STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[razvedchiki]

How's the economy?I liked the strict one from misery.
You can loot armors from corpses?like exoskeletons and stuff?

 

[chobbes]

How's the economy?I liked the strict one from misery.
You can loot armors from corpses?like exoskeletons and stuff?

Then I think you will like Last Day, the economy is very much disadvantaged towards you.
Yes you can loot all kinds of faction-specific armors from corpses.
I looted some Bandit exos just today, you don't get to see such armor variety in Misery.

Sidorovich charges sky-high prices for almost everything.
You need to scavenge to survive.
Hidden stashes are immediately available for looting.
There are some new stashes hidden in plain sight, search in those remote areas around Cordon.

Another way is to follow a roving Stalker/Loner party around Cordon and loot whatever they kill.
Its fun to grow gradually both in terms of your equipment and RU.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Now I remember more changes. You start with these 35kg of carry capacility and wear leather jacket to increase your carry limit to 43kg? How much leather jackets weight? 6,45kg. What a joke.
While hunting in Misery 2+ was main source of income in CoM it was hardly make you even, it was not profitable in any way and knives worn out p.fast. Not to mention walking without Hunter Kit (another 6,3kg) was mandatory. Oh and gasmasks that weight few kilos? Give me a break. Tjere are Respirators(?) in Last Day that have 1kg of weight and I find it a better thing than 4+kg gasmasks. Respirators are important because whole maps are radiated at day. It was special mode (Dark Road?) in Misery but in Last Day it's default.

On the other hand - CoM have better stamina system. In Misery you get grey icon of Hunger and can't walk or run, in CoM you can run and walk overencumbered and hungry for a bit longer but still - combat in that state was intense and deadly.

 

[chobbes]

Tried it, was gut but progress was even slower than original CoM. Might come back when I get bored and cure old CoM burnout.

I was thinking about getting this minimod, arts in CoM were cheap like hell and even scientists did not paid more for them for some reason so hauling your overloaded ass into their camps was a waste of time.

that's because there is no The Armed Zone add-on for Mis2.2 yet, and it should bring even more guns (including some from Metro series like revolver and shotgun). They promised to release it month after Mis2.2 but failed.
But yeah, Misery 2.2 is vastly overrated and bullshit ridden mess defended by fanboys, waste of time and space.

In CoM all I did was to turn some traders into Trashers so they could buy my trash, then lower the required condition for sold guns from 0,66 to 0,11.
Still waiting for Echo of Misery, which is completely reworked and optimized version of CoM that use all CPU cores and more than 4GB of RAM memory.

I rather liked the slow progress, it gives me a sense of satisfaction when I managed to accumulate a certain RU and purchase a brand new AK or armor.

I think stretching out the hobo phase is the most fun part, made somewhat easier when I found out that a certain trader purchases heavily damaged equipment.

I spent much time huffing and panting and lugging 200kg of guns and armor and sold them all.
I liked putting "effort" in getting my RU ha.

I didn't try the original CoM so cannot comment for now.

Yes, without this Expensive Artifacts minimod, its not worth it to be a full-time artifact hunter as you cannot earn much.
I have yet to fully try out artifact hunting though, I just got a Veles only recently.

Now, you can be either a full-time cook or full-time artifact hunter and make your living.
Selling cooked mutant food can be fairly profitable if you know where to buy your cooking gas.

I played Misery 2.2 then moved on to Last Day

 

[chobbes]

Now I remember more changes. You start with these 35kg of carry capacility and wear leather jacket to increase your carry limit to 43kg? How much leather jackets weight? 6,45kg. What a joke.
While hunting in Misery 2+ was main source of income in CoM it was hardly make you even, it was not profitable in any way and knives worn out p.fast. Not to mention walking without Hunter Kit (another 6,3kg) was mandatory. Oh and gasmasks that weight few kilos? Give me a break. Tjere are Respirators(?) in Last Day that have 1kg of weight and I find it a better thing than 4+kg gasmasks. Respirators are important because whole maps are radiated at day. It was special mode (Dark Road?) in Misery but in Last Day it's default.

On the other hand - CoM have better stamina system. In Misery you get grey icon of Hunger and can't walk or run, in CoM you can run and walk overencumbered and hungry for a bit longer but still - combat in that state was intense and deadly.

Yeah 35kg is a little bit of the low side.
I did not wear any armor to minimise carryweight, but need to reload more often.
On the other hand, you don't have to worry about grenade spam in LD, unlike Misery 2.2

Hunter Kit is about 4.3kg in Last Day.

Certain armors give you a net carryweight increase.
Some armors integrate a headmask into the armor so you save a few more previous kg.

I sold my starting respirator. not really needed.

The road from Cordon to Garbage emits radiations at certain parts so you gotta be careful.

In Last Day, you need to keep yourself full and hydrated, otherwise your stamina is affected.
Remember to bring some water, food, ammo and medicine when you go out of camps.
Water now costs quite a bit

 

[razvedchiki]

well finding exo suits from the get go is kinda anticlimatic.

 

[Invictus]

So Last Day doesn’t have a “story” per se but the Zone has questgivers as in “go kill this Stalker” or just some placed stashes and set enemy encounters?
Either way it sounds very interesting and the optimized mod that MotherMachine is writing about sounds fantastic too
Have you guys seen the kid who did some Stalker maps on Unreal? That looks lovely too

 

[anvi]

Which stalker games are worth playing (with or without mods), and are any worth avoiding completely? I played them all but it was long ago. First one seemed boring as crap and ended too soon with no special moments. Second one seemed good but I got burned spending days trying to get past some sniper at the start and the I ended up playing something else. Pripyat was fun for me all the way to the end.

 

[Fenix]

Just like you said.
Also, while first game so-so,map there better than in CoP - that's considered by many.

 

[chobbes]

well finding exo suits from the get go is kinda anticlimatic.

Well ... not strictly from the get go for my case. I saw my first bandit wearing exo in Garbage. YMMV.

Anyway you won’t find exo armors in good condition, the mod is scripted in such a way that dropped weapons and armor have conditions ranging from 1-40 and no higher.

All the exo that I saw are the “damaged” variant which significantly reduces its protective capabilities. Also exo have no additional slots to put add-ons so that diminishes its usefulness somewhat.

I sold off all Exo’s that I’ve found as I prefer my NBC armor with two armor add-ons. I don’t like wearing damaged armors or using surplus ammo if I got the spare rubies for it.

I’m sure the mod creators have thought about this and planned accordingly.

They planned the item progression such that you won’t be too powerful too soon, even if you metagame it.

Also there is only one trader in the entire game that purchases trash items, you will have to really work for it even if you are bent on selling all your non-working armors and weapons.

 

[chobbes]

So Last Day doesn’t have a “story” per se but the Zone has questgivers as in “go kill this Stalker” or just some placed stashes and set enemy encounters?
Either way it sounds very interesting and the optimized mod that MotherMachine is writing about sounds fantastic too
Have you guys seen the kid who did some Stalker maps on Unreal? That looks lovely too

It has a barebones story but I have not made any progression towards it yet so I can’t comment much.

You will obtain a Mission called “Deactivate the Miracle Machine” which is similar to the main storyline in SHoC.

You will still need to travel to Yantar to get the psi-helmet from the Scientists to progress into the main story.

Other than that, there are quest-givers that give repeating missions to hunt either mutants or assassination missions. I prefer to hunt mutants and cook their meat to sell.

EDIT : Last Day incorporates DoctorX Questlines which makes missions more varied and unpredictable. Check out its own page on ModDB.

 

[chobbes]

Which stalker games are worth playing (with or without mods), and are any worth avoiding completely? I played them all but it was long ago. First one seemed boring as crap and ended too soon with no special moments. Second one seemed good but I got burned spending days trying to get past some sniper at the start and the I ended up playing something else. Pripyat was fun for me all the way to the end.

SHoC Vanilla : ZRP 1.07 R5 (stable) or 1.09 XR2 (experimental release)

SHoC Modded : Autumn Aurora 2.1


Clear Sky : SRP 1.1.2 with Arsenal Overhaul. Decane has done much over the years to iron out the majority of the bugs so kudos to him.

The work that he has put into SRP is similar to what Ash did for GMDX.

Remember to get the patch to make the latest SRP work with AO


Call of Pripyat Modded : Wait for Call of Chernobyl 1.5 stable release or you can play around with CoC 1.5 R6. It’s pretty stable based on the comments.

Alternatively you can play Misery 2.2, or the unofficial Call of Misery with Last Day modpack.

 

[Invictus]

Hell no, for Call of Pripyat Misery 1.2 is way better than 2.2, literally everything about it is perfect and from then on the Misery modders went full retardo with their “you got a can but no can opener” and grindy as hell gameplay... that is the difference between a game where you have to play smart, scavange and grind some over a mindless running around for hours with a knife and a rusty bayonet eating mutant meat because of inmershun

 

[Sodafish]

Misery was always retarded, what with the PC who gets fatigued after jogging 10 steps, and the superhuman enemies. A mod for masochists.

 

[Multidirectional]

Misery 1.2 was hate at pretty much first sight. Haven't even bothered trying later release. Can't imagine how much more retarded it could get. One of worst cases of "modders gonna mod" I've ever seen, to the point where they had audacity to change the music and monster sounds. I still cringe at Snorks having Left 4 Dead 2 Charger sounds.
It's funny, I've been looking for a mod with small sensible tweaks for CoP, like simply lowering resource drops. But every single mod I find changes so much I'd rather just stick to vanilla + Atmosfear with texture packs.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Speaking about CoP mods - there is something like this
http://www.moddb.com/mods/call-of-pripyat-special-edition
would test it if I weren't playing CoP to death...

Misery 1.2 was a hate at pretty much first sight. Haven't even bothered trying later release. Can't imagine how much more retarded it could get.

Much, much more retarded.
The dumb concept and ideas in Misery2 make sane men inane. There are threads and comments in large numbers criticizing most of them and they are all defended by fanboys.
Misery 1.2 is just cuts (money income, less damage sponges) but you don't need to grind which is mandatory in sequels.

 

[Invictus]

WHOA
Ok we pretty much agree that Misery 2.2 is derpy beyond belief... but now all of a sudden Misery 1.2 is shit too?
I have been playing that for the last 5 years and loving it so what is supposedly wrong about it?
The snork sounds meh I guess but overall it made the vanilla CoP a just about right in its difficulty by having buyers not want the shitty weapons and made the economy harder but it wasnt grindy at all; with some meta knowledge you could get a rainbow suit and an AK47 which could tide you over for pretty much half of the game so no rusty bayonet there
I honestly couldn’t go back to playing vanilla CoP

 

[razvedchiki]

why the hate for misery,the very first book the mod introduced in 1.2 was mein kampf.

 

[mwnn85]

I'd have to second the motion of playing the Stalker games with minimal bugfix mods, at least the first time - if only to better appreciate the mods.
ZRP for SHoC obviously.
Last time I played CoP I believe I used the Pripyat Reclamation Patch: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1duxlnn6jlm5z/STALKERFiles
The COMPLETE series of mods are also fairly conservative in their gameplay changes.

Probably just skip Clear Sky.
It made some graphical improvements (god rays), added the faction wars system and it featured item upgrade trees.
I don't remember the game particularly focussing on horror, artifacts or monster hunting - which are the strengths of STALKER.
Re-uses a lot of maps from the first game.

Spoiler

Getting mugged part way through is no fun at all.

SHoC is quite rough around the edges. A bit short as well. Don't bother grinding all the random missions and backtracking.
Gun accuracy/spread is heavily tied to the tier of the gun for some strange reason. Very awkward in the early game - the AI doesn't seem to suffer from the same penalties.
Gets much better once you get a stalker suit + AK.
Yantar is a nice section. Crap ending.

Really nothing wrong with CoP. Has a good mix of questing, monster hunting and artifact looting.
The starter zones can seem a bit barren, unthreatening and/or sunny.
The game does spawn more dangerous creatures as you go on.
The only complaint I hear about is the theme park nature of the anomalies - I don't mind that too much. Didn't think artifacts were rare enough in SHoC.
Most mods radically change the vanilla game flow by altering gun accuracy, damage, armour, enemy health, prices and spawns - sometimes for the worse.
I find Misery 2 and a lot of other "simulation" mods incredibly tedious. The class system does nothing for me. Barely being able to run and/or dying to every scratch.
Generally like anything that makes firefights more dangerous and makes the zone a bit scarier - as long as it's fair.

I wonder if GSC will make Stalker 2 once they're done with Cossacks 3?
I thought Metro was a poor game overall compared to Stalker.

 

[Raapys]

I kinda liked Misery 2.2, cept for the inventory clutter. I do increase carry weight though, since I can't stand slow movement.

Anyway, once you're past the initial hard part of getting a decent weapon, all these mods end up playing pretty much like the original games. I'd much prefer if some of these modders concentrated on making actual new areas and quests. Much of the problem with CoP is that it's so short and that the Pripyat map has no content. Why not fill it up, and make one or two completely new maps? It would be a fair amount of work, but these guys are already spending thousands of hours on making arbitrary and often pointless changes to graphics and gameplay.

 

[Baron Dupek]

The COMPLETE series of mods are also fairly conservative in their gameplay changes.

this is bullshit and you know it
they get a flak for a reason, for every good change (like, uh, repairs) they bring 5-15 dumb one

 

[mwnn85]

I've yet to come across any compilation mod that I could honestly say was perfect or close to being.
The either go nuts with the A-Life spawns, jack up the AI accuracy to max or remove any sense of progression by altering the items.
The weather mods (like AtmosFear) are probably the safest bet; I thought Autumn Aurora for SHoC gave the landscape a nice dead look.

What I'd really like to see is a proper sequel by GSC after Cossacks 3 - maybe on the ARMA 3 engine.
Throw in a decent campaign and give us co-op multiplayer too - a bit like DayZ perhaps but not vapourware.
It wouldn't have to be a futuristic setting like ArmA 3. We'd have vehicles and all sorts to play with.

 

[Baron Dupek]

a proper sequel by GSC after Cossacks 3 - maybe on the ARMA 3 engine.

you mean this?
http://www.moddb.com/mods/armstalker-online

 

[mwnn85]

I've spotted that just now.
Had to be the Russians didn't it?... :D

Not exactly like that to be honest but it's not a million miles away.
If we're talking multiplayer I'd want co-op multiplayer missions like Arma3: APEX.
Some objective based maps like Enemy Territory i.e. Freedom vs Duty
Straight up PvP deathmatch modes.
Maybe even something fun like kill the Bloodsucker (one player) with all the other players spawning as Stalkers - SW: Battlefront has something similar.
Rostok had the Arena in SHoC.
And it needs a well made campaign as well of course.

From what I've seen on Youtube it just looks like a bunch of russians running around TK'ing each other just like DayZ or PUBG.
All these persistent multiplayer games seem to do is encourage people to kill each other at every opportunity in order to steal their stuff.

 

[Invictus]

What really pisses me off is that they just have the Stalker IP collecting dust while new gamers would probably say “hey its like Metro man” instead of the other way around
I mean if the GSC guys used the same engine as the Redux Metros it would still look gorgeous (we know that engine can do outside locations too) and develop the game relatively cheapy but nooo
I mean there is a genuine interest for Stalker and with all the reputation from Metro so they could fund a new Stalker game