🌺[1.5.0] Project Kaos v2🌺 addon

Thanks for the reply, been using it for about 10 hrs and oh boy..it works! Looks like Monolith has been recruiting. Thanks for the work, cheers!

Hah! If it wasn't for mods like this, I would have stopped playing Anomaly already.

Thanks again for making this wonderful mod. Now I just need to upgrade my cpu to handle all the carnage. :D

Okay I wish I could downvote myself here. I jumped the gun by saying how flawless it runs. Just to correct this misleading information, the mod does introduce some severe stability issues in some levels. Most notably the following:

Army Warehouses
Jupiter
Zaton
Outskirts

Despite this, I still cannot play without it. For anyone else with a similar preference, I recommend deleting the mod files at times when you need to access problem areas. Doing this allows those levels to load, but the increased spawns will actually remain.

Your mileage may vary, but most of the zone runs pretty well, albeit with some intense lag here and there.

Okay, the issue seems to be that corpses won't despawn until another spawn is triggered- In this case there was a massive group of monolith that spawned in front of my eyes (about 30) As soon as they spawned in, all other corpses disappeared.

So it doesn't matter what body release is set to, the corpse issue in Limansk is linked to some sort of spawn resource.

Using the same settings in Red forest the corpses despawn in front of my eyes about 100 meters away.

More intriguing is that after killing that massive monolith spawn in Limansk the lag stopped even though there were about 50-60 fresh corpses around the same area. I'm guessing this is a resource issue inherent to the engine itself and/or the spawn resource system it uses.

Either way I need a more powerful computer if I wish to continue farming in Limansk.

Currently playing at 1 for stalker and 0.25 for mutants. Zaton's Skadovsk is under attack from Monolith at the time of writing this, surrounded by arround 60-80 guys with all manner of weaponry, explosions every few seconds, it's freaking war out here. I would only get crasher in Jupiter because of mutant spawns, so far I encountered a dozen of bloodsuckers, five controllers and 7 pseudogiants - all in packs in Jupiter.

While I'm hesitant to take Mutant spawns down so low just to pump Stalkers up, it sounds like it may be the answer if you're still getting that many showing up in Jupiter. I guess I'll give that a try for now.

Actually, scratch that. Even at 0.25 for mutants and 0.50 for NPCs, Jupiter's still constantly crashing on new games. I might need to learn how to edit these files myself and relax initial spawns.

Has the Mod author tried this out in all overland zones? And what are their personal/recommended Population Factor settings for this? I'm curious to know.

I also just realized that I have Offline Combat turned off completely. Maybe I wanna turn this on so they start reducing their numbers on their own a good bit?

Sometimes, different factions spawn in the same spot and they do not attack each other, unless I get close to them. But once I do, it's FUBAR :D

I'm still working through various areas. Army Warehouses is still crashing for me, so I assume Jupiter & Zaton is still a no-go. Have you managed to try Radar or Red Forest yet? We oughta build a list of various maps that $#!t the bed with this mod so we know where to focus on.

Army warehouses, radar and Jupiter started to crash when I move between those locations. Too many spawns take over of one particular faction. Army Warehouses - filled with Freedom, Radar - Monolith, Jupiter - mutants. Red forest is going smooth, no problems in Zaton.

Yeah, it definitely sounds like there's something a bit more screwy than just the increased spawns.

I should try removing Kaos as well and see what becomes accessible.

I don't think a lite-version is required, we have Living Zone. Although the mod doesn't make your zone chaotic as Kaos, but it still makes your whole entire map intensely populated with both Stalkers and Mutants occupying their respecting territories. Although I do believe a fix is required though, for those who want a more chaotic and alive experience.

Damn, I was hoping Outskirts would be small enough. Guess not. So that's ALL outdoor CoP areas. That's kind of a big deal.

Don't forget to turn Offline Combat to Full if you can, as it should theoretically allow other zones to fight enemies within, to hopefully reduce numbers. No telling how long it might take in an ongoing playthrough to be enough, though.

Hmm, I had offline combat on smart terrains for 50 or so hours during my Bandit/Merc games. I eventually turned it off to get better performance as I thought it only affected the zone you were currently in.

So offline combat extends to all other cells ?

I have reason to suspect that it's a bug or poorly written code that causes these load failures- As even entry points with very little AI can still fail. Notably Jupiter on 0.25 density didn't have a single entity near it's entry point, no surrounding fights either, but would still fail intermittently.

I also believe that this problem is inherited and/or compounded by the existing spawn parameters in Anomaly itself. Density setting appears to have very little effect in some areas- ie: I am still seeing massive spawns of mutants at 0.25/0,25- identical to what I encountered with 0.5/1.0, whereas other zones seem relatively desolate. So perhaps it's possible that these freakishly large spawns already exist by default, only to be amplified by Kaos to the point of failure.

The above was concluded with a new game with density set prior to game start. So no natural selection delays.

Wow, THAT bad for you? I can get it to work on every map south of Army Warehouses, but I'm tired of being stuck so far down there.

How far this mod lets you go might depend heavily on how good your rig is. Assuming the mod's working just fine of course. For all we know, Nekobanana might have a pretty good PC.

It's time to start considering other options. Is anyone aware of any method to allow Anomaly or modern Stalker executables in general to utilize more RAM? Kinda like the Large Address Aware patch for back in the day?

Also, we gotta get Nekobanana's attention. I don't think they've checked in in almost 2 weeks.

I founded a solution to fixing the "Loading crash" bug, but it's quite questionable. I used the debug menu to delete all common squads, to effectively reduce the Stalker population in all of the areas around Cordon. STALKER unfortunately does not have any NPC limits, and will not delete any more entities even though the program is reaching its limits. Depending on your settings, Kaos in a few or more in-game hours should replace the common stalkers, reverting the game back to normal. This is a temporary solution to fixing the game until someone uploads a mod that has Stalker and Mutant limitations.

I discovered and contemplated that route as well yesterday night. At first, I'd hoped that it'd be the temporary fix I Was looking for, but not only did it delete "common" squads, but also the guide at the Bar that I was gonna use to fast travel to the other zones. It seemed like it deleted way more than just plain expendable NPCs, and caused loads of quests to instantly fail.

As much as I've hated to face it, I've deleted the mod entirely for now until a dialed down version is released. A shame, I was really looking forward to just how insane the X Labs could be, but I'll hold off for now. Since the mod can work on existing playthroughs, I'll probably get far into one before trying it again.

Meanwhile, I'mma try messaging Nekobanana direct and see if he notices soon.

1. Well, I have needed to upgrade for a while, but I'm not -that- bad off.
2. Has this mod been working for you in every outdoor zone in the game? And do you have any edits or tricks to enabling the game to utilize more RAM?
3. Currently learning how to do so now. I think the big problem however is #4, since....
4. ...the Anomaly Launcher won't let us do that. If the alife.ltx is altered whatsoever, even changing just that switch distance digit, the launcher can't detect/recognize it, and the game will fail to launch altogether. It's a strange issue, as lowering the switch distance is probably the easiest solution, so why can't we do it?

It would be a nice mod request for someone to either make a entity limiter that limits the spawn of NPCs, Mutants and delete recently spawned expendable NPCs that go higher than the threshold or a liter version of this mod.

Neko, It's not that we are too lazy to tweak the mod values, it's more that we don't understand the impact of such changes like you do. As such, we have little chance of pin-pointing the actual problem.

I'm not asking for a complete rewrite of your mod, but perhaps you could revise the entries in problem areas that a lot of us struggle to load. Or failing that, would you kindly instruct us how best to adjust the values.

If it is, as you say, just a matter of tweaking the counts and pops (assuming that's what you mean by lowering) I will give it another try.
I had already attempted this, but failed to realize the effects would take a long time to register due to it being an existing save.

Lastly, sorry to be a pest and for possibly flooding your page with useless fluff. I am just desperate to get your mod working correctly.

I feel you. The game without this mod is depressingly empty.

I'd recommend you to install Living Zone Non Stop and increase the spawn rates. In my experiences with this addon, it got chaotic with shootings everywhere and mutant attacks but surprisingly I haven't seen no crashes. It should act as the best substitute to Kaos until Neko fixes it.

Daniel, why don't you try and fix the spawn values for the broken zones, e.g. Army Warehouse and upload it. I don't think there's a risk of copyright, because this mod was essentially rewrites of AI Spawns. I cannot do it because i'm not experienced with modding at all.

I don't mind uploading the modified files, at least in the form of a googledrive link, if that is okay with Neko of course.

Thing is, I still have no confirmation that my edits have even fixed the issue, not yet anyway.

So far I have tweaked every spawn for Army warehouses, Jupiter, Pripyat/Outskirts and Zaton- which for me were the most problematic.

If you want I can PM you with a googledrive link. But at this point I can't guarantee what I have done will help at all. Though it would be helpful to have another pair of eyeballs for testing.

Also, Neko, if you are still reading this- I may have found an issue with a Jupiter file "jup_a12_merc" it seems to be missing the entry for maximum population. Maybe it's intended I don't know.

If you don't mind, can you please send the modified file so I can test it out myself?

Jeremy, I posted the link on your profile 22 hours ago, along with a private message.

Despite lowering spawns dramatically (up to 40% for some squads) I'm still having stability issues around Army warhouses, though performance is markedly better now.

While Army loaded fine the first time, loading saves made within the area produced random failures.

I guess the next logical step is to lower spawns further or even remove some entirely.

So squads without a max pop parameter don't spawn at all ?

I was afraid that this would cause them to spawn exponentially.