Mutant Diversity... Thread - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Chernobyl mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

I'm dearly hoping that someone's open to the idea of releasing a version of this mod or creating an addon for it that incorporates a broader range of mutant types throughout the Zone. It would help to keep it interesting and deepen the sense of immersion.

There's a mod out there that has done a TERRIFIC job of diversifying the mutants, Novaja Mutacija. I can't emphasize how GREAT this mod is. ferr-um's work goes so far as diversify dog packs - they're now made up of mixed BREEDS of dogs - wow, that really increases the sense of immersion! He also has tarks, mutated horses, in it! My only complaint is that the cats are insanely powerful. One hit equals instant death. I strongly advise to try his mod to see the wonderful work he did there with diversifying the mutant population. The mutant encounters are well setup in this mod. Stalker-mods.clan.su

Most of my links to reference possible alternate mutants and creatures comes from this list here: Stalker-mods.clan.su

Not all of the mutants found there should be used though, as some of the animations assigned to them look awful. For example, the spiders from Metro move far too slow - they could probably work if their animation speeds were doubled, and the Librarian creature from Metro has the Izlom's animations assigned to it, and they thus look awkward and are way too slow.

I have TWO main concepts for applying greater diversity to the Zone.

Here's how I'm thinking about the FIRST one...

~~~Zone Diversity Based on Location~~~

This is the simplest one to explain. Essentially, the more strongly affected by the Zone a location is, the more powerful the mutant becomes, and its appearance changes radically from the default game. The further out one travels from this high intensity locations, the more "normal" looking the mutants appear, and the less powerful they become.

Ideally, the boundaries between mutant types would be somewhat "soft." For example, tushkano might be more prominent the closer one gets to the Sarcophagus, but regular rats would still be encountered, just not as densely. And maybe by the time one arrives at the Radar and Sarcophagus maps, even tushkano might be rare, as large cockroaches are tough enough to thrive there, and thus dominate the landscape more than the tushkano.
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~~~Zone Diversity Based on Stage of Evolution~~~

Snork - the default snork has most of its equipment on. I'd concentrate their presence in the labs and in/around buildings. Their equipment is as intact as it is because they're able to find shelter.

This snork Stalker-mods.clan.su has certainly seen better days. Its clothing has worn away, and it has lost its mask. Why? These snorks rarely inhabit buildings, and are thus open to the environment and its menaces. This version of the snork is much more frequently seen outside.
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Flesh - use this flesh model Stalker-mods.clan.su as a male counterpart to the default flesh. It would be 15-25% larger, proportionately tougher, strike and bite harder, and be a bit faster than the default fleshes.
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Bloodsuckers - I was never satisfied by the depiction of the explanation of how the bloodsuckers were created: a human victim imprisoned inside of a glass tube and with the scientist's pushing of some buttons on a control panel and *magically* and instantaneously we had a complete bloodsucker standing before us. I'm very happy that this sequence was cut from the game, as there was no believable transformation depicted. Well, we could now drop strong hints to the player of a drawn out process.

What if the transformed human victim first came out looking like this? Stalker-mods.clan.su He'd be a little taller than a normal human, have not as much health as a fully transformed bloodsucker, but he would be faster in every way. His speed would make him deadly.

The next stage in the bloodsucker's evolution would be this (the creature with the diminutive mouth tentacles and the gray "cocoon" like skin): Stalker-mods.clan.su It would be a little taller than the previous version, could take a couple of more bullets, but would be slightly slower. What would be REALLY cool is if players could gain a randomized mission where a bloodsucker HIVE was discovered, and inside of it were 4-10 of these cocooned bloodsuckers. They could be put into a stiff pose, perhaps a fetal position. The player's task would be to destroy all of them, BUT the hive is active with patrolling "fresh" bloodsuckers (the first one I listed above), and watched over by several that have just left the cocooned stage (see the next listing below).

The stage after this one could be this: Stalker-mods.clan.su Newly "hatched" from its last "cocoon" like form, it's taller, healthier, hits harder, but would be slower than its previous form.

The default bloodsucker would be the largest in size, strongest in strength and health, but also the slowest. There are numerous skins of this bloodsucker available - we could use those to add to the diversity as well.
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Burers that stay sheltered inside of labs don't need their rotting cloaks to protect them. They thus look like this instead...
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Dogs would evolve upward to this version...
Stalker-mods.clan.su They could also be made up of mixed breeds of dogs, as is readily found in the great Novaja Mutacija mod.
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Chimeras evolve into this...
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Controllers would be present in three evolutionary forms.

The first, is a "young" controller. His powers aren't as powerful as the default original. Who knows, maybe he behaves more like a burer...?
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The next form up is the default controller.

It then evolves into this. Not only does he look more powerful, he IS more powerful, with his abilities having greater range, greater control over more powerful creatures, and with greater health...
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More zombie types. Please avoid any meshes that are just walking skeletons, unless they can exist within the deepest bowels of the Exclusion Zone...
Stalker-mods.clan.su Once again, I strongly suggest seeing what the great Novaja Mutacija mod has done with zombies. ferr-um strongly mixed up the range of individual zombies, and mixed them up thoroughly. He even has zombies that have missing limbs.
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Where the Psy Field is insanely powerful, we get to encounter the toughest, fiercest and most bizarre forms of mutation. Crazy things happen here! "Normal" mutants are very rare here, as their most advanced brethern rule here!

Monsters such as these...
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The above has a TARK...!
..or this...
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Blind "dogs" are now this...
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A controller who's central nervous system is barely all it has anymore. That said, it has more range, can control more creatures (even advanced burers!)...
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A Psy Field poltergyst...
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Snorks have had their appearance change to be more "mushroom" and "tumor" like, see here...
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A electro-charged chimera...
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This package of different chimeras is a mixed bag. My favorite version, is the one without any spikes...
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Tushkano can't make it in the Psy Field, but these cockroaches can...
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The Metro mutants could permanently occupy the Heart of the Zone, and maybe a few more neighboring locations. Maybe they could appear in smaller numbers after a blowout or Psy Storm...?
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A young super-evolved Psy Field burer...?
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Contrast can really add to the believabilty of the environment one is in. Throughout the Zone, we could also rarely encounter mostly normal animals, such as...

Wolves...
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Dobermans...
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Bears...
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Mutated forms of the above (with grotesque skins) could also appear in the Zone, as could this...
Chimera-Wolf...
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That's all of the time that I can devote to starting this thread. I strongly believe that the community would love an increase in the diversification of the mutant population.

Surprised someone does make it an addon. CoC has borya but it's not add to any respawners.

Edited by: Alundaio

Thanks for the heads up on these models , they look amazing in game, btw i am working on a mutant pack for CoC.

Wolf Model Pack - Moddb.com .

Sry, Wolf Model Pack v1.0 - Moddb.com .

Thank you for the link to your mod, as I can't wait to try it.

I'm happy to hear that you tried out the Novaja Mutacija mod, as it's amazingly well done.

I believe that the mod's creator, ferr-um, just released another mod that's similar. I'm too busy now to try it out to see how it's different.

ferr-um has wolves in that mod too, although they're initially very rare to encounter. I dearly wish that someone would port over the mutants from that mod to CoC, it does SO much extremely well. I don't like the very low light level conditions though, and the one-hit-and-your-dead-cats have to have their damage stats changed, as they're the most dangerous mutant in the Zone!

Novaja Mutacija seems to have all of the original mutants left in the mod as well. I don't know how he did it, adding all of those new mutants, and maintaining the old ones as well.

I love his creature selection for the pseudodog. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's frightening to see and encounter. The packs of mixed-breeds dogs is very effective at deepening immersion.

Yeah, that mod's approach towards diversifying mutants, zombies, and the new equipment for NPCs, is really something to experience. Almost feels like a whole new game with its more realistic approach. Makes it much scarier in my opinion.

Thanks, added some mutants here - Moddb.com .

What? You did?

*checks link*

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!

This is what we need - definitely!

THANK YOU for putting the time and sweat to making this possible!

Hi, could someone provide a download link for Novaja Mutacija? It looks very interesting but all I'm getting from that site are links that want to add extensions to my browser.

Novaja Mutacija - Yadi.sk .

Thank you so much!

Is anyone else getting this error?

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : file_handle_internal(file_name, *buffer_size, file_handle)
[error]Function : FileDownload
[error]File : D:\prog_repository\sources\trunk\xrCore\FS.cpp
[error]Line : 169
[error]Description : can't open file :
[error]Arguments : c:\games\steam\steamapps\common\stalker call of pripyat\gamedata\configs\text\rus\????? string_table_enc_mutants.xml

I'm sorry that I can't assist you with your error, as I have had no issues with running the mod.

Just so you know, I did have all kinds of web issues when using Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer on the site that I supplied a link to. That said, Opera works GREAT with said site. I'm not joking, but with Opera, I can have over 25 tabs opened up and have almost no performance issues. None of the other internet browsers can do that.

Do you have an account setup with Stalker-mods.clan.ru...? Accessing files for downloading purposes wasn't an issue as long as I was logged in.

For when you get it running, I want to warn you a bit about Novaja Mutacija:

(1.) The cats are ridiculously quiet and overpowered. They are nearly impossible to hear, and they will kill you with one hit. They are THE most powerful creature in the game, and nothing else comes close. You MUST kill the cats first. Get to high ground as fast as you can, and scan the region with your binoculars for them.

(2.) After the very first blowout, the area around the Skadovsk will be SWARMED with HORDES of mutants. You will NOT be able to explore the Zaton map at all till the hordes are greatly thinned. The best tactic is to get on the tugboat and kill anything close, and then rush out to loot their corpses as much as possible. The harvested organs can generate a decent enough income to pay for weapon repairs and ammunition. It took me over three hours' to see the hordes thinned enough that I could explore the rest of the map. Novaja Mutacija is a HARD mod. Don't plan on going out to wipe out the mercs at the water station without taking a lot of ammunition with you. My supply was just under half by the time I got to the walls surrounding the site due to all of the mutants I had to kill on the way.

(3.) You need to manually reduce the corpse stay time. By default, the mod has it set to a ridiculously high number, and the quantity of corpses is going to severely impact your computer's performance. It was easy to find an online guide on how to do this. I set my corpse timer to last 6 hours and had no performance issues afterward.

I got it to work. Just deleted the localization.ltx file in Gamedata\configs.

And YES, YES, YES...you're right about those bloody cats!

Mutants Model Pack #2, including the spider - Moddb.com .

Hegel - I'm happy that you got it running on your system. That mod is a TREAT, but those Cats are a major curse. I wonder why ferr-um released them that way.

Thales - what can I say that I haven't already said in the comments section to the release of your second pack of mutant models? Just look at how many fans are thrilled with what you're doing.

Terrific work, and thanks again.

Wait for the next release, you will get stumped.

From Thales:

Wait for the next release, you will get stumped.

I'm shaking in anticipation...!

Can't wait!

:-D

Ive sent you a pm Kyle.

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Has anyone seen or heard anything from thales? It's been a very long time, and I'm worried.