Zombie Survival Mode Thread - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Chernobyl mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

I implemented a new feature that will be in next patch, upcoming 1.2.35

Taffy suggested a zombie survival mode on the EpicStalker chat so I decided to implement one. Basically you start the game as you normally would but you get a companion squad. You and your squad will have to survive hordes of zombies. All spawners are replaced with zombies, zombied stalkers, snorks and izloms. They are coming for you, no matter where you are. Traders and unique NPCs are not replaced so that you still buy/sell gear or get upgrades. But once your buddies are dead you will most likely not find anyone else to help you. Ironman mode is enforced while in this mode.

Edited by: Alundaio

Interesting... Looking forward to trying it out, once it's been released.

I must say that this is not my favorite kind of challenge (and i fucking hate zombies), but it may suit some players. I prefer to wait for the RPG system.

In my opinion, mercs instead of zombies would be cool... or special forces (did i say Alpha Squads ? Oops !)

Taffy suggested a zombie survival mode on the EpicStalker chat so I decided to implement one.

Really love this idea! I think options like these will add a mile to Call of Chernobyl's longevity. I like the choice of Zombies because every Triple A game seems to have a zombie mode nowadays (a very popular thing), so Call of Chernobyl deserves one too.

Edited to say that having a choice of who you're hunted by (zombies or humans) may be better to satisfy all tastes, but if it is a choice of one or the other, I would go with zombies. IMO being hunted by humans would be too much like playing as a member of the Monolith or the Bandits who are hated and hostile towards everyone already.

Edited by: Khimicheskiy_Ali

Hum... i don't know. Anyway, such an option would certainly be cool for several players, so it deserves to exist. It just won't be my thing (like you said Khimicheskiy, the zombie challenge is very popular nowadays, but it has become an overdose).

Haha. I had great times online on L4D, I will surely give this mode a try ! ^_^'

Zealot_Komputer wrote:

Hum... i don't know. Anyway, such an option would certainly be cool for several players, so it deserves to exist. It just won't be my thing (like you said Khimicheskiy, the zombie challenge is very popular nowadays, but it has become an overdose).

But this is zombies that shoot back,

Yeah... well... it's a question of taste, i've always prefered to fight human NPCs, and it may be a little too "arcadish" for me. That's why the RPG orientation suits me better.

Edited by: Zealot_K

Cool! Looking forward to this.

Will you spawn with only a knife, too? Hahahahahaha

Cool! Looking forward to this.

Will you spawn with only a knife, too? Hahahahahaha

haha that would be too painful. I died in first 30 seconds just testing.

EDIT:

This feature is in 1.2.35 patch and I was able to fix the issue with cut mutant Zombies which is why they don't show up in CoC. They caused a crash when loading the game but I fixed it by making some changes to m_zombi.ltx

Edited by: Alundaio

Fucking hard mode !!!

Is it too hard?

I think the mode is too difficult. But that may be just me (I've never actually been that good at games.). So my opinion on the matter doesn't stand for much. Best wait for more feedback from others. Thanks also for implementing the civilian zombies! It was cool to finally see them in Call of Chernobyl.

Lol. Just read some of the comments on the main page and learned that I need to headshot zombies. That's probably why I have been having such a difficult time.

Edited by: Khimicheskiy_Ali

Too hard... ? I don't know, it depends on players i guess. I tried it in Dark Valley and the zombies kept coming and coming at me endlessly, i could not leave the building. But it was easier in Cordon.

Did a quick test (vanilla CoC, no guns mod). Survival mode + Hardcore AI aim.
Very fun idea.
Played as an Ecolog. I had some great shots from the roof top of the bunker, by watching other STALKERs here getting rid of the zombies.

Died in a minute since I teleported to Red Forest. ^_^' Even with a cheated gear.

I felt a bit confused because the stalkers weren't shooting good at the zombies, mostly getting them down by punching them. This has been seen from the bunker at Yantar as at the RF when arrived.
I've even see a military staying calm with a zombie at his shoulder (the zombie was chasing me), the stalker only entered in combat mode when the zombie decided to attack him instead of me.

It's probably due to vanilla weapons (no OWR or AO3) but even a pure headshot don't stop them. I had to shot 2 or 3 times to the head for some of the zombies to go definitely down.

I haven't played enough to know this but, how are zombies working in this mode ? Are they constantly spawning in replacement of other creatures or could we have something like a quest to "Eradicate the Zombie threat" ?
If completed, the zone come back to its natural behavior and spawn usual monsters, or link this to the deactivate the Brain Scorcher quest, maybe.


This, is just said in a polishing view, this is already a great and very fun idea.
Thanks again for your amazing ideas.

Edited by: 2C.LiryC

2C.LiryC wrote:

I haven't played enough to know this but, how are zombies working in this mode ? Are they constantly spawning in replacement of other creatures or could we have something like a quest to "Eradicate the Zombie threat" ?
If completed, the zone come back to its natural behavior and spawn usual monsters, or link this to the deactivate the Brain Scorcher quest, maybe.

Basically all respawns are just randomly zombie, zombied stalker, izlom or snork. Zombie civilian being the most common. I like the task idea, as it gives you a way to beat the mode, but how would it work?

I don't really know.
Maybe with the usual "disable the miracle machine" or the brain scorcher, which then have for effect to stop spawning those undeads.

I also remember SGM have a "zombies time" when you reach the freeplay. The task here was to kill a number of zombies (400, if my remembrance is good).
I could be a way for such a task. Probably with a higher number of undeads to kill, regarding to their variety,
So, it could be a task than the Monolith also have.

Also one idea from SGM is: if you kill a certain number of zombies you get a reward, like money, munitions or food, in SGM they give you a coin, I think it was like a rank system or something like that. I like the idea of the brainscorcher or the miracle machine and it makes some sense.

Seems neat, but may be overkill. How big is the squad? How many zambambos are there at a time?

A LOT of zombies can and WILL spawn at Rostok, in the sleeping area if you set the wake up time to +-8.00am. This is ridiculous, one second i'm trying to eat something and then next i'm suffocating in zombies. Can you fix that please?

Ok, heres my current take on the Survival mode.

Little buggy, the wake up to a million zeds a MAJOR ISSUE, here are my suggested simple fixes as a retired game dev...

1.) don't despawn the normal characters in the game in base, only out in the zone (so the game feels normal to start and then shit goes tits up).

2.) make all npc stalker spawns outside of "bases" spawn zombies type monsters (here after referred to as "Zeds")

3.) still spawn NPC stalkers to go off base in said bases and do normal game stuff just, but now its just very limited and not seen as often in the zone as zeds everyplace eating them.

4.) npc's should also spawn at gates so if their is a gate to the bandit controlled area for example, half the time zeds come through in force, the other half it would be bandits in force (adjusts to who normally comes through said gates)

4.) Zeds should spawn at their now "normal spawn locations" at a slowly increasing rate and then walk towards the players current location. No faster then one a minute per spawn point, and never spawn in sight of players so its just this endless wave that seems to keep coming over the hills.

5.) sleeping should not result in 50 zeds spawning in all around you and pushing you through walls and out of buildings... FFS Spawn them out on the map and have them start walking twards you (just spawn a group every 10 seconds from each viable spawn, for every hour you slept)

6.) unarmed Zeds should run 50% of the time and try and take your gun (but drop it on the ground and not use it)

7.) 5% change a human ZED has a grenade on it that will blow up as if thrown once they are killed (killing the zed is the trigger that tells the game, throw grenade straight down on dead zed as if a player or npc had thrown it)

8.) 1% chance an armed ZED has a butterfly mine on it, that is placed and activated when killed

9.) game must keep track of how many zeds it can spawn, if it crashes it should note how many where on the map and reduce that number by 10% for stability issues (also make it so players can adjust zed population limit manually in case the computer cant do it)

10. bloodsuckers should be added to the Zed army

11.) unarmed zeds should have 1 item in their inventory (food,medical,artifact,munitions) but 1 of something at random (yes be a dick have some zeds also only have their 1 item as... 1 bullet or worse still... breifcase with 1 million USD...cuz its russia, no one will trade for american money...they will be like "wtf is this green stuff...toilet paper? where the rubbles at man...this...is...RUSSIA...ya i'm all for mind screwing the player....

Can you see them? "OMG a Million Dollars! WHOO HOOO....lets run back to the trader with this heavy frikken box... i fight...i struggle... I cant really run while I got it... yes theirs the trader... oh man my gear is totaly messed up...but I can fix it and get upgrades....yo trader i...what? YOU DONT WANT THIS???.....NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and then they can go cry in the corner rocking back and forth IRL as their now totally spent dude dies... with no real way to fight back...a grim reminder that the value of money is just a market fiction...and a good joke on the players who fall for it) (also a million yen! which is really like 10,000 bucks as a yen is 1 cent...but its a big number, players will fall for it) but bottom line, boxes an briefcases of money cant be traded to anyone just to piss in the players face a bit more...cuz...really...who cares about foreign currency when the world is ending.

12.) some zeds should be walking radiation toxic waste dumps, much like how some dogs and the pseudo giant irradiate you when they get close.

13.) one in 10 armed zeds need a weapons cleaning kit or sewing kit so you can maintain gear (its getting the time to open your inventory an maintain as things get hot that will be a bitch)... and the kits are heavy...keeping a full kits worth of fix for every weapon will slow the player down... tough choices must be made.

14.) Use zone by zone escalation... first zone is just a few unarmed zeds...but every time you go to a new part of the zone... the game spawns more zeds, an then armed zeds byt the third area you go to, and just goes up until its a shit show.

15.) your honor guard respawn after you kill say...500 zed (one member of the honor guard for every 500 zed... never all of your honor guard...who then have to run and fight their way to you from the closest spawn your not facing.)

Can we take that radio you can buy in the freedom train station, you pick it up off the 500th zombie and "use it" to re spawn a dude? (that way you also have to actively loot or miss the re spawn item)

ZED story mode.... have them do the stalker call of Chernobyl mission to deal with the wish granter and make a wish or kill the scientist's (no one would want to be plugged into a machine running all these zombies)

HOWEVER....Monolith naturally would play a different story where they have to fend off zeds and NPC's of ALL factions in greater numbers (eventually with heli support as well) until they kill half a million zeds/npcs combined coming to the Chernobyl NPP (also would be cool if monolith could trigger emissions as they will be very VERY busy)... if they win... they go on about how monolith had proved their loyalty to, the monolith... the zone is now spreading braining more glory to, the monolith... we sing praise and have strippers energetically bounce with slippery delight on, the monolith... in nun colored outfits shaped lie, the monolith (cuz we are brain washed religious fanatics of, the monolith)

Naturally every time you went to base this would also mean more and more NPC's would be killed making fewer AI to help you fend the Zeds off until you get overwhelmed... or go deal with the wish granter.

So monoliths story is pure endurance, everyone else is the made dash to the wish granter.

No story mode? see how long you can last bub.

Please, remember to Like share subscribe an comments for, the monolith (and strippers cuz the zone seems to be a female free "zone")

i started playing it now and i like it a lot but i when i die and load the game it crashes :c any tips?
also those fractures are so tanky like they need 4-5 sots with a shotgun in the head to die

Edited by: Marmoran

Fractures also take 1-2 stabs to head to die. Also, i do have crashes while save-loading i assume it's because of a bug. Or a memory issue.

My brain farted all of a sudden. I have a raw idea for an alternative to this game mode:

Most AI in the zone is either a Loner or a Mutant. You should only find Monolith at CNPP and Generators to make things harder. You can buy reinforcements in bases(not more than 10, and price depends on how good they are). Every 2 in-game hours, a horde of mutants will spawn a few meters from you and will reach you no matter what, so be prepared. There are no side quests in which you can earn money. You earn money from what you can find be it gear from death zombies, parts from mutants, artifacts in anomalies or stashes. Mission is the same as the original. Find documents in labs and deactivate generators.

Every mutant horde is tied to the map. For example: you are getting chased by 2 Chimeras in Zaton, and see no way of getting out alive, just switch to other map for them to disappear and not chase you. Once you enter Zaton again, the number of mutants resets. There would also be variants with same difficulty level: It could spawn 2 chimeras and 3 snorks, or it could spawn 25 armed zombies. Mutants should also ignore targets at bases like Rookie village or Rostok, which means it is a lot safer to sleep in the base. Talking about sleep, mutants should spawn less frequently at night. Instead of once every 2-ingame hours, it would be 5. That way you won't have 10 Chimeras and what not, trying to kill you once you step out of base after 6 hours of sleep.

Mutants in Cordon would be fairly easy to deal with as they would be mostly 3 dogs and 2 fractures kind of variant. On the other end Pripyat and deeper you would find 2 Chimeras, 5 Snorks and 15 armed zombies kind of variant every in-game hour. Labs should also have harder mutant spawns when comparing to the linked map (except Monolith War lab, it is already hard enough to kill billions of Monoliths without dying).

I suggest this to be played in Iron man mode which will make it hard to reach the end game.