Bug Report Thread - Particle Paradise v2.2 mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Post the report of bugs here, please, do it in a form like the one shown below:

I found a bug, XXX, and its:

• list
• list
• list
• list
• etc..

and so on

Please describe what you did, be exact. Not, my suit degrades fast, no, it must be detailed to fix it. So, for example:

"My suit degrades fast when someone shoots me or when i go trought a XXX anomaly."

---

Everything with Memory related or out of vid. mem crashes are no bugs, please tone down the game on these fronts to maximize FPS:

Texture quality,
Resolution,
Grass density,

and if it still lags, town down:

Render mode. (DX8 plays with 275-350fps on my machine)

Edited by: Lоnerboner

LoNer1,

Note that the following was already posted in the Comments section of the Summary tab for the mod. My initial posting had a few grammatical errors when I first posted it, so if you do want to use my instructions, I'd use the ones posted below, as all grammatical errors WERE fixed.

Feel free to use the following rewording of the installation instructions that you provided earlier. I took the liberty of expanding the details a bit more, so that (hopefully) the installation/gameplay issues will be greatly reduced.

************************************
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
************************************

Find one's STALKER directory (where the game's installed on the hard drive).

Open up that directory, and create a new folder within it, entitled "Gamedata." Do NOT include the quotation marks or period.

Into the Gamedata folder, one will place all of the contents from the mod's download entitled "S.T.A.L.K.E.R._PPx_2.1.1.9_Part1."

After that, create another folder, this time INSIDE the Gamedata folder, entitled "Textures." Again, do NOT include the quotation marks or period.

Into the Textures folder, one will place all of the contents from the mod's downloads entitled...
..."S.T.A.L.K.E.R._PPx_2.1.1.9_Part2."
..."S.T.A.L.K.E.R._PPx_2.1.1.9_Part3."
..."S.T.A.L.K.E.R._PPx_2.1.1.9_Part4."
..."S.T.A.L.K.E.R._PPx_2.1.1.9_Part5."

Once the above is done, the final part will go into the Gamedata folder. Decompress and install the last portion of the mod's downloads, entitled "S.T.A.L.K.E.R._PPx_2.1.1.9_Part6" directly into the Gamedata folder. Do NOT create a folder entitled "Sounds," as it is ALREADY included in this final portion of the download. Doing so will create issues.

Due to the substantial increase in the quality of the visuals, the initial loading time WILL BE significantly longer than with the default version of STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl. Good luck!

Argh! It's hard to read what I posted above, as it's posting as WHITE text on a light gray background.

LoNer1,

I'm thoroughly enjoying your latest release. Thank you for it!

Here's my first report...

All details are specific to the Cordon region.

(1) The Player's hand, particularly the view while holding the knife, is colored to be a glove that only covers the palm, leaving the fingers and the thumb exposed to the elements. The textures look good, but there is bump/normal mapping elements that are present that make it look like there are flesh textures painted on top of a glove that covers the entire hand, including the fingers. The textures need to be matched up with the bump/normal mapping.

(2) I took damage from jumping from the roof of the building that's immediately behind Wolf, to get to the merc suit from the attic in the building behind it. I don't recall taking damage from this "rooftop-to-rooftop" jump before.

(3) A Medusa artifact is present in the anomaly-plagued pit near the Loner's camp that is unreachable due to it being trapped under a large ammo box. No matter what I tried, I couldn't grab it, even though its glow was bright enough to illuminate the other nearby objects.

(4) The boots on the Loner that is rescued by the wrecked train freight car (right next to the viaduct) are oddly colored, with lime-green colored squares showing. In fact, it looks like the inside edge of both boots weren't finished being textured in the same manner as the rest of the nicely done boots.

(5) When quitting the game from the "Exit The Zone" user interface, the spelling of the message that's prompted needs to be adjusted to:
"As the zone has taken many lives, yours shall follow, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ..."

In English, the spelling of the possessive "yours" does NOT include an apostrophe ('), just as the spelling of the possessive "its" is also free of an apostrophe.

QUESTIONS

(I) What is the default keybinding for gaining the third person view of the Player's avatar?

(II) Are you planning on incorporating the recruiting of companions? I miss not having them. Perhaps they're recruitable later in this build, but only after I've gained enough reputation points to be "trustworthy" of having others follow me around The Zone? Or...?

(III) I was floored to read that you included the mesh from Crysis. I can't wait to acquire it. Does it come with the specialized powers that are available in the original game, or...?

In fact, it would be EXTREMELY cool if you created a series of scenarios whereby the Crysis unit is encountered in the game as enemies. They wouldn't be running all over the place as other factions do, but they could be encountered through a triggering of certain events (including the Player gaining access to ultra-secret documents, and/or acquiring especially valuable artifacts that they're trying to steal), and they could also be randomly triggered so that their appearance isn't too numerous (after all, they're the super expensive super-elites of the world's special forces). The squad size probably shouldn't be more than six, especially if they have access to the suit's amazing nano-charged powers. They'd be a NIGHTMARE to face in combat. Run away!

PRAISE

The weapons' sounds are SUPERB. An ENORMOUS improvement over the default STALKER sounds. However you mod the STALKER series in the future, ALWAYS ensure that you use these reverberating gunshots! "Yes," they're THAT good!

The weather is AMAZING.

The starting equipment that the Player gets from Wolf makes TOTAL sense considering the nature of the area of operations. Wolf isn't going to recruit a guy and then arm him with wimpy equipment. That makes NO sense at all, especially when the heavier arms would be found everywhere anyway.

The fact that the Loners are mostly well equipped is a sensible touch, particularly due to how brutal the Russian soldiers are now.

The equipment changes go a LONG way in increasing the sense of immersion and believability. In fact, they heightened the sense of fear for me. Having better weapons doesn't mean that one's a god, especially since the opposition forces are believably being portrayed.

The mutants' look GREAT so far. Their textures are fittingly GROTESQUE, really showing off the abuse that they've encountered from the environment, anomallies, radiation, and by also surviving the attacks of other creatures. These are the most realistic looking critters I've seen in any mod. The yellow fat of the boar really disturbed me, and rightfully so. I wouldn't eat its bacon, that's for sure.

The focusing effects are PERFECT. Detecting others is more challenging since they'll "blur" more into the environment on the edges of one's peripheral vision.

So MANY terrific and thoughtful changes!

Yours,
Kyle
Jan. 30, 2012

Edited by: Kyle_K_ski

Found a uhhh...strange bug.

- Are leather jackets supposed to cost 750k? lol

i snagged that secret armor from the far building in the starting camp,and my leather jacket sold for like 490k....

after installing that patch,ive been getting BSOD's :/

Someone wrote: my leather jacket sold for like 490k

Wow! I wish that I had THAT kind of luck. You didn't check the name tag inside of it, did you? It once belonged to Amelia Earhart and is worth a mega-fortune to collectors. Sid was being VERY generous to you!

I did the same thing, and can't say that I had the same results. I'll go back and double-check the amount of cash that I have. If it's anywhere close to what you're reporting, I'll let you all know.

Here's my Second Report...

The AKu74su icon doesn't display the suppressor once it's equipped via the user interface through the inventory system.

The AKs-74u's aimdot scope does NOT glow. I was really bummed out by this. I went through hell to defeat the Russians holding the railroad bridge, and when I saw it in my inventory, I was thrilled. It was night time, so you can imagine my level of disappointment when I got the weapon equipped in my arms and noticed that there was no glow. It wasn't there when I brought it to my eye either. Ohhhh man, I hope that there's a hotfix for this.

Spelling error for Gauss HBK Rounds. For "Power level," the word "Devastating" should be spelled like I just spelled it here.

SOUNDS:
Could the sound of the rain storm be increased when one's under a tree? As it is right now in the game, the "background" sound effects drop extremely low. Having spent a good deal of time in the woods, the "background" sounds of the rain storm should drop by maybe 30% at most when one is under a tree. BUT while under the tree, one should hear the less frequent sounds of excess droplets hitting the ground below.

It seems like 50% of the grenade sounds don't produce an explosion sound effect at all. I am well within 35-40 m. of this event when it occurs, and I should be able to hear it.

MISSIONS:
I rescued Nimble AFTER I went through the anomaly tunnel, wiped out the mutant camp, and then came around to attack the Russian guards at the railroad bridge. Wolf's scout had abandoned the hill by the viaduct by the time I had gotten all of this done, so I wasn't able to recruit him (as far as I know, he and his party members weren't killed--they just left). I attacked the farm by myself, cleared it, rescued Nimble who was on his knees wwith his hands behind his neck. I had the usual conversation with him, but he never abandoned his "held hostage" position. He has yet to leave the farm, and return to his home at the Loner camp.

WHAT I MISS:
As I already stated, I wish that I could recruit some companions to form up a squad. Perhaps cap it at 9, perhaps 12 at most. And, if possible, set the maximum number of possible recruitments based on how well the Player is doing.

WHAT I'D LIKE:
Have the PDA be an object that one can drop from one's inventory and then enter data into it of one's own choosing. This would be great for detailing stashes that are left behind, and the like.

Supplying pre-mixed magazines of mixed rounds. The first two rounds would be AP, with the third round being hollow point. Drool!

WHAT I LOVED:
I was amazed that I could back-stab two bandits at the farm. I was a nervous wreck trying to pull this off, but it worked, so I'm not complaining. NICE!

Having the Russian railroad guards made up of a force of veterans to super-vets, with augmented armor and the like. Hell of a fight, but a lot easier to do than trying to take on the Rusian 3-man patrol over by the Lonerrs' base. This is due to the fact that the Russian patrol is in very open territory, while the railroad bridge's wrecked vehicles can be used to confine them to rain grenades on their heads. What was a MAJOR letdown was how even though I acquired these great weapons from the firefight, I wasn't able to use a single one because ALL of the 5.56 ammo was gone, and that includes having COMPLETELY empty magazines. This really sucked me out of the realism of the game, and made me wonder, "What the hell?" instead. I can understand trying to balance the Player's progression in regards to equipment, but supplying no ammo seems quite strange to me.

Now that I was able to trade in scavenged weaponry for cash, I was able to purchase AP rounds for my guns. I have a feeling that they'll help me tremendously with the Russian 3-man patrol and road checkpintoint. I was excited to see that there are weapons using much higher capacity drum magazines. Nice!

The flickering of the headlamp is VERY unnerving. Keep it! I love it! Is it possible to buy a better version that emits a more steady light, or...?

I'm hoping that I can get some more gametesting in tomorrow night, as I badly want to see if the AP rounds will make a big difference in addressing that Russian patrol. If it does, then I'd say that game balance is very strong at the hardest Player's game settings.

The particle effects are amazingly well done, and it feels like one is in a top of the line Hollywood movie.

Again, GREAT work LoNer1.

Well, it appears that the game crashes after THQ logo and right before the GSC logo appears. I checked out the log and confirmed that it was the logo. I used -nointro to see if it would do something, but then I got this:

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CRender::texture_load
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrRender\Texture.cpp
[error]Line : 295
[error]Description :
[error]Arguments : Can't find texture 'ui\ui_menu_shine'

stack trace:

Absolutely brilliant mod, atmosphere is as good if not better than the original. It does appear though that you can make tons of money very quickly even after using the patch. Still as i found out, no matter how good the gun or suit, one shot can still kill ya. A big well done to all the modders involved as it is so good to be playing SHOC again, anyway must dash and catch the sunset!

SUGGESTION
One thing that I think that this game could derive a great benefit from is a wounding system. As it stands right now, one's targets recover far too quickly. "Yes," they do get stunned from taking rounds, but the recovery time, from being struck, to them regaining their senses enough to start directing accurate shots towards the Player's way, is far too quick. I took on several Russian guards who were wearing power armor, and in the time it took me to reload between magazines, he'd be buzzing rounds right by head.

Is there any way that they could take and manifest damage to the limbs? Getting shot in the leg causes limping, etc.?

Medical packs could be part of balancing this system out. Perhaps using one gives its user an immediate "X" amount back, but then the rest of its healing abilities is more slowly dealt out. This would apply to AI as well.

But if every human could be wounded, one could catch a break by limiting a juggernaut's mobility with leg shots, and seriously impair their ability to aim accurately by hitting them in the arms.

Is it possible to incorporate "bullet snaps/buzzes" as rounds pass by the Player? To me, real life recordings of such is a pretty terrifying sound to hear. What better place to implement them in in this mod as well?

I haven't had an opportunity to use armor piercing rounds against that Russian patrol yet, but as I said earlier, I'll give more feedback afterward.

Very quick report as it's LATE.

Is sleeping no longer required by the mod? There's no sleeping bag, and I've entered game-day 2 without rest, and have yet to suffer from sleep-induced exhaustion effects.

My Kill Count is exceptionally high--there's no way that I killed as many opponents/creatures as it's listed there.

The Groza 0C14's name is misspelled, it should be, "Devastator."

The Groza's written description states that the weapon can mount a PSO-1 scope, but I tried this numerous times and with no success.

A number of weapons, including the LR 300 ML do not display its attachments in the Written Description box.

The Russians raided the Lone camp. I'm tired and can't remember the name of the German paratrooper shortened machinegun that I grabbed, but THAT thing FINALLY made the combat against the Russians manageable. And all with regular FMJ 5.56 rounds too! At this point, I finally felt "comfortable" with the "feel" of the combat. I was getting pretty frustrated that I couldn't make hardly a dent in the Russians, but that weapon finally did it. I love the feel of the combat now, as I feel like I have a fighting chance now. The AI is awesome.

During the above attack, Wolf was slain. I know that a large number of mods "protect" essential characters from death till they're no longer needed, with Wolf being one of them. I never did see Nimble again once I left him in the barn with his body "locked into" the I'm-a-hostage-position.

The only serious system performance hit I'm taking is whenever my avatar overexerts himself, and grows exhausted. The "beating heart" sound effect that I normally heard played whenever the avatar has a bad dream and/or a vision is now played whenever I get exhausted. The system just stutters, and within a few seconds comes to a complete standstill for 5-7 seconds before the game resumes as before. I purposely ran my character to exhaustion several times and each time the performance hit began to peak to its worst.

This is a GREAT mod. I can't wait to dive in tomorrow evening.

Yours!
Kyle
Feb. 1, 2012

I have to say it again, toughing it out and lasting long enough to get one's hand on a 5.56 weapon makes a HUGE difference in how this mod plays.

The mines by the Russian checkpoint by the Loner camp in Cordon are extremely visible at night. They almost "glow," although there's no glow effect active. It's as if they're not programed to match the level of the surrounding darkness.

I purposely kept draining my stamina tonight, just to ensure that becoming exhausted was indeed THE main reason for the sudden slow down & several seconds freeze, and there's no question in my mind that it is. It's almost like the program is searching to find a video in order just to play back the sounds of the racing heartbeat.

I was wrong about an earlier statement: Nimble is STILL alive. I found him sleeping on his mattress. He was one of the few Loners to survive the Russian attack.

I just made my way into Garbage, and will explore there tomorrow night.

Feb. 3's Report

The Agroprom loading screen has a spelling and phrase error. "...get eliminated." should be "...gets eliminated."

The very last quotation should read, "The official policy of those at the base are: Shoot first, and ask questions later."

The FN P90 does NOT have a graphic icon to represent it in the inventory system. I'm pleased to report that unlike the AKs 74u, that the P90's laser dot sight DOES work, BUT it's also projecting about 2.5 m. in front of the aiming device's front. It almost looks like a red aiming laser being projected out, but it's in the wrong location if so.

Also, since I'm playing your "testing" version of the mod (without your quick patch), did you disrupt the radiation storms (a.k.a. "blowouts"), and creatures such as the zombies? I haven't yet seen one.

Edited by: Kyle_K_ski

After doing all the installation as it is said in this topic, i create a new game and everything is loading but when it's done, the game quit to windows desktop in stead of displaying the game!!
do you know why guys ?

Thanks!
Olivier

Can you post the log here?

Feb. 3's Report

Is it possible to shoot the headlamps out on those mercs who are equipped with them? And likewise have the Player's headlamp shootable as well? Buying and carrying a spare lamp would be necessary. Imagine getting the light blasted away in the midst of a battle where its use is vital...! Perhaps make it so that every shot to the head has a 10% chance of destroying it?

Is it possible to randomly affect the properties of tracer rounds so that if they hit a hard enough substance they can fracture and "drift off" in a direction that's different from the ricochet and travel at a slower velocity as well? If one watches combat footage, it's not uncommon for this fragment-effect to be seen. I wouldn't overload the number of splinters that could be generated, perhaps 1 out every 10 ricocheting rounds would splinter, and then, most of the time, the fragmenting would only produce 1 splinter, and even more rarely, two splinters.

If the tracers could be altered to produce splinters, paired up with rounds that make a "snap-buzz" sound as they flyby near the Player, these would be terrifying to experience together.

Also, being a fan of realism when it comes to depicting real life weapons, I'm wondering if you'd consider adjusting how the fragmentation grenades look when they explode? As they are now, they produce more flame than an incendiary grenade (why don't you add an incendiary grenade to the game as you could make it look terrifying real).

Virtually all of the videos I've found of real life grenades exploding show them producing a large cloud of mostly gray smoke, with brown dust from the ground being generated at its base. Near the very start of the explosive sequence, there might be a VERY brief flash, about 1.5 m. in diameter.

I finally encountered a bloodsucker. BRILLIANT. That thing is exceptionally creepy in appearance, and is quite a challenge to fight.

Feb. 3, Part II

Major crash to desktop bug in the underground tunnels after the escape from Agroprom. I've tested this three times, and each time the results are as follows...

I'm in the secret room (the one with the modified faster firing rate AK). Since I can't take on all of the mercs in the facility, I remove my
PS2-9d Duty armor suit, and put on the Bandit leather armor in the hopes that maybe I could fool them into letting my pass, or at least get closer.

In any case,twice I took of the Duty suit and placed it in my inventory, and then I pick up the Bandit suit. This led to a CTD. I tested the exact same scenario again, and it once more caused a CTD.

The third time I tried it, I not only took off the Duty suit, but I also dropped it on the concrete floor so that it wasn't part of my inventory at all. I then picked up the Bandit suit, which immediately caused a CTD.

Fragmentation Grenade Effects
If you do alter the explosion effects for the grenades so that they're more realistic, I had another observation that I forgot to mention last night: that if it's possible to have the smoke/dust kicked up by the fragmentation grenades to obscure the AI's ability to see. That smoke persists for 2-3 seconds, after the explosion, and that's valuable time that one can take advantage of if the AI's capabilities are suitably limited due to their vision being obscured, and their hearing being deafened.

Incendiary Grenades
And again, I'd love to see you create an incendiary grenade. I have no doubt that you'd make it look as good as possibly as it could be. It would also be very useful to have a weapon that allowed the player to quickly setup a fiery area that would dissuade the AI from going into. Of course, it would be ideal if the AI could do the same towards the Player. Perhaps the fire randomly burns for 10-20 seconds before it runs out of fuel?

Edited by: Kyle_K_ski

@[PPx]L☢Ner1™ : Thanks for your fast reply.

first of all : my system is : E8400 @3,5Ghz ; 3go RAM ; HD6950 1 Go.

As I explained in my last post : During the creation of a new game, it loads everything and during the CLIENT Synchronizing, the game shuts down.
But I read in the log file and I found a message as I don't have enought memory. so i set every settings to the minimum except the screen wuch is 1680x1050.

And this time the game has loaded properly but crashed after a while (less than 5 min).
So i just think I have to wait 'till I upgrade my configuration.

Can you assure me that it is my main problem to play with this mod ? What is your configuration ? (for my next one)!!
thanks a lot.

Olivier

Red Blood with NVDs Activated
Is there anyway to make the red-blood-mist that appears on targets tinted to match the color of the type of night vision devices one is wearing? It's sort of strange to see everything either bluish-gray or green-gray, and then have a red blood mist appear in the midst of it.

@Kyle_K_ski

About the NVG's, thats impossible game limitation for the NVG's, as its only an overlay... a real shame, awesome idea.

For the rest, ill look into incendiary nades, should be a 5 min task.

And for the grenades, ill make a new particle effect, im already busy with the light version of the particles atm.

---

The Ricocheting is impossible again, game limitation.

LoNer1,

Wow. What a bummer about the NVDs and the tracers.

It just doesn't make sense to me how they could have designed an engine with that kind of limitation. I mean, the engine can beautifully render the enormous ranges of colors that one can see from morning till night, but can't alter the color of tracers and flames so that their hues are altered to match the color limitations inherit with NVDs? Weird!

Also, why is it that artifacts, regardless of the huge ranges of colors that they're emitting (thanks to your awesome work), CAN have their colors modified by the NVD's lenses, and the tracers/flames can't?

Can you somehow "recategorize" tracers and flames so that the engine is "tricked" into handling them like the artifacts, so that the NVD's color filter will affect how they're seen, or...?

Factions and Gear Matching
What didn't strike me till last night was that the spetsnaz are largely equipped with American made LR300 MLs and the British L85A2s. I feel that it would be more believable if the spetsnaz carried the state of the art and brimming with high technology attachments versions of Russian made arms, with maybe only a high ranking officer carrying anything "foreign."

You could make another faction specializing in equipment more "Western European," such as carrying FAMAS, SIGs, and the like, while another faction specializes in more American type arms, M4A1s, LR300 MLs, and the like. All factions could rely on HK submachineguns, because they pretty much do so in the real world.

Kyle_K_ski wrote: LoNer1,

Wow. What a bummer about the NVDs and the tracers.

It just doesn't make sense to me how they could have designed an engine with that kind of limitation. I mean, the engine can beautifully render the enormous ranges of colors that one can see from morning till night, but can't alter the color of tracers and flames so that their hues are altered to match the color limitations inherit with NVDs? Weird!

Also, why is it that artifacts, regardless of the huge ranges of colors that they're emitting (thanks to your awesome work), CAN have their colors modified by the NVD's lenses, and the tracers/flames can't?

Can you somehow "recategorize" tracers and flames so that the engine is "tricked" into handling them like the artifacts, so that the NVD's color filter will affect how they're seen, or...?

Factions and Gear Matching
What didn't strike me till last night was that the spetsnaz are largely equipped with American made LR300 MLs and the British L85A2s. I feel that it would be more believable if the spetsnaz carried the state of the art and brimming with high technology attachments versions of Russian made arms, with maybe only a high ranking officer carrying anything "foreign."

You could make another faction specializing in equipment more "Western European," such as carrying FAMAS, SIGs, and the like, while another faction specializes in more American type arms, M4A1s, LR300 MLs, and the like. All factions could rely on HK submachineguns, because they pretty much do so in the real world.

Well, first thing:

It is sad indeed, but the NVG's are like i said an overlay, it does the same as the effect "overlay", it amplifies the light sources and the paricles are, unlike the newer engines...just sprites of textures, even the glows. So, i will have to hex edit each and every mesh to make them emit glow from theirselves, somewhat like BF3 does, making the bullets models, but...thats impossible in stalker. Engine limitations...

Funny thing is, this line: "Can you somehow "recategorize" tracers and flames so that the engine is "tricked" into handling them like the artifacts, so that the NVD's color filter will affect how they're seen, or...? "

Not in SHoC, ill PM you the blueprints of PPx3, you will definitely smile, and not a small one, but a big smile

And i am already working on the newer loadouts, as they pretty much date from late 2010...havent really touched them at all since than. Derranged and i are working on that, ill PM you now.

Wow.

Oh WOW.

That PM was amazing to read!!!!!

Sooooo much goodness planned for us. Wow!

Back to the current build... I'm curious as to why in the latest build (without the patch installed), I haven't yet experienced a blowout? I'm on my way to Duty's base, and have yet to experience one. Nor have I needed to sleep. I also haven't come across any zombies. Does the patch need to be installed to experience these, or...?

Kyle_K_ski wrote: Back to the current build... I'm curious as to why in the latest build (without the patch installed), I haven't yet experienced a blowout? I'm on my way to Duty's base, and have yet to experience one. Nor have I needed to sleep. I also haven't come across any zombies. Does the patch need to be installed to experience these, or...?

I cut the zombies, mostly due to the fact they were performance demanding in combination with my particles, ill see to add them to K10's list of addons

and i didnt include blowouts, mostly because every mod out there has it...i dont like it that much.

Someone wrote: i didnt include blowouts, mostly because every mod out there has it...i dont like it that much.

What?

Ohhhh man, I love blowouts, simply because it occasionally forces enemies to race to key locations for safety, and then the action gets INSANE. There's no other game that has an environment that's "plausible" enough to have something that intense and desperate occurring in it. In my mind, it's well worth preserving.

I'm happy to hear that it's likely that the zombies will be making a comeback. If their numbers were modestly enlarged after a blowout, that would be a nice "environmental factor" that would lend some indirect explanation as to how they're created, kept "alive," etc., etc.

I'd also love to see burers, chimeras, and those long-armed mutants put into the game as well. It was one of the chief features of Super Mod that I really enjoyed, as it broadened the range of experiences for the Player, and created a huge multitude of tactical scenarios that one otherwise wouldn't face at all.

BUGS
The vintorez's reloading sound effects are glitched. The sound ends too abruptly, before the reloading animation is finished.

After working one's way into the basement secret laboratory, as one is returning to the surface via the stairwell, a pseudogiant is IMMEDIATELY in one's face upon spawning into an upper elevation of the structure. He got a major hit on me before I even had a chance to see him. Perhaps set it a little further back so that the Player has an opportunity to respond?

Thus far, all of the location description screens that one sees as a map is loading up has grammar errors. It's too hard for me to try and write down what they say before the loading is done. Is there any way that you could supply me with all of these location descriptions so that I can reword them? Feel free to send them to me via PM or to my personal account. I'd be happy to make adjustments to them.

Have to run!

Have a good weekend.

Sniper VAL Has Improper SFX
I made a mistake when I wrote that the vintorez was having a reloading-sound-effects issue. I was pretty tired when I tested the mod and came across the SFX error, but since then, I've identified that the weapon that does have the issue is the Sniper VAL. This is the weapon with the sound effects issue when it's reloaded. The vintorez is fine.

F1 "Defensive" Grenade Uncyclable If Alone
I became majorly overburdened with my inventory, and so I dropped every regular frag grenade, and kept only the more powerful F1 "defensive" grenades. The problem that happened is that I could not then access the F1 grenades at all. I checked my keymapping, and then redid it. No effect. I rolled my mousewheel to get to the grenade, and all of the scrollable equipment would appear, EXCEPT FOR the F1 grenade--it would skip right over it as though it wasn't in my inventory. As soon as I added a single normal frag grenade to my inventory, I could then get to the F1 through both the keybinding and the mousewheel. This is not a good discovery to make when one's in the thick of a firefight against bandits at the farm in Cordon! What a strange bug...

Game Has Become Highly Unstable
Also, the game's become highly unstable for me. It started about a third of the way through my first trip through the Dark Valley. It became steadily worse as I got out of the tunnels, and into the main set of structures where the prisoner is housed. Once I entered the structures, the framerates became more acceptable, but became more choppy whenever I stepped outside. I'm assuming that this is partly due to the outdoor geometry being more complex, but I never experienced such a huge framerate loss as this even on my old computer system.

I made my way back to Cordon, to give Sid the latest updates and completed quests. Even Cordon was unstable, temporarily freezing every time I was ascending a hill, with it crashing to desktop several times. This didn't happen when I first started playing this build. Something changed from the time I entered the Dark Valley and is persisting wherever I go. I then left Cordon to return to Duty's base to pickup the main storyline, so I headed back through Garbage. Immediately, I started experiencing framerate issues again, just as in Cordon. The screen was freezing up as I was stepping around the several vehicle wrecks near the spawn point! A pack of mutant dogs cross the road ahead of me, and head into the first camp and attack a lone stalker (military, I believe) who is passing through. I surmount the large hill that overlooks the camp, the screen freezes, and CTD. This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I top that hill, or get close to the camp (near the toll booth entrance).

At this point, I worry that the mod's unplayable due to what's happening so early on during my return to Garbage.

This whole thing is just bizarre to me, as during my first patrols of Cordon and Garbage, the framerates were silky smooth, without any freezing, or CTDs.

I noted that there are a lot firearms laying around. Is it strangling the system to remember where all of these weapons were dropped, and spawning them into the maps? If so, I suggest writing a routine whereby all dropped weapons that are not within the Player's field of vision get removed from the map every six hours of game time (the plausible explanation of this is that other stalkers scavenged everything that was left behind by the dead). This way the game's system isn't burdened with calculating data that isn't really relevant anymore.

Bodies of those that are "story relevant" are still around. For example, the corpse by the rail cars near the viaduct in Cordon, and the bandits who assault the loner near the wrecked vehicles as one enters Garbage. Everyone else who was slain in battle, their bodies are rightfully gone after a day, plausibly consumed by the local wildlife. Perhaps these "story relevant" corpses, their never-eaten bodies are tying up the game's resources too? If there's a way to get rid of their bodies, then I advocate doing so. It's noticeable that their bodies remain while all others disappear.

Also, this is pure conjecture on my part, because Garbage keeps crashing before I get to see anything confirming my suspicions, but is all of the equipment that I'm dropping still present after I leave the map? This is a fairly regular occurence for me, for as I get too heavy in my inventory, I drop items of lesser value to me, and move on. Are these items remembered, and then respawned when I reenter a map? These types of items should disappear after 6 hours' worth of game time too, due to them being found/picked up by others.

I have at least one chest at each location that gets loaded up with equipment that I don't need on me right now, but might want later. Is the storage of these items overburdening the game's system? If so, then I'd make those stashes get "raided" every 6 hours of game time as well, or, if that seems too harsh a penalty to the Player (and it might be too harsh, since the Player went out of his way to store items there), then write a routine which "disappears" a third of the items in there, based on an item's value. The more worthless it is (both in terms of monetary return and its power), the greater the odds that it'll be gone after 6 hours' worth of game time.

At this point in time, I don't know how many more times I'm willing to reload the game with all of its crashes. If you know that this problem persists only in certain regions of Garbage, and can guide me as to where I need to walk to avoid the CTDs, I'm happy to keep on testing. Otherwise, I may just stop where I'm at, and proceed with the game once a revised version of the mod is released. Let me know...

Check your PM for the latest XRay Engine Report related to all of these crashes. ModDB's system won't let me post it here.

SUGGESTION: Randomly Altered Environments
I've already posted this on Derranged's newly posted mod page, and I thought that you'd like to consider it as well...

It would be nice to have a randomization of having objects moved around on a map, so that when an area's revisited, tactical choices have to be reconsidered, and the Player has to be kept on his toes in case the environment has changed.

For example, the farm in Cordon... The open doors of the barn could be partially blocked with ammo crates, cement blocks, etc. Portions of the interiors could be blocked off with a stack of wooden pallets, etc., etc. These feature would be altered every time the Player spawned into the map, keeping well-known locations feeling more "fresh," challenging, and unique.

Breakable and movable objects could be setup as well, so that if they're bumped into, or stepped on, they'll move and/or break, making noise which will alert anyone close enough to hear the racket. Puddles of water, oil, transmission fluid, and the like, could also be randomized in this fashion to mess with the Player's mind.

And for that matter, if doors can be set to a closed (locked) position, and then made open later, that too could keep the Player's head turning.

Altering the environment in this way would also deepen the sense of a world that's "lived in" and shaped by its ever-changing inhabitants.

Also, repositioning camping locations on each revisit would be nice as well. For example, I've never completely understood why it is that the one camp deep in the gully by the railroad tracks has its burn barrel at the very bottom of the depression. That's where the rainwater will run down to! I understand that one doesn't want to advertise that a burn barrel is being used, so it's kept out of site, BUT everyone by now, has to know exactly where it is, so... Why setup one's watchmen down IN the gully? Wouldn't it be smarter to have one's head peaking over the top of the hill so that one can see approaching animals and potential raiders before they peak their heads over and start shooting down into the gully that's a tactical death trap for everyone sitting around the sopping wet burn barrel?

Reposition the campsites' watchmen so that they make more sense than how GSC set them up. Every once in a while, randomly assign two-three watchmen, facing different directions. They could grow bored, walk to the burn barrel, get their butts chewed out for abandoning their watch position, and then they'll return to the spot to get bored again. lol Keep the timing of such events randomized, so that the Player's kept on his toes.

Edited by: Kyle_K_ski

When you are facing certain NPC'S you get a MASSIVE drop in fps, I saw somebody else on this thread say that about specific npc's as well.
So far it's done it with most of the stalkers in the starting camp of the cordon where wolf is, but if you don't face any of them your fps will stay steady around 60, you should look into this, I think it's the same way for a lot of people.

Ill look into putting the vanilla models in to see those models arent too high quality for the game

When i want to complete the misson on Military warehouses - kill the trailor. I cant kill the mercenary chief who go to hutor, when the trailor dead body....
My game craches when i shot him
There is the log

Expression : g_uiSpotXml->NavigateToNode(path_base,0)
Function : CMapLocation::LoadSpot
File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\map_location.cpp
Line : 78
Description : XML node not found in file map_spots.xml
Arguments : reward_location

Help mee please! Me need your assistanse!
Thank's!

Ill look into that for the next patch, but i didnt get this error?

ill see if i can fix it now...

Edited by: Lоnerboner

It's a good idea to play through entire game and find as many crashes as we can before the patch releases

true!

I have one last thing to report, I forgot to tell you this, but the guitar tracks are off sync or w/e sometimes, the guy will put his guitar away before the song even stops and you'll just see doods sitting around the fire with music going and nobody's playing lol

but i think its only like that for the new tracks you added, not the originals