⭐┃trilogy-general

[fading barn]

Even though it's about the same length

[rotund saddle]

scaled back?

I'd say CS was scaled back, if you don't take part in the faction wars it's pretty short

[fading barn]

I'm more so referring to the map more than anything

I had a lot of issues with running out of resources mid mission

Especially in like X-16 and 18

I never had that issue in COP funnily enough

[rotund saddle]

because SoC taught you to stock up

[fading barn]

Lol guess what I played first.

[finite yew]

Really? I never ran out or low on resources until I was going through cnpp.

[fading barn]

COP, SOC, starting cs soon

[rotund saddle]

lol why

[fading barn]

I honestly have no idea, it wasn't even a quality thing because I enjoyed SOC quite a bit more than COP

I was told that I would miss QoL features from COP but I hardly noticed

[rotund saddle]

it's the reason why I started with SoC

[finite yew]

SoC has more story content I think, and guns jam. I haven't had a gun jam yet in CoP

[rotund saddle]

but you played with some gunplay mod

[fading barn]

True

I think the only difference that slightly bothered me was the PDA layout was a bit different

[finite yew]

No named locations over the map

[fading barn]

Yeah that would've been nice

[rotund saddle]

but does that even matter in SoC?

in CS you get named locations with the SRP patch

[fading barn]

I didn't really like anomaly/gamma when I first tried it but I guess I'll give it another go after I finish clear sky

[finite yew]

Not on Switch, I never knew where I was going in CS as nowhere was named but guides could take you to certain places that were named

[rotund saddle]

that sounds awful lmao

I would have probably quit Clear Sky if it wasn't for the named locations on the map

[finite yew]

The same locations exist in SoC but you wouldn't know what the place was called, or know what to call it for reference.

[fading barn]

I mean I can mostly remember the main locations without names

[finite yew]

Neutral base, Rookie Village and flea market are all I can remember

[fading barn]

Actually no, I forgot the name of the place with the dead dogs in front

Agroprom?

[rotund saddle]

yeah, but can you remember what the area next to the entrance to Rostok is called? lul

[finite yew]

Took me to the 3rd go to find Neutral Base in CS, where all my stash was kept.

[rotund saddle]

because NPCs would refer to these areas, like: "go capture Whatshisbutt"

[fading barn]

Yeah, it can get confusing

[finite yew]

Checkpoint 😉

[rotund saddle]

wrong, I mean the area next to the checkpoint and next to the flea market, it's a contested area

[fading barn]

It would be cool if there was a mod that disabled the HUD completely but idk how you'd check health

[rotund saddle]

blood overlay

[fading barn]

Probably yeah

Is stalker 2 on par with the rest of the franchise?

[rotund saddle]

idk, it doesn't run on 1060 lel

[fading barn]

Yeah fair enough

[rotund saddle]

@late condor isn't happy about it

[rotund saddle]

but the reason I decided to play the OG trilogy was the Stalker 2 release, I watched it on Twitch and wanted to play it

[fading barn]

Same

Actually no I watched the 1979 stalker film first

[grizzled rock]

59face has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[fading barn]

Dang

[rotund saddle]

I don't think I would have played the game otherwise, I remember trying it years ago and anomalies were super confusing to me, I didn't really like them. Also I would NEVER EVER shoot a ghost with a friggin' RIFLE, like you do in Stalker XD

[fading barn]

I absolute hate games like fallout (please don't crucify me) so I was really surprised I liked stalker

[rotund saddle]

oh yeah, also I had to learn you have to headshot enemies 100% of the time, that's what helped me the most

I remember trying SoC years ago and I couldn't even kill the bandits in the first village and I was like: wtf is this shit

and I dropped it

[rotund saddle]

I'm the opposite lol, I loved Fallout 1/2 but couldn't get into Stalker

[fading barn]

I think I just like the setting a lot more, it's incredibly immersive

Not to mention being decently accurate to the real exclusion zone (kinda)

Like the Ferris wheel in Pripyat, seeing that in game was really cool

[rotund saddle]

I also shat my pants in x18 lab

I like the pacing and that it's a mix of different genres

[fading barn]

Dude I played X18 at midnight with no lights on and I don't think I've ever been more scared. Especially as I only had like 50 rounds left halfway in

And getting jumpscared by a snork doesn't help accuracy.

[rotund saddle]

lmao yeah, I played it at night too and once I entered the lab I was like "fk this shit" and shut the game off to calm down, lol

[rotund saddle]

I didn't even have a shotgun at the time, terrible

[late condor]

cringe

stalker guns are stylistic peak

[fading barn]

Sorry bro </3

[trail ice]

omg the path to brain burner is hell

[rotund saddle]

what gun do you have?

[late condor]

gameplay-wise yeah
lore-wise nah

[trail ice]

GP 37

[late condor]

probably works if you dont read too much into it

[trail ice]

i regret this

[rotund saddle]

but GP is good

personally I used Vintar to clear out the red forest, it was more boring than it was difficult because it was just: headshot, headshot, headshot, miss, miss, miss, headshot, miss, headshot, miss, headshot, headshot

for like 2 hours

[trail ice]

for me it is: miss miss miss miss hit miss miss low damage heal miss miss WHAT IS THAT GHOST

[rotund saddle]

lol

also radiation was annoying

[torpid rapids]

omg. even this game is bugged on the xbox. I can't even get to the main menu anymore without it freezing. it says "Press any button to continue" but as soon as i do, it freezes and crashes

[ripe storm]

play pc version 🚬

[finite yew]

Switch version ran 99% flawlessly haha

[torpid rapids]

deleting the xbox cache (unplugging console) solved the issue. if im able to finish this one, ill play the others on PC. i just preferred using a controller

[hollow mason]

Hey guys, I'm having an issue. When I try to save my game just crashes. Any ideas?

[rotund saddle]

normal save or quick save?

[hollow mason]

I think the normal save, I go to the menu > Save Game > Save, and it crashes.

[rotund saddle]

are you in Pripyat?

[hollow mason]

Yes...

[rotund saddle]

saving in Pripyat doesn't always work

go back and try saving in red forest

any mods? ZRP or anything?

[hollow mason]

How can I quick save?

[rotund saddle]

I think it's F6

[hollow mason]

Uhm... I don't know, I'm playing the original Steam version and I don't have any modifications to the game.

[rotund saddle]

The solution suggested by the vanilla purists is to load the autosave (the one that was made when you first entered Pripyat), then get to the NPP without dying.

[hollow mason]

It's kinda weird everything, it's my first time playing it and my first time in Pripyat. I found that if I save in the brigde where you spawn, there's no crash. So I'm looting and coming back to the bridge to save LOL.

Thanks for the suggestion by the way, I was thinking it was my fault.

[rotund saddle]

https://old.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/98l5cx/soc_crashes_consistently_when_loading_saves/

someone said the same in this thread "Save files at the entrance to Pripyat seem to work. "

[hollow mason]

That's interesting, it's working for me somehow. Another question, can I shoot to the freaking helicopters? I shooted one and it's on fire but it's standing in the air doing nothing.

😐

Nvm, I just walked a few steps and it killed me.

[rotund saddle]

lol

I don't recall any helicopters in Pripyat

[velvet turtle]

there's some that fly above

but they don't attack

[hollow mason]

There are, is there any place where can I send a picture? They are destroying me.

[rotund saddle]

https://discord.com/channels/504587323577729024/524231625039413249

[rotund saddle]

you mean in the stadium?

[finite yew]

Only place where helicopters will destroy you is right after you start the CNPP sequence

[hollow mason]

I think so, I just finished the game... Kinda sad ngl. Is there any way to go back from Pripyat? I would like to continue with my others missions, the only saves I have are from the battle of Pripyat.

[velvet turtle]

you can leave until the CNPP

[hollow mason]

"CNPP"?

[granite jungle]

Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Basically once you leave Pripyat to the power plant you are locked in to the end of the game. Before that you can return to the rest of the maps if you wish

[hollow mason]

I'm dead. 😂

[granite jungle]

ohhh

[hollow mason]

Well, I loved this game not gonna lie. Thanks for the information! Is time to try another game. :)

[proper lotus]

I used a health pack and my game crashed

[finite yew]

Guess who's involuntarily doing a no healing run..

[proper lotus]

I'm gonna try again lol. Hopefully not gonna have to do that. Doesn't sound pleasant

[finite yew]

I can't remember if you could in SoC but in CoP I use artifacts to heal myself of everything instead of medical supplies

The Zone may taketh,
But the zone also giveth

[trail ice]

Finally made it to X-10

it's so unnerving to not come across any monsters in most of the rooms

(except bloodsuckers)

[zealous sequoia]

yo anyone know anything about the cut area to the left of cordon\ under ahroprom is it just the cut swamp from early builds like the dead city??

[rotund saddle]

what ending did you get?

[late condor]

It’s not a cut area, it was never planned to be there. That being said, it is accessible as one of the multiplayer maps

But most of the stuff on the map (with the exception of dead city and darkscape) is not cut areas, it’s just here for flavour

[dusk sun]

Hey all, so im aboutta start my STALKER journey with the original game. Should i play the game vanilla, or are there any performance/QoL things i should look into? My system is a Win10 machine, am i gonna run into any issues?

[ripe storm]

pretty much fine

i play on my GTX 1050 and it run pretty well

[dusk sun]

epic, alright thanks

any tips and tricks before i start? or should i figure it out as i go?

[rotund saddle]

go for headshots only, shooting the body is pretty much pointless

[dusk sun]

headshots/critical spots? alright got it

also idk if this is unique to the first game but im playing on "Stalker" difficulty, is there any differences between all the difficulties or is it just damage and health values?

[rotund saddle]

no, just headshots

[rotund saddle]

https://old.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/7fxvt5/what_do_difficulties_actually_change_in_stalker/

[rotund saddle]

there's the ZRP mod that fixes a bunch of stuff, however apparently it also changes a few esoteric dialog options so Vanilla extremists will crucify me for recommending it https://www.metacognix.com/files/stlkrsoc/index.html

[dusk sun]

i'll play vanilla for now and if i run into some extreme problems i'll look into the mod, thanks!

[rotund saddle]

keep in mind if you install the mod later not all fixes will work

[late condor]

it's not just dialogs xd, dialogs were just easiest to check, there are far more things it changes that it has no reason to change

[rotund saddle]

they aren't important changes anyway

[late condor]

you may consider them minor, but they're still significant as they go against dev intentions, resulting in people getting wrong impression of the lore and gameplay of OG games, for someone's first experience in the game going for anything other than pure vanilla is heresy

[rotund saddle]

any examples except some esoteric dialogue?

[late condor]

There have been three discussions already in which you assumed something added by a mod you played is a part of vanilla game lol

[rotund saddle]

all were insignificant

[dusk sun]

eh i'll go vanilla

although i did just try to load a save and the game blew up, ouchie

[rotund saddle]

VANILLA EXPERIENCE™

[dusk sun]

i mean fair enough but i do think the mod ya linked changes perhaps just a bit too much for my liking

i was more so just looking for stability mods, if any are needed

[rotund saddle]

what changes you don't like?

[dusk sun]

seems from what SurDno said that it changes some dialouge options and other gameplay things

however minor i still feel it detracts from the "intended experience"

[dusk sun]

idk, im dum

[trail ice]

I finally finished SOC

ended up with the 🤑 ending

man what a ride

how do i get the canon ending tho

[graceful horizon]

Go to the guide in the cordon before going to CNPP

[trail ice]

oh

damn it i'm already here in CNPP

i don't think i can backtrack

[graceful horizon]

Nope

Entering the building is the point of no return

[trail ice]

there's a door that says it needs a code

[graceful horizon]

Yeah you get the way in by following your lead with guide

You can open the door with a glitch, but you won't understand the ending that way

[trail ice]

good thing i have a save before going to pripyat

i'm just gonna use that and go back to cordon

[graceful horizon]

Excellent

Good luck!👌

[trail ice]

man travelling overweight is hard

[graceful horizon]

Moonlights are worth their weight in gold

[rotund saddle]

Moonlights?

[graceful horizon]

Artifacts that give the biggest endurance boost in SoC

[rotund saddle]

ah, right

[torpid rapids]

does anyone here actually go out of their way to do the side missions? all of them are fetch quests. most of the time, i get lucky and already have the item so i look at the job list and pick the ones i can finish

[rotund saddle]

I did, until I realized they repeat and there's no end to them

[torpid rapids]

yeah, i already have close to 100k and im at yantar for the first time, so i dont bother with it, or the stashes

[rotund saddle]

there are items worth more than 100k that you can buy

[torpid rapids]

well, unless the rewards get higher than the max 2000 reward i've seen so far, ill pass

[finite yew]

Someone wants to be rich 😉😂

[late condor]

there are artifacts you can pretty much only consistently get through repeating quests, and some of them are interesting, it's good side content

there are also unique items at end of some questlines

that you cant get any other way

[graceful horizon]

And NPCs can also drop artifacts as inexhaustable source

[late condor]

Not all artifacts however.

[graceful horizon]

Oh, which ones are off the loot table?

[late condor]

In vanilla due to rounding error all 5000RU artifacts have their chance set to 0 and are thus unobtainable

But virtually all other artifacts can be renewably obtained through other means such as quests

That being said night star only has non-renewable sources (anomalies, breakable containers, pre-placed positions, non-repeating quests) so it’s the only artifact of which there is only a limited supply of 4-45 night stars

[rotund saddle]

accepting a quest triggers an artifact to spawn?

[late condor]

Huh? No, it’s a reward for Baldy’s quest.

[trail ice]

finally finished this one
fabulous ending

[finite yew]

Which ending?

I should do the ending again but on Rookie, just so I can try and get a better look at the reactor room

[trail ice]

strelok destroys green toobs

[finite yew]

Canon ending.

Did you try for some wish granter ending? See what you get, and see the inside of the reactor room

[trail ice]

i got the 🤑 ending when i made a wish

[finite yew]

Apparently the easiest to get lol
Same here. Too bad you can't drop money and try for a 3rd ending before activating it

[karmic marsh]

Can anyone tell me why I can't continue the mission a wishful thinking? After fending off the wards dalin calls me to talk, I can't do anything, I have no dialogue options with dalin and other npcs, also the indicator tells me to head towards a door that is blocked, can anyone help me?

[rotund saddle]

what game

[karmic marsh]

stalker 2

mission a pious illusion, to the institute

[whole geyser]

why are you asking about stalker 2 in the shadow of chornobyl channel

go to right channels lol

[karmic marsh]

sorry I misread the channel title

is it my impression or I can't find the stalker channel

maybe I found it

[torpid rapids]

why the hell this game so hard for! 😦

[rotund saddle]

but you have 100k

[graceful horizon]

Can't pay enemies to stop shooting you

[torpid rapids]

why not? i thought they come to the zone for money

[tawdry cargo]

Not everyone

[torpid rapids]

they want to die?

[tawdry cargo]

There are many reasons to come to the Zone

[torpid rapids]

money, and to die

[tawdry cargo]

No

[torpid rapids]

yes sor

[tawdry cargo]

There's a bunch of reason

[torpid rapids]

the tourist want see mutated pig

[tawdry cargo]

If it was only money not many people would be in the Zone because after getting their first artefact they would get out immediately

[tawdry cargo]

There's another reason. Another is you could just not like your life and start over in the Zone

Another could be curiosity

[torpid rapids]

criminals

[tawdry cargo]

Yes, they go there to escape the law too

[torpid rapids]

how many get reformed do you think

[tawdry cargo]

What do you mean?

[torpid rapids]

like percent of criminal who come to zone, and they become better humans than they were on big land

[tawdry cargo]

Not too much I would say

The Zone is pretty good for bandits. In HoC it gets worse but before that it wasn't half bad

They get to rob a ton of people, the law won't chase them into the Zone, bigger gangs rule big areas of the Zone

[torpid rapids]

aw

[torpid rapids]

did ppl outside of ukraine immigrate specifically to go and live in the zone

[tawdry cargo]

Yes

[torpid rapids]

why

[tawdry cargo]

Same as all the reasons the Ukrainians had

[wanton pecan]

Depends. Mercenaries are Western and likely work for corporations, there's a cut organization working for the UN that's in Anomaly, and a good bit came alone to get some money

[late condor]

there's no "cut organization working for the UN", there's just cut UN

[torpid rapids]

united nations... why...? i dont get it

[velvet turtle]

they're a significant political group?

quite simple

the zone is a huge scientific resource

[torpid rapids]

but why are people, stalkers, allowed to do what they do

[velvet turtle]

they aren't

[torpid rapids]

if it is a huge scientific thing, these artifacts

[velvet turtle]

they're criminals, and the zone is extremely dangerous and devours equipment and people in equal measure

it's not worth the effort to keep people out but it's also worth enough effort to sometimes send people in

[granite jungle]

there are a few sanctioned scientific and military outposts but mostly they just try to keep people out for their own good, with limited success

[velvet turtle]

even then they have tight budgets

[granite jungle]

Yeah

And often have to work with stalkers to actually get field work done anyway

[wanton pecan]

A few lucky Stalkers have official licenses to enter and leave (think military stalkers and topols group) but 99% are there illegally. They are only allowed to remain because it's too costly to kill/eject them all, plus they do help with the Ecologists from time-to-time

[wanton pecan]

That and a healthy helping of bribes from Sidorovich and others

[torpid rapids]

how many bandits do you think were stalker before they thought that life wasnt enough for them

[velvet turtle]

a lot of them are already criminals when they enter the zone, or become bandits after messing up

[wanton pecan]

Most Stalkers who become bandits only do so out of desperation. So usually pretty few. I don't blame them either, the bandits probably stink like burer

[late condor]

Ask devs. They wanted to show involvement of international powers in CS showing how UN gets to one of the generators

[charred prism]

No the me mercs aren't westerners

[wanton pecan]

They are at least funded by them, considering they use expensive western armor and guns which the majority of potential Eastern European funders wouldn't have access to

[charred prism]

no, there is nothing pointing to them being funded by anyone from the western side, in fact, we dont know who funds them, we only have speculations

guns have NOTHING to do with the nature of the stalker

or are you telling me the monolith are german backed

[wanton pecan]

The germans obviously created Monolith didn't you know this???

[grizzled rock]

drrunners has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[charred prism]

I can read your comment dont worry
and the weaponry that a stalker uses has NOTHING to do with what their nationality or backing is
it is up to game design and progression

yes rookies use bad guns, and masters use good guns, thats what makes game progression, because NPCs really shouldnt be handling AKs at late stage

its not meant to be taken srsly as a lore tidbit

[wanton pecan]

Yeah in the end its just speculation but the advanced western armor and weaponry just makes me think their at least backed by some form of western interest

Though because a few use exoskeletons in stalker 2 it's entirely possible they have funding from someone deeply tied to the Zone

[charred prism]

so everyone in the game is backed by western interest because all of the guns in the late game are western guns that are hard to obtain?
this only really makes logic if you try to overanalyse stalker weaponry, but its also missing the point that in development weapons werent chosen thru logic, they were chosen thru how cool and futuristic they looked, they were choosen with the mind that late game was supposed to be more sci fi and more futuristic, thus the weaponry needed to match, which is why the more you go towards the endgame the more experimental or hard to get weapons you get

the last argument is
stalkers get equipment thru the black market

[wanton pecan]

A lot do considering there'd zero possibility that decommissioned M4 and G36 models WOULDNT end up on the black market

[charred prism]

we are told that thats how most get their equipment

[granite jungle]

It's a lucrative trade I'm sure

[wanton pecan]

Also considering the timeline for the creation of G36's and FTMs, it's not entirely impossible for Project-X to have managed to get their hands on a few

If they stocked enough it does explain why rock-worshipping Ukrainians get to use overpriced and overdesigned guns

[velvet turtle]

the an-94, a weapon known to enter mass production, clearly shows that they bothered with being that specific in who got weapons

[wanton pecan]

Already said before, but it is possible the rarer weapons like the Groza or AN-94 were ordered by Project X guards and ended up being found in X-labs

[velvet turtle]

that the military is specifically using despite not being ever made in large amounts and being made several decades ago

[granite jungle]

And the Groza was not particularly well liked in practice

[wanton pecan]

If I remember right it was discontinued due to reliability issues and gas blowing back on its user

[wanton pecan]

Yeah some weapon choices don't make sense is Stalker considering how rare they are IRL, even the mods make this mistake

[velvet turtle]

"mistake"

[granite jungle]

It's a feature because the guns are cool even if they were impractical and rare IRL

People like cool guns in their games

[placid bobcat]

I am playing stalker SOC vanilla on Xbox at the moment and I just wanted to ask how do I get traders to sell better gear? I just fought my way out of the brain scorcher and it doesn’t seem like traders have any new high level gear yet

I would like to have an exoskeleton or something before I go to Pripyat

[wanton pecan]

Barkeep sells the Bulat Armored Suit and Exo after shutting off the brain scorcher. However, you might be glitched if he isn't selling anything good after the Brain Scorcher

[placid bobcat]

I haven’t checked barkeep yet

Just skinflint

Good call though I was gonna check there anyway

So the inventory is based on where you are in the main story?

[wanton pecan]

Yeah

But even if you are just really unlucky you can get pretty much everything you need in Prypiat

Fang's goodies stash has unique exo, Monolithians have G36's and Gauss Rifles

And there's a Bulat Armored Suit in Decoder stash

[wanton pecan]

Oh only Barkeep's is from what I can tell, Sidorovich's and that Duty traders stock remain mostly the same

You can even get a Grom early in if you get 20k

[keen forum]

Hello i recently started playing SoC again but no matter what i cannot go from cordon > garbage
ive verified game files multiple times and reinstalled twice but i still cannot figure it out, i also have ZRP but it doesnt seem to be helping, i have some crash logs that i dont understand, where would it be appropriate to ask for help with the crash logs

[ripe storm]

Steam version moment

[keen forum]

alirght i figured it out, to anyone having the same problem, it was the windows account name having a space in it which messed up the autosave somehow causing the game to crash, to mend this just change your windows account name by going win+R "netplwiz" and then properties on your account and either change the name or simply remove the space in your name. sorry for the bother

[late condor]

Yeah it’s a known issue

Though I heavily wouldn’t recommend ZRP for your first playthrough for many reasons

Better go vanilla with your first experience with the game

[velvet lance]

What do I do with the Flash Drives?

I have Strelok's Flash Drive and Crazy Stalker's Flash Drive

[late condor]

Crazy stalker is needed for Max’s quest, Strelok’s one stays with you

[rotund saddle]

many reasons like Pripyat crashes

[warm cargo]

I tried vanilla but couldn’t progress the story at a point. I missed ghost’s corpse my first time through the lab and the gate wouldn’t open. ZRP fixed it right away and made so many more things manageable. For me, ZRP kept me from ditching the game

[rotund saddle]

BuT yOu'rE mIsSiNg OuT oN tRuE vAnIlLa ExPeRiEnCe, ZRP cHaNgEs ToO mUcH!!!11

[late condor]

It does

[rotund saddle]

people with jobs don't care

[late condor]

Cleaning toilets ain’t a job

ZRP is a vanilla+ mod, period

[rotund saddle]

but telling people to not play with ZRP 24/7 apparently is

[warm cargo]

The purpose of gaming is to have a fun experience. For most people that don’t play a ton of old games, vanilla SoC is not fun. Most people would benefit from ZRP on their first run

If you prefer vanilla, I’ll let you enjoy that. But don’t try to stop people from having fun playing your favorite game, just cause they do it slightly differently.

[rotund saddle]

if you cared you'd prepare a version of ZRP that's bug fix only, but you prefer to just complain

[velvet turtle]

that's rich coming from a fallout fan

the only currently active fallout remake that isn't in hiatus is the F4NV one

[warm cargo]

That’s not a great argument. Most people can’t just make a mod. Just drop it.

[rotund saddle]

I don't care how people play Fallout, why?

[velvet turtle]

preferring to complain

[rotund saddle]

but @late condor brags about studying the game's source code, he's smart enough to mod it

[rotund saddle]

no idea what you mean

[warm cargo]

Oh, for sure then. Make your bug fixes and leave us alone

[velvet turtle]

it is quite basic

[rotund saddle]

but you don't need a remake to play Fallout, there are unofficial patches, if you're not bright enough to play the original then what can I say

[velvet turtle]

because you're complaining about someone complaining instead of just ignoring the person talking to a brick wall

it is unsurprising I need to explain it

[rotund saddle]

yes, let's ignore everyone and close this discord server, no talking allowed

[late condor]

I’m not going to mod something that’s perfect as is though

[rotund saddle]

but you had a say in SRP, so you already ruined Clear Sky

[late condor]

It’s a bad argument, ZRP strays far enough from dev intentions to the point where you are playing a very different game. I’ve seen people confused about lots of SoC’s lore and mechanics because they did not bother playing that vanilla.

Btw, skipping Ghost is not an issue as that path is only needed for Guide quest line, which is optional and only needed for C-Con endings. You can still freely completely the game without ever looting Ghost.

[late condor]

Who would have thought people are stupid enough to play with their first time with the game lol

[rotund saddle]

probably the people whose game crashes and can't progress anymore

[late condor]

Bruh you never even experienced a crash and just parroting what you heard lmfao

[rotund saddle]

because I played with ZRP, LOL

sorry for not experiencing crashes, really sorry I didn't get the true stalker experience

[warm cargo]

Have fun gate keeping your free time activity to a militant degree. I’m gonna go play clear sky (with mods 😱) and have a blast

[rotund saddle]

we should play the game in original Russian because the English translation deviates too much from dev's intentions

[late condor]

Unironically that’s worth doing, I’ve seen a more faithful translation through subs

[late condor]

So you never experienced issues and just went with the mod cause you truly believed the game is unplayable vanilla, how can you even share your opinion knowing that lol

[rotund saddle]

we should move to Ukraine first to play the game, to be in line with game's intentions

[late condor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTN3jrZqhjQ

[rotund saddle]

so because I didn't experience crashes it means there are no crashes? there's somebody coming here every few days saying their game crashes and they can't progress, are you going to ignore that?

[late condor]

It’s Ukrainian not Russian but that translation is very faithful to original texts either way

[late condor]

Most ZRP players will never experience any crashes in unmodded game, there is no reason to ruin your playthrough for an off chance you might encounter an issue. Especially considering the mod can be installed mid playthrough if you actually end up having issues.

[rotund saddle]

why would ZRP ruin my playthrough? lol

[late condor]

Cause you’re still confused about what is a part of base game and what isn’t and don’t know how stalker actually works

[rotund saddle]

"how stalker actually works" lol, how does it work?

[rotund saddle]

I will remain confused about it unless I pour hundreds of hours into the vanilla game

[lapis bluff]

Just got all three games for the steamdeck, bit late to the party but optimistic these games hold up great in 25’

[velvet lance]

Thanks!

[compact temple]

Salutations dear stalkers! is there a mod loader for SoC?

[late condor]

It’s about the details. The minor interactions that you would have never thought about that only get noticed on subsequent replays. And those things you actively miss out on by playing modded becuse you never know which part of your experience is genuinely a part of the game put there by devs and which isn't.

you absolutely missed out on what makes the game worth replaying for so many times in the fear of theoretical crashes lol

[jaunty spruce]

anyone tell me how to get the game without torrent? I'm in US

[whole geyser]

buying it off steam or gog bro lol

[jaunty spruce]

no card bro

Nobody gonna let me spend money on a game even if its a dollar

[whole geyser]

damn that sucks

[jaunty spruce]

yeah

US?

[royal jolt]

No

[rotund saddle]

but I had these "minor interactions" as you call them, what are you talking about?

[chrome cosmos]

if it doesnt let you use your card try paypal

[grizzled rock]

buyprada has been warned

Reason: Do not talk about pirating, nor promote it in the server!

gibstone has been warned

Reason: Do not talk about pirating, nor promote it in the server!

[gritty harbor]

Yar

[gritty harbor]

Yar har

[wary tusk]

Hey, does anyone have any idea on how to change the text language of SoC version 1.000 from russian to english?

[hollow monolith]

Quick question

Why do the loners with the white rookie jacket and the sunrise suit balaclava only appear in soc

They look cool 😩

[peak nova]

What's the best mod to replay this game?

[hollow mason]

Hey there, does anyone know how to get the artifact that gives you more AP to run and jump? It's something electrical, it gives you 70% more and less resistance to radiation I think.

Dude, I just killed a bandit and he gave me it. LOL

It's called Flash and it gives you more endurance.

[wanton pecan]

The flash is good but it's an objectively worse version of the Moonlight artifact. It gives minus 30 or so to electrical resistance but over 100 endurance. You can find 2 or 3 in Wild Territory at midnight

[hollow mason]

How can I get Moonlight artifact?

[wanton pecan]

...Read the message?

[hollow mason]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the Flash.

[wanton pecan]

No, the Moonlight is objectively the better artifact.

[hollow mason]

I see, thanks for the information. I thought in your message you were talking about getting the Flash in Wild Territory at midnight. 😅

[late condor]

I mean, most spawns are either artifacts are anomaly based so they can produce either of those, so technically speaking, he was talking about both

But yeah any place with electro anomalies is a good spot to check, including tunnels with moving electras in Agroprom underground and cordon

[wary tusk]

Does anyone know if it is even possible?

[plush yacht]

Yo. Playing Stalker 2. My first game in the series. Loving it. But I'm reading that Stalker 1 is miles better than 2. Is it true? Since I like 2, would you guys recommend Stalker 1?

[whole geyser]

I'd recommend playing the entire trilogy @plush yacht

[hollow mason]

Yo, quick question.

Why is there an item literally called "Bread"?

[rotund saddle]

you eat bread

bread good

[graceful horizon]

Dark Valley, Borov's office

[charred prism]

Testing

[graceful horizon]

Oh he asked why, not where...

Absolutely dyslexic

From what I've read (on the wiki so it could be wrong), food items you consume and the food items you can see being consumed by NPCs are different varients. Bread you eat as player, "bread" is eaten by NPCs and is normally unlootable. But through some mistake they ended up as overworld items in the Dark Valley

[prisma epoch]

Hello Stalkers. First time post on here long time player. Does anyone know how to get into the roof of the house in Cordon at the front opposite the one with the stalker suit in it? I can climb the tree and see boxes in the roof but haven't found any guides on how to get across to it. I just can't seem to get across if I jump and can't remember if it's even possible.

[whole geyser]

What I normally do is go to the house before it and climb up but instead of going into the attic crawl space walk the edge until you get on to the roof then run and jump across

i know this aint SoC but this the ladder youll climb up then cat walk the edge until you're on the roof

[rotund saddle]

jump on the tree, then on the roof

[prisma epoch]

Thanks @whole geyser I think you are referring to the opposite house? It's got the truck out the front. Here's a shot from up in the tree beside the house. I can see a crate in the roof. (I can't upload a picture?)

[prisma epoch]

OK so it is possible? I spent about 15mins trying haha. Had a vague memory of it being possible

[rotund saddle]

do a low crouch jump

[whole geyser]

Oh maybe my memory is rusty haha it's been quite while since I've played soc

[prisma epoch]

I haven't played HOC yet but it's cool that Cordon is in it. Can't waith to check it out. My PC needs an upgrade

Thanks guys. I will keep trying

[whole geyser]

Oh this was just a mod but shared the same location as soc (don't have soc installed atm for a better reference picture)

[prisma epoch]

Oh OK no problem

[whole geyser]

I wonder if there's a video guide on YouTube aswell

[rotund saddle]

#📸┃screens_and_videos message

[prisma epoch]

Yeah I've had a bit of a look. I'll just keep trying

[rotund saddle]

it needs to be a low crouch + jump, in that order, otherwise you'll hit your head on the branch above and fall

[late condor]

S2 is a big downgrade in many areas, yes, but it’s still a decent game. That being said, if you’re ok with dated games you will enjoy S1 far more.

[late condor]

The language package is downloaded separately. If you have a game already installed, you will only have one language in it.

In steam switching a language is re-downloading all the voiceline files and texts. If you have it installed from a disk, you can’t change your language

[late condor]

Remnant of the old system for animation items. A technical redundant item that was supposed to be unobtainable by player but got mistakenly placed in the game world.

NPCs need an item present in their inventory to play anims with it. That’s the reason why things like hand_radio and guitar exist — any NPC playing an animation with those items needs to have them in his inventory to display them.

In final game for food and drinks the same item is used for animations and actual usage. So if an NPC has a loaf of bread in their inventory, they will play animations with it. Same for sausages, canned food, vodka and energy drinks.

That’s one of the reasons NPC trade inventories are always full of food — they use it for their animations. You can sell them items and buy them from them and that will control which animations they play near campfire. You can even literally buy a food item mid-bite and that will result in it disappearing from their hand.

In order to ensure an NPC always has at least one item to play animations with, devs created a special hidden slot for it. Slots are like the ones you have for your weapons and outfits, but there are hidden ones too and they exist for NPCs as well. When an item is in that slot it is not available for trading and is not visible when looting. Usually the first one to spawn occupies it.

That slot also holds binoculars and is the reason why Petruha sometimes has a binoculars for sale and sometimes doesn’t. If any kind of food spawns in his inventory, it occupies the animation slot and you can buy the binoculars. If no food spawns, the animation slot stays empty and binoculars occupy it, making it impossible to buy it off.

Sometimes that slot is empty for dead bodies, which results in the first food item being put in their inventory disappearing. That is something that consistently happens 100% of the time with the dead body near Tolik — you put a load of bread and it disappears. Before we figured out what was happening behind the scenes we used to joke that the dead dude eats it. But obviously it’s just going to the animation slot. And yes, since the same slot is used for binoculars, that corpse is going to “eat” the first binoculars that goes into their inventory as well.

In CS and CoP the same system is in place but with no special animation slot. That means that if you buy all the food and drink items an NPC has, they will play no animations at all.

But "bread" in final game is just useless yes, an old development item that no longer serves its purpose. In 1.0 you could find "vodka" as well.

[late condor]

Incorrect, see reply above. What you described used to be the case in prerelease builds and is the reason "bread" exists, but in release vanilla games NPCs use normal food items.

[wary tusk]

Ok thanks

[torpid rapids]

why zombies are so annoying? omg stfu

also, what is the point of bolts? is the only point to try to bait and kill enemies with them

[late condor]

You can locate anomalies with them and for some anomalies you can disarm them for the short duration

I don’t think NPCs are baited by bolts?

[torpid rapids]

the duration is 1 second

[late condor]

Which is usually enough to run by or collect an artifact directly obstructed by it

[torpid rapids]

is zombie affected by radiation or brain scorcher

[late condor]

If you mean lore wise, zombiefied stalkers are those who came under influence of Brain Scorcher and similar psy psy emitters, such as Yantar miracle machine.

If you mean gameplay wise, no NPCs or mutants in the game are subject to radiation or psy. The code is there but that interaction is disabled.

[torpid rapids]

tank you

[rotund saddle]

I thought it was Monolit that was under the influence of the brain scorcher

[late condor]

We don’t know how Monolith is truly converted, the folklore mentions someone “turning” to monolith while being close to scorcher but Strider mentions getting to CNPP before his memory goes black.

But we have lots of mentions of zombies as a result of brain scorcher and you literally meet them on the way if you go through the forest

[rotund saddle]

I do? I only met monolith

like hundreds of them

[torpid rapids]

im so confused what is happening in the game. i went to the first labratory, i saw some alien things in some tubes, and i was being controlled in a cutscene (was one of them loose?), and then i went to another lab and then i blanked out again and saw a cutscene with strelok. so who was controlling me in the first cutscene, and who made me pass out in the other lab

@rotund saddle ^

also, is the brain scorcher one of the ones that broke free or was a sucess and broke free, and blocking the way to the north. i havent got that far into the game, just the second lab,

idk if there is a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh lab

are there any lore enthusiasts or fans of the game that can help me

without spoiling what happens after the second lab

[late condor]

Brain scorcher is after 2nd lab, if you find yourself confused about the story and what happened to your character then check out the diary tab of your PDA, it contains notes on past events

[torpid rapids]

i read all of it, it's the only reason im still playing because i like reading lore. but im so confused. and i think the translation to english is one of the reasons

[late condor]

The translation is not the best yes. What exactly are you confused about? There’s no moment in the first lab where you lose control (but you do lose consciousness after picking up the documents, your characters does that a lot).

[torpid rapids]

can you explain what happened in the first lab? like when you see those creatures in the big capsules. they look like small aliens. where did they come from? are they mutated creatures?

and then the protagonist passes out. i assumed it was one of those creatures that broke out and survived

i think if you explained that ill be set

[late condor]

The laboratories were used to experiment on animals and people. You get a few journal entries after picking up documents that explain that a bit. The alien-looking creatures are the result of one of those experiments, yes.

[rotund saddle]

is there no better fan English translation?

[late condor]

The protagonist just tends to pass out a lot. It happens a lot during the events of the game and is how you see dreams, which are pretty important for SoC storyline (their contents are also a part of your diary)

[late condor]

I’ve seen one person starting to work on one but they did not finish. The problem is that some of the stuff is voice acted so improving the translation would introduce discrepancies between voice and text.

But no, nothing finished unfortunately. ZRP fixes some minor mistake but its author is American so there is no retranslation from source, just correction of obvious errors (and sometimes it oversteps its boundaries by correcting what was already the right translation to something wrong).

[rotund saddle]

there already are discrepancies between voice and text lol, he could translate just the text

[late condor]

Slight correction: different labs were used for different kinds of experiments, but X18 (the first lab) was focused on animal experimentation yes. Another important related piece of lore related to that is Operation Agroprom report you should also have in your diary

And don’t forget to check out PDA task descriptions they sometimes also contain important lore.

not cyclic but unique tasks, especially storyline ones

[late condor]

It would be much much worse than that, English is based on slightly outdated texts (Dec 2006, 3.5 months prior to release) so it misses LOTS of changes done in last few months of development, including important lore bits.

And also lots of mistranslations yes, e.g. “Humanity must be controlled” is actually “Humanity must be destroyed” in original

Actually there is a way to play with Ukrainian VA and English subtitles which provides more accurate translation for voiced over text, but nothing exists for dialogs and the like.

The problem is also that all other translations were translated from English… meaning all mistakes of English translation carried over to every other language lol

French, Italian, Polish, Japanese, German - they all suffer from the same issues because of that and add their own on top

Xerox of a xerox

[rotund saddle]

what language is the original?

[late condor]

The entire trilogy was developed in Russian with Ukrainian released after the game’s release as an in-house translation

With some issues being corrected during translation, but it’s almost a 1:1 translation

Because the languages are very similar and you can get away with the same sentence structure, literally translating word by word

Most names transliterated into English (Strelok, Seriy, Agroprom) come from Russian as well but LotZ and HoC tried to change them to Ukrainian spelling

But it’s very inconsistent, eg SoC originally had Bes and Mikluha, LotZ changed it to Bis and Mikluha, and HoC uses Bes and Myklukha

They also decided to not change Strelok probably due to changing the name of such an important established character being deemed too big of a change. If they went with Ukrainian spelling he would have been Strelets.

[rotund saddle]

classic

[torpid rapids]

tamk u, dm u paypal i want tip u\

[rotund saddle]

is SoC vanilla multiplayer safe or will I download malware to my computer when I join a server?

[late condor]

funnily enough some server hosters exploit a vulnerability to get clients to download custom changes but i've never seen anyone getting malware because of it

[late condor]

no thanks lol, its fine

[narrow nymph]

Hello! I was wondering if i should play and buy the entire Stalker series ive played all the metro games (exceot exodus) and i loved them and now that i have a steam deck i was thinking i should start with my backlog by either picking SOC or control

[finite yew]

You'll get more hours out of SoC

[wanton pecan]

If you can, you should. Despite their age, the original trilogy is still incredibly fun and unique

[finite yew]

17yr old game but it's a goodie

[narrow nymph]

Can i ask around if i need help here and should i use headphones?

[wanton pecan]

You should use headphones, and yeah, people here generally give good advice for gameplay tips and/or technical advice

[narrow nymph]

Question how do i turn on subtitles?

And what difficulty should i use

[finite yew]

I went through my first playthrough on Master because the chart I have says damage resistances for me go down to 100% (from 140%) so I figured that was what the gane was optimised for, where its a level playing field.
But it was hard, especially at first.
I'd recommend Stalker difficulty or probably Veteran more.
Just stay behind cover and peak out to shoot, and always go for the head. Buckshot shottys for mutants, too

[narrow nymph]

This game is extremely awkward for my control scheme

Already died once

[finite yew]

Thats normal lol

I died over a dozen times before reaching the overpass/train track bridge

[late condor]

There are no built in subtitles outside of some very specific phrases on PC.

[narrow nymph]

This game really isnt built for controllers in mind at all is it

[late condor]

No it isn’t, it’s entirely a PC game. The console port has been optimized for gamepad use but it’s not coming for PC yet.

[narrow nymph]

Which stalker game is the first to get proper gamepas support?

And are all the stalker games connected like character wise

[late condor]

Heart of Chornobyl has full gamepad support. None of the trilogy games have it. Changes from console port (including gamepad support) are expected to come at a later date but console port sucks and it’ll be a big downgrade compared to legacy editions so your best bet is going with mouse and keyboard tbh.

[narrow nymph]

Thats unfortunate my setup doesnt really allow for keyboard and mouse

All i have access to is a controller and two trackpads

[narrow nymph]

What should i do then?

[late condor]

I guess you would have to wait for LotZ to release on PC somewhere later this year. But I still heavily recommend getting keyboard and mouse and going for legacy versions if you get a chance at some point

With soc there is a pc dev build with gamepad support but its windows only, don’t think it’ll work on steam deck

[narrow nymph]

I think itll work with proton how do i get it,

[late condor]

It requires windows specific actions to launch like creating a folder in documents directory, idk how that would be replicated with proton

But I’ll dm you the link so that you can try

[narrow nymph]

Sounds easy

[rotund saddle]

I downloaded some winter mod, even my menu was changed

[late condor]

lmao never got shit like that, worst i've seen is like a weapon pack

[rotund saddle]

the game restarted itself for the mod to start lol

[torpid rapids]

Just once, I’ve died over 100 times in this play through alone. And it’s my third one 😂.

[gritty harbor]

Cheeki breeki

[last python]

Hey, i've been having a problem where most npc's are totally ignoring monolith soldiers.. I could be going through area with ton of friendly npc's and suddenly army of monoliths come and attack me, but friendly npc's just ignore them.. Anyone have seen this?

[waxen heart]

wussup, can I ask here about Soc? i need technical support

[rotund saddle]

yeah

[waxen heart]

Installed SoC through steam (legally), start the game and a small window appears in the middle of the screen and shuts down
no error window no nothing

[rotund saddle]

can you read what it says in the window?

[waxen heart]

just like the game is gonna start, like a logo

[calm sparrow]

ive had this error and im like 90 percent sure you need an older direct x version

[waxen heart]

i've got a bunch of them already, know a particular one?

[terse crypt]

hope my message wont get deleted

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/microsoft-net-framework-4-8-offline-installer-for-windows-9d23f658-3b97-68ab-d013-aa3c3e7495e0

https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=35

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/%3Famp

Install these

[waxen heart]

and what should i do with those?

[terse crypt]

install them
and try running the game again

also
if youre running new gen intel CPU and windows 11 you may need a patch thats avilable on steam

[waxen heart]

im on win 10 and i5 6500

[terse crypt]

hmm

[waxen heart]

don't want to sound like a boomer but are those links REALLY legit?

[waxen heart]

forgot to mention, i've HAD the game installed about 2 months before on the same rig, 38 mins played and uninstalled
installed today and the problem occurred

[terse crypt]

no
they will brick your PC and send your live savings to me

[waxen heart]

good thing i got none

[waxen heart]

installed all of that, no good senor

[terse crypt]

check the appdata folder

[waxen heart]

it's there

wait, imma reinstall first, few secs

[terse crypt]

open it, open the logs folder and check last log
the .txt one

[waxen heart]

okay, what do i do with it, send it here? copy paste?

[terse crypt]

yes

[waxen heart]

• Detected CPU: GenuineIntel P3 family, F6/M14/S3, 3192.00 mhz, 25-clk 'rdtsc'
• CPU Features: RDTSC, MMX, SSE, SSE2

Initializing File System...
using fs-ltx fsgame.ltx
--found external arch mp_military_2.xdb0
FS: 31108 files cached, 5521Kb memory used.
Init FileSystem 1.218167 sec
'xrCore' build 3312, Feb 27 2008

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : I
[error]Function : CInifile::Load
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xrCore\Xr_ini.cpp
[error]Line : 166
[error]Description : Can't find include file:
[error]Arguments : weapons_sounds.ltx

stack trace:

[ripe storm]

Weapons_sounds.ltx?

Steam moment

Did you install some mods? Or clean version? If dosent work. Try use GOG version

[waxen heart]

clean version from steam, game worked 2 months ago, uninstalled it, reinstalled today and it doesn't work

[ripe storm]

Its more stable than Steam in my opinion

I think its very cheap in market now

[waxen heart]

meh... don't wanna waste money now (even tho i clearly wasted it on steam)

[ripe storm]

You can use uhmm.. Well.. AC IV Black Flag method, you know what i mean.

Lets not further discussion about it

[waxen heart]

Dealio, will try sth else
thanks anyway

[rotund saddle]

have you tried verifying the game files on steam?

[waxen heart]

yup, did it first thing

[waxen heart]

i did everything from every source you can find on the internet from steam support to some russian sites that i translated to english and followed the steps and nothing worked

[rotund saddle]

did you uninstall + delete game's folder completely?

[waxen heart]

Yup

[graceful horizon]

sure would be a shame if I...

[terse crypt]

Heresy
Ferrus heresy!

[graceful horizon]

https://tenor.com/view/gargalhada-sarcasm-gif-26672722

[waxen heart]

after a lot of tweaking it finally worked @terse crypt thanks for the help guys

[late condor]

You need to get us a log file from soc folder/appdata/logs/user_***.log

Also try going through beta branches and seeing if any of them work better

[late condor]

This is really weird. You have no gamedata folder in your soc directory?

[late condor]

Could you share what helped eventually lol this is such a bizarre issue

[ripe storm]

Steam version moment

[late condor]

lol they are functionally identical in gamedata

This is a missing file issue and certainly if it was a problem with steam it would happen for everyone

[waxen heart]

uninstalled the game from steam and deleted all files related to Stalker SoC (for me it was Steam>steamaaps>common> Stalker SoC and delete that folder)
did a clean install through steam and followed this #⭐┃trilogy-general message and that did it

[icy hinge]

What problem?

[waxen heart]

#⭐┃trilogy-general message

[icy hinge]

Try installing STALKER Complete 2009 1.4 of the latest one 1.5 which come out recently. They don;t change the vanilla game, just use high quality textures etc... That might sort ya problem out as it installs it's own exe...

and might bypass or even correct that issue

https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009

Also, do not use AA in in game, disable it and force it through nVidia or AMD's settings... If you use the ingame's setting, the game jitters. So disable it and use nvidia/AMD overrides.

[waxen heart]

#⭐┃trilogy-general message
did this and it worked, but thanks anyway

[icy hinge]

Well, install the mod anyway, because it is just a massive graphical update, but keeps the game vanilla.

Most of all IIRC, it allows you to change the draw distance of the grass, otherwise it just draws it 10 feet infront of you, as the game was designed for PC's back in 2007... Of course, your PC will blow the specs out of water, so use it.

[ripe storm]

do not use stalker complete

its not vanilla experience

if you had problem your games just use OGSR Engine (old version)

[icy hinge]

It just update the graphics, it's a vanilla experience... It also solves the scope issue, that the game was made in teh time of 4:3, but modern monitors are 16:9.

[ripe storm]

not really, it basically worse way to play SoC

it really butcher the game over unnecessary stuff

[icy hinge]

HAHAHAHAH!!

Seriously, like WTF!!

[ripe storm]

i recommend just use oldest version of OGSR Engine

[icy hinge]

That is the worse bit of advice ever... Play the game in 4:3 using deformed scopes on modern monitors.

[waxen heart]

Will try in about 15 mins

[ripe storm]

you can just fix by your own

plus i dont have problem with it

#🔩┃trilogy_modifications message
just play oldest version of OGSR Engine

and play it on Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting either DX9,DX10 or DX11

[icy hinge]

What do you think the MOD uses? It just updates the textures... and enhances the draw distance.

Stop giving bad advice out of snobbishness.

[ripe storm]

kill yourself

all of that shit in OGSR Engine

[icy hinge]

HAHAHA!!

Says everything anyone needs to know about the type of person you are.

No one should listen to a word you say.

It's really bad advice.

[grizzled rock]

b33rm4n has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[icy hinge]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

[ripe storm]

oh really? most people know here how bad STALKER Complete is. People call it "its true vanilla experience" while its not. The gameplay literally butchered and dont look over graphics. That thing is white american people always care about, small detail and thing.

[icy hinge]

HAHAHAHAHA!!

[ripe storm]

cringe

get pregnated

[torpid rapids]

Y’all need to chill out. It’s a game.

[icy hinge]

I am chilled, just letting the child throw his tantrum

[ripe storm]

you know what i dont wanna spend my time to mentally unstable person

i rather make porting PPSH for stalker

[rotund saddle]

wtf are you talking about

[late condor]

“Updates the graphics” you mean butchers the game’s unique artistic style for the sake of having textures in slightly higher resolution and inconsistent models?

Vanilla is vanilla period, stalker is far from just the story and gameplay, its audiovisual part is also very unique and you’re missing out on that

[grizzled rock]

surdno has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[late condor]

Dude is claiming a full scale mod (far, far worse than ZRP) is “vanilla experience” lol

I’d say Beerman’s reaction is more than reasonable lol

[icy hinge]

No, it also realigns the textures, so the bricks on walls and corners match up, rather than being at diffenent levels, things optimised for your display ratio, further draw distance on grass...

And plenty of other fixes

[ripe storm]

this statement not just me, among all veterans modders know about how janky ass STALKER Complete is

[late condor]

4:3 is unironically better though cause no mod to my knowledge fixes all of the issues with widescreen

[icy hinge]

Then you don't know much.

[whole geyser]

Nothing wrong with using ogsr imo

[late condor]

K show me a single mod that fixes the inventory menu top bar not going to the edges of the screen on 16:9 lol

[ripe storm]

Oh you think so? Go learn modding and tell me how to add custom npc?

[late condor]

You can fix most of this stuff yourself if it bothers you without claiming that an overhaul (that also heavily touches gameplay) is vanilla experience lol

Idk how you look at complete and call that “graphics updates and fixes” this sheet is full scale overhaul with a very different artstyle

[ripe storm]

i never called my mod a an overhaul. Just engine improvement and gun improvement visual

[icy hinge]

Seriously did you not read what I said? I said the Mod is graphical overhaul, but the "game" itself is vanilla... I.e it does mess with anything else other that graphical and adding some song around the camp fire

I never said the whole thing was vanilla, so why don't you understand basic English?

[late condor]

The game is not just gameplay. The game is the story, the audio, the visuals. It’s the result of years of work of dozens of people, you can’t claim a part of the game is not essential for what vanilla is.

[ripe storm]

https://youtu.be/zppOMK2z7Lw?si=ka2GgdN2xFyrEZdi

[late condor]

Bruh “game is vanilla” means no modifications at all. Not visuals, not audio, not a single pixel being changed. It’s you who has trouble with understanding what vanilla game means truly.

Besides complete does change gameplay lol

[icy hinge]

But I never said the entire experience was vanilla... I just said the game was vanilla, i.e the mechanics etc

[late condor]

The game is not just mechanics though? The game is the complete experience.

Besides, Complete changes gameplay a lot lol, just open gamedata/configs and see for yourself

[whole geyser]

SoC complete is so far from vanilla

It includes ZRP

[icy hinge]

hahahahaha!!

[ripe storm]

cringe laugh

[late condor]

^

ZRP is already a vanilla+ mod and Complete is a whole overhaul stacked on top of it

[whole geyser]

ZRP sucks

[late condor]

None of it is vanilla, vanilla+ or even close to it.

[whole geyser]

It makes so many unnecessary changes and introduces new bugs

Hey knock it off don't bring race into this

[ripe storm]

always care about graphics and over small detail

aight

[rotund saddle]

white people can't play stalker or wtf is your problem?

[icy hinge]

Says the scumbag who told someone to go kill themselves...

You opion is woth less than that of child r*pist.

[whole geyser]

Let's all calm down remember it's just a game

[icy hinge]

Exactly, it's just a mod to improve the graphics of the game an update it... Yet some people are being utter snobs like they are superior to everyone else.

It's absolute snobbery.

Just internet no lifes think they no better... And so some posted a video on Youtube, doesn't make their opinion more relevant. Especially highling issues with MODS, with problems that have most likely been fixed.

[heady trout]

[ripe storm]

dont mind all the idiots

[heady trout]

Just calm down and don't start fight over one thing

[icy hinge]

Says the scumbag that told someone to go kill themselves... I think Sir... you need to keep quiet.

[heady trout]

Be civil pls

[ripe storm]

moron

[whole geyser]

Stop

Just block eachother and be civil please

[graceful horizon]

No namecalling

[heady trout]

If you two gonna continue like this discussion, I'll need to mute both you for A MONTH

[graceful horizon]

https://tenor.com/view/damn-shookt-shocked-gif-5580082

[whole geyser]

😳

[icy hinge]

Hey, don't blame me... I am not the one telling someone else to kill themselves.

All I am doing is pointing and decent mod, that keeps the game as it, updates the graphics, and deals with scopes on 16:9 monitors etc.

I was just offering advice to someone to help enjoy the game...

Because people are being snobbish about mods.

[ripe storm]

here we go again

[graceful horizon]

We told everyone involved to stop it, you included

[heady trout]

[late condor]

It’s ok to mod a game.

It’s not ok to not acknowledge what your mod changes and consider it a vanilla game lol.

It’s even worse if you never played the game as it was envisioned and intended to play and went straight to mods on your first playthrough.

[icy hinge]

And like I said, there are isues with the game regarding screen ratios, and things.

It's not like anomly that change the entire game into something different. Complete keeps the original story, whilst it changes some mechanics, it doesn't change or remove the story.

I think the latest version 1.5 is nowhere near as good, as it changes keys from push to toggle, which personally I hate. The old version of complete was better, as it was really only a graphical update, fixed some bugs, and changed a few of the mechanics.

Although looking into it. That might be the game though. IIRC it was toggle for sprinting, it was always push to sprint

[late condor]

Those issues can be avoided with less drastic mods and they are not worth sacrificing the game’s artstyle and developer vision over.

It changes visuals, it changes audio, it changes mechanics (including making the game easier in older versions, not sure if still the case), it changes lore (as it includes ZRP). Just because it has the same story does not mean it’s vanilla. NS and OP have SoC story buried somewhere in there, but they add so much on top nobody in their right mind will consider it an upgrade to original game.

It’s ok to enjoy mods, again. You may like the changes. But those are still changes that detract from original experience. So do not suggest people those mods as an “upgrade”, it’s very much still a fan extension of the game that deviates from the way it was meant to be played a lot.

[rotund saddle]

It's not ok to tell people to kill themselves just because they installed a mod.

[icy hinge]

And ZRP is mainly bug fixes that the developers didn;t fix or features that never worked.

[late condor]

You’re telling me as if I did that lol

[late condor]

It has a very broad definition of what a “bug” is and “fixes” many things that are not bugs due to author’s poor understanding of the game’s development history and developer intentions.

Full vanilla ftw

May try ZRP for subsequent replays tbh if you are bored of vanilla game after first playthrough

[rotund saddle]

yeah like I'm gonna notice a huge difference lol

[late condor]

Yeah you’re right second playthrough might be too early for that

[rotund saddle]

is there a mod/fix for the PDA highlighting everything in green?

[icy hinge]

Me neither, but it's nice to have those bugs sorted.

What I am more concered about is they seemed to have changed the game from push to run, too press to toggle... Which I find annoying.

[late condor]

It’s engine stuff, I’ve seen that fix in several forks but can’t name a certain one right off the bat

Might be in ixray (obviously incompatible with ZRP)

[rotund saddle]

who changed it?

[rotund saddle]

I'm playing vanilla now. You happy?

[icy hinge]

The Devs? Maybe for the console release?

But it is certainly a toggle now

[late condor]

More surprised

[rotund saddle]

I just had 10 dogs respawn right in front of me, lolz. Never saw that in ZRP

[icy hinge]

I have completed the game so many times.

I was playing it the day it was released.

In fact, I have probably been playing games before you was born.

[late condor]

I have been playing stalker since 2010 and still doing it unmodded.

How are you are ok with ZRP’s “fixes” if you know what the original game works like? How do you consider Complete a visual upgrade after you’ve seen unique artistic style of SoC? How are you ok with it mixing NPC models from different sources and calling it a day?

I’m baffled you actually know what the game looks and most importantly feels like and still went for complete. Insane.

When I get bored of vanilla game I usually go play prerelease builds for a breath of fresh air, not mod it to hell

[icy hinge]

Because I am not a snob... And I hated the look of everything on a wide screen monitor... no thanks, I like my circles to look round.

[late condor]

Idk easier to just set 4:3 in settings and fix far more than ZRP ever will

Cause some aspect ratio issues lie in engine and won’t be fixed by your mods.

Besides the game still has 16:9 configs formatted as points on a virtual 4:3 screen and nobody changed it. You will never get rid of the issues entirely.

[icy hinge]

And I hate the draw distance of teh grass and many other things, including bugs

[icy hinge]

Better getting rid of some, is better than none.

[late condor]

I’d much rather deal with the bugs than accept everything else ZRP throws at you when you install it.

Better have actual developer vision with some issues than a bunch of fixes with a bunch of bullsheet

[rotund saddle]

PRAISE VANILLA

[late condor]

Idk other communities (eg Morrowind) tend to acknowledge that unofficial patches often overstep their boundaries but stalker community keeps parroting how ZRP is a must have mod lol

[rotund saddle]

Monolithians = defenders of vanilla

[late condor]

Need our own patch for purists

[rotund saddle]

then make one, just remove the shit you don't like from ZRP

[late condor]

It would be much easier to start from scratch honestly

[rotund saddle]

doubt it

[icy hinge]

This just sounds like petty fan boi issue. Look at me I am purist.

And to be honest, that is one of the worst things in modern gaming...

No, you have to play the game in vanilla with all the bugs and issues or your not a fan....

Sorry, but that is not how it works.

I am currently getting sick of the garbage that S2 is chucking us.... Like - When I am in a firefight with lots of NPC, why do I have to stand up from behind cover, to look in my bag for a sausage, weapon swap?

Are you going to start berating people having a mod that stops this?

It's not vanilla, your not a fan, I don't understant this...

That is just wrong and pathetic.

[rotund saddle]

SLAVA VANILLA

[late condor]

Oh no, it’s hardly “look at me I’m a purist”. An actual patch for those games that would fix the issues and bring the game closer to developer vision would have been amazing. Alas, such a thing has not been made yet.

It’s not “you have to deal with bugs”, it’s “there is currently no way to fix the bugs without getting a bunch of weird decisions on top that will skew your understanding of the game’s lore and mechanics”.

I’ve been in far too many conversation with people who had mods for first playthrough and they all mixed up stuff that’s actually a part of the game with stuff added by fans.

My advice to go vanilla stems not from desire to have people suffer through the issues of the game but rather from the fact that I think people should all have consistent experience to form an opinion on it. Imagine if you tried to discuss your favourite book with someone and found out they have been actually reading an erotic fanfic based on it.

I think the obsession with trying to tailor your experience to fit your specific needs for the game instead of going into it the way it was meant to be played is a far worse issue in modern gaming than your so called “fanboism”.

[rotund saddle]

What's stopping you from making a "patch for those games that would fix the issues and bring the game closer to developer vision" ?

also SLAVA VANILLA

[rotund saddle]

comparing reading a book to reading an erotic fanfic is completely missed, it's more like reading 1st edition of a book vs reading a 5th edition of the same book

[late condor]

It’s a big time commitment and would require skillset far beyond mine. Reading code and writing code are too very different things.

[rotund saddle]

so you read code but can't write code?

[grizzled rock]

59face has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[rotund saddle]

you seem to have enough time to complain about ZRP all day

[late condor]

I can, but a lot of things would require entire rewrite of the underlying systems. Eg fixing a bug where changing localization mid playthrough preserves some strings in old language would mean rewriting the way localization saving is handled from scratch.

[charred prism]

I'm sure you can read a book but if you tried to write one, you'd fail

[late condor]

I can fix some stuff but certainly not all of it

[late condor]

Editions imply its changes from the original creator. Trying to change the original creation to fit someone else’s vision for it is fanfiction xd

[rotund saddle]

I've written long texts before, I wouldn't fail, it just wouldn't sell well. Stupid comparison because you learn to read code by writing code. Being able to just read code seems completely useless to me.

[rotund saddle]

You can do it

SLAVA VANILLA

[charred prism]

yyea, you'd fail at it
Just BC you can read it doesn't mean you can write code and make new systems, you clearly don't understand how coding works

[icy hinge]

But the story in complete is the same, it doesn't change that at all, I mean I haven't played it for a few years, but IIRC, it's mainly a visual mod, that also fixes a load of bugs and gets some more music in around the camp fires.

I just don't get it, I don't get the anger and hatred towards this mod, just because it updates the textures and graphics, and uses another mod to fix bugs and broken things. It's not like it rewrite lore and has Strelok running around with one of Sidorovich's half eaten chickens sticking out his.

It's nuts... I have played Anomoly, Complete, and Alpha... I just don;t know what the issue is.

[rotund saddle]

You never encountered a book having multiple editions by the same author? Lol. Literally almost every book out there.

[charred prism]

Complete makes sweeping changes to gameplay and balancing as well as taking many liberties with content and fixes to try and normalize and casualize the experience for a new player, it's not the same experience you would get from SoC really

Complete was regarded as the defacto go to mod that didn't change anything from the main one when it, detracted from the experience tbf
Lots of old folk still remember the annoyance

[rotund saddle]

I have a computer science degree, sure I don't. Reading code and modifying it is much harder than writing new code. IDK WHY would anyone limit themselves to only reading code, sounds like some extreme form of autism.

[icy hinge]

But the SoC is also riddled with bugs, and issues running on modern hardware. like issues with screen ratio's etc.

The game was made for computers in 2007, it is now 2025, the thing needs tweaking, to run properly.

[late condor]

The story is the same, but the story is a small fraction of the game experience. Many people worked on SoC, some worked on level design, some worked on audio, some worked NPC models and some worked on mechanics. The developer vision and the intended experience is a combination of all of those things, and they are all equally important for forming an opinion on it.

ZRP does rewrite the lore btw, because the lore is composed of far more than just the main story point. ZRP removes mentions of illusionists from the lore and mentions scientists have several bunkers which is untrue.

Mods are fine. But they are not a replacement for the game. They are a separate experience.

[rotund saddle]

We thank you, oh Vanilla, for revealing the cunning plans of your enemies to us. May your light shine down on the souls of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in service to your will. Onward warriors of the Vanilla, avenge your fallen brothers, blessed as they are in their eternal union with the Vanilla.

[charred prism]

Yes, I didn't say it doesn't have these nor that it doesn't need these
What I'm saying is the hate for complete is mostly a old guard thing from feuds and drama from 2010s and such

It also didn't help that the creator was an ass

And that the mod itself advertised itself as being a purely patch but wasn't

[late condor]

That’s what I am saying, your comparison with editions is incorrect because editions are written by same people. ZRP is made by a fan who was not a part of the development team and does not understand why some of its decisions were made. It’s someone else’s attempt to fix the game.

[rotund saddle]

Erratum is submitted by readers

[charred prism]

Nowadays, complete is basically dusted over, don't really see the new complete version doing anything as ppl got used to recommending zrp over it, it's less intrusive but still retains some dubious changes

[icy hinge]

Never said they were... Just saying that you can't experience the game how it was back then.... We don't use 4:3 monitors anymore. It's impossible.

I have the origin System Shock game on 9 floppy discs, I can never experience that ever again, I would need mods, and I would need to with changes with screen ratio's.

That is why on steam is massively updated for modern PC's before release.

[charred prism]

So you need to play mods BC you can't time travel?

Strange argument

[rotund saddle]

@late condor plays the game in 4:3 resolution for MAXIMUM VANILLA experience

[late condor]

First off, I don’t code in Lua neither in C++ professionally. secondly, just by looking at existing code, you can understand what it does because the syntax is self explanatory. Sometimes you will need to familiarise yourself with the existing code base written before you and figure out how it works, but with reading code you’re still rarely in a situation where you’re completely clueless.

If you want to code something into the game, at the beginning you don’t even know whether it’s possible, say if the scripting language even has a function for it. The process of doing something like “fixing the fact that time in CS during intro cutscene says morning instead of night” will include adding a way to change the time in the engine, exporting that to Lua, adding a way for in-game scripting language to access that Lua function, and then calling it.

That’s obviously far more of a time commitment than just reading "level.forward_time(5, 0, 0)" and instantly understanding what it does.

[late condor]

It just looks nicer is all, I played it in 16:9 before as well.

[rotund saddle]

I never said fixing the bugs would be easy, but you're the one who has a problem with ZRP.

[icy hinge]

Oh, I have no idea about him... I don't really care for people behind stuff. Can't stand the cult of celebrator...

What strange about realising that games made nearly 20 years ago, were never designed for modern PC's in 2025 and that to run them, requires them being updated? If not updated, then modded.

And I probably don't agree with all the changes in with ZRP, but I quite like the fact that bugs are fixed, some of which were annoying.

[late condor]

No issues with running on modern hardware are fixed by ZRP/Complete however. They are fixed officially by GSC in beta branches though.

[late condor]

I explained why reading is easier since you were confused about the concept.

[icy hinge]

Beta branches? Never used them

[charred prism]

Sure but I also find it strange to take the argument experience the game as it was concept to say that you need to play on era hardware
Sounds more like misconstruing it
I will say this, if the game allows it you should play as vanilla as possible your first time around, that's me being transparent on where I stand

[charred prism]

SoC has a few branches for modern hardware that has problems with stalker like the newer intel CPUs with e and p cores and such

[rotund saddle]

Beta branches? You mean 1.0007? what does it fix?

[icy hinge]

That's fine.

I would have also pushed to play the game before mods, if it was 2008 etc.

But have misshaped visuals, like looking down scopes, can be off putting for some people...

And certainly wouldn't recommend something like Anomaly as your first try, as that completely changes altogether.

[rotund saddle]

are deformed scopes the only thing not working in 16:9?

[icy hinge]

It's an easy example...

You could also argue draw distance of grass is an issue now... Even at the furthest settings, it only does about 10 feet, your hills look like meadow at the bottom, but ravaged by God's lawnmower at the top.

It's jarring for people today. It's okay for us, we grew up with it, but even back then, the draw distance was a nightmare, the bugs were a nightmare...

[icy hinge]

Fair enough, didn't know that... But I usually use mods, with high detailed textures etc.

So never looked into it.

[late condor]

https://stalker.fandom.com/wiki/Build_7461

[mellow tree]

This guy needs to find out about ebay

[late condor]

It's an old game and people are not supposed to be coming to play it with the expectation of it competing with modern titles. LotZ release made many people experience the game for the first time without any visual mods and they loved it. This seems like a you issue ngl

[late condor]

also you can easily use 4:3 resolutions on 16:9 screens, it just creates two vertical letterboxes at the sides of the screen lol

[icy hinge]

Why?

I'm not going to blow money on a monitor that I would also need to get a VGA adaptor to connect to modern GPU's... When I can just download a mod with updated textures and an option to play on my 1440p monitor for free.

Seriously, I lived in 2000's already, don't fancy going back there again.

[late condor]

The whole discussion reminds me of this meme ngl: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/34WFP_CZ3ME/maxresdefault.jpg

[whole geyser]

You can play the trilogy fully vanilla rn on gog and steam and be more then fine

You don't even zrp or srp

[mellow tree]

You said it was impossible man, it definitely isn't. You can buy old all in ones for pretty cheap too

[icy hinge]

but the vaste majority of people ain't going to do that.

they are just gonna use what they have now and use work arounds like mods etc

[whole geyser]

You don't need mods

Mods are a choice

[icy hinge]

AS long as your willing to accept all the bugs and issues...

[whole geyser]

No game is perfect but they are deff playable vanilla

[mellow tree]

Ngl CoP plays really well on modern systems

[late condor]

you dont need mods to play them on 16:9 though

there are a few issues on 16:9 but nothing that would make people drop the game lol, and you can always switch to 4:3 if it bothers you a lot

[icy hinge]

As long as like deformed images in places and only shaped scopes...

Seriously, just stop talking garbage and burying your head to issues, coz fan boi.

[whole geyser]

Huh??

[late condor]

oh noooo my scope is not a perfect circle literally unplayable, anyone who thinks otherwise is a fanboi

dude, thousands of people still enjoy the game even though it has some minor issues

[icy hinge]

But it is not just that, there are other issues like grass draw distance that is really short, even when set to it furthest settings.

You are all just ignoring issues, and pretending they don;t exist.

It's pathetic.

[whole geyser]

No one ever denied the grass or other issues

They are old as fuck games

[late condor]

I am not ignoring issues, I am saying that for majority of people those issues are not enough of a problem

[whole geyser]

But still playable games vanilla

[mellow tree]

Yeah people are just saying it doesn't bother them not saying they don't exist..

[icy hinge]

Oooooo noooo, these is a fix for it, don;t use it as it is against the creators vision.... Pffft, so blind to your own hypocracy...

[late condor]

If people play old games, they know what they're getting. LotZ release showed that dozens of thousands of people can play and ENJOY those games without need for any fix.

[whole geyser]

You should relax please

Hell I Still play morrowind vanilla and that game is 23 years old

[icy hinge]

But if there is fix, then why not sure it?

[mellow tree]

Morrowind vanilla low-key makes me wanna kill myself

Call me weak willed or wtvr I just can't do it with the bugs

[late condor]

Cause there's no fix that does not do anything else, easy as this. Unfortunately there is no mod that simply fixes issues and does not alter gameplay and/or lore. And many people would prefer to play the games in their original form without those extra alterations.

[rotund saddle]

telling people to use 4:3 resolution is peak clown take

[late condor]

you're never gonna fix all of the issues of 16:9 tho

[whole geyser]

Maybe if ZRP was a pure bug fix it wouldn't be so bad but it makes alot of unnecessary changes and causes more problems

[late condor]

just accept that 4:3 is peak experience

[icy hinge]

That is fine... You can do, I am not telling anyone not to... I just saying that there are options for people to play the game without these issue...

Yet it is the fan boi's saying no no no no... don;t do that it, it needs to be 100% vanilla or it will ruin them and the game...

Seriously.

Getting rid of bugs and issues, or providing people with the option if they wish to do so is not a big deal.

[late condor]

Nobody argues with you that there are fixes for this. There just isn’t an option to play without these issues without introducing new different issues / unrelated changes.

[rotund saddle]

seriously, not even the original Fallout 1/2 community is this extremist

[icy hinge]

And I agree with you. I am not saying it is perfect, but it does solve bugs and issues in the game.

[icy hinge]

But I have never said it will be perfect.

[late condor]

Yes, but the decision of whether taking those changes is worth extra fixes is something that everyone has to consider for themselves. Some people will want to experience the game in the way it is intended, so it is not an objective upgrade or something must have to install.

[icy hinge]

But you are turning around and saying no, it has to be vanilla the first time you play the game.

I say there are bugs and issues with the game, if you want to address this, you can use this mod.

[late condor]

Yes, if you do not know what you are changing, you can not make an objective decision on whether this is worth it for you. So you play vanilla first, experience the game in the way it’s intended by devs, and then with the knowledge of how annoyed you are by those issues install mods.

Besides, if I recall correctly, ZRP can be installed mid playthrough, so there’s even less of a reason to blindly go with it without knowing if you need those fixes or not.

[rotund saddle]

you assume everyone does multiple playthroughs

[icy hinge]

But you can't play it the way it was intended unless you spend on old monitors... Because at times it looks weird.

[rotund saddle]

I already had this argument with him lol

[late condor]

It’s not like the game doesn’t support 16:9 resolution, it just has issues with it. And it will have issues no matter which mods you install, cause some of them have not been fixed yet at all.

The game was not meant for specific hardware (but was mostly developed and tested on 4:3 thus it looks nicer). Any hardware is “the way it was intended”. But you can’t say the same for the contents of the game.

[icy hinge]

I know... They just don't get it.

unless you have a 4:3 monitor it wont be the same experience, as it will not look how we looked at it.

It's why System Shock had to get an update to support modern hardware.

[whole geyser]

If we gotta get a period correct 4:3 monitor should we also build a period correct pc? And period correct mouse and keyboard? Where do we realistically draw the line ?

[icy hinge]

PRECISLY.... IT HAS ISSUES THAT WE DIDN'T.... SO IT CAN NEVER BE EXPERIENCED HOW WE EXPERIENCED VANILLA... It's just not the same, unless you get a 4:3 monitor.

You are defeating your own argument.

[late condor]

Why are you making an argument about having same experience as in 2007? It’s not about hardware, it’s about being closer to dev intentions in the contents of the game.

16:9 monitors existed in 2007 btw. None of those issues appeared after the game release. No, SoC does not have “issues that it didn’t have on release” and those few actual hardware issues that do exist have been thankfully patched by GSC with beta branches with no need for mods.

What is this argument to futility anyway? “If I have a few issues I did not have in 2007, none of it matters and I can deviate from dev intentions as far as I want” lol

[rotund saddle]

https://stalker.fandom.com/wiki/Build_7461 this changelog doesn't mention anything about 16:9

[icy hinge]

But the dev's couldn't develop their intentions due to hardware limitations back then.

A cut down A-life and no open world...

[late condor]

Does ZRP bring it any closer to that lol? Open world was not planned since at least 2002, devs also moved away from “NPCs can complete the game for you” by at least 2004. You cannot compare early drafts with “original intentions”, cut and changed stuff has been cut and changed for a reason.

[late condor]

Correct, that’s why I said 16:9 issues are not new since they existed in 2007 too. Any new hardware-specific issues have been fixed by either 7461, or the other two branches for Intel Gen12 and Win11.

All the bugs that SoC has today have been in the game for years and people still completed it vanilla. It’s more than playable.

If you start playing and find out you’re actually that bothered by something, go install mods, but doing that before you have any experience with the game is absurd.

[icy hinge]

Like I said. Because of hardware limitations.

[late condor]

Hardly. A-Life concept was changed because it made it hard to design a game in a world where everything is simulated. That killed the possibility of doing any scripted scenes because of how often stuff broke.

And open world was NEVER implemented, not cut at some point. The game was split into small levels from the very beginning, there was no limitation that made them suddenly change what they are doing.

[icy hinge]

Didn;t sound like that when I was reading the mags back then.

[rotund saddle]

but ZRP doesn't make the game open world

[rotund saddle]

author of the video recommends ZRP btw

[icy hinge]

Also, IMO, GCS world has enough money from it's 3 million sales to update SOC, so that it is has native 19:6 and other ratios, improved draw distances for grass etc for modern hardware.

And fixed a whole bunch of bugs... Then people wouldn't mods to solve issues... Then they can play it vanilla but for modern PC stadards.

[late condor]

considering something =/= actually going along with it

[late condor]

Yeah I honestly don’t know why even bring that up lol. It’s a question of going fully with dev intentions but some bugs or with fixes but stuff that goes against dev decisions. Not about experiencing the game on the time appropriate hardware or as devs wanted it 6 years before release.

[icy hinge]

But you are the one that brought up the developers vision and that players should play vanilla game, because original vision and how it should be played otherwise it weird

But new players will not get to experience the game like those in 2007 did, because modern hardware. Some people may not be bothered by the bugs and issues, others will be. So you are arguing over something most players can't do, unless they invest in an old monitor and then an adaptor.

You even admitted there are issues playing on modern monitors, regardless of how big or small you consider the those issues, and bugs etc etc existed.

To sit there and say it's weird not wanting to play the game in it's original way with all it's issues and bugs, is completely arrogant.

[valid jasper]

Whatever happened to just playing the way you want to 🫨

[rotund saddle]

We thank you, oh Vanilla, for revealing
the cunning plans of your enemies to us.
May your light shine down on the souls
of the brave soldiers who gave
their lives in service to your will.

Onward warriors of the Vanilla, avenge
your fallen brothers, blessed as they
are in their eternal union with the Vanilla.

[whole geyser]

https://tenor.com/view/monolith-preacher-games-stalker-gif-19391373

[slow mango]

got one of my friends to start SoC as their first stalker game 🥳

[whole geyser]

Based as hell

[late condor]

cringe idea tbh

[late condor]

But you are the one that brought up the developers vision and that players should play vanilla game, because original vision and how it should be played otherwise it weird
Again. Contents of the game =/= hardware. You should play the same game in terms of contents, but whether you experience it on a CRT, flat widescreen, Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch does not matter. Nobody suggested it does.

But new players will not get to experience the game like those in 2007 did, because modern hardware.
You keep repeating the same points which I've already debunked, but I'll reiterate:

1. There are no modern hardware issues that have not existed in 2007 and are fixed by ZRP. 16:9 support is built-in in SoC since 1.0 release, it's not something new that the game suddenly does not support.
2. I'm not arguing that you should play on time-appropriate hardware, that's your strawman. I'm arguing about contents of the game being the same.
3. Your entire argument of "if the experience is not the same as in 2007, you should just abandon developer vision entirely" is a huge stretch.

You even admitted there are issues playing on modern monitors, regardless of how big or small you consider the those issues, and bugs etc etc existed.
Again, yes, there are issues. You can fix some of them with mods, but you can fix all of them by just going 4:3 on any monitor. You do not have to change your monitor to play square and observe the fixed UI. But if you're not bothered by that, you can keep playing on 16:9 which tens of thousands of people did on console.

To sit there and say it's weird not wanting to play the game in it's original way with all it's issues and bugs, is completely arrogant.
It's your own decision to not care about dev intentions. It's arrogant to suggest other people to download mods on their first playthrough until they know what that mod actually fixes and whether those issues bother them.

[icy hinge]

Yeah, it's arrogant to give people a choice, that's a new one.

Hilarious.

[late condor]

It’s not a choice until you consciously know what you’re choosing between. You saying that something that drastically changes the game is still vanilla just with fixes is misleading.

[rotund saddle]

https://i.imgur.com/ot71FJ2.png @late condor lol

[late condor]

Yeah I used to shill it like 5 years ago, in fact I’m the reason it’s in subreddit sidebar

Changed person now.

[rotund saddle]

Show me where ZRP touched you.

[proper lotus]

Tried the game again after a while of not touching it. Still crashing on health pack use

[late condor]

Could you post the crash logs? Are you trying to use health pack while it is not in your inventory?

[rotund saddle]

what about the "use an item from a body you're looting" crash?

[icy hinge]

Funny thing is, I would recommend mods for STALKER 2 too, because of bugs and broken mechanics.

Weapon damage is joke and makes no sense, wear and tear, spawns, repair costs, what a shop sells is a joke. Take the Herc pills, there are about 800 of them in the shop in Zalyssia, but only 5 or so on the map to find.

It's absolute garbage and the game needs mods, to make it, make sense.... X-ray head shots through walls etc...

Nothing wrong with recommending mods to fix broken things and make the game actually playable and enjoyable... Just like SoC... game has issues that need to be fixed.

[rotund saddle]

I don't think @late condor likes Stalker 2 so he won't argue this one with you lol

[late condor]

Well it’s not fixed by ZRP is it, so it’s still not something you can avoid by going with the mod.

I learnt about the crash after years of playing the game lol cause I never tried to do that

[rotund saddle]

that's just you, literally not an argument

[late condor]

K, correction then, there isn’t a single guaranteed crash that is fixed by ZRP, happy now?

[rotund saddle]

Pripyat

[icy hinge]

You have to play it vanilla first time or your weird...

Play's vanilla and can only complete 80% of the story....

SoC is great, until you get to Prip....

[late condor]

Pripyat crashes are not a guarantee though, they may happen and they may not

Installing a mod to fix possible issue is stupid

[whole geyser]

Damn that's not a clown worthy post

People play without ZRP all the time lol

[rotund saddle]

People ride bicycles without helmets all the time

People drive cars without seat belts all the time

[whole geyser]

I'm just saying to say SoC is unplayable without ZRP is pretty retarded lol

People played the game before it existed

No need to ride zrp mod devs meat so hard

[finite yew]

I finished LoTZ's SoC on my Switch, no mod support. CS is a different story though hahaha

[proper lotus]

How do I find the crash logs. It just force closes when I try to use a health pack from my inventory

[rotund saddle]

You need to get us a log file from soc folder/appdata/logs/user_***.log

[late condor]

@karmic horizon sorry was reading some of your old messages, do you really believe that all of SoC's bugs were found within the first year the game got released? With how often you replayed the game, I am surprised you never found new issues that required very specific order of actions.

[rotund saddle]

@late condor can you please explain how does the magic bullet work in SoC? I mean how you can always one shot a creature if you headshot it with your first shot

[rotund saddle]

Sidorovich asked me to kill a stalker in the rookie village, I came up to him and shot him in the head, no one cared. Is this normal? In ZRP I had to use a grenade or otherwise everyone would be hostile.

[late condor]

After a second of not shooting, the first shot will always land in the middle of the crosshair

not one shot it does not affect damage only accuracy

[rotund saddle]

somehow I can always drop boars with one shot if it's a headshot and it's the first shot, doesn't work on subsequent shots

[late condor]

it's just a bug with one head shots sometimes not being registered by squad members. It happens rarely and I personally got no idea what causes it but it can be consistently reproduced with saves and loads.

By grenades do you mean barrels? Cause grenades should cause aggression from other squad members. Barrels don't (in SoC, in CS and CoP they do)

[rotund saddle]

No, regular hand grenades

[late condor]

uhhh, weird

maybe a zrp-introduced issue? idk. that certainly shouldnt happen

[karmic horizon]

Here's how you do it and find everything in the Rookie Village: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prchQwL48l4&t=27s

[rotund saddle]

"All weapons in SOC can fire what can be considered a super bullet, which will deal more damage when it hits the head of NPCs and mutants, usually resulting in an instant kill." https://old.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/8b6u4q/understanding_socs_gunplay/

[late condor]

Thanks, I may actually misremember if your experience aligns with what is said here, don't quote me yet as I'll check in the evening to be sure

[icy hinge]

Just climb the ladder, walk along the ledge and jump from roof to roof.

The is one suit, 4x artifacts, 500 rounds of Ammo, a silenced pistol, and lots of other little goodies in the area.

[quasi imp]

Yes , iirc it's a "time to aim" property of the guns. Basically only ever semi-auto guns. Time to to aim on guns is about 1-1.5 seconds(i believe the time depends on the gun) after you ads or acope.

I say stick to semi-auto so u never are accidentally in full auto. I just switch to shottys for pray and spray.

Center mass shots aren't very good in soc cuz the bullets tend to hit the limbs (which have a damage multiplier less than 1) as the animations tend to make enemies bend over and cover their mid sections .

At least the arms have that less than 1 multiplier

I think the legs may too but enemies can fall down i think if I hit their legs. (Knee-capping )

Alot of this is in that post or the comments which I believe is where I got it from a while ago. This should serve as a condensed version.

Also I haven't verified it but I heard there a stat difference between having guns in semi-auto vs full auto. But I kinda doubt it.

[rotund saddle]

you mean full auto guns can't kill on first headshot?

[quasi imp]

I mean there is a buff to (at least) the first bullet after you ads or scope. If you wait about 1-1.5 seconds to fire

If I can find the "time to aim" comment I'll show

https://www.metacognix.com/stlkrsoc/WhatYouKnowThatAintSo.html

"Those same subsequent shots have their damage significantly reduced Update: Every first shot after a time_to_aim delay does more damage than normally, and only to the head (5X to NPCs, 10X to mutants); subsequent shots do reduced "normal" damage (even zero damage, depending on the body part struck). This lower damage may be helping to extend the duration of gun battles. The best advice is to go for the head (both NPCs and mutants) and wait the time_to_aim amount between shots.* "

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/8b6u4q/comment/dx5w57p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

"I have disabled the one second time_to_aim delay on all weapons, because I don't like it. (gamedata/config/weapons/*) "

Not verified. But I noticed headsets got more powerful after waiting 1 to 1.5 seconds after scoping (who ads's in a stalker game )

"time_to_aim" stalker shadow

^ That's the Google search I did

[rotund saddle]

ok

this definitely confirms what I experience

[quasi imp]

"time_to_aim" stalker shadow site:www.reddit.com

[rotund saddle]

what about subsequent shots after waiting 1 - 2 seconds?

or is it only the 1st shot?

[quasi imp]

It's in here

Again not verified

Other than anecdotally soooo not rigorous verification to say the least

[rotund saddle]

I still don't understand what were they thinking while making this lol

[quasi imp]

I think they were emphasizing the slinking/stalking /sniping gameplay

[rotund saddle]

btw what's the "Media" role on your profile?

[quasi imp]

No clue lmao

I'm not media anything lol

Just a stalker fanboy

[rotund saddle]

can you upload screenshots in this channel?

[quasi imp]

No I tried earlier

[quasi imp]

If u go to channels and roles and look at the last "yes/no" question , I think that's how I got it.

[rotund saddle]

is there a way to do a stealth kill then?

[rotund saddle]

lol I came to the rookie village after doing the "kill this stalker" quest from Sid and Nimble suddenly hates me

[rotund saddle]

A body I was looting disappeared the moment I pressed "take all" and a loud sound of a body hitting the ground was played lol

Ahhh, finally encountered my first dead body in a campfire xD

Truly peak vanilla experience

I got Fort-15 from Major Kuznetsov, I thought Sid is gonna ask for it but turns out they added this quest in ZRP.

I just saw a lone stalker sneak up on two bandits and execute them from behind, that was pretty cool. The only thing that's missing is him looting them. #📸┃screens_and_videos message

[rotund saddle]

What's the point of buying information about Strelok's stash from Snitch if I first have to get the documents from the said stash to even enter 100 Rads bar? lol

[graceful horizon]

in case you missed it the first time I guess

[spring vault]

Sorry to bother you guys, i´ve been desperately trying to play stalker soc for over a couple of months now i´ve tried all the different compatilibity options but for some reason i cannot get the game to work. i always get some kind of error in wich this text "XR_3DA.exe caused ACCESS_VIOLATION in module" appears i would like to enjoy this game however a cannot get this to work, is it much to ask for a bit of help?, i am out of options here, don´t want to ask a refund to steam i would actually prefer to play it for the first time. any ideas would be appreciated

[zealous lantern]

try the beta branch in steam

pre1.0007 or something like that it is called

it isn't really a "beta", but it's a patch that they never released. here is the list of changes https://stalker.fandom.com/wiki/Build_7461

[rotund saddle]

||the green hologram guy at the end of SoC literally says the use the brain scorcher to recruit more monlith members||

[daring oxide]

Doing my first vanilla run of Soc. Any tips to be aware of. Or, is it very similar to Clear Sky, and any tips from there apply to Soc?

[rotund saddle]

You played Clear Sky before SoC? Yikes.

[daring oxide]

@rotund saddle Decided to since it's a prequel/prolouge. Plus, S2 is my first ever into the series, so I decided, "why not?"

[rotund saddle]

Don't use items directly from the inventory of a body you're looting, it makes the game crash. Move the items to your inventory first before use.

[grizzled rock]

janlarsen5 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[spring vault]

oh

[spring vault]

love you brother it finally worked

[daring oxide]

@rotund saddle For real? Lol, I'll have to try that out.

[zealous lantern]

nice! have fun!

[late condor]

Stealth weapons still work and barrels are a guaranteed kill with no aggression in SoC

[late condor]

It’s a prequel that spoils many things of SoC because it treats them as something given while in SoC those are things that you are supposed to discover on your own.

[late condor]

That’s about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. program, not monolithians

[rotund saddle]

Why does ZRP change the quest time limit from 1 day to 3?

[whole geyser]

Not sure tbh ZRP makes alot of unnecessary changes imo

[zealous lantern]

you can update that to any number in the configurator (it's inside gamedata folder). and there is actually a lot of stuff to tweak, but it takes some time to walk through each of them

[rotund saddle]

I really like how in SoC animals will run into anomalies from time to time, I didn't like how they changed this in CS and CoP

[grizzled rock]

59face has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[rotund saddle]

Binoculars remember the zoom level you set in vanilla SoC, I think they screwed this up in ZRP.

[late condor]

I think some changes are optional but included by default so you need to open configuration exe to get vanilla stuff back

[late condor]

Weird I swear it’s in-engine

[rotund saddle]

I might be mixing it up with CoP

[rotund saddle]

which you have no way of knowing if you're playing for the first time

[late condor]

True

[icy hinge]

I aways prefer mods that allow you to pick and choose... So you can literally play the vanilla game with better graphics only... I just can;t find them anymore.

[rotund saddle]

lol, seems like mod authors can't stop themselves from altering the game

[icy hinge]

And it ruins a lot of mods... It's like crafting mods in skyrim that allow to craft more stuff. Modders just can't stop themselves from adding the crafting unique items... What;s the point in unique items, if you can craft millions of them?

Modders just don't have a stop and think about what you are doing ya muppet button...

I always remember Complete, when it was literally just a texture mod the guy had spent time on redoing the textures.... Then other stuff gets added in... And it ruins it... The latest one of complete is garbage, as it messes with the run and jump distance.... Just nooo.....

Just give us.... Make this game look great, give us more tunes for the campfire... Just leave the rest alone please.

[late condor]

The game already looks great

[rotund saddle]

it wasn't playable?

[rotund saddle]

Rookies in the village are acting like the mercs are about to come but I already killed the mercs

[rotund saddle]

what game

[oak zealot]

OH MY BAD THAT WAS HEART

[oak zealot]

sorry dude

[rotund saddle]

I managed to climb the first house in the rookie village. You have to jump on an invisible wall to get to it. Unfortunately no items. 😦 #📸┃screens_and_videos message

[rotund saddle]

do exploding barrels damage enemy weapons?

[late condor]

Weapons are only damaged if they are on the ground not in hands of an NPC

So if you kill with it no, but if say there are two barrels and second one blows up when the gun is already lying there, then yes it will be damaged

[rotund saddle]

whaaat, I'm pretty sure I damaged weapons held by NPCs with grenades before

[late condor]

The weapon just always drops damaged when it’s from a dead body, one way to get it in pristine condition is injuring instead of killing

[rotund saddle]

you mean make the enemy lie down and moan?

[zealous lantern]

hey guys. there is a stalker at the bar that gives you a quest to find the family rifle in the Wild Territory.
after I completed the quest he gave me money, but also he said about a building that he saw anomalies in and there might be artifacts.
I've been running around the whole location but I can't find the building. does anyone know which one he was talking about?

[late condor]

Yep

[rotund saddle]

how do you do that consistently?

[late condor]

Shooting to the feet with a weapon that does not deal much damage. With something like Viper-5 you can always get the enemy to the injured state with single shots.

[rotund saddle]

@late condor is there a time limit to saving Kruglov? I mean before first meeting him?

I'm just wondering if I can explore the map before saving him or not

nvm, he died before I got to him, I guess that answers my question lol

[zealous lantern]

oh, was there an hour go. he does not die for as long as you stay at the wild territory and clear all of the mercenaries. I wanted to get back to the bar to sell some stuff, but the moment I loaded into the bar map it said that the quest failed

[late condor]

Not an actual time limit but nothing prevents mercs from killing him.

The only incentive for saving Kruglov is a 5000RU flash drive and small boost for his armor in following Yantar quest though.

Compared to Assistant Semyonov that wears slightly worse armor

[burnt drum]

Hello, does anyone know if in Stalker 2 the benefits from the same 2 artifacts stack?

[late condor]

#☢┃stalker-general

This is a channel for soc, not s2

[rotund saddle]

what about SSP-99 from Sakharov?

[rotund saddle]

so I can kill all enemies before escorting him?

[late condor]

Yeah right forgot about that, that too. But the reward is IIRC inconsistent and depends on whether you have X16 quest

[zealous lantern]

kinda. some of them spawn after you start the quest

[rotund saddle]

and then he's part of the next quest

tbh I feel like it makes sense to rescue Kruglov xD

[late condor]

If you don’t rescue him there another NPC will appear instead for that quest

[rotund saddle]

uh ok lol

[rotund saddle]

@late condor when I have enough items in my inventory for the scrolling bar to appear, I can't use items that are too low

I can't use any food items right now

[late condor]

iirc also a 16:9 only issue

[rotund saddle]

classic

[rotund saddle]

@late condor how to fix guns in SoC?

[late condor]

Easiest way is to give it to an NPC and then injure them, but you need to find specifically an NPC that will accept your gun. What weapon is it?

[rotund saddle]

strelok's AKM

[late condor]

Your best bet is finding someone with only a pistol. 2/6 bandits that respawn on vehicle station on Cordon will only have a pistol.

You need to give it to them (by dropping in front of the NPC) and then bring them to injured state before they waste all the ammo in it and swap back to their pistol. You can kill them too as that will give you 40-70% broken gun so with good enough RNG you may still get it better than it was, but if you want it perfect you need to injure, not kill.

Might be easier to do with zombies as their spread is higher, they shoot less and are easier to injure, but it’s harder to find a zombied with just a pistol.

Out of zombies that are in Yantar in the beginning of the game, look for those with bandit jacket (always just a pistol) and duty armor (sometimes just a pistol)

[rotund saddle]

what vehicle station?

to injure do I need to shoot legs until they drop or should I shoot legs and wait for them to bleed and then drop?

[late condor]

the one with bandits and first quest in the game

[rotund saddle]

so just dropping it in front of them as they're shooting me will make them pick it up?

[late condor]

Yes as long as they have no main weapon.

But they will start shooting with thier pistol again the second they're out of ammo so you only have time till the magazine runs out

need to be quick