Making Misery 2.2 more miserable than ever Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

For my second playthrough with 2.2 (as an assoluter, the first one was as a sniper), I decided to use some auto-imposed restriction, based on some ideas from Jasper and Gandalf. Now I'm playing with these rules:

• no buying or selling from official traders (only from NPC)
• no nightvision, only flashlight
• no explosives or granades
• best suit allowed: Stalker Sunrise (no more powerful suit)
• no drugs, no alcool, no tobacco/cigarettes (only for healing radiation)
• money reset every 50,000 ru
• saves in lit camp-fires or main shelters only
• buying imported food not allowed (usable only if found in loots)
• not using mechanics for repairings (upgrades only)
• after first time in Zaton: not buying/selling anything to nobody

What are your toughts? Any other ideas?

I keep on saying that an add-on that makes these limitations hard-coded would be nice, but maybe, as Jaspers says, just a waste of time (they need only a little bit of self-will!).

I'm just at the beginning (only missions The Hit, Transaction and that one of the luminescent wheel done) but I find this very exciting. Now I'm struggling to find an NPC that has the item that allows me to see the map and tasks (I don't remember its name). Misery confirms itself as the best mod for STALKER around by far (and I tried many ones…).

You have a PDA at all times, you need to loot some batteries or barter for them with an NPC.

jasper34 wrote:

You have a PDA at all times, you need to loot some batteries or barter for them with an NPC.

Mmmm… not really. If I press the key to see the map it shows up for half a second, then a big writing in the middle of the screen saying I've not the proper device…

It means you don't have a battery pack (UPD). You start with one, but may have bartered it???

Edited by: jasper34

Universal Power Device (UPD). No, in black road you do not have one.

No powered devices work without having one.

And it's hard to get one from NPC!

I always loot at least a couple.

I think I'll change this:

• money reset every 50,000 ru

In this:

• money reset every time the map is changed

It should be more useful and I think it will raise the difficulty even more, 'cause you'll have to make other cash from scratch every time you change map!

How about you can only keep what you can carry when you change maps... Everything else gets dumped in the open for grabs by any passers by.

I wonder if a simple script (as if anything is simple with Lua) could empty your stash boxes whenever you change maps ...

jasper34 wrote:

How about you can only keep what you can carry when you change maps... Everything else gets dumped in the open for grabs by any passers by.

I wonder if a simple script (as if anything is simple with Lua) could empty your stash boxes whenever you change maps …

I'd love it!!! Please find someone with the skill to do it, great add-on.

Would you believe me that I hardly find NPCs to sell my stuff to? I'm full of interesting things, but it's difficult to find someone and with the money… Really hard not to use the traders.

Repairing guns without using mechanics is harsh too.

I never used mechanics for repairs in 2.2. I break down nearly every weapon I loot and use the parts, sell the scrap. Repairs are easy. Artifacts are the hardest to sell, but I don't artifact hunt. Buying ammo from NPC's gives them more cash to sell other junk to them.

jasper34 wrote:

I never used mechanics for repairs in 2.2. I break down nearly every weapon I loot and use the parts, sell the scrap. Repairs are easy. Artifacts are the hardest to sell, but I don't artifact hunt. Buying ammo from NPC's gives them more cash to sell other junk to them.

I fine they have little ammo… I found a repair kit for suits that a trader will buy for 5,000 ru but any NPC for 18,000!!!!!!!! But no NPC has that money. )

In this playthrough I'm doing as you for repairings, but the process is very slow… But I love it.

Yes, NPCs give good money for kits.

However, I'm in real misery now… Hard to go on. I MUST find someone to trade my stuff, and I MUST repair my guns first of all!

How do you buy suits? NPC don't sell them…

You get four free suits, why would you need to buy one? A red Ecologist suit, two suits from siding with duty or freedom at the warehouse, and one from the military in Pripyat.

Edited by: jasper34

jasper34 wrote:

You get four free suits, why would you need to buy one? A red Ecologist suit, two suits from siding with duty or freedom at the warehouse, and one from the military in Pripyat.

Ok, true, but at the beginning, still in Zaton, you can never buy a lather jackter, a coat or a heavy overcoat because no NPC sells them (only traders)!

Even more: NPC do not sell:

• UPD
• head light
• universal weapong repair set
• binoculars

If for the repair set I can use the weapons I collect instead (but it takes age to get 100% without using mechanics!), for the other items you HAVE to use traders because, at least playing with assaulter, you never see a NPC selling them.

I find tons of repair kits myself, not the universal ones, but plenty of other stuff. The intermediate coats are, IMHO not worth investing in. It is easy enough to do the WPP with the initial raincoat, all anomaly related quests with the Red suit. A found Armor dismantling kit can yield you a nice ecologist screen helmet from the red suit later in the game after you clear the tunnels. I have never, ever used binoculars. A scope will suffice and has no additional weight burden. I play during the day except for the few mandatory night side missions. Simply don't use the black road start ( I never found it more than a few minutes of additional challenge) and you will start with an UPD.

Probably true. Another thing is that NPCs never replanish their budget, so if I sell them anything possibile and they reach zero, they are still at zero forever!

They die and get replaced with new NPC's who have some cash. Also, you can buy stuff you don't really need (valuable, but light) from them and replenish their cash. Then, sell them your low value higher weight loot. It was the same in the original games, but they rarely seemed to get killed off, and there were far fewer of them. Those AP rounds were very hard to come by early on before you reached decent traders.

Ammo for SPAS12 and SG550 (my favourites guns) are barely impossible to find on NPC... :'(

For now I succeded in not breaking my rules, but it's getting harder if I cannot find those ammos.

Find as loot, or to barter? I end up with hundreds of rounds ... Even Grenade launcher ammo can be bought from NPC's on Stalker ship. In Pripyat, you can get re-upped with any ammo you choose. I don't ever even carry a shotgun after the first hour of a new play, so have tons of that ammo to barter.

Harder is the idea

You should need to consider every shot you take - "Do I really need to kill that mutant I can easily avoid? Don't I already have enough cash and imported food? Am I going to come out of this scrape I am considering getting into with more than I brought to it?"

jasper34 wrote:

Find as loot, or to barter? I end up with hundreds of rounds ... Even Grenade launcher ammo can be bought from NPC's on Stalker ship. In Pripyat, you can get re-upped with any ammo you choose. I don't ever even carry a shotgun after the first hour of a new play, so have tons of that ammo to barter.

Harder is the idea

You should need to consider every shot you take - "Do I really need to kill that mutant I can easily avoid? Don't I already have enough cash and imported food? Am I going to come out of this scrape I am considering getting into with more than I brought to it?"

I have a super fully repaired SG550 with less than 200 rounds (but plenty of nades)… I cannot find the ammo I need on NPC, I start killing any Duty or Freedom to find if they have some… but nothing. I have nearly 100,000 ru but I cannot find rounds I need so I cannot even buy them.

Yes it's hard… Now I'm repairing a military camuflaged AKsomething because the ammo it uses are much more easy to find. Everytime I come back to Yanov Station I look that poor SG550, now dusty and useless.

About suits: how am I supposed to work for scientists if I don't buy an ecologist suite?

And do you use helmets, without buying them? Quite impossible.

However do not be misunderstood: I'm enjoyng this playthrough so much! Hard enough to be like a completely new experience.

Barter with them vs. killing them for the ammo. Dead bodies have a VERY low chance of having ammo, live ones virtually always have it.

The Red ecologist suit satisfies all the requirements for the scientists and tunnels. The adding of that via the Alun's quests is what made this mode totally possible.

After you no longer need the protection of an ecologist suit, you can use any of the other 3 free suits (two from warehouse/faction assistance and one from military along with a SSP99 helmet you can salvage off the red ecologist suit. You also get the free gas mask from the Oak Pine you can fix up.

That Oak Pine helmet is actually pretty decent. It has NV, and does OK for the rest until you salvage the screen helmet from the Red suit.

I was missing the Alun's quests! Sooo, how do I repair suits, masks and helmets without buying proper kits? For guns I just dismantel them hoping to have right spare parts, but for suits?