that knife.

And the more I play SHOC with AA2, the less I like it. Even after the tweaks the banditos aim and awereness continue too unforgiven for me. Also, the prospect of having lots of enemies (zombies, burers, etc) in labs cut a bit of the suspense for me. I prefer the tense atmosphere to gunfights with mutants.

But I ll continue playing it, in the hope it gets better soon.

 

[Invictus]

Watched the Stalker film last night, I must say that I actualy prefered Solaris as a scifi movie but with all the ties to the stalker videogames series it was quite good and the evolution of the zone concept with the chernobyl incident to make a FPS was astounding to say the least. I couldn't say much about the acting (as all characters appear to always act as defeated people trying to justify their existance) but the dialogues and the camera work where superb. I almost feel about this franchise in the same way I feel about "do androids dream of electric sheep?" and Bladerunner; they are all supposed to come from the same source and basicaly have the same core concepts but their executions are VERY different...but somehow their differences make them each unique and equaly interesting and worthwhile entertainment.
After just having watched Elysium it is always quite striking how american movies (and to a certain extent western movies that include western europe) tend always to go for the "what does it all mean" movie themes or saving the world or whatever, while easter european movies and games always seem to have a setup which is not quite ever defined and much less explained, they are scifi backdrops for the realities of human conditiom where the supernatural or unexplained elements almost always remain as misterious as when they where first presented but the way the main characters react to it is the reflection of who the characters really are rather than what said phenomena is supposed to be...
Deep stuff to base a videogame on...