S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series Megathread: Maybe someday mods releasing edition

[ImCrimson]

[QUOTE=kimr120;53151519]The two most impractical weapons that are already in stalker is the bulldog and the rpg 7 but both are ridiculously satisfying.

Did one of those quests when you have to kill a loner merchant for sidorovich and I used the rpg 7 to blow the loner a long way.

It's fun![/QUOTE]

The thing about those though is that they're impossible to use due to ammo weight and scarcity; it works out balance-wise and is very befitting of the setting. If the rules of practicality applied to dual wielding as well, I.E you miss anything beyond 15 ft, I'd definitely install that mod. Would be cool for fending off mutants.

[Rockeiro]

the good thing about being in the irradiated zone is that you can dual wield and still have an arm free for your detector.

[Tronex]

A little comparison between:

1) A pic i took from Complete mod a year ago:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ckhQWHh.jpg[/IMG]

2) And a recent one from Last Day with Absolute Structures Redux:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/B03vEW6.jpg[/IMG]

Different Resolution, same renderer (DX9).
Which one looks better in your eyes? suddenly i have a little desire to play Complete all over again.

[Abduction]

Oh dear god why did you have to bring up complete again, it was all going so smoothly recently

[Hank420]

[QUOTE=Tronex;53151838]Which one looks better in your eyes?[/QUOTE]
The first one, no contest. It looks cold, gritty and creepy. Just like it should.
The second one looks too warm and is missing a sharp edge, the choice of colors give off an almost cozy and somewhat inviting feeling. Reminds me of Tomb Raider IV the longer I look at it.

[Lyokanthrope]

[QUOTE=Tronex;53151838]A little comparison between:

1) A pic i took from Complete mod a year ago:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ckhQWHh.jpg[/IMG]

2) And a recent one from Last Day with Absolute Structures Redux:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/B03vEW6.jpg[/IMG]

Different Resolution, same renderer (DX9).
Which one looks better in your eyes? suddenly i have a little desire to play Complete all over again.[/QUOTE]

you could accomplish the same effect in last day by nerfing the flashlight and changing the light colour of the anomalies really

[Tronex]

[QUOTE=Abduction;53151882]Oh dear god why did you have to bring up complete again, it was all going so smoothly recently[/QUOTE]
I can't help myself, i just like what it does to the atmosphere :v:

[QUOTE=Lyokanthrope;53152041]you could accomplish the same effect in last day by nerfing the flashlight and changing the light colour of the anomalies really[/QUOTE]
There is one catch, SoC shaders/particles are different from the ones used in CoP. SoC's fruit punch anomaly emits nice ambient light on surfaces, CoP's version doesn't which make it look lame.
If i'm not mistaken, they did this to improve the stability of the game.

[Wepl123]

After messing around with the quest systems a bit more, I managed to increase the complexity of the fetch quest that I showed above, namely being that you can now save the person you're supposed to find.

There are now 3 possibile ways to finish the quest, all of which reward the base money and reputation.
-Not able to find and resuce in time, meaning its like above where you just take the PDA back
-Able to find and save in time, the person gives you some additional money and rep
-Able to find and save in time, but you then kill them and take the PDA back instead. You gain the additional money but lose the additional rep

I also got the tasks to have the objective markers on your PDA map, but they're only placed in the general area around your objective.

[Lyokanthrope]

[QUOTE=Tronex;53152281]I can't help myself, i just like what it does to the atmosphere :v:

There is one catch, SoC shaders/particles are different from the ones used in CoP. SoC's fruit punch anomaly emits nice ambient light on surfaces, CoP's version doesn't which make it look lame.
If i'm not mistaken, they did this to improve the stability of the game.[/QUOTE]

Eh, you can re-enable the light effect too.
It's just disabled in the configs, that's all.

It might be for stability reasons, yeah.

[Paranoia]

[QUOTE=Tronex;53151838]A little comparison between:

1) A pic i took from Complete mod a year ago:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ckhQWHh.jpg[/IMG]

2) And a recent one from Last Day with Absolute Structures Redux:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/B03vEW6.jpg[/IMG]

Different Resolution, same renderer (DX9).
Which one looks better in your eyes? suddenly i have a little desire to play Complete all over again.[/QUOTE]

Complete mode use better, unified lighting, when All mods based on CoC, like Last Day, use default "plain" ones.
Best example is green Fruit Punch Anomaly, that is just blob of small green gas and dim light on top of it.
It should have stronger light source that would bounce from surrounding and give that nice "chemical" atmosphere to location.

Sometimes its good to put "more" in game to get nice visual, not just reduce everything to minimum.

Most of modern computers or even those with few years on their backs are fast enough to keep proper framerate with all those candy lighting and better textures in game.
Even when I put 10GB of 4k/2k textures in Stalker installed on laptop it dont crash. It start crashing only when you start putting bad made scripts or ripped models from other games in it, so its clearly show that making Stalker look good is not a real problem. Its all about optimization an not putting 1000 useless stuff in it, because it can handle most of visual addons without a sweat.

I always wonder why people complain about new HD stuff for stalker, like for example my addon Stalker Two-K when I literally made it, tested it, and played it on medicore laptop with crappy R5 Radeon card and i7 cpu that barely reach 3.1ghz. If I can keep on it more than 30fps, normal PC with even older hardware should have no problem running it, but still some people cry about performances... I would rather look for performance problems on all those 1000 bad made addons people install evertime they play...

[jill920]

Just finished 'Operation Volcano' in SGM 2.1, normally I wouldn't even have second thought about killing Monoliths but I just finished Leon's mission and talked to the Monoliths hours ago and now I'm wiping them out. I know that they made this mission just to make the Evacuation easier, but still.

[BilboTeaBaggins]

I woke up and reminded myself that there are other mods where they use mag system like Zone of Alienation but less buggy. Meanwhile ZoA guy(s) are come back to make something for CoCh but still no news from them. Well, nothing from other mods, CoCh or not, either (except "it's dead, people" messages).

[QUOTE][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/m8v1X1i.jpg[/IMG][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ME4DgmX.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

This is six years old mod - Blood Trail. Bit complicated but not in a bad way like Misery2.1 or OP2.

[Loner]

[QUOTE][t]http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/366/365208/ss_kevin_07-21-16_18-21-53_l07_military.jpg[/t][t]http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/366/365208/XR_3DA_2016-04-20_01-06-37-79.png[/t][t]http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/366/365208/XR_3DA_2016-04-30_14-04-18-95.png[/t][/QUOTE]

I like SoC lighting so much more than CoP when you've got the right mods (SWTC + SWO3.1 merge)

[RockSushi]

So I have a bit of a problem for the SoC, namely the steal the documents quest. How should I approach the gun fights in that area? It just seems to me that I'll need to slowly but surely grind the military until I get the documents.

[BilboTeaBaggins]

[QUOTE={TFS} Rock Su;53156827]So I have a bit of a problem for the SoC, namely the steal the documents quest. How should I approach the gun fights in that area? It just seems to me that I'll need to slowly but surely grind the military until I get the documents.[/QUOTE]

Pretty much.
Or you can camp in one of the rooms (like that hut with beds) and wait for them but you still need to watch out for towers and sooner or later - reinforcements arrives.

Unless you play one of these mods where they toned down omnivision of AI that let you sneak through the base, stab their commander (unless he's knifeproof) and sneak away/run away with farewell firing rounds from heli.

Good times.

[BloodShot12]

[QUOTE=LoNer1;53156748]I like SoC lighting so much more than CoP when you've got the right mods (SWTC + SWO3.1 merge)[/QUOTE]

I really think the problem is everybody uses AF3 for CoP.

AF3 is nice but it's way too subdued for my tastes color-wise, like even the vanilla CoP lighting is more colorful and SoC-like

[Lyokanthrope]

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;53157250]I really think the problem is everybody uses AO3 for CoP.

AO3 is nice but it's way too subdued for my tastes color-wise, like even the vanilla CoP lighting is more colorful and SoC-like[/QUOTE]

You mean Atmosfear 3? Yeah, it's a lot more kinda...desaturated compared to others, It's odd.
CoP's default weather also had this weird thing of just being kinda grey-ish too, I dunno what it was.
Using SWTC yields better results but it also creates a lot of OOM errors.

[Paranoia]

[QUOTE={TFS} Rock Su;53156827]So I have a bit of a problem for the SoC, namely the steal the documents quest. How should I approach the gun fights in that area? It just seems to me that I'll need to slowly but surely grind the military until I get the documents.[/QUOTE]

You mean mission from Sidor where you need to steal documents from Cordon army outpost?

Best way is to go at night, going near the left side of map near the fence. There are few mines there but easy to spot(they have small sticks on top). At the end there is fallen tree that you can climb. If you put box near the fence you can use the same route to escape and with some sneaking and luck you dont need to even shoot on bullet.

If you mean documents in Agroprom Building. I normally wait for night time and prepare silenced PM or rifle with silencer. If you get to that area from underground via manhole. you quickly move to box near that manhole so guy at tower behind tree dont see you. Then you climb to that tower, kill that soldier because this ass always spot you. Now slowly move to the back gate sticking to building wall, there are few soldiers so its a matter of waiting in the bushes until they turn around to sneak behind hole in the wall. Then you just slowly move to are where those big tanks are. Pick one barrel and really slowly roll it behind main building watching all the time soldier in the tower at corner of base(you can sneak to him and kill him if you want). Behind that building there is a ladder to the roof, without barrel you cant really reach that ladder, so you jump on that barrel, get to the roof, and from there just move to the last floor, kill two soldiers, pick documents, move back to roof, get down and at the left side f base there is hole in the wall, but turn right not left and move all around base to its back to escape(at the end you will encounter 2 soldiers but if you are sneaky enough you can just run behind trees leaving them behind and getting back to entrance to the Underground where Mole was).

[jill920]

So I'm playing SGM 2.1 and when I get near a high-level mutant (Chimera or Giant), the screen would sway more the longer I kite near them until I can't equip any weapon anymore, this is indicated by a broken pistol icon that goes from green to red. Is this a "fear" meter? How do I disable this?

[Paranoia]

RIP Proper, clean 64bit Stalker....

[URL]https://github.com/Im-dex/xray-162/blob/master/README.md[/URL]

It was only real chance for updated stalker engine so it could use all power of our machines without throwing too much useless ""features"" inside... Still its in stable version, so maybe someone will still work on it in the feature

[VodkaChicken]

Is the OpenGL render still in development?

[etcetera]

[QUOTE=rikimaru6811;53160537]So I'm playing SGM 2.1 and when I get near a high-level mutant (Chimera or Giant), the screen would sway more the longer I kite near them until I can't equip any weapon anymore, this is indicated by a broken pistol icon that goes from green to red. Is this a "fear" meter? How do I disable this?[/QUOTE]

I believe it is, though I'm not sure how it works mechanically. In most cases it's enough to just kite from slightly further away, though?

[Doneeh]

If I remember right, doesn't being around those mutants just slowly decay your weapon? I haven't played SGM in a long time, so maybe I'm remembering wrong.

[Wepl123]

Got the companion system figured out (for the most part):

[video=youtube;PtQKN1wa2x8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtQKN1wa2x8&feature=youtu.be[/video]

You have to take the companion to the specified location, kill the mutants, and then escort him back to Trapper (who gave you the task).

The companion dying results in you failing the task.

So with all of this, do you guys have any more quest ideas? I've filled up Jupiter with a bunch of kill quests/scavenger hunts(finding a corpse or person)/misc stuff, and now I can add a few of these, but I'd love to hear some more ideas of quests to create that are a bit less generic. I can pretty much do most things that the base game had quest wise and even make it more complicated if nessecary.

[Paranoia]

Well its not really request, but I would love to see in Stalker random events like few stalkers going for hunting. Like 2-3 stalkers go to some location and literally sneak to few mutants and then shoot them.

I just hate when all those stalkers do, is just walk... walk and do nothing until shooting or really rarely go to some anomaly and stand with detector... doing nothing else...

So overall if they would go for such hunts, it would be nice to have small missions where you will need to join few stalkers and hunt down mutants. You would need to sneak to specific area, and kill mutants in the same time keeping an eye on other stalker so they dont die.
Or other variation of it: chase running mutant where you would need to wait in specific place, where other stalkers round up mutants to your direction and you would kill just specific amount of mutants.

I know that its probably impossible or hard as hell, because it would need lots of work to force mutants to stop fallowing A-life and do scripted things. They could not just spawn and behave like normal(attack if see you) but run away in specific direction, separate from group, etc, etc.
Not to mention that NPC with you would also need to have lots of scripted behavior, like sneaking near enemies instead of going rambo-mode like they normally do.
Plus you would need to literally empty mission area from any random enemies, because they would probably mess up it, because stalkers would be in sneak mode and they would just start shooting them and they would not react to it... Charms of open world game....

[BilboTeaBaggins]

My 2 cents - something alongside mysterious artifact in the CoP where someone want to snatch it too and you got choice whenever you agree to give him back the arts or not (for money), randomize reward for both sides.
Bonus points for subtle clues that might tell you who might give you more (dunno, the way he talk? Like - he say something but then end with "...oh, nevermind", something like cheap villain theme or else).
And randoms betrayals - even if you give arts there is a chance that might be a trap and you lost money he gave you, arts and in worst cases - your life.

Artefact or other items - PDA, docs, special guns etc.

2nd - you got a job to kill some stalker, but turns out you get framed. You might get clues about stalker's innocence (PDA message, other NPC stopping you) and you can get revenge, both of you, on primary taskgiver.

3rd - PDA with puzzling messages that don't tell you much. When you walk around asking stalkers for job one of them might ask you why you carry this PDA (he tracked signal). Two options - he might be a killer (real) or a friend who's looking for that killer.

[The Dovahneer]

i like the idea of ambushes in quests, either as a setup or that it just happens cause the wrong guy was told about the job
for example some shady guy in the bar wants to go with you to help check out some stash he scoped out but it ends up as an ambush as a bunch of bandits jump out of nowhere and try and murder you
that or some rookie who's all hyped up about spotting some cool loot recruits you to go with him but it turns out to be bait for bandits or some bandits overheard it and are trying to kill you two and snatch the loot
this could be random chance too of course like it could go smoothly too with no real way to tell

edit: speaking of quests i hated the fact that you could take only one kind of job at a time
this was annoying because you end finding a guy who wants someone up by the cnpp dead in the cordon and you gotta trek ALLL the way up there for some pocket change and cant take any more kill someone jobs because of that
could also fix this by putting a radius on random quest targets too but still taking more of the same job sounds nice

[etcetera]

[QUOTE=Wepl123;53168831]Got the companion system figured out (for the most part):
You have to take the companion to the specified location, kill the mutants, and then escort him back to Trapper (who gave you the task).

The companion dying results in you failing the task.

So with all of this, do you guys have any more quest ideas? I've filled up Jupiter with a bunch of kill quests/scavenger hunts(finding a corpse or person)/misc stuff, and now I can add a few of these, but I'd love to hear some more ideas of quests to create that are a bit less generic. I can pretty much do most things that the base game had quest wise and even make it more complicated if nessecary.[/QUOTE]

Can you do rescue quests?

Spawn a squad friendly to the NPC, spawn one hostile? Player has to sprint up there and help the friendly squad - and gets a variable reward depending on how many squad members survive?

[Paranoia]

[QUOTE=Etcetera;53169840]Can you do rescue quests?

Spawn a squad friendly to the NPC, spawn one hostile? Player has to sprint up there and help the friendly squad - and gets a variable reward depending on how many squad members survive?[/QUOTE]

About rescue quest...

I wonder if it would be possible to do two types of rescue missions:

1. Mission just like in CoP where you need to rescue Mitay in Jupiter map from bandits but with some twist.

To make it more "entertaining" mission would start by finding injured stalker on the road that tell you that his friend was taken hostage. Then you have choose to go rambo-mode, pay the money or Bandits will give you task to kill some stalker from your own faction. You will lost lots of reputation but you will rescue stalker without paying/killing them. And to make it more difficult you could make hostage location in some closed space(building, tunnel) and spawn more heavy-equipped bandits so you will need to seriously think about going rambo-mode, because you could not snipe them from a distance.

2. Mutant layer rescue mission.

Mission where you need to go to some mutant layer where there is lying stalker surrounded by mutants.
Trick in this mission will be that you cant just run there and kill mutants. If mutant spot you, it will attack that stalker and you fail mission. You will need to sneak to the mutant and kill it before he get to the stalker.

Those type of missions should give nice stress to player because normally in stalker you can just run around and snipe enemies and then rescue guy. Here you cant snipe enemies, because it would not be in open space, and you need to sneak close and attack with all you got keeping an eye to not kill stalker in the same time(read: no grenades) also you need to be quick or mutants/bandits will just kill that stalker.

[𝒸𝓇𝒶𝓈𝒽 ✔️]

[video=youtube;4i0XYg2QhRU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i0XYg2QhRU[/video]