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

Where are my redux boys at

+1

As @wepl123 said, its a matter of just replacing text on xml files. And its not that hard compared to other games, files structure in Stalker is pretty good, so there are no files scattered all over the place. I helped few times making translation to my native language and its basically 4 step work: open file, select text, replace it. save file. Done. For most of time you dont need to make 100% perfect translation, where you translate 100 page weapon description like some mods have, No one read that anyway. All whats matter is dialogs, PDA, missions and GUI. Also mission dialogs are not that complex in Stalker, its not RPG like Baldur's Gate. Some dialogs are long, but you dont find them often, most of text are 2-4 sentences, because in Zone people dont have time, they mean business so everything end in one bullet or one sentence :]

Speaking of modding STALKER, I've wanted to remake the Shadow of Chernobyl FPS animations for a while now. I like the way the weapons & arms look (I have a soft spot for jank) but those animations make me cry

what is there not to like about reloading in 2 frames and then pinching the charging handle of your left hander ak with 2 fingers?

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1876/d1960413-6f66-460f-adf1-564700ef71ef/image.png

I must be in the minority about mods adding quests or story, but I do not trust amateurs to do a story I'd like to follow at all. Stalker's always been more about the overall immersion and gameplay than any story for me. I'd rather have a gameplay changing mod that creates it's own mood of the world in Stalker.

The MP5 one is one of my favourite Lightning speed reload followed by a loving and caring bolt pull

Well if you know any stalker player who is also a writer with 20 years experience, I would be happy if he would make a story for any mod... In that time 99% of people who are willing to actually do any story mod are normal people like us, so we cant really expect some amazing stories. Point of story in mod, especially sandbox like CoC, is that even simples story that are made from basic missions help you keep going though game, give you actual reason to play, because without it you will just run around shooting random npc's and get bored of it after day or two. Story also limit player so he cant just start game, spend 2-3 hours looting all maps and get best gear. You need to go though levels to unlock them and with time get new items, encounter new enemies etc. Of course Stalker is about immersion and atmosphere, but I can bet that you will get bored after few days if eg. Shadow of Chernobyl or Call of Pripyat would not have a story. If you would just spawn in some map and do what you want, you would just do killing spree, get all gear, and then you will get bored.

Didn't the LURK team disband like 2 or 3 years ago? I'm pretty sure the project is dead unless the community took the mantle recently.

Didn't they say they were gonna use their stuff on a UE4 game or something? Something that i expected would never end up happening anyway so it was just an unreleased waste of effort.

I'm doing storylines for with scripted quests and whatnot, but I am not a writer whatsoever. So instead of focusing on the narrative and storytelling aspect, I'm focusing more on the progression of it. For example, if you choose to side with Freedom, doing the story progresses Freedom's goals and therefore helps them expand outwards, causing Freedom npcs to be spawned in new locations, new Freedom outposts being created, more Freedom traders being available in new locations, etc.

It's fantastic that you're doing that and I'm eager to see the outcome, but that's still mostly people shooting each other.

I mean what do you really expect though lol? SoC is my favorite one of the games and that is mostly thick atmosphere punctuated with shooting a lot of things in the face. It's stalker, not planescape torment.

My only issue with having more 'in depth' & scripted questlines like, for example, CoP is that they feel really stale after the first couple times you do them. I mean, this applies to SoC and CS as well but they're generally more loose than CoP's and there's a fair bit more wiggle room for things to play out slightly differently from the ambient chaos of the ALife system.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/r500oac5yryr57p/Argus%27_Photorealisic_Zone_v1.0.7z Argus' PRZ packed into a couple of databases. Wanted to make some of SOC's eye candy mods drag-and-drop.

Being FPSs has clearly worked for Stalker - and it's one of my favourite game series - I wouldn't still be here if it wasn't. Call it the grumbling of an old man, though, but there's so much cool non-combat stuff in the source material - the film Stalker and Roadside Picnic that could work in a Stalker game but doesn't presently. Aside from janky AI there's no weirdness in combat, no potential for anomaly.

I love doing shit like the research missions in CoP where you need to plant the artifact monitors, the bit where you have to find the lost Duty squad in Jupiter, and the similar thing in Clear Sky where you go up to the tower thing in Army Warehouses to find a lost merc squad's transmissions. That kind of shit is cool and really should be explored more.

And such missions should be more present in Stalker: -Actual artifact hunt. Not just go to selected place and wait with detector. Eg CoC should remove visible circles of anomalies and put random ones all over the map so you would need to use detectors more often. -Helping scientist in exchange for informations about zone, for example exact info where anomalies are and what type of artifact are there. -Lead convoy of scientist(not just one guy) to designated area, protect them until they make a camp, then just leave. Just by removing those stupid visible anomalies zones you get dozen of ideas for simple missions that would make game more immersive. If you remove them and scatter them all over the zone without any info, you would need to talk with other stalkers and scientist to get exact positions of them, and what artifact you can get there. You could have new mission from scientist where you could for example discover some of them, factions would buy those info and would fight or kill for them.... So much ideas simple to implement just by removing one stupid idea from CoP, idiotic anomalies zones...

I think it'd be pretty cool if you had to place down something when artifact hunting, like place 3 instruments around the anomaly so it triangulates something and lets you use the detector. Maybe as a special type for rare artifacts so you'd have to do something a bit more in depth to get them.

I only started playing stalker a few months ago and remembered I made a video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJm5HX6HKcI

Why the hell you shoot those stalker at 2:00 -_- This mission is one of easiest no matter of difficulty/mod. You can kill that controller even with AK, its just a matter of aiming and being quick at covering before he attack... Even rambo style is good there, you just run toward him shotting and then just finish him with knife...

Complete isn't great (although I wouldn't say it ruins the gaming experience), but Clear Sky is also pretty buggy even in its patched form, and does benefit from third-party patches - though even they can only do so much. If you've only just started playing you might consider uninstalling Complete and switching to a Sky Reclamation Project/Absolute Nature merge, but if you're a fair way in I wouldn't throw away your save. Just be prepared,, either way, for some questionable game mechanics, beautiful maps, and frustrating design decisions.

Does anyone here go back and do vanilla playthroughs?

I try and then I remember why I like playing with mods

I love playing vanilla stalker.

I had that in mind but right now I decided to wait for Radiophobia. I played original games so many times that its not fun anymore, and mods like Radiophobia, even if buggy, keep original story and gameplay just adding some new graphic and features here and there to make game more entertaining.

Tried vanilla Clear Sky. Couldn't stand the vanilla weapon accuracy. I like all of vanilla except for that, so I just installed arsenal overhaul and the game is really refreshing to play

Those poor stalkers