S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series Megathread: "A Typical Day In The Zone" - Games

Merge update: I was still worried that MSO would make the early game a bit too easy what with possibilities such as having one of the first two Loners you meet carrying a PKM or the two times I went to the sawmill resulting in a complete Zombie massacre, once perpetrated by a single Loner with a shotgun in an Exoskeleton, the other time by a group of Loners and a group of the friendly guys in green who happened to pass by, but then again the number of firefights I got involved in that escalated into a an unholy mess of biblical proportions which would end with many guys wanting to ruin my day is without number, more or less. So far I'm pleased and I don't feel like messing with the NPC loadouts but I may consider doing that later. I really like that MSO doesn't wander into the artificial difficulty territory commonly known as "outrageous bullshit the AI does that the player can't do". Russian audio with English subtitles is in, more stuff from the PRP is in. I've made optional folders for the former and I also made two separate options for weapons - one that preserves 100% vanilla statistics wherever possible, so no special Krinkov for Snag, no Kobra sight on Zulu's PKM and no iron sights for it, etc. and one that includes the fancy stuff that doesn't change the game too much - UMP 45 as the SMG you can get from nimble, re-skins of weapons where applicable and so on and so forth. I'm going to see about doing the same with the PRP's optional things - some of those are really easy, some aren't, so it'll take a while. Oh and OWR 3's knife I couldn't port in. When using the alt-fire the right hand, knife included, just disappears before stabbing. It looks silly. So far I only ran into three bugs that I can't exactly "fix": The thing with the knife, G36's GL reload image-flip and my inability to use OWR3's two different reload animations. There's nothing I can do about them directly, I can only circumvent them. Anything else I ran into I could fix and most of it was created by me either due to me forgetting a line or file here and there and making a typo. Tiresome but easy as pie. There's also misaligned muzzle flashes in the scope view on a bunch of weapons but I can't be bothered with that until later. Later if I don't "forget" about them that is because the last time I did that was two and a half years back and it was a fickle affair that made dating a nymphomaniac ballet dancer with a cantankerous personality look like the better option.

I've never played with MSO, how crazy does it get? It sounds like something all mods should base themselves off, though I've heard it can break quests.

Only problem with MSO is zaton and jupiter in CoP don't really have good cover with the exception of points of interest, and there's a lot more human NPC spawns - so unless you are already at a place like the ranger station or izumrudnoye or somewhere like that you run into a lot of situations where its "get shot at from 100 meters, hide behind this tiny wood pole."

It does also tend to outfit Stalkers of all factions with some weird suits. For instance, you get mercs in trenchcoats, and Awl and Petruha at the Boiler (the two you're meant to save from the anomaly) have an SSP-99.

My only problem with MSO is that I always got non-stop stack trace crashes after about a month or two of in-game time. It's a shame too, because it was a great base mod to fuck around and merge other mods with it.

How crazy MSO gets depends on how you set it since it comes with plenty of options. I'll quote the important readme files: [QUOTE]----------------- NPC smart terrain occupation maximum time ----------------- This allows to control how long maximally the squad can occupy a smart_terrain before choosing the new one and travel there. The actual amount of time the squad will spend is a random value between 10 minutes and the maximum value that you choose. Decreasing the maximum value make's the Zone appear more active with more squads being in travel at the same time - this leads to more skirmishes and somewhat more shooting around the player. Options: 3,5h / 5h / 7h / 9,5h /12h ----------------- NPC corpse detection distance ----------------- This allows to control the maximum distance at which NPCs will detect and travel to dead bodies in order to loot them. This is a quite significant change as it leads to the level of which battles and skirmishes escalate. When there is fight going on and someone dies - his body will start luring NPCs towards who have not participated in the fight - the more freash dead bodies the more NPCs get lured to them and enter cobat and enter the fight which produced those dead bodies. This also affects the player experience - if corpse detection distance is high and player attacks an enemy squad and kills someone he can be sure that some NPC will start traveling towards the place and he will never know wheter it's going to be friend or enemy. Options: 100m / 150m / 200m / 300m ----------------- MAIN RESPAWN RATE ----------------- This allows to set the main respawn rate at smart terrains. As in MSO smart terrains have been set to be able really large amounts of mutants and NPCs - setting this optional to low value will make Zone much more active. On the other hand - setting it low value will nerf this effect and really high ones can make it a desolate place again. So generally this is a very powerful tool to control your in-game experience. Options: 0,5h / 1,5h / 2h / 3h / 6h / 9h ----------------- Switch_distance ----------------- This will allow to control switch_distance. Its the radius around actor in which a-life happens in on-line mode - you can see moving 3d models, real-time fights happen etc. Higher switch_distance also affects gameplay - as you can see dangers further away from you with your binocs. It is also generally more immersive as the world seems more filled and 'alive'. On the other hand the higher swtich_distance the less performance - it makes the game generally more loaded both in therms of memory and CPU - therefor can cause slutter and / or memory related crashes. Please choose option according to you in-game experience. Default value of 300 already provides good experience while still being not that demanding. As switch_distance should be modified along with respawn_radius (minimum distance at which respawns may happen) - presets also contain proper setting of this param. Options: 150m / 220m / 300m / 500m / 850m[/QUOTE] This is on top of it overhauling the AI of NPCs and mutants, squad composition, NPC equipment, etc. In some rare cases like the aforementioned Awl and Petruha, who appear in an SSP-99 and SEVA, this can end up looking somewhat silly - and I'll try to fix that - but generally speaking you can end up walking into a Mercenary group with one guy in a Bandit outfit, one in a Military Armored Suit, one in an Exoskeleton and two in Merc Suits with a bonus appearance of one in a Stalker suit for example. Depending on point of view this can either be stupid as hell or a good thing. Aside from stuff like Awl and Petruha I have no problem with it. The player can wear a bunch of different suits which change the appearance, even though that never plays a role in the game, so I don't see a problem with the NPCs being able to wear different outfits either. If Degtyarev can go in undercover posing as a Stalker, why shouldn't a Merc be able to do it? - But that's just my own point of view. Far as equipment goes, NPCs will use the whole range of weapons available for their given faction, rank and role. That means the bunch of Mercs at the water plant will shove AP into your face and cut you into ribbons in a head-on fight early on because they can use different ammunition types to cut through your protection like a hot knife through butter. The equipment gig is something of a double-edged sword far as the early game difficulty goes. On one hand the combat's more challenging overall, on the other hand you'll have a more ready supply of alternate ammunition and you can get your hands on a bunch of stuff that you normally wouldn't see until later in the game. Coming across a Merc with an FN2k or a Loner with a PKM in Zaton is entirely possible, but there's also an option to lower the looted weapon condition so that whatever nice gun you end up with, it'll be in terrible condition. The ammunition part bothers me a bit and I'll see if I can't lower the amounts the player can loot somehow. There's a lot more stuff but it would be better to just read the mod's readme. On an unrelated note, does anyone know if it's possible to have different tracer colors for different ammunition types?

I kinda like the bandits and stalkers wearing different outfits. As I see it they would be the people most likely to wear whatever they can get their hands on and gameplay wise it makes encounters more interesting since I actually have to scope out who's who before just running up to people.

[QUOTE=Heigou;48387499]IIRC the bullet spread is smaller the higher in difficulty you go.[/QUOTE] It isn't the spread which gets affected, but the easier the difficulty the more bullets just magically disappear, for both NPCs and the player.

[QUOTE=Xerys;48388670]I don't see a problem with the NPCs being able to wear different outfits either. If Degtyarev can go in undercover posing as a Stalker, why shouldn't a Merc be able to do it?[/QUOTE] Imo it detracts way too much from the uniqueness of the factions, it's kind of boring when stalkers/bandits/mercs look like the same faction. Especially mercenaries being super ragtag makes them look really unprofessional. It's possible to edit the configs so factions are more consistent in appearance but it's understandable why all mods don't go the "MSO route" with the faction skin swaps. I like when variation mods blend the borders a little, but just using the 100% Vanilla skins and making several factions use the same doesn't work out that well in my opinion.

[QUOTE=Muukkis;48390131]Imo it detracts way too much from the uniqueness of the factions, it's kind of boring when stalkers/bandits/mercs look like the same faction. Especially mercenaries being super ragtag makes them look really unprofessional. It's possible to edit the configs so factions are more consistent in appearance but it's understandable why all mods don't go the "MSO route" with the faction skin swaps. I like when variation mods blend the borders a little, but just using the 100% Vanilla skins and making several factions use the same doesn't work out that well in my opinion.[/QUOTE] Loners wearing any outfit makes sense but with factions if you think about it doesn't really. If they are undercover but you know what faction they are from still then its not really good cover :v: [editline]6th August 2015[/editline] Its like if everyone knew Degtyarev was military anyways

I would think that stalkers would just use whatever got the job done, same for mercs. Having them all wear identical merc suits would just scream "We're all mercs, please come and shoot us" to the zone.

I think that in general, the rookies could wear whatever shitty leather coats they could find with their faction patch sewn on, then the more experienced stalkers can get their own faction specific armor. That way there's more "scoping the situation out" to see if you want to approach/shoot/avoid a group of stalkers but you still retain the differentiation between factions.

I think it would be kind of cool if certain NPCs were like undercover mercs, and would wear regular loner outfits but then once enough of them meet up in a certain area start opening fire on another faction to take them by surprise.

For people who'd like a prettier vanilla with OWR 3 and the usual eye-candy: It appears that the particles.xr from OWR 3 is compatible with AF3 so merging that wasn't necessary. I've been running with the paticles.xr from OWR 3 for a while now to confirm it and had no crashes so far. If you want to eye-candy things up, this is what will work: 1) Install Atmosfear 3 and Absolute Whatever # but don't install the HUD in Atmosfear 3. (Mine ended up buggy.) 2) Dump OWR 3 on top of it. Let it overwrite anything it wants to overwrite. 3) Take the variation mod. You can merge one file, albeit I don't believe that it's necessary to do. Said file is "squad_descr" found in gamedata/configs/misc. Start the game. It may give your an error like missing msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll or whatever since it's based on Open XRay. Just do a search on your rig, chances are you have it already, for example Firefox will have it. Once you find them, copy them and paste them into CoP's "bin" folder. You may also have to install OpenAL which you can find here: [url]http://www.openal.org/[/url] Go to downloads, get the Windows installer, run it, bam done. Unless if you're missing something else - I didn't - you should now be able to play the game. Note that OWR 3 does change pretty much all the weapon statistics and stuff there is, so your gun-play will be different. By which I mean you will die. The rest, aside from AF3's fallout and psi-storms if you have them enabled, will be vanilla. This combination also appears to be easy to merge with the latest PRP. If it doesn't just appear easy in an effort to seduce me into more mind-numbing bullshit but ends up actually being easy I'll see about getting it done and uploading all the necessary files somewhere for those interested.

Looks like we're getting Oblivion Lost 3.0 on August 15th. [url]http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-oblivion-lost-30[/url]

[QUOTE=Xerys;48402554]For people who'd like a prettier vanilla with OWR 3 and the usual eye-candy: It appears that the particles.xr from OWR 3 is compatible with AF3 so merging that wasn't necessary. I've been running with the paticles.xr from OWR 3 for a while now to confirm it and had no crashes so far. If you want to eye-candy things up, this is what will work: 1) Install Atmosfear 3 and Absolute Whatever # but don't install the HUD in Atmosfear 3. (Mine ended up buggy.) 2) Dump OWR 3 on top of it. Let it overwrite anything it wants to overwrite. 3) Take the variation mod. You can merge one file, albeit I don't believe that it's necessary to do. Said file is "squad_descr" found in gamedata/configs/misc. Start the game. It may give your an error like missing msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll or whatever since it's based on Open XRay. Just do a search on your rig, chances are you have it already, for example Firefox will have it. Once you find them, copy them and paste them into CoP's "bin" folder. You may also have to install OpenAL which you can find here: [url]http://www.openal.org/[/url] Go to downloads, get the Windows installer, run it, bam done. Unless if you're missing something else - I didn't - you should now be able to play the game. Note that OWR 3 does change pretty much all the weapon statistics and stuff there is, so your gun-play will be different. By which I mean you will die. The rest, aside from AF3's fallout and psi-storms if you have them enabled, will be vanilla. This combination also appears to be easy to merge with the latest PRP. If it doesn't just appear easy in an effort to seduce me into more mind-numbing bullshit but ends up actually being easy I'll see about getting it done and uploading all the necessary files somewhere for those interested.[/QUOTE] if it's looking for msvcr120* then it means you need to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Redistributable: [url]http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784[/url] The x86 version, because the application is 32-bit.

[video=youtube;_MW3iMsi204]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MW3iMsi204[/video] i will never be afraid of anything in stalker anymore

That's honestly... scarily well made and animated.

[QUOTE=DeathFP;48403770]Looks like we're getting Oblivion Lost 3.0 on August 15th. [url]http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-oblivion-lost-30[/url][/QUOTE] Ah fuck I thought it meant OLR 3.0 :'( Still, I like the fact that he added some Stalker like things to the plot and gameplay, among them: - The new storyline guides through the player in the added levels by a series of events, which encourage exploration while searching for key elements of the storyline So kinda like COP, which I guess I'll love it as I found COP quests to be the best ones. - Neutral mutants appearing in the new storyline, which you can talk and trade with. Some are just idling, guarding their leader. There is a mysterious camp of mutants where every enemy dies immediatelly upon entering it, even the enemies of the player. The camp is lead by someone who played a key role in the 1986 Chernobyl accident in real life That's cool. - The faction names (even bandits) are renamed to simply "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.", so there are only stalkers with neutral/hostile attitude towards the player and other stalkers, instead of neutral/hostile factions Awesome, never heard about something like this. [B][I][U]About something else: Lost World Origins, has it got a proper English translation???[/U][/I][/B]

Can someone remind me the name of that audio tools which made converting sounds to STALKER easy ? Especially the audio commenting part. I can't find it anymore. Thanks.

Try this: [url]http://puu.sh/jtUZk/0dca74cf64.7z[/url] [editline]8th August 2015[/editline] (It's called SAVandT, I think, but I can't find any active download links).

Yes it was SAVandT, exactly. Thank you very much.

[QUOTE=cr4sh!;48403951][video=youtube;_MW3iMsi204]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MW3iMsi204[/video] i will never be afraid of anything in stalker anymore[/QUOTE] wtf is that thing

What is the best mod that is lore friendly? And by lore I don't mean complete overhauls like MISERY and those.

What game? What do you mean by best? What sort of things are you looking for?

[QUOTE=Etcetera;48408425]What game? What do you mean by best? What sort of things are you looking for?[/QUOTE] Oh shit stupid me, just woke up. Doesn't matter now. I installed Atmo3, HD textures and stuff like that and it works wonderful

Arsenal Overhaul + MSO + atmosfear 3, absolute nature and all that other shit is a nice combination without changing the core game a lot

[QUOTE=Araknid;48408646]Arsenal Overhaul + MSO + atmosfear 3, absolute nature[/QUOTE] MSO is a good A-Life mod, but it's not recommendable for a first playthrough because it breaks some Vanilla quests, and it's fairly crashy. And it will pretty much crash constantly unless you know how to make the workaround to avoid the character_descr_general typo crash.

[QUOTE=Araknid;48408646]Arsenal Overhaul + MSO + atmosfear 3, absolute nature and all that other shit is a nice combination without changing the core game a lot[/QUOTE] I chose Amto3 + absolute nature/buildings. I'll try MSO it seems nice. Will download Arsenal Overhaul some other day. [editline]8th August 2015[/editline] Now the game crash (does not respond type) whenever I make a new playthrough or by just going into the options menu. So I decided to uninstall the game, and delete all gamedir files incl. documented user/configuration files. Re-installed it as vanilla, still the same. Tried running Stalker-COP.exe and xrEngine.xe in administrative mode (also tried different compatibility methods). Re-installed DX versions, and no success. Currently using the non-steam version as I own the retail copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Call of Pripyat (special edition) that automatically installs the latest patch. Some say that installing the "Complete mod" would fix it but I'm not going to install that shitty as mod. Why did it work before and not now, it makes no sense...

Shoker 3.0 [video=youtube;SmDzLFjHpMA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmDzLFjHpMA[/video] The scope mount is kinda ridiculous.