STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[someone else]

 

[Edija]

https://www.stalker-anomaly.com/201...ut-upcoming-features-in-final-version-of-1-5/

blyatiful

 

[Icewater]

Tried Anomaly the other day, playing a character for 10~ hours or so. There's a lot of stuff to like, especially from a technical perspective. The 64-bit version of Open X-Ray allows for HD models without annoying memory-related crashes, for instance. There's a lot of cool extensions of features from Call of Chernobyl, too.

Despite those improvements and others, overall I wasn't hugely impressed with the actual gameplay. The economy is much more brutal, particularly on the higher economy difficulty settings, which is something I feel that I *should* like. In practice, it's a clusterfuck. There are far too many different types of items. You can't just have a repair kit with some standard, reasonable price because then you could use it to repair an amazing-but-damaged weapon or suit taken off a random zombie and now you've got your endgame gear a whole 10 minutes after starting. So instead there's expensive repair kits that work on anything for that situation, and then kits that only work on things above a certain durability, and then kits that only work on certain types of items, and then kits that... etc. Every bandit you kill drops pieces of cloth or whatever that can be used to repair your junk by 1%, but only if you have the right tool, which is of course buried in some trader's inventory among the 10000 other tools that do various other things. Trader inventories are literally 10 screens long and filled with shit you'll have no idea how to use. Artifacts that cause radiation will radiate you simply by being in your inventory unless you have them inside of a container, which is a perfect example of a new thing they've added that does nothing to make the game more interesting in any way, it's just another silly thing to have to worry about. The theme of the mod seems to be "make the game tedious to play."

What makes all of this even worse is that all the work you'd have to do to understand how all this new junk fits together will be mostly irrelevant because the combat is a joke. Some 7.62x39mm piece of shit you pick up off a zombie will kill anything you come across, including the most powerful mutants and most fearsome stalkers, so why even bother with trying to figure out the fucked economy and pointless additions?

 

[Edija]

That is the only way to have some sort of progression in Stalker. Perfect example is vanilla Call of Chernobyl where you're in the endgame after witnessing your first firefight among factions. The thing about combat being too easy is plainly not true, which you will see when you start facing hordes of Monolith, 3-4 bloodsuckers at once, controllers, burers and all other high tier mutants.

Anomaly on survivalist is easier than Dead Air, so this is not even the most difficult Stalker experience you could have. On the other hand the vast majority of people that are into Stalker mods that I know enjoy the little details, like Artifact containers. The systems were even made less autistic, for example, earlier you needed a special tool to even put an artifact into the container, simulating that you can't pick up the artifact with your hands I guess. Stalker modding is a niche thing and people that are into it like the complexity.

 

[Icewater]

My problem is that it's complexity without depth. Needing tools for every random action you could want to take makes the game annoying to play in a way that's similar to your standard survival indie shovelware but doesn't provide any new and interesting options. It's fake difficulty in a stereotypically Russian way and I can't comprehend why the Ruskies seem to be so hot on this kind of thing. So much of what is popular in Russian modding gaming is like this; they seem to think that a game testing your patience by being a painful slog is inherently valuable, nevermind whether or not it creates engaging gameplay.

Edit: As much as I'm bitching about it I'm thinking about reinstalling Anomaly right now because there's not much else that isn't either buggy as hell or untranslated. I'd prefer something with more of a plot to it, though. Wind of Time was great and I'd highly recommend that to anyone, but I've already finished it.

On a related note, has anyone played SGM? How is it?

 

[cretin]

My problem is that it's complexity without depth. Needing tools for every random action you could want to take makes the game annoying to play in a way that's similar to your standard survival indie shovelware but doesn't provide any new and interesting options. It's fake difficulty in a stereotypically Russian way and I can't comprehend why the Ruskies seem to be so hot on this kind of thing. So much of what is popular in Russian modding gaming is like this; they seem to think that a game testing your patience by being a painful slog is inherently valuable, nevermind whether or not it creates engaging gameplay.

Edit: As much as I'm bitching about it I'm thinking about reinstalling Anomaly right now because there's not much else that isn't either buggy as hell or untranslated. I'd prefer something with more of a plot to it, though. Wind of Time was great and I'd highly recommend that to anyone, but I've already finished it.

On a related note, has anyone played SGM? How is it?

yep item bloat has long been established as a feature of misery derivatives that nobody but autistic dorks like. The inherent problem is that it seems especially pointless; the actual functions could all be condensed down into like 10 items max and you would not lose anything from the gameplay/balance. By the way im fairly sure MISERY is not russian, in fact its probably notable in that its the only major mod the western "scene" has produced that isnt a glorified gun or weather texture pack. The guy who started misery is danish iirc and the rest of them are polacks and romanians, theres like one russian.

I played SGM 2.2 "lost soul" version or whatever it was called and i thought it was trash. I think it was only ever popular because it was one of the first mods for CoP to bring in the maps from the other games, and that was considered a hot feature before every one and their dog started doing it.

Some recommendations re mods:
golden sphere aka golden ball aka gold sphere (one of the most interesting mods ive played for sure, very roadside picnic )
NS 2016 (unlike the related and more recently release OP 2.1 or joint pak 2.1, not actually shit and has a mostly complete translation)
Another Zone Mod (cop engine, standalone. story driven, but machine translation only)

 

[Edija]

At this rate Anomaly 1.5. is going to have more features than Stalker 2 ever could. There is a devblog on the discord and it's just too much posts to share here, but boy, they've been busy.

As for the whole itembloat/autism discussion; I don't think it's going anywhere, it's the only way to create a sense of progress and actual difficulty in Stalker mods. More often than not it's the economy that is opposing/killing you and not the environment, there can only be so much that can be done with making the Zone itself a bit more dangerous. Dead Air is a good example, they ramped up spawns to a ridiculous amounts, I have stuff on cam where 5-6 snorks + 2 bloodsuckers attack me at once, or just lately, 4 controllers in Pripyat. Still, it's not really that much of a fuss compared to actually getting ammo and repairing up your shit.

 

[bussinrounds]

Any advice on which of these options to enable/disable in regards to the ZRP for SoC...

Spoiler

Optional, enabled by default:
* Autosaves are now renamed or copied for each level (NatVac)
* EggChen's revamped particles.xr (remove if you want to use his
Particle Enhancement mod)
* GP37 (G36) with grenade and silencer support (SiriusStarr)
* The Zone Is Open, with free play (NatVac with TSL16b dialogs)
* Intra-level Teleport (NatVac)
* HUD Time-of-day (NatVac)
* Better Inventory/Trade/Search Screens (NatVac) -- more below
* Longer Quest Time Limits, Etc. (NatVac)
* NPC Chatter Control (NatVac)
* Show Reward Mini Mod v1.03 for ZRP (onionradish)
* Unwanted Side Task Rejection (NatVac)
* WideScreen Inventory Size (Raw)

Optional, not enabled by default:
* Stalkers Are Not Blind (Red75, with NatVac tweaks)
* Dunin Ammo Aggregation (IG2007)
* Screw (Freedom) Repair (NatVac from Shebuka idea)
* Captain Ivantsov (Duty) Repair (NatVac/Mr. Fusion from BobBQ
solution to a motiv-8 suggestion)
* Explosives Carry (NatVac from NoMore info)
* Fire Dynamic Lighting Support (EggChen)
* Freedom Vs. Duty (MrSeyker)
* Real Gun Names (MrSeyker)
* Quest Overhaul (Decane with NatVac update), with icon image
* The MonoMartyrs Seek Revenge (NatVac)
* Artifact Swap (NatVac)
* Outfit Protection Info (NatVac)
* MP5 retexture, for a special weapon (Warpig)
* No Head-Bobbing (PiIsARational via Paddywak)
* Sleeping Bag (Speed/Ab@dDon/fatrap/NatVac)
* AIPack (xStream tweaked by ZaGar, NatVac, BobBQ)
* xStream's Grenadier (adapted by ZaGaR)
* Rulix (Bak) AI Additions (adapted by NatVac/BobBQ)
* Trade/Search Screen improvements (NatVac, fitzroy_doll)
* ZRP Debug (NatVac)
* ZRP Support Utilities (NatVac)

 

[DDZ]

Started playing SoC again the other day, with just ZRP. About 6 hours in and kind of bored, already did all this.

So I figure I go look for a good mod for any of the games or whatever, and Jesus Christ what the fuck is going on, how many fucking choices do I have? So far I downloaded Dead Air and Call of Chernobyl, gonna get Anomaly and uhhh, what should I play?

 

[ciox]

I dunno, I've been fucking around with mods lately and I'm pretty dissapointed, not much seems to have exceeded dezowave's ancient AMK mod from a decade ago.

 

[Invictus]

Started playing SoC again the other day, with just ZRP. About 6 hours in and kind of bored, already did all this.

So I figure I go look for a good mod for any of the games or whatever, and Jesus Christ what the fuck is going on, how many fucking choices do I have? So far I downloaded Dead Air and Call of Chernobyl, gonna get Anomaly and uhhh, what should I play?

Anomaly is pretty damn great, the best thing we are going to get until Stalker 2; optimized, fun and well balanced

Otherwise I would highly recommend Autum Aurora and of course Misery 1.2 as the best versions available for the core games
Plus you can still get standalone projects like Lost Alpha or Stalker Evolution

 

[Edija]

Started playing SoC again the other day, with just ZRP. About 6 hours in and kind of bored, already did all this.

So I figure I go look for a good mod for any of the games or whatever, and Jesus Christ what the fuck is going on, how many fucking choices do I have? So far I downloaded Dead Air and Call of Chernobyl, gonna get Anomaly and uhhh, what should I play?

Call of Chernobyl is the base mod to all of these mods (Dead Air, Anomaly). CoC is the maps from all three Stalker games put together, turns the game into a sandbox with a slightly more harsh economy than in the base games. Anomaly is CoC mixed with Call of Misery, which is in turn based on Misery (bear with me). Basically, Anomaly is CoC with additional features, very adjustable economy, even some main quests that are usually missing from CoC if you don't add them by additional mods/addons. Dead Air is the most hardcore mod of the big ones, you can only play a Loner only and there is sort of a main quest. (While in Anomaly and CoC you can choose factions, starting locations and so on).

If you're new to Stalker modding I'd recommend testing the waters a bit by playing CoC. If you like it, Anomaly and Dead Air are your probable choices with the difference being Anomaly (more freeplay, easier, more adjustable, less bullshit, artificial, hardcore autism - although its still present), or Dead Air (a unique take on the Zone, hardcore difficulty, slower pace, more Misery than any other mods). Feel free to check out the link in my signature, I have a lot of Stalker LPs, so you can kinda see whats happening in what mod. Only thing I could add is that I would wait for the full release of Anomaly 1.5., which should come soon since it will add a lot of stuff, until then you can probably try out CoC and the various addons that are offered on moddb (CoC is very adjustable). I wouldn't recommend jumping right into Dead Air if you're not into hardcore Stalker mods.

 

[cretin]

Where the fuck is joint pak 2.1 english translation?

its not finished. If you go to the options ingame there is a language option for an incomplete english translation.

OP 2.1 is fucking garbage anyway. Do yourself a favor, delete it and go download NS 2016 which has a complete translation and isnt anywhere near as retarded.

 

[v1rus]

Since it seems this is the megathread for Stalker, ill be posting here.

Finally started this, vanilla with ZRP, made it to Mole and underground bandits.

Tbh, im having very mixed feelings. Its probably because I was expecting A LOT from this game. I really like the atmosphere, the exploration and the setting. OTOH, combat is average, and sidequests are just goddamn awful. That cache thingies are shit as hell too.

My guess is I'm playing the game wrong, since up to this point, I collected every cache - which seems like a silly thing to do, now that I saw how many of those things are in game.

Will beat it ofc, I am intrigued by the game. How do the sequels compare to the original one?

 

[Silva]

Since it seems this is the megathread for Stalker, ill be posting here.

Finally started this, vanilla with ZRP, made it to Mole and underground bandits.

Tbh, im having very mixed feelings. Its probably because I was expecting A LOT from this game. I really like the atmosphere, the exploration and the setting. OTOH, combat is average, and sidequests are just goddamn awful. That cache thingies are shit as hell too.

My guess is I'm playing the game wrong, since up to this point, I collected every cache - which seems like a silly thing to do, now that I saw how many of those things are in game.

Will beat it ofc, I am intrigued by the game. How do the sequels compare to the original one?

Call of Pripyat has much better side-quests, with C&C and all that. I suggest playing it with Misery 1*, as it strikes the best balance between bullshit and fun (besides having damn great gfx).

*this is important - avoid Misery 2 at all costs. Just go with 1 and you'll be fine.

 

[Invictus]

The original Shadow of Chernobyl isn’t very polished and yes the sidequests and mechanics are a bit underdeveloped... but the atmosphere, setting and overall mood are still unmatched even in modern shooters
Call of Pripyat is arguably a better experience, with most of the best parts of ShoC and CS with its own ideas make a better game

Looking at the success of the Metro series I really hope that the new Stalker 2 builds upon these core concepts rather than try to be very experimental; most Stalker fans would rather have basically an updated graphical update with some cool areas with tried and true mechanics rather than try to turn this into some multiplayer Battlefield Chernobyl like Fear the Wolves

 

[cretin]

who is the joke being played on? SoC is the best in the series and its not even close.

COP has a few notably good and memorable sidequests however, they in no way shape or form make up for the utterly boring, uninteresting main story and the aimless environments. The last third of COP is quite literally unfinished and rushed out the door. If you go into pripyat geared to the teeth expecting the game to hit what should be its climax, only to find you spend more time shooting rats and tushkanos than anything else. Dont even get me started on the lazy Strelok deus ex machina.

COP also turns artifact hunting into a predictable experience by having artifacts in anomalous "areas" and having artifacts only show up when you have the right detector. in SoC artifacts spawn under different conditions all over every map, which gives you the sense of actually hunting and scouting the landscape, rather than treating it like some theme park where you sprint from POI to POI.

People playing cop out of the box with mods also seem to be unaware that vanilla COP is mostly lifeless, probably as a result of the publisher putting pressure on them to cater to people with potato computers (since the previous title had received so much hate because toaster players could barely run it), which incidentally, is also why COP without mods has some serious eyesores in the environment and in many ways is the ugliest title in the series despite being the most advanced version of the engine. SoC's a-life experience was significantly better.

 

[Silva]

bla bla bla

Shut up you cretin.

Spoiler

 

[v1rus]

Got a bit into game. Enjoying it well. Got to find scientists now.

Now, an important question - how to balance between duty and freedom (hehe)? Are there some quests that I absolutely must not take, do I need to do take turns in doing quests (a bit of duty, then freedom, back to duty, etc.)

 

[Ninjerk]

bla bla bla

Shut up you cretin.

Spoiler

p. good

 

[bussinrounds]

Anyone know how to disable those red arc like direction of fire indicators/helpers that pop up and show you where you're getting shot at from ?

 

[cretin]

Brief reviews of some mods I have enjoyed over the years:

SOC
Autumn Aurora 2: The ultimate graphicsfag mod. AA2 changes a lot but leaves the vanilla story and quests unmolested. Mainly the changes are visual (and some of them very unsuitable, for example, npc models shamelessly ripped from metro) but also makes the gunplay snappier and adds in misery-lite features such as medkits/bandages taking time to use, and brings the detectors from subsequent games to SOC (which in my opinion, is not welcome). AA2 is notoriously hard to complete, not because of its difficulty, but because you will eventually get corrupted saves. There are some mitigating measures recommended, but honestly I think those are just placebo. Overall its very well presented mod, but since one component of the graphicsfaggotry doesnt work with windows 10 (enb) and other mods have stolen the rest of the visual components (such as the flora, shaders and retextures) you might as well play other mods.

AMK Autumn Edition: In my mind this is one of the finest mod compilations put together. AMK combines one of the original, and arguably still the best, stalker mods with the visuals and weapons/gunplay of AA2. AMK changes a LOT: it lets the A-life of the leash, blowouts, new dialogues and quests, it introduces new mutants and restores cut ones, it adds new artifacts and artifact "recipes" (a system of creating unique artifacts), it removes the annoying bullet sponge npcs of vanilla while compensating by making them react significantly faster and shoot much more accurately. Theres a lot more I wont go into to save on space, but they all amount to AMK making the zone feel a lot more "alive" and lived in, with a hell of a lot more activity going on. This is why it was such a beloved mod for SoC, the new kids on the block probably think such things are blase these days with all the coc shit. I've played a hell of a lot of mods and yet I always come back to some variant of AMK for the true stalkan experience. For the best visuals, make sure the included user.ltx gets installed properly, as sometimes stalker can be tricky as to where it keeps the real appdata (in my case, its in the /bin folder).

Narodnaya Solyanka 2016: frequently and unfortunately mistaken for its meme-mod derivatives (joint pak/OP, DMX, stalkersoup etc) NS is actually a legitimately good mod that brings a lot of fresh content to stalker. This is actually probably one of the largest mods, and the changes are too exhaustive to list and it adds levels from the subsequent games as well as a few of its own. 2016 is the most polished version, and has an english translation that is about 90% complete. NS is a good choice for salty veterans whove exhausted vanilla content, and a very bad choice for new players as the amount of new quests and artifacts can be overwhelming.

Golden ball aka Gold Sphere: By far the most interesting mod I've played, it is totally unique on the scene. While golden ball uses the levels of SOC it is a totally new story, with new scripted events and creative use of the assets to make the world feel new. This is a much more cerebral experience than a straight up shooter, involving puzzles and convoluted questlines with C&C, and a deadly zone that much more centered around avoiding death from anomalies than it is about shooting muties in the face. Golden sphere is very much in the vein of "roadside picnic" even actually featuring characters from that book (thankfully, it is done a way that does not feel like fan service). For me this mod totally reintroduced the feeling of alieness and mystery in SoC that i had long since lost.

Zone of Alienation: ZoA is a derivative of AMK that is notable for introducing a magazine system and polishing the ballistics. The magazine system is a bit of a gimmick, but a welcome one that adds to the immersion and feeling of having to prepare for trips into the zone, but it also has important tactical consequences in the gameplay as you now dont have magical pools of ammo and cant simply spam reload to top up whenever there is a lull in the action. ZoA is a fun mod focused on realism/tacticool-nerdery, but the problem is it is notoriously unstable. It is in fact, one of the least stable mods I have ever played. And its never going to be fixed: the creator is one of those "i cant do this anymore!!!" faggots who starts projects and then leaves them very unfinished, a habit he has continued ever since which has earned him a bit of reputation as a meme in the stalker community.

 

[Icewater]

Wind of Time is really good if y'all haven't played it, it's got a cool plotline with a TWEEST. Mostly uses old maps but makes big changes to some of them.

One thing: don't save while the drawbridge is lowering in the Red Forest near the beginning or else, upon reloading and playing from that save, the bridge will freeze where ever it was and you'll have to run through the damn underground tunnels to get around for the entire game.

 

[cretin]

Wind of Time is really good if y'all haven't played it, it's got a cool plotline with a TWEEST. Mostly uses old maps but makes big changes to some of them.

One thing: don't save while the drawbridge is lowering in the Red Forest near the beginning or else, upon reloading and playing from that save, the bridge will freeze where ever it was and you'll have to run through the damn underground tunnels to get around for the entire game.

I played it briefly once but dropped it pretty early, i cant remember why. I was probably in no mood for storyfagging at the time, so i cant comment in the positive or negative wrt to its quality. I do constantly hear praise about it, so it must be good.

Another COP storyfag mod i played a little of was "Another Zone Mod" which has to be some of the best visuals ive seen produced on the COP engine. It seemed pretty interesting, but i couldnt get into it as it only has a machine translation and machine translations dont really convey emotion rich text well.

Also there is one that got much press this year is "spatial anomaly" which is apparently well regarded but IMO is a piece of shit. Totally dull, given to navel gazing indulgence, and features one of the worst amateur levels ive ever had the displeasure of playing on.

I've just learned that the latest version of the STCOP weapon pack (3.0) is out with translation, so I might have a reason to do another COP playthrough and see if my opinion on COP can be mended. Last time i played COP through it was with pripyat reborn + arsenal overhaul and I suspect PR broke a bunch of shit.

 

[Invictus]

I have played AA2 several times and if you keep the number of quests you get under 4 each time you don’t get any corrupted saves. As for the Metro suits.... gotta agree with you that they kind of look out of place
Overall I really like that it is a vanilla+ experience with pretty much updated visuals and a couple of great additions like slow healing and the detection system of the later games

I am currently Shadow of Chernobyl only with ZRP and A couple of texture mods and enjoying it tremendously too