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

Could it be possible to implement some small things that would allow a stalker with a keen eye to track down other stalkers or mutants?

I'm thinking about slightly visible footsteps in muddy areas for mutants and stalkers, and for litter by stalkers, such as cigarette butts, empty cans of food and maybe if its possible to tweak unlit campfires so when they are used it could give a message to the player such as - "It's still warm" or "It's completely cold". The main benefits of this are obviously when the player is hunting down a specific mutant or stalkers. Another benefit will be that it will inform players that a squad of stalkers is around the area (or maybe not, based on how fresh the tracks are), so they are more alert when in that area. The footsteps could maybe last for a day and litter for two? However, they could have an impact on the FPS, sadly.

I highly doubt the game engine can handle these. I have to say it is great idea, but the game designers didn't seem had intentions to make these happen. The map isn't big enough for such details, you can circle the entire map in less than a day, so everything inside is relatively close to each other, don't really need tracking skills to hunt.

If you want to find mutants, trust me it will be easy, just find a likely spot, open fire without silencer. They will find you.

Every single foot print would use up resources the game is already stretching to the limit. That's why bodies decay and disappear in an hour. More than 2 hours results in significant performance loss. As an idea it would be a fantastic amount of realism, in practice if you bend over to squint at tracks some bloodsucker will rape you

jasper34 wrote:

Every single foot print would use up resources the game is already stretching to the limit. That's why bodies decay and disappear in an hour. More than 2 hours results in significant performance loss. As an idea it would be a fantastic amount of realism, in practice if you bend over to squint at tracks some bloodsucker will rape you

True, true.

Having only partial footprints appear here and there, instead of a whole track could help wtih the resource usage, but I'm not sure how much it would, considering there are a lot of mutant and stalker squads, whose partial footprints will stack up and still gobble up some amount of the resources.

Maybe only limit it to a few props here and there for stalkers, or maybe only the campfire warmth check?

DesertEagleV wrote:

The map isn't big enough for such details, you can circle the entire map in less than a day, so everything inside is relatively close to each other, don't really need tracking skills to hunt.

True, the game maps aren't that large so it isn't really difficult to hunt something. The campfire warmth check is more of a thing to keep you alert in certain areas, as I've had quite a few times where I was ambushed by an enemy squad in an area I thought was safe.

Listen for those radio squelch breaking sounds... enemies are near Actually listening hard is probably your best warning for most hazards.