STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Tacgnol]

Balance is a real problem in these mods especially with a lot of gunporn mods. I find grok's autismo approach better than the typical approach to "realism" which is where you shoot a guy in the foot with 9x18 and he drops dead instantly. I'm happy to concede theres a middle ground, but guys running around in level IV armor plates all over should absolutely be walking tanks to everything but large caliber AP rounds. To me it just feels dumb when a master stalker in exo poses roughly the same challenge as a bandit in a leather jacket.

The middle ground is to tweak what's already there, not write overly complex scripts that tank performance during firefights.

I suspect most of these things could be solved rather simply by increasing the damage resistance of NPCs wearing high end armour and decreasing the penetration values on lower tier ammo.

 

[cretin]

Balance is a real problem in these mods especially with a lot of gunporn mods. I find grok's autismo approach better than the typical approach to "realism" which is where you shoot a guy in the foot with 9x18 and he drops dead instantly. I'm happy to concede theres a middle ground, but guys running around in level IV armor plates all over should absolutely be walking tanks to everything but large caliber AP rounds. To me it just feels dumb when a master stalker in exo poses roughly the same challenge as a bandit in a leather jacket.

The middle ground is to tweak what's already there, not write overly complex scripts that tank performance during firefights.

I suspect most of these things could be solved rather simply by increasing the damage resistance of NPCs wearing high end armour and decreasing the penetration values on lower tier ammo.

How bad is the performance hit? I only briefly played with GBO and I didn't notice anything but I don't play warfare or shit like that.

 

[Tacgnol]

Balance is a real problem in these mods especially with a lot of gunporn mods. I find grok's autismo approach better than the typical approach to "realism" which is where you shoot a guy in the foot with 9x18 and he drops dead instantly. I'm happy to concede theres a middle ground, but guys running around in level IV armor plates all over should absolutely be walking tanks to everything but large caliber AP rounds. To me it just feels dumb when a master stalker in exo poses roughly the same challenge as a bandit in a leather jacket.

The middle ground is to tweak what's already there, not write overly complex scripts that tank performance during firefights.

I suspect most of these things could be solved rather simply by increasing the damage resistance of NPCs wearing high end armour and decreasing the penetration values on lower tier ammo.

How bad is the performance hit? I only briefly played with GBO and I didn't notice anything but I don't play warfare or shit like that.

It probably depends on the size of the battle, but I was getting noticeable pauses/stuttering on large firefights on warfare which were absent pre installation of GBO. This is on a high end PC as well.

It's probably alright outside of that scenario.

I think the issue is he's running a fairly chunky script every time an NPC gets hit, which in large firefights is going to be running very frequently.

 

[Tweed]

Are there any good settings for Warfare? I've tried Alife Overhaul and Illinaru's and they both have the same problem, it's always a curbstomp. Once you push an enemy off the map they never really try to take it back so you can just sweep the zone sector by sector.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Almost two years after my last playthrough, which was before latest update that bring TAZ weapons pack, I've experienced more crashes this time... just like other people.
I was amazed to find out they put TAZ weapons pack yet missed some guns from their (RttN) old arsenal.
Nowhere to find in the drop pool, or spawner for that matter, like USAS-12 that would come handy in main quest line against some really nasty mutants.
I personally prefered Benelli, hoping that I don't need to unjam it by unloading every shell and then loading again...

Had to add most new guns to Nimble's offer, also lowered goodwill required to show more goods in the shops since old CoM-like mods have barely any contracts to fullfill.
Most revolver were decent but lacking power beside SW500. They all pale compared to Desert Eagle (or unique Steppe Eagle with DOCTER sight) which holds more ammo - cheaper and available in most shops, have higher rate of fire and kickback is more managable which makes it a decent option for close encounters, which is something that happens quite often in the Zone.

Most Colt M1911 models have this weird texture on them, some kind of strip paint or fake shade? Only Kimball edition was free from this.
Don't remember that in other mods but SIG Sniper loose durability p.fast, each shot takes down durability by ~0.5% which is nuts.
Both UZI and UMP-45 is held in weird way, making ADS difficult and it just looks weird.
Fixed that by changing "anm_" section from "ump45" to "mp5" (for example "anm_show = mp5_draw" => "anm_show = mp5_draw"), which also fixed UZI issues somehow, even though there is no file or line that mention it.
Weird...

Disguise system is simplified and limited - put any outfit on you so your new faction and their allies will not attack. You can't take contracts or even trade with them.
Trading was possible for awhile but later on - it was out of question. Guess some "unfortunate" spawns changed something in that matter? I blame mercs spawning near Concrete Factory in the Jupiter. Some of them even holds artifacts in their inventory. Despite getting "Geologist" achievement other stalkers rarely catch any artifacts, at least news are not more frequent?
As usual - "Heavy Pockets" achievement (gather 100k or 1mln roubles) did jack shit, only "goodwill tiers" for most factions works as intended.

 

[Tacgnol]

According to the Anomaly discord, DoctorX passed away at the end of August. Guy was a pretty prolific modder for both Call of Chernobyl and Anomaly.

RIP

 

[antimeridian]

Bros I'm going to play SoC for the first time, want to keep things vanilla for first playthrough, any must-have mods that are just limited to bugfixes and polish? Will also be playing in 4K, any mods necessary for resolution/widescreen/HUD scaling? Not looking for any graphical overhauls or gameplay changes for my first playthrough.

 

[jebsmoker]

Bros I'm going to play SoC for the first time, want to keep things vanilla for first playthrough, any must-have mods that are just limited to bugfixes and polish? Will also be playing in 4K, any mods necessary for resolution/widescreen/HUD scaling? Not looking for any graphical overhauls or gameplay changes for my first playthrough.

http://www.metacognix.com/files/stlkrsoc/index.html

this is the best vanilla fix up community patch that i know of

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Bros I'm going to play SoC for the first time, want to keep things vanilla for first playthrough, any must-have mods that are just limited to bugfixes and polish? Will also be playing in 4K, any mods necessary for resolution/widescreen/HUD scaling? Not looking for any graphical overhauls or gameplay changes for my first playthrough.

Why would you want to ruin your first time with fixes?

 

[Tacgnol]

Bros I'm going to play SoC for the first time, want to keep things vanilla for first playthrough, any must-have mods that are just limited to bugfixes and polish? Will also be playing in 4K, any mods necessary for resolution/widescreen/HUD scaling? Not looking for any graphical overhauls or gameplay changes for my first playthrough.

Just use the Zone Reclamation Project that jebsmoker has linked.

It's a comprehensive unofficial patch and fixes most of the remaining annoying bugs.

Don't touch the complete series whatever you do. Despite the claims of the author they do far more than just fix things.

 

[Konjad]

Bros I'm going to play SoC for the first time, want to keep things vanilla for first playthrough, any must-have mods that are just limited to bugfixes and polish? Will also be playing in 4K, any mods necessary for resolution/widescreen/HUD scaling? Not looking for any graphical overhauls or gameplay changes for my first playthrough.

Don't bother yourself too much with patches, mods and fixes. There are some good ones, but they change a lot and you will enjoy vanilla more as first playthrough indeed.

SoC is the best in the series, so just enjoy. At least it has the best atmosphere and story. The 'mystery' goes away in later games, and their stories are inferior. Even with gameplay improvements, I didn't enjoy them half as much as SoC.

 

[Tacgnol]

Bros I'm going to play SoC for the first time, want to keep things vanilla for first playthrough, any must-have mods that are just limited to bugfixes and polish? Will also be playing in 4K, any mods necessary for resolution/widescreen/HUD scaling? Not looking for any graphical overhauls or gameplay changes for my first playthrough.

Don't bother yourself too much with patches, mods and fixes. There are some good ones, but they change a lot and you will enjoy vanilla more as first playthrough indeed.

SoC is the best in the series, so just enjoy. At least it has the best atmosphere and story. The 'mystery' goes away in later games, and their stories are inferior. Even with gameplay improvements, I didn't enjoy them half as much as SoC.

ZRP is an unofficial patch only. It does not change anything else.

There is a reason it's the base of 99% of mods.

 

[ferratilis]

Other than ZRP, I'd also use fixed widescreen scopes because the original scopes look stretched on widescreen resolutions. Don't know about 4k scaling though, never had the luxury of playing on that resolution.
https://www.lonebullet.com/mods/dow...talker-shadow-of-chernobyl-mod-free-51992.htm

Also, if you notice that shadows are glitching out at the edges of your screen (which can happen on widescreen resolutions), just open the console and type:
r2_sun_near 30
r2_sun_near_border 1

That's all you need. Enjoy one of the best games ever made.

 

[antimeridian]

Thanks bros I started with ZRP for bug fixes and nothing else, loving it so far (second highest difficulty, might bump it up to highest though?). And 4K's a bust, shrinks interface to unreadability, so I'm doing opposite route and playing at original 4:3 ratio as seems intended (given that everything is stretched on widescreen anyway).

Is this game way more influential than given credit for? I can see its DNA in many of the milsim/survival tacticools that came after (in terms of interface, gameplay, and also jank).

 

[Tacgnol]

Thanks bros I started with ZRP for bug fixes and nothing else, loving it so far (second highest difficulty, might bump it up to highest though?). And 4K's a bust, shrinks interface to unreadability, so I'm doing opposite route and playing at original 4:3 ratio as seems intended (given that everything is stretched on widescreen anyway).

Is this game way more influential than given credit for? I can see its DNA in many of the milsim/survival tacticools that came after (in terms of interface, gameplay, and also jank).

Yeah play on master, it's what the game is designed around and it's not super hard anyway.

SOC has a pretty standard RPG curve in that, due to high end equipment, you'll be pretty unstoppable by end game (with the exception of monolith gauss gunners).

 

[Silva]

So, after a long time I'm feeling the urge to go back to he zone....

I see this Anomaly mod is the new hot. It's apparently a big sandbox thing with all 3 games maps and factions and quests.

But how is this faction thing? Can I join factions and rise through the ranks and gain access to new toys as I do so? Also, do the other factions turn hostile on me? Are there enough quests for each faction to avoid getting repetitive?

Other than that, any other mods out there worth taking a look?

Thanks bros and sis.

Edit: in before DraQ suggest some weird unpronounceable potato shit like Zonarolibskaya Mod or something thats incomplete, full of bugs and untranslated but insists it's the best in the world..

 

[Silva]

Still on Anomaly,

This main quest don't sound half bad, specially for someone who already finished all games and want something fresh that still makes sense with the setting lore.

I also found that this "Escape from Pripyat" modpack is recommended for the myriad improves it brings, both visual and functional.

And this little vid explaining the factions with starting tips..

 

[Tacgnol]

So, after a long time I'm feeling the urge to go back to he zone....

I see this Anomaly mod is the new hot. It's apparently a big sandbox thing with all 3 games maps and factions and quests.

But how is this faction thing? Can I join factions and rise through the ranks and gain access to new toys as I do so? Also, do the other factions turn hostile on me? Are there enough quests for each faction to avoid getting repetitive?

Other than that, any other mods out there worth taking a look?

Thanks bros and sis.

Edit: in before DraQ suggest some weird unpronounceable potato shit like Zonarolibskaya Mod or something thats incomplete, full of bugs and untranslated but insists it's the best in the world..

Yes to the faction stuff, you do repeat generic missions to build rep which unlocks new gear from the faction store and harder missions. Each faction has unique versions of the main outfits, for instance Clear Sky outfits lean towards anomaly protection over combat, but provide more combat protection than ecologists for instance.

There is a story mode, but they are highly cut down versions of the main missions from SOC/CS/COP with most of the set pieces removed. There are a couple of original pieces of story content that you can play after the "vanilla" story quests but they are super short and not very interesting.

tl;dr How much you'll get out of Anomaly depends on how much you like freeplay. The story content is pretty shit. Warfare with a high alife population can be quite fun if you enjoy big shootouts and lots of combat.

 

[Silva]

So, after a long time I'm feeling the urge to go back to he zone....

I see this Anomaly mod is the new hot. It's apparently a big sandbox thing with all 3 games maps and factions and quests.

But how is this faction thing? Can I join factions and rise through the ranks and gain access to new toys as I do so? Also, do the other factions turn hostile on me? Are there enough quests for each faction to avoid getting repetitive?

Other than that, any other mods out there worth taking a look?

Thanks bros and sis.

Edit: in before DraQ suggest some weird unpronounceable potato shit like Zonarolibskaya Mod or something thats incomplete, full of bugs and untranslated but insists it's the best in the world..

Yes to the faction stuff, you do repeat generic missions to build rep which unlocks new gear from the faction store and harder missions. Each faction has unique versions of the main outfits, for instance Clear Sky outfits lean towards anomaly protection over combat, but provide more combat protection than ecologists for instance.

There is a story mode, but they are highly cut down versions of the main missions from SOC/CS/COP with most of the set pieces removed. There are a couple of original pieces of story content that you can play after the "vanilla" story quests but they are super short and not very interesting.

tl;dr How much you'll get out of Anomaly depends on how much you like freeplay. The story content is pretty shit. Warfare with a high alife population can be quite fun if you enjoy big shootouts and lots of combat.

Thanks. More questions if you don't mind:

1. Is the economy retarded artificially harsh as in Misery 2.x where you risk you life for an artifact that's worth a loaf of bread? I like a good sim (loved the old Misery 1) but that's too much.

2. Are Factions quests lore-coherent? Say, if I go with Ecologists, does that mean I will spend more time on anomalies hunting artifacts instead of shooting people?

3. Even if the new story is shit, at least the writing (for quests) is okay/decent, or utterly shit amateur stuff? To be honest the original Stalker SoC was pretty meh in story too, felt like amateur stuff IMO, and I played the shit out of it anyway (CoP was better). I don't mind the plot being weak, but if how the characters speak through dialogue is nonsensical it kills the game for me.

 

[Silva]

Installed Anomaly 1.5.1. YET AGAIN.

I thought, sure, sure, I'll do what people told me to do, decrease mutant population to 0.5, up stalker population to 0.75.

This time I didn't get murdered by hyper-speed cats that his as hard as a bear on my way out of Rookie village... I had taken on an escort mission to escort a group of NPCs to the pumping station in the swamp, and instead, all 5 of us got attacked by two cats before I got to the exit from Cordon to Swamp, which is all of fucking 250 meters away from Rookie village... But nevermind, we made it, we loaded into the swamp, had a great firefight near the entry point, got some loot, kept escorting them and finding a route through the swamp map where it's sort of safe and away from big NPC camps...

And then, 100 meters away from the destination zone, we got attacked by TWO MORE CATS, which killed my remaining companions, then one of the cats one-hit crippled me, then killed me with a second blow a second later, while my screen was all red and blurry from the first hit.

How? How do modders manage to do this? There is so much to love in Anomaly. It's obvious that they've put so much time and effort into so many OTHER aspects of the mod.

But good god, why would you let those cats in the mod? What is the thought process here, I don't get it... The thing moves about as fast as a chimere and hits as hard as a chimera does in the vanilla games. And it's a FUCKING FERAL CAT, the size of a small bobcat.

I found online horror stories about snorks being more or less the same - obscene health pools, two shotting you unless you're in an exoskeleton.

How can someone who made all the good stuff in Anomaly also be so incredibly stupid at the same time? I just don't get it. Fucking modders, man...

Did you try Anomaly again? I hear the early game is really difficult and one should prioritize getting a good armor, but that it gets manageable after that.

Im talking this out of my ass though. Im warming up to try it for the first time soon.

 

[Silva]

I gave up and installed Provak's Anomaly because it has tons and tons of shit in it and I'm too lazy to sort through weeks worth mods and guides to find exactly what I want. So far it's pretty good.

How does this "Provak" compares to that "Escape from Pripyat" modpack?

 

[Tweed]

How does this "Provak" compares to that "Escape from Pripyat" modpack?

After further playing I decided it was mostly garbage. A lot of the guns that are ported are hackjobs with lots of unfinished things like broken mod trees and even the inability to repair the weapon outside of mechanic which is a deal breaker considering the costs. There was also a load of other junk that started to grate on me like the chosen sound effects and I found that I really hate the HD models that everyone touts. In the end I went throug the arduous process of merging mods and making personal patches to get everything I wanted running together.

 

[Silva]

How does this "Provak" compares to that "Escape from Pripyat" modpack?

After further playing I decided it was mostly garbage. A lot of the guns that are ported are hackjobs with lots of unfinished things like broken mod trees and even the inability to repair the weapon outside of mechanic which is a deal breaker considering the costs. There was also a load of other junk that started to grate on me like the chosen sound effects and I found that I really hate the HD models that everyone touts. In the end I went throug the arduous process of merging mods and making personal patches to get everything I wanted running together.

Any tips for an Anomaly first timer?

Btw, do you think an i3 + 16gb RAM + GTX970 gpu + SSD can handle it?

 

[Tweed]

Any tips for an Anomaly first timer?

Btw, do you think an i3 + 16gb RAM + GTX970 gpu + SSD can handle it?

Should. The game will probably chug though on maxed out settings, but those are always unoptimized anyway. First time you should probably just play the game as it is so you can get an idea of what you want to change as you go along, there's way too many mods and its a rabbit hole, I was running 144 different mods and a handful of those were personal merge patches. I spent about a month or so just tweaking my selection. Once you decide you do want to mod the game use Mod Manager 2 to keep everything in order. Eventually you'll probably want to turn off the item use animations because they slow everything down, forget muh realism where wasted time is concerned.

EDIT: Oh wait yeah there's one mod to install, the purge blowout siren, it's way better than the original.

 

[Tacgnol]

So, after a long time I'm feeling the urge to go back to he zone....

I see this Anomaly mod is the new hot. It's apparently a big sandbox thing with all 3 games maps and factions and quests.

But how is this faction thing? Can I join factions and rise through the ranks and gain access to new toys as I do so? Also, do the other factions turn hostile on me? Are there enough quests for each faction to avoid getting repetitive?

Other than that, any other mods out there worth taking a look?

Thanks bros and sis.

Edit: in before DraQ suggest some weird unpronounceable potato shit like Zonarolibskaya Mod or something thats incomplete, full of bugs and untranslated but insists it's the best in the world..

Yes to the faction stuff, you do repeat generic missions to build rep which unlocks new gear from the faction store and harder missions. Each faction has unique versions of the main outfits, for instance Clear Sky outfits lean towards anomaly protection over combat, but provide more combat protection than ecologists for instance.

There is a story mode, but they are highly cut down versions of the main missions from SOC/CS/COP with most of the set pieces removed. There are a couple of original pieces of story content that you can play after the "vanilla" story quests but they are super short and not very interesting.

tl;dr How much you'll get out of Anomaly depends on how much you like freeplay. The story content is pretty shit. Warfare with a high alife population can be quite fun if you enjoy big shootouts and lots of combat.

Thanks. More questions if you don't mind:

1. Is the economy retarded artificially harsh as in Misery 2.x where you risk you life for an artifact that's worth a loaf of bread? I like a good sim (loved the old Misery 1) but that's too much.

2. Are Factions quests lore-coherent? Say, if I go with Ecologists, does that mean I will spend more time on anomalies hunting artifacts instead of shooting people?

3. Even if the new story is shit, at least the writing (for quests) is okay/decent, or utterly shit amateur stuff? To be honest the original Stalker SoC was pretty meh in story too, felt like amateur stuff IMO, and I played the shit out of it anyway (CoP was better). I don't mind the plot being weak, but if how the characters speak through dialogue is nonsensical it kills the game for me.

Sorry, missed this post.

1. There are separate difficulty settings for gameplay and economy which can be further customised in the settings menu individually. Anomaly generally has the flow of early game being hard to get by and end game being super easy. Artefacts in particular are worth a shitton of cash if you sell them to the ecologist professors. Economy is definitely a lot easier than Misery on the first two economy difficulty settings.

2. Yeah each faction generally has a particular mission focus. Military/duty give you more combat oriented missions for instance.

3. Writing is generally non existent on the story content. You get a bit of exposition/explanation from some characters like the Swamp doc then go loot Strelok's stash etc. None of it is really the focus of the mod. The original content (two bonus storylines) they made is a little more interesting, but super short. Main reason to do the story content is to unlock some interesting factions like SIN or the UN's expedition which you can then play as on subsequent playthroughs.

 

[Tweed]

I though the story even with the Director's Cut was horrible and entirely pointless. Also if you intend to play as the UN group you'll want mods to fix their broken questline and merchant files which seriously messes stuff up in Warfare mode.