Sound issues and weight limit ideas Thread - L.U.R.K. mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Great work so far, I actually have ranged battles with the NPCs now. Though ironically it's the pistol guys who scare me most, as all missed shots sound the same, and pistol users spam a lot more ammo at you. Maybe give meatier sounds for ground hits to higher muzzle energy rounds?

Anyways, my real issue is player character sound. What you did with NPC sound is great, it sounds good and manly. But the reload sounds are louder than my own gun shooting. And also, the sound of me busting a crate is easily the loudest thing I've heard all game. Kills teh immersion pretty quick. I've got a Creative ExtremeGamer sound card if that helps.

Also, the new ambient zone noises are great, if you added more varied 'almost a person's voice' type sounds into the audio loop it'd be even better.

Also, with the low weight limit most players are going to use stashes and stuff. There's a few problems with this, there's no way to know where your stash is other than memory, so those radio tag things some other mods have would be great. Also, since artifacts no longer do anything, the weight issue is more limiting than it was in previous LURK builds.

The other issue is that it's gonna take sooo damn long for me to move the contents of my stash to a new location. I read this thing in national geographic about the Tibetan tea trading route that existed a thousand years back, they would get people to move a couple hundred pounds of tea on crutches. The guy would walk a few steps under the full weight and then take a break by resting the weight on the crutches. Then another couple steps then rest, etc. You could obviously tweak it till it felt right as pure reality is usually not fun. If you could have that as a suit type, it would cut down on the monotony of multiple trips carrying crap, but still be realistic and balanced since if something takes you by surprise you're pretty much dead since you're unarmed. It would also be pretty suspenseful since you have to think way ahead about if there's going to be trouble and get rid of your walking crutches to clear the way before moving your crap up.

Also, I'm sure you've heard it already, the HDR is overwhelming.

Also, any thoughts on adding thermal vision goggles? Regular NVGs have crap contrast and take forever for me to identify targets. Thermal would be great on a high-end suit, to extend the advantage that can be had from the right gear. Just a thought.

I found that the MP5 smg sounds as it was silenced.
I agree that the NV in LURK sucks.

Well, the MP5 is subsonic with a fairly long barrel (compared to the pistols which also use 9x19). Plus, even the unsuppressed is meant to be quiet I'm pretty sure. TBH I don't mind the MP5 noise, at least it's quite different from everything else.

angrysasquatch wrote: Well, the MP5 is subsonic with a fairly long barrel (compared to the pistols which also use 9x19). Plus, even the unsuppressed is meant to be quiet I'm pretty sure. TBH I don't mind the MP5 noise, at least it's quite different from everything else.

So what? The PP-19 Bizon is subsonic as well, and it's louder than the MP5 in-game. That ain't an excuse, any SMG should sound loud when unsuppresed. If you want them to be quiet, that's why the suppresor is.

Suppressors are too available for my likes, kind of makes LURK more mil-sim instead of survival oriented, as initial STALKER was. As does "the bandit jacket isn't even given stats and the normal jacket is removed" bit. I don't like the new nightvision, makes no difference between basic and advanced and again, makes it seem more militaryish instead of survival. I miss my early-game treks through the zone with only my shotgun and my flashlight

Here's a few picture of issues I took today:

All of these guns float above the user's hands

Train track fill textures could use some sort of gradient, since you've got gravel merging into thick grass and they will mix. Could actually make the rail fill a bit overgrown, since it's been 20ish years since last use.

Taken from a ways back to show how intrusive the last issue looks. This is obviously a pretty nitpicky issue so it's not all that important.

In the poorly drawn rectum there is a open window that appears black, all windows do at a distance (max settings).

Same window, same player position and heading, just zoomed in with rifle.

Blood textures look really weird for some reason. Assuming it's a decal, maybe transparency issues? IDK.

There was also another thing where the arena would look weird on certain weather cycles. As the camera is doing its zoom in thing to look at the arena at the start of the match, there was fog that looked really unrealistic. I'll take an image if I see it again.

Apart from the graphics issues, I had a few more thoughts:

Rifle sway: this can get really annoying. I understand that it's needed with the accurate weapons, but it can be downright irritating if you're trying to pick off some guy. I remember in Metal Gear Solid, you could take pentazamin (I think that's how you spell it) to steady and calm yourself. My suggestion is to add pentazamins as items which temporarily decrease sway, and as a downside can blur your vision (as it's a muscle relaxant) or decrease your carry weight or make you run slow or have some addiction mechanic, or any combination of the above.

ACOG scopes: who hates them as much as I do? They are so fricin useless to aim compared to the PSO-1. And for some reason the other NATO gun scope (fits the m16A1 IIRC) looks the exact same. I can see the acog type illuminated being good for night use maybe, but it pales to the pso in terms of usefulness in the daytime. As a result of this, I am actively avoiding all 5.56 calibre guns because I hate it so much. I suggest you add another standard looking scope to attach to all nato mount weapons, so you can choose between the two.

Iron sights: most are useless. I had major issues keeping a bead on targets while sighted in, and since they're pretty much always moving, it makes it even worse. The only good iron sights I've used are on the AK-103 (used this even after I got a 5.45 with better stats because of the sights), the bofors and the abakan. All SK-47 variants suck, cheaper AK-74 variants suck, etc. And then once you do get the scopes, there's a massive reduction (at least 5x for me) in ammo expenditure per kill. With the weight limit, this is a big frickin deal for balance. I suggest giving traders new iron sights to sell, or giving them the means to effectively take a hacksaw to the extraneous bits of the sight. At the moment there is just too large of a jump between scope users and sight users.

Bloodsuckers are way too low damage, the reason they were scary was because getting caught by one with your pants down was a big deal in vanilla. In LURK they try to tickle you to death, I had 2 beating on me in the abandoned village and in the time it took for me to kill them (2 mags), they had me down to 3/4 health.

Pistol spam. There is no way that anyone would fire at 2 rounds per second at any kind of range, yet bandits do it all day long. It makes sense for close quarters though. I suggest you make the fire rate decrease as range to target increases, and increase AI pistol accuracy accordingly.

angrysasquatch wrote: Rifle sway: this can get really annoying...

I've posted this before, but you can go ahead and edit the weapon sway yourself.

rayndeon wrote: Before getting into weapon sway, let's talk about weapon dispersion. Rounds tend to disperse from your point of aim and that's fine and all, but they could be tweaked a bit. Go to gamedata/config/creatures and copy and paste actor.ltx somewhere else and open it up.

The first thing you should probably change is the whole height issue. Set camera_height_factor to 0.91 to no longer be so short.

Now look at the factors:

disp_base: base bullet dispersiom when aiming without the sights
disp_aim: base bullet dispersion when using the sights
disp_vel_factor: modifies dispersion when walking 10 mph
disp_accel_factor: modifies dispersion when running
disp_crouch_factor: modifies dispersion when crouching
disp_crouch_no_acc_factor: modifies dispersion when crouching and still
disp_jump_factor: modifies dispersion when jumping

I've got it set up as

disp_base = 4.0
disp_aim = 0.01
disp_vel_factor = 0.5
disp_accel_factor = 3.0
disp_crouch_factor = -0.4
disp_crouch_no_acc_factor = -0.7
disp_jump_factor = 8.0

Basically, you have difficult hitting things without the sights, you've got excellent accuracy with the sights, you can hit things reasonably well when moving slowly, you are significantly worse when running, you are better when crouching, and you absolutely suck when jumping. Fairly realistic.

Save the edited file and overwrite the original actor.ltx with it.

Note that each individual weapon has their own dispersion values, so you will still see some amount of dispersion unless you decide to overhaul those too.

As far as weapons sway, that's in gamedata/config/misc. Look for effectors.ltx, make a copy of it and past to wherever. Edit it elsewhere and overwrite the original later.

Look for a series of factors under zoom inertion_effector. You have

camera_move_epsilon: This determines the maximum distance the sights will sway
disp_min: This determines the minimum distance the sights will sway
speed_min: This determines the minimum speed of sway and mouse sensitivity
zoom_aim_disp_k: This shifts the distance of sway
zoom_aim_speed_k: This shifts the speed of the sway
delta_time: Sets a limit on each sway cycle before swaying to a new direction

There are lots of different values you could try out. For almost no sway, you could try

camera_move_epsilon = 0.009
disp_min = 0.001
speed_min = 0.004
zoom_aim_disp_k = 0.015
zoom_aim_speed_k = 0.002
delta_time = 2550

Gentle sway

camera_move_epsilon = 0.03
disp_min = 0.0
speed_min = 0.0
zoom_aim_disp_k = 0.7
zoom_aim_speed_k = 0.0
delta_time = 1000

Even less sway

camera_move_epsilon = 0.05
disp_min = 0.001
speed_min = 0.8
zoom_aim_disp_k = 0.14
zoom_aim_speed_k = 0.08
delta_time = 4000

After that, save the edited file and overwrite the original effectors.ltx with it.

To add to your idea of pentazemin, I would suggest the ability to hold one's breath - draining stamina - to steady the sights.

Someone wrote: ACOG scopes: who hates them as much as I do? They are so fricin useless to aim compared to the PSO-1. And for some reason the other NATO gun scope (fits the m16A1 IIRC) looks the exact same...

You can edit the scope textures for the NATO scope:

rayndeon wrote: Go to gamedata\config\weapons\addons and find scope1.ltx, copy and paste it somewhere else, and open it with Notepad. Find the line scope_texture. There should be two. It should Arsenal_Mod\Crosshairs\scope_acog and Arsenal_Mod\crosshairs\scope2 . Change it to wpn\wpn_crosshairs_m4. Save and overwrite onto original.

Iron sights: most are useless...

I agree. But that would come down to either editing the textures for the individual weapons to accommodate better sights, or perhaps create a series of addon "scopes" that would actually be replaceable iron sights. I don't think we can expect either too soon in future updates.

Pistol spam. There is no way that anyone would fire at 2 rounds per second at any kind of range, yet bandits do it all day long. It makes sense for close quarters though. I suggest you make the fire rate decrease as range to target increases, and increase AI pistol accuracy accordingly.

Firing like that should be acceptable out to 25, or pushing it, 40 yards. Beyond that, I agree. The main problem is that the AI seems to automatically know where you are when discovered (unless you hide behind a tree or bushes - at which point not even bumping into you can reveal your location) and this can be especially seen in mods where AI can throw grenades. Conveniently enough, all of them will land EXACTLY at your last known location - STALKER seems to have trouble giving nuance to its AI, so it's not really LURK's fault so much so as working within the boundaries of the engine.

I know the sway can be modified, but I like it the way it is for normal stuff.

Holding breath would be nice, but part of me just doesn't like it. The way it was implemented in COD, being as good as a bench mount just isn't the way I want it. But decreasing it, that could be good. But it should be still have some pretty good sway when holding breath, even make the stock sway greater than it is now. But if the sway is decreased too much, it feels cheap. However, making those long shots is really required sometimes. So adding pentazamins to further augment the sway decrease would be good, as you're actually expending something in order to make yourself a great shooter.

Good to hear the scope textures can be changed, I'm just saying it would be nice to have a few variants of scope you can attach to a given weapon.

I think it could be done if the stock iron sights are not part of the weapon model, but are automatically attached to any regular weapon without a scope or new sights. Then the fancy sights could override the stock sight attachment. Or even just make the assumption that all stalkers have the improvised means to modify their weapons in the field, and all higher end weapons come with the sights modified for use in the zone.

I wouldn't think it would be too hard to modify the AI to that, just say when range < 10m, fire rate 100%, 10m < range < 30 m, fire rate 70%, etc; and then say full auto fire rate= rpm of weapon, and semi fire rate 120 rpm.

I think holding breath could be balanced by rapidly draining stamina. So that the longer you hold it, the steadier you become, but likewise, you lose more stamina.

As far as iron sights, that sounds like a pretty good idea. Since the sights will functionally be scopes, it should be supported in the config architecture as well. The only question is to make textures for it.

As far as I understand, the AI in STALKER is pretty hard to program. Part of the solution GSC took was to implement hit rate probabilities, but thankfully LURK dispensed with all that. Nonetheless, I don't think the solution to the fast-firing, super-accurate AI will be as easy as that unfortunately... perhaps one could define a hit rate probability for AI only that is progressively increased as range increases - and that increases to nearly 100% if the AI should stop and fire accurately.

A few more things I noticed playing today:

In X18 (the one in yantar), the fancy heal suit is just a ssp-99, which gets you 10000 if you give it to the yantar trader guy as part of the job, or 69999 if you sell it to him. Also, X18 is way too easy, I don't think I got shot once doing it. The zombies are so dumb you can one-shot every one of them, no pressure. Also, on the way back from yantar, there were mercs shooting up dogs, there was stutter about every second. So during one of these stutter periods, a merc snuck up on me and I was dead when I came back from it. I can notice the longer load times, but as far as I can tell, the stutter is just as bad as it always was. Just for reference, this is with 4gb of 1066 ddr2 ram, 2x500 gb 7200.12's in raid 0 and win7 x64. Does anybody know, does a good SSD completely get rid of stutter? Also, I completed the regular arena stuff about 1 game day ago, and now arnie just said the arena will be open in 48 hrs. Is there a reason for this other than making it work with the context of needing to find organisers and contestants? It's a bit annoying to have to wait so long to actually see the new arena.

Something else just occured to me. My armour is pretty much always in shambles, yet I have 300k roubles. I fix t up at every opportunity, yet I just stay in the zone too long I guess. But since the price to repair varies depending on the cost of the item, you can't just re-implement repair kits or it would be unbalanced. Why not assign each armour and weapon a tech level, and then you need to have a tech level of the item or greater of repair kit to fix it up in the field. And the repair kits end up being about twice as expensive as what a trader could fix it for.
eg. I have a bandit jacket, cost 6000, tech level 1. It would cost 500 to fix it up from red, and a level 1 repair kit is 1000. I could therefore fix it up with a level 1 repair kit, or anything higher than that (>1 tech level), but that would be wasting money since a level 2 kit is 2000.
This would give the player something to spend his money on, and still be balanced.

Hey gr8 mod!But I have an issue..when i move the camera or the gun in a particular direction,the camera overshoots and gives a drunkyard effect.....anyway to fix this?

I carry a customized Makarov, since I loved that gun in the first game and a real mak doesn't have the shitty stats they gave it. IRL, it is very accurate and reliable. My changes to the weapon are as follows:
12 round magazine
reliability overhaul(changed misfire_probability from 0.015 to 0.00005)
Accuracy(change fire_dispersion_base to 0.90, and cam_dispersion to 1.15, cam_relax_speed to 25) This gives it an accuracy of 7/10 instead of 1/10

I am also liking the Saiga 12, I carry that and an AKM and my trusty Makarov.

angrysasquatch wrote: I know the sway can be modified, but I like it the way it is for normal stuff.

Holding breath would be nice, but part of me just doesn't like it. The way it was implemented in COD, being as good as a bench mount just isn't the way I want it. But decreasing it, that could be good. But it should be still have some pretty good sway when holding breath, even make the stock sway greater than it is now. But if the sway is decreased too much, it feels cheap. However, making those long shots is really required sometimes. So adding pentazamins to further augment the sway decrease would be good, as you're actually expending something in order to make yourself a great shooter.

Doesn't feel cheap to me, I used Rayndeon's post with almost no scope sway, and love the game ever since. I have been shooting for years, and crouched, I barely have any scope sway with a rifle. The massive scope sway and no recoil compensation really surprised me when I first started playing this game. For a game that pushes realism, both of those are shitty and unrealistic. You can, as a shooter, autocompensate for recoil by your position with the weapon. When I shoot, the sights automatically return to their former position, in real life.

the new sway options are at Gamedata/config/Misc/effectors.ltx in lurk i believe.
from what i've seen.