Editing .ltx for streaming. Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Skip the end if you want to get right to it.

Hello, I am a streamer and I fell in love with the Misery mod way back. I couldn't truly enjoy it on my old toaster so I had to wait for the upgrades to roll in to get back in the Zone. I had never played any stalker game ever and this was my first and only introduction to the game series. After playing Misery there was no going back to conventional shooters. They do everything right. I mean everything. I love it. I am running into some problems though. Not bugs or glitches but problems while streaming.

I wanted to make the play through series a little more...enjoyable to watch and with my little knowledge of the Stalker games I made some minor tweaks based on my best friend google and some of the things I read other stalkers did.

1) I changed the cosshair to show colors. Green = good, Red = bad, Yellow = won't freaking shoot me. (It's still just a little grey dot that changes color)

2) I changed the damage on the knife to do a one shot kill while sneaking (most of the time) and three or less to kill a regular combatant.

3) Turned on Hardcore AI and took away unlimited ammo. (changed in the options menu no .ltx file changes needed)

All of these changes are small and as of now they are my only changes to this masterpiece. The reticle changes are for someone like me who has absolutely ZERO knowledge of what is to come and if it is ok to kil someone based on my previous actions or current quest. The knife damage was increased, frankly, because what is the use of sneaking and killing someone with a knife if it takes thirty hits to kill them. Also, why hide behind a door if you can't gut them? =) Unlimited ammo was taken off to secure that the enemy combatant would not shoot a shotgun from three-hundred yards until the sun came up.

I wan't to do a Dark Road, Dark Mode playthrough on my steam. I feel I have the basics of Misery down. A few hundred hours played at least a hundred with each calss (in Zaton only) I want this playthrough to be from the view of a true stalker in a new Zone. I have practiced every class in Zaton. Many deaths and many victories. I just don't know what may lay ahead. I need one more thing to make this possible and be enjoyable to watch. I need to know where I am headed (kinda).

I would like to make all stashes appear on the mini map as a green marker. Kind of like a guide to my next puzzle piece. I understand that some stashes can't be reached until you do a certain mission and all that jazz. I just want to know where they are. I am going to alt tab out anyway and just watch the youtube video. I want this to be as streamlined as possible. Side note: To maintain the RP element I have justified having this information by telling myself I am a top trained soldier. Why would my PDA not be maxed to help my mission. It could be something as small as; every PDA has this information, you just have to know how to access the military database.

Is it possible to make the stash icons appear on the Map by editing the .ltx files?

*edit*

Sry, i was wrong. Thought "The Armed Zone" Mod for Misery had this feature included, but i don't think so.

Btw, could you send me a link to your streamingchannel? Perhaps as a PM?

Edited by: henniheine

No problem on the steam channel. I was going to add it to my profile sometime later this morning.

twitch.tv/crayons_only

I am not streaming at the moment. I am running some performance tests and trying to get fully prepared. I find that an unprepared streamer is just as bad as low quality sound or video. Also Xsplit is kinda crap and really unpredictable when streaming CoP. Getting that fixed also.

The mod i mentioned "The Armed Zone" (Link: Moddb.com) is nonethelesse very recommandable. More weapons, better animations and further special "custom" hidden weapons for Misery 2.1.1 - simply awesome in my opinion. If you like the weaponvariety in Misery - you will definitely love this mod.

Regarding your Streamchannel - will have an eye on it.

Edited by: henniheine

It is OK to customize game for your own preference, especialy if you are new to the game. After some tiime you will learn how bandits look like and how ordinary stalkers look like - there is plenty of different armour type in game, although some look the same there is small difference between them. Then you no longer need IFF croshair.

Sorry that I would probably disapoint you, but I don't think it is possible to reveal all stash spots at once on the map. There is two types of stashes in this mod. One type of stashes are defined trough all.spawn file - you need SDK tools to open and edit it - that is the same file as vanilla game use for stashes. There is also second type of stashes that are dynamically spawned trough additional scripts that this mod use. Those stashes are defined trough dynamic_spawn*.ltx files.

Now, some of them leaves spot on map, some not. Reason is that those that have "hint=section_name" will leave mark on map, others will not. Those config files are modified by other MDT members long before I joined team, so I can't tell true reason why some of stashes have hint and why others don't.

To reveal all stash spots on map you will need special function in script that you need to write by yourself and execute trough debug menu or something. That is theoreticaly possible only for dynamic stashes. For those in all.spawn file you will need another function, but I can't tell you much about it, I have never messed with that file.

In conclusion, while it is theoreticaly possible to reveal stash spots, it is no easy task for newcomer to game and modding. It will also reveal "too much" for anyone watching your stream and spoil the playtrough for any new gamer to this mod, searching the map for stahes while bandits or mutants are on your tail is half of fun.

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WOW! Thank you for the fast reply's.

@Kcs123, you hit many key points that had me worried. I do not wish to spoil the game for anyone and having that much info might just do that. Also, I agree 100% that I will not have the skills to edit the mod to allow the stashes to show. About the cursor changing colors, I did it mainly so I would know when walking up to bandits on quest that I would know for sure they would not shoot me. This way I could still enjoy the story and not have to load repeatedly to find out if the next person I spoke to was going to shoot me. Even with the understanding of armor types and more importantly colors that the factions wear, I still found myself being torn up by the random, "Hey, Bro." that wasn't my friend hahahahah.

Maybe I will stay away from Dark Mode until I have a much better memory on stash locations. I kinda need to know this info to make the first night worth it. Night vision by night two is a must. Tools/stashes may just spur this on.

Thanks again for the fast reply's. Awesome community for an awesome mod. Why in the world they don't have a full shooter coming out in the next couple of years based on Misery is beyond me. Managing everything from food/sleep to batteries and upkeep on weapons/armor all while avoiding death and crazy people in the zone.....so awesome. If you guys made a game and called it Misery, I'd pay premium for that.

@Henniheine, O, Man. I'm gonna have to look into this mod more. I was unsure of installing it because I didn't want to break Misery. CTD's are no fun and I still get them if I have a long day of gaming (12 hours or so). I think it's my RAM. Just decides, "I've had enough," and blows up.

Perhaps it would be best to wait for Misery 2.2, especially for streaming purposes.

Changelog to be found here: Miserymod.com

It has several bug fixes & optimizations which should make Misery more stable in general.

Well, those cool stuff in development for 2.2 is done. Things that was left to do is test game, see if everything is merged properly, some optimization/gamebalance have to be made and some minor stuff that will be discovered trough testing.

But I can't give any ETA for release, could be a week or two or month or more. That being said, I can't give advice is it worth to wait for 2.2 release or not, but yes a lot of CTD issues were solved, there could be only rare occasions when game CTD, possible something that will not be discovered trough testing, but doing our best to test everything before release.

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If you guys want help testing the new Patch for the mod, I'd be honored to be involved. I can stream all my game play and write a report here on the forum after each session. I am also not as experienced as the other Stalkers so I will be roaming and doing things that many might find tedious. Come watch me stream tomorrow and think about maybe getting me in on the testing phase?

Testing and development are done in private. Since some things don't pan out and ideas for new features are intellectual property, it isn't beneficial for public to see them until they are ready and released. Thank you for the offer

IRT stash locations, you might be better off developing a printed map of stash locations so you can make notes of the order you wish to use for efficiency and still not reveal unknown stashes to people who enjoy discovering things for themselves.

Anyone interested can ask for access to MDT test lab group. Although users that ask fro access only to grab mod earlier than rest of community will not always get permission. At this point of test phase users that are already familiar with game and mod itself can provide more valuable feedback to team so we can know what need to be fixed/optimized. I can't tell to anyone for sure will someone get access or not to test lab, I'm not the one that make that decision, senior MDT members will give you permission or not. But I encourage anyone to try, after accepting NDA, there is no obstacles to prevent access to lab.

There is a catch, I don't think that version in development will be alowed for streaming, considering NDA, but again I'm not the one who makes that decisions.

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kcs123 wrote:

Well, those cool stuff in development for 2.2 is done. Things that was left to do is test game, see if everything is merged properly, some optimization/gamebalance have to be made and some minor stuff that will be discovered trough testing.

But I can't give any ETA for release, could be a week or two or month or more. That being said, I can't give advice is it worth to wait for 2.2 release or not, but yes a lot of CTD issues were solved, there could be only rare occasions when game CTD, possible something that will not be discovered trough testing, but doing our best to test everything before release.

That sounds pretty promising .

Will you make an announcement a few days before it goes live, or will you "silently" release it?

We don't make that decision, but I expect it will just be released with notification on Facebook and Moddb. When it is ready there won't likely be any few day holdout for hype Thank you for your patience.

Play through is in full swing. Come check it out =) www.twitch.tv/crayons_only

I am having a problem though It seems my nigh tvision won't work all the time. On my SEVA suit it seems to be only "half" effective sometimes. Any idea how or why this happens?

There is some wierd thing that can happen from time to time when you save a game with night vision ON and load same game again. To fix this, usually all what you need is to turn it off and again turn on when you load that savegame. And you need batteries and UPD for nightvision to work. Don't know if that is what you are talking about or not. Other than game engine graphical glitch, there is nothing that will reduce night vision efficiency.

Of course, if you are in radioactive areas or in very low light conditions, like in heavy rain, night vision can be much less effective than in clear night.

Watched channel for couple of minutes. Not a bad for noob of this mod

You should avoid using quicksaves. Rather use Quick hard savegame tweak that can be found in Yasti's gameplay tweak compendium thread.

Could be that you are lucky enough, so you haven't encountered any problems with quick saves, but when you figure out that something gone wrong you can loose hours and hours of progress in gameplay until you find good uncorrupted savegame point.

You can use provided Yasti's hard save on top of TAZ or any other mod without problems, only difference is version label that is on bottom right of screen. Some users found that Yasti's quick hard save is not suitable for them because you may get too much savegame files. For me it is not big deal, I usualy made some manualy saves just before going out of base and/or return, so it will be easy do distingush between saves what was real hard savegame points and what could be deleted without second thought.

Also, something that I have noticed, armour belt attachments - it is not always better attachment that gives more carry weight. You may find attachments that provide more stamina recovery of better usage. That also depend a lot of suit that you wear.

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I also have instructions for binding hard saves to function keys on my profile page.

I didn't have much time to watch channel, but I have noticed that is less commented during gameplay, compared to other games

Usually people talk about game while they play it for all time, but it is not same when someone play this mod. Full concentration required for this

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I want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by!!! It was awesome. I am sorry for the lack of reply's. For some reason my phone stopped showing the chat and only using one monitor I check chat with my phone. Seriously, I am so excited at everyone who made a comment. I love it.

Also, if you want more commentary let me know. I try not to talk much about what I am doing in game because I feel most people are watching to see how a noob does what they have done a thousand times. I wanted to keep immersion more than, "This is what I'm doing."

About the hard save and quick save. I have only ever run into one problem with my quick save being corrupted. I do a hard save at the Base before I leave every time. So, I don't lose more than thirty minutes if something bad happens. I find that opening the esc menu breaks the immersion of what is happening and gives me the opportunity to not have to live with my decisions.

Side Note: I want to do a one time play through on Dark Mode/Dark Road. From start to finish in one stream. I think I can do it. I will be most likely brain dead and talking gibberish by the end. =) If you want to see something like that let me know.

Again, thank you for everyone that stopped in and said hello or just lurked in the background and watched. Wonderful response.

I didn't have time to watch more than 3-4 minutes in two occasions, probably could not have more time if another oportunity for watching pops up, but there will be people who will be interested in that.

I like to take every oportunity to look how someone else use GUI in game, well not only GUI, all of stuff. That way you can discover anything that need improvement. You are doing good job with that streeming, probably more people will watch next session, keep up.

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Another good day of streaming. Found out from a viewer that I was having problems because I was getting the gun bonus from the Assaulter class but the perks of the recon class. It would seem I did not "pick a class" after installing the Armed Zone Mod.

I will be starting a new play through at 10:00 PM Central Standard Time. Most likely will not be on for 14 hours like the stream was today. =)

Thanks again for all the viewers.

Just gotta say, this guy is pretty enjoyable to watch.

Knows enough to be a nice view, without being some expert playing smart-ass. Also a small enough streamer that he communicates really well with his viewers unlike some of the larger players on Twitch.

Worth a view if you get the chance.

He just got himself a new follower.

Feel free to post a comment on front page, might be more people to notice when you stream channel.

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@ Charlesnchrg

Sadly my internetconnection seems to be to slow for your stream - constant buffering.

Btw. If you can get your hands on a HK MP7A1 - MP as a Recon take it. Very good and light weapon. Modded 45mag only 1,84kg. Nice firerate and good recoil abilities.

Edited by: henniheine

@Henniheine, =( I am sorry you can't watch the stream. I find that if you watch it on your cell phone through the twitch app it seems to work without ads or buffering. You might try it. I have tried to adjust my settings many many times to accommodate all viewers and it would seem that no matter what I change, someone always gets left out.

If you missed the last twitch installment...you didn't miss much. Hahahaha, well, you missed me getting jumped by three bloodsuckers, a pack of dogs, and a Sudo Giant all while an emission was dropping down. My stubbornness would not allow me to "run" but it turned out that it had to be done. I simply did not have enough ammo and my loot load was well over the benefits of the cocaine in my pocket.

This play through is a sniper run that can only use Zone Produced products. I was very lucky and managed to get a Saiga very early and find that Sniper rifles are just, well....they are boring to me. So this is an up close and personal, dual ammo, (for range) True stalker zone produced supporter. No epinephrine or drugs that are imported. Food, ya, it must be made in the zone. No bread, no MRE's...we kill what we eat. We drink a ton of Beard's Tea. BEARDS TEA!!!! Love that stuff.

We hate bandits and Mercs and this time we are going to rock it with Freedom. So, Duty is gonna get pooped on. We will be a kill on sight with Duty.

Come watch me freak out and gripe about the night vision and watch this noob get rekt.