New Game Loadouts+ by SilkySmooth addon - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

NEW GAME LOADOUTS+

TL;DR The goal of this addon is to give the player more options for new game loadouts, with story, free-play, warfare, and iron man modes in mind. NOT friendly with the Invictus achievement. README has info about manually patching this to be compatible with BaS, it's not very hard if you have both new_game_loadouts.ltx files, just copy-pasting lines and adding the BaS weapon sections.

Feedback is welcome but if I get complaints that it makes the game too easy because you have the option to start with a nice weapon, I will recommend uninstalling the addon or using a PM, since forcing difficulty is not my goal. On the other hand, if I get specific feedback like "this weapon seems underpriced", I will be more likely to consider addressing it in an update, since meaningful choices ARE my goal.

FACTION CHOICE

The faction and equipment that the player picks should have a noticeable impact on the possibilities of the first in-game week. Factions have different strengths and are generally geared towards the playstyle that the faction embodies.

LONERS, CLEAR SKY and FREEDOM have a little bit of everything: decent equipment, decent tech, decent firepower.
MILITARY and DUTY field simple, clean-cut grunt loadouts. Well-suited for straightforward missions like mutant hunts and assaults on stalker camps before retiring back to base.
MERCS and MONOLITH live up to their reputation as dangerously well-armed killers, with access to a wide variety of starting weapons and equipment.
ECOLOGISTS are a notable outlier, with immediate access to a Svarog detector for enthusiastic artefact hunters, and a suite of high-tier meds at a discount.
BANDIT and RENEGADES are roughly armed with scant provisions, and are best served by finding some hapless stalkers and taking their things by force.

Highly-organized/Paramilitary factions start with PDA 2.0, this is by design. PDA 1.0 is cheap at traders if you don't like it, maybe I'll make it an option in the next version.

POINT PRICES

Almost all point prices are completely rebalanced to more accurately reflect the practical value of items. Most notably, food and drinks have their point costs roughly tied to both calories and radiation removal, and healing items are logically priced based on their effects and intensity.

All factions start with 5000 rubles, and excess points (up to 1000) can be traded in for rubles, by buying the "Stack of Soviet rubles" items. 'Large Stack'=1000-5000, 'Stack'=900-1000, 'Small Stack'=400-500. Tooltips are less specific to be more consistent with vanilla and for flavor, but are somewhat accurate and coincidentally also applied to the money you loot off of stalkers.

HOBO OR HOBON'T?

Even on Survivalist, starting with a PM and 2 bandages to your name is completely optional. With the idea the player should have parity with an AI rookie stalker, any faction has access to a selection of 9 cheap 'surplus' weapons, with additional choices of more expensive, generally nicer faction weapons.

Faction weapons are usually at least twice as expensive as their surplus counterparts, with quality to justify the price. Every weapon is available on every Progression Difficulty, and although most high-end faction weapons are a bargain compared to buying them from traders, on Survivalist you will have to sacrifice most other options to pick them.

To "balance" this, a CBT enthusiast can start with little else but a PDA and novice armor if one so chooses. I'm not the Difficulty Police, so do what you want. Throw it all on the ground, see if I care.

RECENT VERSION CHANGELOG

v1.4
-price lowered on survival kits
-added survival kit to ecolog list
-added 1 extra og-7b rocket grenade to army list, 100 points
-various price changes
-added unique tooltip to the coins version of rubles

TO DO

-adjust starting ammo amounts/quality per weapon
-fine-tune prices against the ruble values of items to minimize cheese
-consider adding more equipment like attachments
-Pray to the Lord that I can find an intuitive way to handle the money system
-MAYBE patch for BaS. I don't use it but if I have time I'll think about it.