STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[potatojohn]

I tried it briefly and the human AI seems to be nonexistent. I basically walked from dude to dude and shot them to the head and between this they became alerted, failed to see me in front of them and left alert status. Basically it's completely broken.

The maps seem pretty cool but there's no point to playing it until it's fixed

If you want a difficulty mod, I can recommend the Redux mods for SoC/CS/CoP. They make the game MUCH harder and you will learn to treasure every bullet you find.

 

[General Maxson]

Thanks bro, disappointing that after all this time they didn't make a proper release. I guess the subsequential patches will fix it (I hope) and it will be great. Thx for the suggestion of Redux mod too, haven't played it yet. Don't have much time on my hands in the near future, so I guess I'll wait for LA to get fixed though. Maybe I'll try Redux later.

 

[Darklife]

The AI is fine for the most part. I'm in the Agroprom and there was just a huge shootout between the soldiers and stalkers. Everything went smoothly, aside from nearly all of the Stalkers dying.

I think the wonky AI pops up on "enemies" you aren't supposed to kill, like the military under the bridge or those Sin dudes, otherwise it's fine, except for a few moments of stupidity.

The game is more survival horror I think, however it still suffers from the Stalker malady of too many medkits.

From what I know all the new features are there, but communicating with other stalkers via the PDA is broken, but will probably be fixed in an upcoming patch. Overall when it does work it's not really anything to write home about. You can ask them for information or just talk, but nothing really mindblowing.

The maps themselves have been redone extensively. Garbage is barely recognizable for example. The game itself is pretty damn beautiful and the best looking one to date. Although I have yet to see the cut maps like Darkscape.

Overall I think it's worth checking it out right now. The atmosphere is great and it really feels like playing a new game, not just a modification.

Also, this is the only game I know of where you can be the fucking Pied Piper and be chased by a horde of bloodthirsty rats. REAL rats, not Tuchankas or whatever they're called. Pretty cool experience.

 

[skacky]

I've reached Dead City (around 9 hours into the game) and I'm loving it. It has its share of issues but goddamn when it works it's amazing. I think it's slower paced than previous games, with an emphasis on discussions between factions and exploration.
However I have not encountered a single blowout and it hasn't rained at all. I wonder if the weather is bugged or something.

 

[Darklife]

I've reached Dead City (around 9 hours into the game) and I'm loving it. It has its share of issues but goddamn when it works it's amazing. I think it's slower paced than previous games, with an emphasis on discussions between factions and exploration.
However I have not encountered a single blowout and it hasn't rained at all. I wonder if the weather is bugged or something.

I was wondering about that, all that sun looks nice and all, but it's a bit too cheerful.

Plus my FPS practically triples when it's darker so there's that.

 

[skacky]

Some impressions on the areas I visited so far:

Cordon

Spoiler

Very cool, I like the factory and the wilderness around it. The underground is creepy but a bit underused imho.

Garbage

Spoiler

Awesome, it's really great. A bit lifeless at times. I encountered lots of pseudodogs on the hills. I like the underground network under the hangar. The scrapyard full of zombies is quite ominous.

Agroprom

Spoiler

Almost the same as vanilla, though the underground is less scary despite the fact that it has more mutants (two Burers, a Bloodsucker roaming around and lots of zombies). It's just that it's brighter than in vanilla.

Bar/Rostok

Spoiler

Not a huge fan of the super long route to go to the Bar proper, and of the detour to get to Barkeep, but other than that it's very beautiful. Rostok itself is similar to vanilla, without the crashed helicopter and with the tunnel going to the other side of the area.

Dark Valley

Spoiler

Dangerous! I like the Monolith outpost building. I've encountered a lot of Poltergeists, Swamp Beasts and several Izloms as well. There is apparently a cavern network under the valley but I haven't found it yet.

X18

Spoiler

Could do without the scripted events. Other than that it's great and has a thick atmosphere. It's X8/WarLab from Call of Pripyat/Build 1935 except it has added parts and is mostly empty before you trigger some scripted sequences.

Darkscape

Spoiler

Fucking huge. It has generators inside the dense forest. It's very lifeless, however. The mine, which is the Sin HQ, is quite boring to visit unfortunately. It has a lakeside autostop which serves as a Merc outpost, and docks with cranes and sunk boats. I found a cave along the road but there was nothing in it.

Rostok Factory

Spoiler

Amazing. Really great terrain with lots to explore, but unfortunately it's rather empty before Duty takes position. The gasmask mission was pretty tense. It's a great industrial area with residential flats, a small village and radioactive railcars scattered around.

X14

Spoiler

Not particularly big or populated but it's nice enough and the atmosphere is great. It uses the Monolith Control Center map from SoC but changed and a bit smaller. Features lots of Bloodsuckers.

Forest

Spoiler

I only explored a bit before I had my ass handed to me. It's fucking huge with lots of mutants around, and lots of radiation pockets. I've seen green Burers, Bloodsuckers, Swamp Beasts and Chimeras. Lots of anomalies as well. I visited this place in the leak and the Bandit outpost south-west had the mine from Clear Sky's Red Forest.

Yantar

Spoiler

Desolate place with lots of anomalies in the dried lake. It's really huge. Loners, Bandits and the Military occupy the place. The Military isn't hostile to you as long as you behave. The underground network is very creepy and pretty big.

Dead City

Spoiler

Bigger than in build 1935 but doesn't feature the sewer network. The building interiors themselves are rather different as well. Full of anomalies and a bit empty after a while. The countryside around it is huge with lots of springboards and whirligigs, and some wildlife (I've seen Boars, Cats, Swamp Beasts and Dogs. I've even seen a Controller in the city proper when I came back).

Great Swamps

Spoiler

Surprisingly a lot better designed than the horrendous Clear Sky swamps, despite looking very similar. It has recognizable landmarks like the huge bridge with watchtowers in the middle, and the big riverbed in the west. Lots of anomalies and lots of Swamp Beasts and Pyrogeists. Some areas are mined so tread carefully. It's mostly abandoned as far as humans go.

Military Warehouses

Spoiler

Almost the same as vanilla as far as layout goes except the topography is very different. Mercs control the Freedom base. There's a lot more anomalies than in vanilla.

 

[Darklife]

What was wrong with the CS swamps? That was the best map in the game.

 

[skacky]

I always hated it tbh. It's just boring and the reeds are too high, so you can't see anomalies behind them. Doesn't help that the water there is radioactive. I love the church, though.

 

[Jick Magger]

Yeah, only complaint I have thus far are that the zombies simply take too much damage to take down and aren't enough of a threat to really warrant that level of toughness (and it doesn't help that their AI tends to bug out alot and leave them just hobbling around in circles once you move too far away from them).

Don't particularly like how you're limited to 8 hours of sleep, which I suppose makes sense, but I like getting the best sunlight hours when I'm moving about.

 

[Darklife]

I always hated it tbh. It's just boring and the reeds are too high, so you can't see anomalies behind them. Doesn't help that the water there is radioactive. I love the church, though.

Huh. I loved the map and found it to be atmospheric as hell. Exploring all those distant hamlets, full of curiosity, but at the same time full of fear at the waning sunlight and dreading having to go through those bloodsucker infested reeds at night.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

autumn aurora 2

oh boy, great mod. not only does the whole grimdark brown look ridiculous, it also makes firefights retardedly hard by making it impossible to see anything.

 

[DraQ]

What was wrong with the CS swamps? That was the best map in the game.

This.
Swamp and Red Forest.

It helps that those are the only two maps in CS that aren't modified versions of preexisting ones or horribly linear, scripted derpcoasters - of those Limansk would be seriously cool (dat bubble street) if only it allowed for *some* freedom of movement.

autumn aurora 2

oh boy, great mod. not only does the whole grimdark brown look ridiculous, it also makes firefights retardedly hard by making it impossible to see anything.

I'm picking up subtle hints of sarcasm in your post.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

no, i fucking love searching 10 minutes for brown blind dogs in tall brown grass and sprinting right into bandits in brown coats inside of brown bushes who then proceed to give me both barrels of their black-brown shotguns and then look at the brown loading screen.

also i just pumped 3 5.45 magazines into that merc sniper in the trainstation.

he is not dead.

i repeat. not dead. 3 magazines. not even showing signs of keeling over injured.

on the plus side my bullet seem to have made him visually and/or mentally impaired and he does not return fire even though i'm standing right below him.

 

[Baron Dupek]

If mods make enemies that tough then my rating for it is somewhere between "you gotta be kiddin' me" and "fuck this shit".
I liked Lost Alpha in that matter. Mutants health is decent, headshots finally work and they can kill you fast. Stil dogs need to grow in number. Some monsters like chimera are suprisingly weak.
Funny tactics to mutatns is chasing them and bumping their back. Funny picture of Marked One's legs in mutant's butt...

 

[skacky]

I never had any issues killing anything in AA2, and personally I can see correctly.
I continued Lost Alpha. I'm now at Radar on my way to deactivate the Brain Scorcher in Lab X10. Some more thoughts on areas:


Pripyat Outskirts

Spoiler

Very nice, seems to be inhabited by lots of mutants. This is where Voronin can be found after an event that occurs at one point. I haven't explored it fully yet. For some reason there are small earthquakes in this area.

Radar

Spoiler

Very cool. The first time you enter you don't have a working protective helmet so you have to move quickly. The Monolithians being neutral kind of sucks though.

Countryside

Spoiler

Fucking huge and mostly empty as far as A-Life goes. Thank God there's two cars in it. I haven't really explored anything, the map is almost 3km wide. It has a nifty underground area and a cool looking church, similar to Clear Sky's. The only humans I met were a hermit living in the church, a dead scientist and 5 soldiers. Yes, you read that right.

Lost Factory

Spoiler

It's SoC's Yantar, with more vegetation and some changed bits here and there.

X16

Spoiler

Holy fucking hell, that dream sequence is so bad. Other than that it's similar to SoC's X16, except you can find Pyrogeists, Poltergeists, a Burer and a Pseudogiant.

 

[Darklife]

So I take it the cutscenes don't improve? I only saw the one in Garbage, but it was just terrible.

 

[skacky]

Not really no, but the dream sequence in question isn't even a cutscene.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

One major headache I'm having is that there's no bloody entrance to the proper bar in my game, just a gate I can't interact with and nobody who can open it.
Dur doi dur... but I don't want to restart my game.

 

[skacky]

You have to take a long route around the Bar for some reason. Follow the signs, and one of them should point you to a locked door at some point. Do not turn there, instead continue down the straight road and enter through where the entrance to the Wild Territory used to be in SoC. You'll see it when you see three Dutyers under some camouflaged tent or something.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Jesus Christ, my brain must be melting or something. I'm such a moron.

Thanks.

 

[Whisky]

Anyone know where you can get the first vehicle in LA? I'm just finishing up in Cordon for the first time and heading to Garbage.

Haven't ever used a vehicle mod in Stalker before. I assume they're map specific?

 

[Baron Dupek]

I was naysayer about Bar route from SoC, but in LA it's even worse. Madness...
Vehicles? Propably in the Bar, iirc from the dialogs with barman, and on Countryside.

 

[skacky]

Anyone know where you can get the first vehicle in LA? I'm just finishing up in Cordon for the first time and heading to Garbage.

Haven't ever used a vehicle mod in Stalker before. I assume they're map specific?

You can find a car in the Dark Valley after you complete a mission, and no they're not map specific. You can buy some at traders as well.

 

[skacky]

Jesus, I'm in the Pripyat Underground. I was not prepared for this. This has to be the scariest area in all STALKER games. It is absolutely huge and rewards exploration, but it is full of anomalies and radiation. It's the best Lost Alpha map so far, no contest.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Scariest you say? Time to download.