Hip Questions and Comments Thread - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

I have some questions and comments about Hip.

-Can she rank up by making kills? And if she can, will it affect her stats?

-Is there no way to directly manage her weapons load out? As with any other NPC, she seems to collect weapons she finds (even though I haven't enabled that in her dialog), and equips the most expensive weapon appropriate to her range from the enemy.

The problem with this is weapons don't seem to show up in her inventory management screen, so I can't take away weapons that are in bad shape or that she doesn't need. In my game she's currently stuck with an assault rifle that constantly seems to jam on her.

The only way I've found to get her to use a good weapon is to buy one, trick it out so that it's very expensive, then drop it at her feet. But I can't take it back if I want her to use something else, and of course she's still weighed down with all the other weapons she has picked up.

-I feel like her AI is still a bit too aggressive even when told to only attack if we are attacked first. I'm often walking along, only to suddenly hear gun fire and notice that her tracker says she's far away and taking damage. She's almost managed to get herself killed a few times that way.

-Either her pathfinding could use some improvement, or maybe she could simply get teleported back to the player if she gets more that 100 meters away. She often seems to get left behind if I sprint because she won't cross some terrain that is perfectly passable for the player. She also seems to be unwilling to follow beyond certain points in the X-Labs. I don't know if that's intentional or not.

This is the first time I have ever bothered using a follower in a Stalker game, and it certainly adds a new element. I think the mechanics of it just need a little more tweaking.

1. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure NPCs have a set rank.
2. --------------------
3. "Only attack if attacked first" means "Anything hostile to you will be attacked on sight", attack on site is depending on who is hostile to your companion. (Ex, if you're a Freedom, Hip will still attack Bandits and Mercs, if you set Hip to defensive mod they'll only attack Monolith & Military because those your shared Enemies)
4. Companions are not meant to follow you into labs, and they're supposed to refuse iirc.
5. Hip sucks :<

Edited by: TimMiner

1. Under the relations tab in the PDA, she appears to have a rank score that goes up when she gets kills. Hopefully I'll find out one way or another when she hits the 3500 points needed for "Trainee."

2. I do have a fix and thank you again for that. I posted about this here first, not wanting to clutter up the comments, but it seems as though this forum isn't checked very often.

3. I guess those descriptions are little misleading. All I really want is for her to not attack an enemy unless it attacks us or I attack it. She has a tendency to go running off to pick a fight with enemies that haven't even noticed us yet, which can get a bit annoying.

4. They aren't? She'll follow into any lab, she just won't follow all the way to the end. At some point she'll just stop and wait, with no explanation.

5. Not sure what you mean. You just don't like her? Or are there better, more useful companions that I haven't tried out yet?

(1) Interesting, never bothered to check.

(2) I'll delete that, I wasn't sure :p

(3)Yeah, idk why the combat system for companions is the way it is, I'll constantly have companions chase after rats because they're hostile to both me and them but they run away and the AI has a really hard time hitting small things.

(4) My bad, Neutral companions are supposed to refuse when going into dangerous areas, Friendly squads will stick with you afaik.

(5) Hip isn't worth the time nor effort, and if you play as a character that can is neutral to factions Loners aren't, you're not really able to talk to them. I suppose content is content. (I also find the dialog painful but I might just be bitter).

A quick fix for having companions be too far away, you can edit the m_stalker file and change panic_stand_run_forward, that should be the run they use when you get too far away.

I hate that this is stuck in a listing format now lol

I agree that it's a lot of work to get Hip to join you, and from a strictly game play point of view, she doesn't contribute much. She's a terrible shot and she doesn't say a whole lot. But I sort of enjoy role playing a veteran stalker mentoring a new rookie.

I'm playing as a Loner, so the whole faction thing hasn't been an issue. However, I have discovered that I can't go talk to Griffin if she's with me, as the Syndicate will shoot her on sight. And currently I've had to leave her in the Cordon because I'm doing the "Lost to the Zone" quest lines, and followers have a tendency to be a liability in the the big scripted gun fights.

I'm not sure I understand what's wrong with her dialog? I mean, it's not exactly Dostoevsky, but the Stalker games have never really be known for their deep and engaging prose. It just serves its purpose of establishing her tragic backstory, and then she almost never talks again.

Like I said, I'm bitter, I really couldn't care less about her story, everyone has their own story, why should I care about Hip's story? Plus the cost for the TOZ-Bizon is around 100k on harder difficulties, on top of finding those 3 artifacts (Which I found 2 of just fine but after around 5 days of searching for a moonlight I gave up and used the lottery and got it first spin) only to be paid 20k is just a waste. >:(

I suppose Role Playing does make the difference, one of the staff on the Discord server named Red Forest Cake likes playing as Monolith cause they can really get into the RP I think. idk RP is something I never got into so Hip's quest might not be for people like me. ¯\(°_o)/¯

Also, the Mercs in the bookstore will attack anyone who is hostile, they're scripted to not attack the Actor unless aggravated. (I'm pretty sure the aren't meant to attack actor_stalker, actor_bandit actor_duty, etc...)