Swartz mod v1.4 in the works news

*Edit 4/13*

I didn't want to make a new news post just for this, but if you have played 1.3 already and plan on playing 1.4 please vote in the poll I made on my forum.

I've decided to make a new version of this mod which I expect will be released this Summer.

Hrnchamd fixed a long-standing bug in the script for the radiation effects where sometimes you would still have radiation effects play even after being healed. He also pointed out a few typos and other bugs which I fixed as well, and the patch is linked at the bottom of this news post.

The new project I was going to be doing is cancelled. I don't want to go into the details to avoid drama, but it's my fault. I went a bit nuts.

So what is going to be different this time? I'm planning on the following:

• Inclusion of Absolute Nature 3 Lite by default. I'll include a compatibility patch for the full version as well. I'll also probably be including a merge I have of some Absolute Structures textures as well as some from several other structure texture packs I have installed (it looks good together).
• Radiation system will be COMPELETELY re-worked as well as OPTIONAL. I know some people like the other things in this mod but hate the radiation, which I understand, so I'm no longer going to force that on anybody (in fact I'm tired of it too, but it's part of the mod's theme from the start so I can't really get rid of it). In addition to the radiation itself being optional I'll also have it change around the new loading screen tips, actor effects, etc. so that they still make sense.
  

  For those that do use it: I'm going to re-do all the animations and ppe's so that everything melds well together and nothing seems out of place, I'll include the fix Hrnchamd did with the script, and most importantly the Geiger counter will work properly this time.
  The reason it will work now is because before I added the new radiation mostly via gamemtl.xr which although can do radiation damage, it does not work in conjunction with the Geiger counter for some dumb reason. The proper way of doing radioactive areas is either with radioactive zones which can be done in all.spawn, or with the water can be done in the Level Editor (which I'm now able to do some basic stuff with). Also, before due to all the water being radioactive most of the radiation in the Zone was concentrated in Zaton, whereas both Jupiter and Pripyat didn't have much. I'll be re-balancing that.

• Some re-worked shaders. I've tried again and again and it looks like brand new shaders are not possible in Call of Pripyat, but I do have some modified ones I will be including for DX9, 10, and 11.
  The changes so far: Better/more realistic light model, better looking skybox and vastly better looking fog, tweaked SSAO so it's a little more "accurate".
• Re-worked AI. Alundaio is doing some awesome things for Misery 2.0 which I would love to use, but obviously I have to wait until it gets released and either carefully extract the needed scripts from it or wait until he makes an independent version with AI Tweaks. Either way, AI will be a LOT better.
• Guns re-balanced, some models changed, some guns removed, others added. I will also carefully be going over all the gun sounds and try and overhaul them to sound better.
• Some new items: one of which will be proximity mines. I've adapted them from Shoker mod for CS and they're a lot of fun to use.
• Complete overhaul of the MSO system. From what I understand Trojaunch plans on releasing his updates of MSO behavior separate from Misery 2.0 as well when done, so I will likely use those as a base and then tweak them further for my own personal preferences. I'll also make sure Topol and his crew don't get killed constantly anymore ;)
• Merged Cut X-Ray Project and X-Ray Extensions. Features: corpses can now be collided with, bone-specific Actor hit effects enabled (wrote a script utilizing this already, it makes for some really cool effects that weren't possible before), and a FOV console command.
• I'll be adding new AI maps to each level to allow things like rooftop snipers, etc. I'm also going to try and add EAX-type sound environments to maps (will be script-based so that if you don't have a dedicated sound card or a motherboard that can simulate OpenAL you can still hear the difference).
• Some vanilla quests altered and new quests added. I'll be using the Russian "Second Way" mod as a base for these changes, and in terms of new quests I already have a few done for the previous project which i can easily add to this. I'm going to try and add as many interesting quests as I can manage (though I'm still learning).
• Misc. features: bullets penetrate cover better (and less when they shouldn't: no more shooting through thick trees with a 5.45x39mm rifle), NPC's can have their active weapon shot out of their hands (including grenades) which will cause them to switch to their sidearm (which cannot be shot out of their hands to prevent a bug), Monolith can be wounded and will sometimes have a suicide-vest to try and blow you up if you get close (OGSE featured adapted to CoP by DDraig).

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On to the actual patch, here it is: Sendspace.com