STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Seigneur Locklear]

Like others have previously noted, the primary appeal of the mod seems to first and foremost target the Tarkov fans - I can see why the gun nuts would adore it. Me? I'm not much of a gun nut, never was - it seems overwhelming but kind of in a good way still, because the customization aspect does appeal to me. As for the general experience, I've barely dipped my toes in the game, I'm trying to brute force my way through hard + survivalist difficulty with campfire only saves, but it's been brutal and unforgiving and I haven't been making much progress, leading me to restart runs at least several times by now. But it's still fun, the atmosphere is there, the game does look gorgeous for what it is and fortunately enough I'm having next to zero performance issues.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Alright thanks bros I ain't touching that shit with a bargepole.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

Honestly, you've got nothing to lose by trying it out, since pretty much nearly every single aspect of the mod pack is customizable so you can tailor it in accordance to all your preferences. Just be ready to download 50gb and deal with occasional performance issues, assuming your PC might be a bit lacking.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Performance wouldn't be a problem at all, and I guess I could check it out given that there's nothing to lose, but idk I'm still not wild on playing Tarkov-lite. Thanks for the recommendation, though!

 

[Ali Assa Seen]

Long shot but does anyone know the old music/radio mod (from circa 2013 maybe?) which included a bunch of STALKER themed acoustic tracks? I found an old playlist file deep in the depths of my PC but the actual tracks seem long gone.
Best I can find these were two of the tracks and a bunch of the others have muzico.ru in their file names but that isn't leading me anywhere:

 

[Gerrard]

The ground fog is the single best graphics feature added to the game.

 

[Baron Dupek]

soon

 

[razvedchiki]

will they finally randomise the spawns on the maps? killing the same dude on the same exact spot gets really tiresome.

 

[Tweed]

That's the sound of all your mods breaking, again.

 

[None]

Its just a shaders mod, not a new release of Anomaly. Nothing special, unless you'd like to run through the Zone for the 10th time, but have it look slightly different.

I know mapping is mostly undocumented and outright arcane, but you'd think by now that there would be some actual meat being developed instead of yet more paint added.

 

[ferratilis]

These kids who make Anomaly mods have never even played vanilla SoC, they've been raised by DayZ and Tarkov, so I wouldn't expect anything of note to come out. Just take a glance at some Anomaly videos on youtube, it's mostly about gunporn and "muh hardcore survival" where you spend hours collecting cigarette butts and such to get a barely decent gun (although Anomaly can't really be blamed for that, it started with later versions of Misery). A lot of the atmosphere from original games just isn't there. Everything looks kind of homogenized to the point that it has no identity. More shaders and particles will not fix that imo.

 

[NecroLord]

These kids who make Anomaly mods have never even played vanilla SoC, they've been raised by DayZ and Tarkov, so I wouldn't expect anything of note to come out. Just take a glance at some Anomaly videos on youtube, it's mostly about gunporn and "muh hardcore survival" where you spend hours collecting cigarette butts and such to get a barely decent gun (although Anomaly can't really be blamed for that, it started with later versions of Misery). A lot of the atmosphere from original games just isn't there. Everything looks kind of homogenized to the point that it has no identity. More shaders and particles will not fix that imo.

Yeah.
A lot of the original atmosphere is lost, as the game turns way more flashy and filled with lens flare shit.

 

[dreughjiggers]

Is Call of Chernobyl mod the best way to play these games?

 

[Tacgnol]

These kids who make Anomaly mods have never even played vanilla SoC, they've been raised by DayZ and Tarkov, so I wouldn't expect anything of note to come out. Just take a glance at some Anomaly videos on youtube, it's mostly about gunporn and "muh hardcore survival" where you spend hours collecting cigarette butts and such to get a barely decent gun (although Anomaly can't really be blamed for that, it started with later versions of Misery). A lot of the atmosphere from original games just isn't there. Everything looks kind of homogenized to the point that it has no identity. More shaders and particles will not fix that imo.

I only know of two-story mods, the one that adds a new duty base and associated storyline and the Russian artefact hunter mod.

It's a real shame the community hasn't made more story content.

 

[Ivan]

I'm gonna give Gamma a try. I don't have experience with CoC or Anomaly, just Misery 1.2

 

[Baron Dupek]

After some time we finally got working teleporter on the bridge

 

[Tweed]

All Anomalmeme mods packs add retarded shit to the game, the only way to truly get what you want is to make your own.

 

[Tacgnol]

All Anomalmeme mods packs add retarded shit to the game, the only way to truly get what you want is to make your own.

And then often make your own modifications to the mods.

 

[V17]

Just started playing GAMMA a few days ago, right after finishing the whole trilogy for the first time.

I'd say managing expectations is important when playing it, I knew what I was getting into and also specifically what I wasn't getting out of it - a meaningful story or a true Stalker atmosphere.

I don't really mind that it kind of does its own thing. I do mind that many Anomaly players present it as the "ultimate Stalker experience", that's nonsense, but it doesn't make the game itself less fun. I play it on low difficulty with a (relatively modest) minimum time difference between saves (otherwise no rectriction), which is still slightly more difficult than the original games on the highest difficulty. I enjoy figuring out slightly complex systems in games in general, so I find the crafting to be fun.

There are individual features that I really like, for example the enhanced sound engine (hearing shots across the map and being able to approximately say where and how far they are and having an idea about the type of weapon used is awesome) and the simulated PDA communication from NPCs that makes the zone feel alive - though the latter arguably takes away from the original Stalker atmosphere.

Ultimately for me GAMMA is like some "enhanced freeplay" mod, it's different enough that it's fun to return to the same places immediately after finishing the trilogy, and due to the stash/sidequest system and anomalies/radiation hotspots changing places after blowouts it motivates me to explore places that I originally didn't because there wasn't enough motivation apart from exploration itself. No idea how long this enjoyment is going to last though.

 

[Baron Dupek]

People were complaining about lack of proper storyline in the Anomaly.
Guess what, Anomaly Anthology is coming - it merges various CoP story mods (and their maps) in Anomaly project.
in short - Anomaly Soup?
https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/12yiojs/stalker_anomaly_anthology_10_link_to_stream_below/

Mods includes - "Spatial Anomaly” (Пространственная Аномалия), "Spectrum Project: Road in the Fog” (Spectrum Project: Путь во мгле), "Valley of Whispers” (Долина Шорохов), "Forgotten Squad” (Забытый Отряд), "In Spite of Death" (Смерти вопреки) but not sure if that includes whole trilogy (In Devil Circle, Novice, In the Web of Lies).

I remember new maps in Demosfen project, but it never got proper English translation

 

[Twiglard]

They should make these quests finite. Not better, just finite. And I don't mean 9999999 per area.

 

[Rocket-Propelled Game]

Some guy on Youtube called Anomalous Dugout was saying people are only playing Anomaly these days and not playing the original games.

So? Maybe they are? The originals have their charm but as far as actual fun factor goes Anomaly has so many improvements across the board plus near-infinite replayability that why wouldn't they?

Also someone in Dugout's comments said that Anomaly is for casuals, like CoD and Tarkov. In what world is Tarkov a casual game?

It's like words don't mean anything anymore.

 

[Tacgnol]

Some guy on Youtube called Anomalous Dugout was saying people are only playing Anomaly these days and not playing the original games.

Wouldn't surprise me considering how many people pick up Anomaly after seeing streamers hype it.

That said, I don't have anything against Anomaly other than it gets boring quite quickly without the right mods. It's sad however that a lot of these new players aren't experiencing the franchise through the story as intended.

 

[V17]

After playing GAMMA a lot for a month the one thing that I dislike about it is that the gameplay loop relies a bit too much on carrot on a stick grinding. I don't know if this also applies for Anomaly since in GAMMA it's partly dependent on not being able to buy guns and armor.

It is a lot of fun on its own, it's hard and immersive enough for that and pretty brutal on higher difficulties, which is fun on its own. But some stages of the game can take a long time because they're dependent on RNG - you pretty much need high level gear for the end game (unless you're very experienced already), but since you need to repair/craft everything, getting it is based on lucking out and finding not just the (broken) gear but also the expert toolkit needed to repair it. And that can take a long time. Even longer if you don't spend the time to search through the official discord and realize that the game is very imprecise and unintuitive in telling you in which areas expert tools even have a chance to spawn.

After being at this stage for a while I started to wonder if I actually still enjoy the gameplay or if I just keep playing to see numbers go up and get the next better thing. Have I become as retarded as the average Runescape player?? Well, no, the "grind" here is still kind of fun, and pushing myself to get to more dangerous situations improved the enjoyment immediately. But "I want to see myself get better gear" is simply not comparable as a motivation to experiencing an actual story, exploring new places and new gameplay features for the first time. I think it's a bit too artificial, it tries to manufacture more enjoyment from less substance.

 

[Tacgnol]

After playing GAMMA a lot for a month the one thing that I dislike about it is that the gameplay loop relies a bit too much on carrot on a stick grinding. I don't know if this also applies for Anomaly since in GAMMA it's partly dependent on not being able to buy guns and armor.

Normal loop on Anomaly is grinding rep/relations to be able to buy the weapons/armour as they don't appear until you have sufficient goodwill with the faction.

The actual monetary cost is rarely a problem by the time you've completed enough tasks for them to appear.