Jabbers Soulslike Gamemode addon

DESCRIPTION

This S.T.A.L.K.E.R Anomaly mod brings elements souls style games to Stalker. Upon death your are rescued by a random Stalker in the zone. They bring you back to the set last spawn location where you awake to find a message from them about how you were found and the lengths they may have gone to to get you to a safe place. The items that were on your character must be retrieved, some can be lost and condition degraded all depending on settings.

THANKS
Huge thanks to Dr.Pr1nkos for the RUS translations!
Huge thanks to GGFasd, robot, Twisted, Arctic for help testing new versions!

EXPLINATION VIDEO

DISCLAIMER: Stop crying, this mod is suppose to make the game harder. Because of this it's 100% possible to get yourself into a situation where you unexpectedly lose your gear. Random item loss on death means you could lose your weapons or armor, dying in the middle of an anomaly and not being able to get your gear back is possible and expected. Always stock a backup kit, plan for the worst, hope for the best.

REQUIREMENTS

• MCM Mod (https://github.com/RAX-Anomaly/Anomaly-Mod-Configuration-Menu)

FEATURES

• 100% Customizable experience through MCM
• Respawn locations can be set at any bed
• Upon death
  
  • Stash with some or all of the players items drops on the ground.
  • Item condition/loss scales based on rank in order to not hinder the players early game progress.
  • Item condition degrade each death (configurable).
  • Item loss % applied each death (configurable).
  • Lost items can be found on nearby enemy NPCs (configurable).
  • Players must heal upon respawn (configurable).
  • Time will pass to simulate recovery.
  • The player will be hungry and/or thirsty at respawn based on the time passed.
  • Your PDA will be updated to show where the relative position is of your corpse.
  • Dynamic message from your rescuer will be sent to you to explain what happened and information about your gear
• Player does an inventory check and lists everything missing upon retrieving your gear
• Hardcore save mode where you can only save by sleeping (sometimes requiring sleeping pills) and respawning.
• Hardcore save mode only keeps around 1 save file.
• Ability to use campfires to save (configurable)

INSTALLATION

Simply extract into your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly installation folder.

SUPPORT

Best place to reach me is on the G.A.M.M.A. discord: Discord.com
Or Jabbers#6969 on Discord.

HOW TO USE THE MOD

• Start a new game and choose "Soulslike Mode" from the character creation screen
  • Works in Vanilla, G.A.M.M.A. and EFP
• Enjoy :)
• Settings can be found in MCM

MY THOUGHTS ON GAMEPLAY ADJUSTMENTS

Based on having played about 10 hours in total into a new game with this mod I can tell you the following... Your initial focus should be to stockpile some food/meds/weapons and a flashlight at your starting location. This way when you respawn you will have something to use to go try and get your gear back. Another thing to try is grabbing a few companions to help you when you respawn, this makes things a slight bit easier in the case where you have some really crap gear. As you progress through the world, think about stashing items in the static stashes or if you are using the hideout stash mod, those stashes in various locations. Maybe rather then just selling everything, you hold on to it for those just incase scenarios. It tool me a few deaths to kind of get the hang of things, but the adventures of retrieving your gear with a couple of companions and a knife really made for some entertainment and a different style of gameplay along the way.

FAQ
Q: Doesn't this already exist with the Azazel game mode?
A: Sorta, while Azazel does allows you to continue as a new stalker after dying, You cannot play story mode at the same time, with Soulslike you can.

Q: Does this mod work with G.A.M.M.A.?
A: Yes, this mod is actually intended to be used with G.A.M.M.A.

Q: Does this mod work with Vanilla STALKER Anomaly?
A: I hope so, but I'll be honest, I didn't test it. If you try and it doesn't work, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help you.

Q: Have you done anything to make it easier to play factions that start in the North?
A: No, but I guess you can also say.. Not yet? I don't know what could be done that could help other than give extra minimalistic gear on respawn to help with things like radiation. This isn't exactly ideal, but I'm also open to suggestions. This mod should change how you play the game some, making an immediate focus on collecting some backup gear rather than progressing, so if you die to soon and can't seem to get a footing after due to how much harder norther starts can be, that' could be why.

Q: I died in the middle of and anomaly I cannot get my gear back what do I do?
A: First you can stop crying about it, that's the whole point of this mod... An actual consequence for dying. If you died in a shit location, well... that sucks, go get some new gear and continue playing or start over, choice is yours.

Q: I died and my weapon or armor is gone, how am I suppose to progress now?
A: First grow a pair...next, deep breath, now use that big brain of yours and think. Listen, I am not going to play this game for you but here's a possible tip, find some companions. Also, if you have "Lost items found on NPCs" turned on, go look for that bitch, he's around. Also I used he, the females in Stalker told me their pronouns are he/him.

Q: I decided to play with Hardcore Saves and my save location is awful and I cannot continue.
A: Yup, that can happen, awful, I'm so sad for you... see the DISCLAIMER above. OK so I'm not a total fucking jackass.. if you have to you can restore a save from the "appdata\savedgames\soulslike-backup" folder, yes, I backed up some, if not all the saves that are deleted.

Q: Will Hardcore Saves delete all my save files?
A: I lifted the code used to delete ironman saves and modified it slightly. It **should** only delete the saves for the playthrough in which you activated this mod for. That said it is also advised to backup yourselves before hand just incase.

Q: I activated this mod in the middle of a ongoing game and shit isn't working correctly.
A: Yup, there is a big fat warning up near the top that says don't do that.

Q: I have an idea for progression that isn't included in this mod, how do I contact you.
A: Well, the easiest way would be discord. You can join my personal discord (https://discord.gg/HRyCGesuXq) and message me direct at Jabbers#6969. I can also be found live most days on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/jabbers_) so feel free to stop by and say Hi! Additionally you can leave me a message on moddb... although this isn't my preferred communication platform so my response may be slower.

CHANGELOG

Patch 0.28 - 04-Nov-2023

• Fixed a bug where the new "Keep equipped items on death" feature was not working properly

Patch 0.27 - 02-Nov-2023

• Added a new setting for keeping equipped items on death
• Fixed a crash when opening a hidden stash to retrieve your items

Patch 0.23 - 08-May-2023

• Fixed a crash with No Loss scenario
• Fixed a crash when sending a message to the player
• Fixed upgraded knife/axe not staying on the player on respawn
• Removed some excess debug messages

Patch 0.22 - 30-Apr-2023

• Fixed a crash when dying to a psi storm
• Fixed a crash when accessing draftsman_type from fatal hit.
• Fixed invalid community name for mercs
• Added missing spawnable enemy factions to list.
• Added code in the attempt to keep stalker ambushers at the position of the players stash.

Patch 28-Apr-2023

• Respawn events occur based on who killed you, how you were killed, where, how close to your spawn you are when you died, whether you are inside or outside, just to name a few.
• Huge MCM update for settings
• Chance for ambush events where you died (this is very much a work in progress)
• New hidden stash scenario (kind of like RF Detector but marked on the map instead)
• All loot lost to a Stalker is now technically recoverable if you can track them down. (Items can still be lost of the stalker is killed in a level you are not in, or their corpse de-spawns, I am working on a way to address this so expect a fix for this later)
• Food/Drink/Mutant Parts can now be lost to mutants that kill you (As if they were eating it)
• Item loss has a chance of never happening under certain conditions (distance to respawn)
• You will never lose items if you die inside (labs, etc). I still need to figure out what to do here, but item loss doesn't blatantly make sense so for now, nothing happens)
• Rescuer message updated to reflect more dynamic content
• Possibility of Increase number of mutants near where you died dependent on having food/drink/mutant parts in your inventory when you die
• Fixed a crash when checking if you died from a friendly

Patch 19-Apr-2023

• Modified the sleep dialog to allow you to choose to sleep or to set your spawn point when using a bed.
• Fixed a bug that caused the default spawn position not to be set on new game.
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to sleep

Patch 17-Apr-2023

• Implemented as an actual game mode now. Please start a new game to play with this mode.
• Updated RUS Translations (if they are awful, some are done with ChatGPT)

Patch 16-Apr-2023

• Fixed a crash

Patch 15-Apr-2023

• Fixed a mag duplication issue with Mag Redux
• No longer drop quick release
• Fixed radiation effect issue when dying in water
• Added new MCM options to allow/disallow losing various item types
• Added a configurable chance for the players items to be moved to a hidden stash requiring an RF Detector to find them (included dialog on respawn explaining the frequency)
• Added rep loss %
• Added rank loss %

Patch 14-Apr-2023

• Removed debug code that made loss chance 100% all the time. (sorry)
• Added RUS translations