M.I.N.E. Screenshot image

On the right-side, yes. There were four or five there, some behind the bushes and trees in the background. Right before I decided to crash the party.

There are three types now if you count the original gun-toting kind; there are Izlom (disfigured lurching zombies that scamper at higher speed after you), normal gun-less zombies (shown) and the gun-toting Yantar kind.

The Zombie sounds are basically what I found out there on the net with the other sounds that these mods have traditionally been using. They're mumbling stuff in what I can only assume to be Russian, so it sounds believable to me. :)

Of course, let's not disrespect the fact that this is, in fact, the Ukraine and yet they all speak Russian. :)

I've never felt that Zombies should be outside of Yantar, or Controller lairs. Occasionally getting them in Red Forest, Military Warehouses and Agroprom is believable. Cordon - not really in my books. But hey, its your mod, not mine. That's just my personal opinion.
As for the Izlom, I remember reading through some of the SoC files that its meant to have a melee based psy attack or something. I might try and find that info again.

I think Zombies could be believable in the Cordon, simply because the Military don't have COMPLETE control over the area like everyone thinks they do.

Several STALKERS point out that the military won't even leave their outpost, let alone patrol the Zone like they're supposed to.

Given the Space Bubble anomalies, the multiple entrances and exits, and the general tendency of mutants to migrate, I think it could happen.

Granted, you won't see them popping up all over the place, I think it is credible that they would show up.

That, and editing all.spawn to spawn Military instead of Zombies mortifies me. Something for me to look into, anyway. :)

The Izlom is quite an interesting mutant. It seems the GSC planned on having it as a neutral mutant - it might attack you, as per a regular mutant, but you could also talk to it or even get missions from it (wtf?), and feed it to make it more friendly towards you, as well as encouraging it to tell you secrets about the Zone. Basically, a person who had mutations caused by experiments or natural mutations of the Zone, and retained their humanity. It also has telepathic abilities, most likely short range, or touch. Its extended arm is caused by hypertrophy of the various tissue cells (they get bigger)
Very interesting mutant. I might look into restoring fully
* begins jotting down notes in notepad.
The only other mutant which shows signs of communicating with Stalkers is the occasional Controller.

Curiously, the civilan zombies were also supposed to be neutral, and you could talk to them - until they got hungry. Then your dinner.

While I totally cherish that idea, and yea, have even come VERY close to embellishing it, I opted instead just to make the undead that much more powerful as individuals.

We're talking, "You need a shotgun to take them out unless you want to spend a lot of bullets" -kind of stronger. Yantar is seriously no joke anymore - and I wanted it that way.

Now, going to Yantar is a signal that you as a STALKER have matured in your journey far enough to have the right gear, the right guns, and the right tactics to succeed. Think of Yantar as a right-of-passage now.

Hopefully having more powerful undead (and having them spawn at more locations than just the near-end game locales) will satisfy our fascination with the undead.

Zombies are in the Swamps. Both Izlom and regular garden variety zombies, if I recall right.

Later in the game, the bigger problems are the Swamp bloodsuckers, and the Burers.

Burers have powerful projectile attacks that will seriously mangle you in only a few hits, making them really terrible to fight. They make up for this by dropping monster parts worth a good deal for your trouble, though. Fighting more than one is probably not a good idea unless you have a decent weapon, suit, and some hard cover. :)

Zone cats, Flesh, and boars can all be seen there, too.

"Variety is the spice of life" - the large emission that changed the face of the Zone may also well have opened new areas that the mutants are using to move about the Zone, which to me, adds further plausibility to the varieties of mutants found. Add that to the fact that the Swamps are connected to Agroprom by the train tracks, and you get even more plausibility (think Yantar > Agroprom > Swamps for the zombies).