Weapons from Nimble? Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

In vanilla CoP, I'd always order a weapon from Nimble as early as possible -- Tide or Storm in particular were my favourites. I liked that each had an interesting back story and that some derived from characters and plot from the previous games.

Now with the increased number of high end weapon choices that Misery 2 offers, I rarely order guns from Nimble. Alpine is still tempting but I usually hold back, as I only use a pistol as a backup, if at all. Tide now seems underwhelming and Lynx and SVU-A have a lot of competition from the Sig Sniper and the .338 rifles. The assault rifles don't appeal much compared to some of the other options which I can scavenge once I'm part way through the game. For close quarters the UMP45 is almost identical to Frazier so for Recon playthroughs I wait until I can pick up one of those. For me, the shotguns just can't compete with the Saiga and two unique shotguns in the game, Gonta's decorated Toz and Trapper's gun, are very good too and they don't cost a bean.

So my three questions are...

a) Do you still order weapons from Nimble often, and if so which weapons do you rate well against the other Misery 2 weapons?

b) Do you think Nimble's offerings could be changed in some way to make them as desirable as they once were? Perhaps up the price considerably but offer something that again feels special and unique. I'm not very knowledgeable about guns so can't offer any great suggestions. Maybe guns that use zone-originated tech like the Gravi powered shotty from SoC -- nothing outrageously OP but which are marginally better than the rest and offer a unique and interesting back story. That particular shotgun is very similar to Trapper's so not the best example.

c) Am I missing the point? ie that Nimble is, and should only be, just a shortcut for medium to high tier weapons from the start of the game provided you want to spend the cash.

Max's SVU from Nimble is the fastest shooting sniper weapon and with a variable range scope it is an excellent overall buy. I love the Tide and Lynx, but unfortunately as much as I love them the ammo only is effective through class IV and later there are too many Class V armors so I now skip those too. Since you have to buy one weapon for storyline with Snag, I get the SVU or if I find something like a SIG550 Sniper I get a pistol just long enough for dialog then sell it off. There's lots of new weapons/variants coming in next release. Anything in Misery will have it's Pros and balancing Cons like the KSVK 12.7 is uber powerful, but slow and weighs a ton. MP5ing (TAZ) is probably the guy to discuss new weapons with. I think maybe a Polymer Glock with non-metallic bullets that Burers couldn't defend against with their Psi powers ... I don't remember the shottie you mentioned. Maybe a needle gun ...

I'd forgotten the Snag storyline! Now I have to buy something to save his sorry ass. I'm off to buy a pistol... :-)

The SoC shotgun was Father Diodor's pump action (http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Combat_Chaser). He was the final target in Sid's assassination missions. I'd try to avoid killing neutrals but I'm sorry to say for that gun I did compromise on my principles.

I'll give Max's SVU another go on my next Assaulter/Sniper playthrough. Currently playing Recon and have already found a Sig Sniper.

I love the Sniper version of Sig550, that scope is awesome. I had not looked hard at the specs for a while and compared the 2 and the extra RPM sure comes in handy sometimes. That shottie might be a good sub for the Frazier. You should ask MP5ing about it.

DogMagnet wrote:
c) a shortcut for medium to high tier weapons from the start of the game provided you want to spend the cash.

In part that's what he is, but some of his unique guns are notably better than the baseline versions. With high-end weapons like the KSVK being unavailable until the last 1/3 of the game, you can actually get a lot of mileage out of many of Nimble's weapons. I'll also say that you can quite comfortably finish the game with medium-tier gear. In the playthrough I finished today I actually wore Nimble's CS-3 armour for the whole game and used a basic Dragunov SVD from Zaton through to the very end as well.

Whether Nimble should offer much more valuable/powerful stuff than he does (as opposed to just being a shortcut to decent guns) isn't an absolute yes or no for me. It's quite relative to individual preferences on game balance. Two issues to be mindful of are whether it would make the game easier and whether it would make most weapons in the game redundant for the player. Currently the biggest influence on trader inventories is how far you've progressed through the missions, and the highest tier gear only becomes available for sale after you've been to Pripyat. Money is less of a problem, I can make over 100k RU in the first two days of the game. New Nimble superweapons would have to come with a very hefty price-tag or else they'd be a no-brainer for players. The other side of this is making them too expensive might make Nimble too unappealing. 200k+ RU isn't something anyone spends lightly, especially when there's only a 1 in 3 chance of Nimble bringing the specific weapon the player wants (of course many players will bypass this by saving and reloading to make sure Nimble brings the one thing they're after).

Edited by: Lomlom