Fellow stalkers!
The time has come!
The release is imminent, as you may know from the latest comments you may have seen in the mod page,
but I would like to spend some more words with you on how the release will go on and about the latest feature I wanted to... adjust.
Release system
I have been very disappointed on how the development have been going on in the last 2 months.
A lot of delays and troubles unfortunately forced me to completely cut off some features that I had planned to renew, because they were simply too coarse for a public release.
I apologise with every one of you for this unpleasant situation.
However!
I decided to release my small contribute for the community anyway, but instead of a full, subject-to-patches release, it will come out as a "build" release.
Exactly as goes on for games like Heroes and Generals, or the same S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in its early existance, every time substantial changes are made on the mod a new build will come out.
For better recognizing the release pattern of the builds, I have "invented" an unique way for doing it:
using the Zone.
Starting from the outer borders of the Zone, exactly as goes on for a game developer, we will make our journey deeper into the Zone, camping in always different villages and ruins, for reaching our ultimate goal: Chernobyl NPP.
A build will have an always different name of a settlement in the Exclusion Zone, always nearer to the goal.
With the release I will provide every "gamedata" a map of the "builds" I want to come through to make the thing a bit more understandable.
Fire support
It's undoubtely known that in the Shoker's Weapon Mod there is a "detonator" that calls in some sort of rocket attack.
I wanted to expand it, as Degtyarev is a military, and he is seen with a radio in the cutscenes, but he never uses it in the field.
Of course, the bigger problem is the in-game balance.
Every one of this help has been inserted in the roses before having throughoutly searched the inventories of the Ukranian Army, for making every external help plausible and realistic.
Let me explain it:
When using the radio/detonator/any sort of those things (I still don't have a model), you can fix the location for the attack by "shooting" it.
Upon shooting, you will see this rose:
Here you can decide which type of help summon.
But how much will it cost? Degtyarev can't simply call in artillery strikes indiscriminately.
We can do it in 2 ways:
- using Shoker as a basis, so every time you call some help the battery (very hard to obtain) will deplete, rendering the radio useless without another battery;
- using some sort of "supply" points, given at the start of the game. You administer them on your personal likings (these points must be inserted into the game, as they do not exist now).
I stil have to decide which one will be the chosen one, let me know your feedback below here.
However, let's keep on exploring this rose:
- Artillery support, the least expensive of all. Indirect fire solutions.
- Air support, the midfielder in the prices. Acts like an "heavy artillery support".
- Supply drops, the most expensive type of external help. Advisable only when you are running low on weapons/supplies, in other words: when you are without anything.
The last of them left me a bit uncertain. I thought that it would have been too unbalanced to implement,
but I think the high prices discourage an abuse of this type of help.
But let's go forward:
Artillery support
In this subrose you can decide the practical help it will be given.
- 2S12 "Sani" heavy mortar suppression barrage: some rounds of this should panic your target to an escape. Or a quick death trying.
- D-20 howitzer barrage: saturation fire from an artillery battery stationed in the Cordon, supporting Army strongholds in the Zone. Reduces your enemy to pieces.
Suggest more for filling the upper field of this rose!
Air support
Note that the air support and the eventual supply channel will be closed during blowouts for obvious reasons.
- ODAB-500PM thermobaric bomb: an SU-25 of the Ukranian Air Force will leave this baby to incinerate lungs just where you want it.
- Mil Mi 24 Close Air Support: summon a Flying Tank for your own purposes! Clear mutants' nests with your bare hands and this mobile death from above!
Suggest more for filling the upper field of this rose!
Supply drops
This kind of support will not be given right after summoning it. You will have to indicate the coordinates, and then come back to collect it when it has been dropped. But beware: even your average stalker may take it, leaving you with... well, nothing, or mutants can decide to eat some of your airdropped reserves and maybe place a nest near this delight...
This kind of support needs you to be in an open fielded-building clear sector, as it gets dropped from a certain altitude for avoiding the anomalies and it may get dropped on top of buildings or other obstacles.
- Small care package: a Mil Mi 8 will pass and leave this special gift from the command, containing the gear you have started your adventure with.
- Big care package: an Il-76 will pass and leave this big pack for you: the complete gear of an SBU operator + some nasties for your enemies!
Hope you liked it stalkers! (and yes, I love Helvetica font)
Please remember to leave your suggestions and ideas below!
Hope you have passed a very good Christmas, merry Christmas (sorry I'm late) and have a fantastic 2016!
RoKkO_
I'm very grateful that you're doing your best to combine together some of The Very Best mods ever released for Call of Pripyat. This is not an easy feat, but if you can get it done, will certainly make your hard work a "must get" classic! I wish you all of the best in making this dream come true.
Please, if it's at all possible, try to make your mod compatible with the Call of Chernobyl mod. The ability to roam wherever and whenever a person desires allover the entirety of every STALKER map is a major positive. That said, Call of Chernobyl could use some more mutant and faction encounters in the underground areas. Perhaps you could add this to your current effort?
I absolutely worship the Shoker mod. I am SO happy to hear that you'll be integrating it into your mod!
Please consider adding the following:
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(1) Smoke and Incendiary Grenades. Every stalker would be VERY grateful to finally have access to these common weapons. The smoke grenade would allow a player to use it tactically to get closer to snipers. These weapons are powerful, so they could be balanced out by having them ATTRACT MUTANTS that see them being used, after all, smoke and incendiary grenades ARE very easy to see. If a player or NPC uses these specialized grenades, they need to be ready for the possible negative consequences of attracting mutants to the area!
(2) Allow for NPCs that can be recruited, so that squads can be made, and that they can be given orders. The Call of Chernobyl mod already has a squad recruiting system built into it, and it works well. What would make the squad system better, is if the player could issue orders to his squad from a distance, via a radio or cellular communications system.
(3) Include more and better models for NPCs in the game, as can be found here: Moddb.com
(4) Create specialized-mutants. These are mutants that have properties of anomalies. Thus, one could encounter a zombie that glows blue and has an electrical attack, or one could run into a controller that could emit a flame attack, or one might have to fight a pseudogiant that emits a dangerous chemical vapor attack, etc., etc. These specialized mutants could be somewhat rare, and perhaps some of them only appear after a blowout or psy-storm. Their organs would be especially valuable and highly sought after by scientists.
(5) In regards to using a communication device to call in support...
...(A) Considering the huge advances in communications technology, I would make the communications device some kind of specialized satellite phone. That said, it should have a "charge" type system, so that it's not abused by the player. Instead of a battery running low, I would suggest that once it is used, enemy forces detect the transmission, and then use electronic warfare to jam it. The better the delivery ordered by the player, the longer the player has to wait for the enemy's jamming to finally fail and allow another order to go out.
...(B) Whenever artillery, thermobaric charges or bombs are ordered, the results should be that most of the loot found on the deceased NPCs is badly damaged. This is a natural consequence for relying on such powerful support.
...(C) Have smoke shells and flares be an available option. These shouldn't cost too much to use. But as I said before, since these are very easy to see, mutants should be drawn to the area if they're detected by them.
...(D) Have a cluster bomb be an option: Youtube.com The drawback of using it, of course, is that SOME of the bomblets will NOT explode, and will act as landmines that the player and other stalkers and creatures could later step on and thus cause to explode. Factions friendly to the player who are attacked by this bomblet-landmine will afterward consider the player to be an ENEMY.
...(E) Whenever supplies are dropped, there should be a 33% chance that the communication is intercepted, and a group of well equipped MERCENARIES are delivered to the area by helicopter. All stalkers from every faction type may also be attracted to the delivery area and want the supplies, but these airlifted-mercenaries would ALWAYS be the enemy of the player.
...(F) The LARGE supply drop should offer a lot of loot to the player. There should be so much gear available, that he CANNOT take ALL of it with him. He MUST leave some of it behind. This will create an interesting scenario, for the longer that the player waits there, shopping through the options, the greater the risk that other stalkers will arrive and begin looting the pile for themselves. Also, if airlifted-mercenaries are incorporated, the longer the player takes to pick out supplies, the greater the odds that he will have a bitter battle with them.
I hope that you find these suggestions useful. Thank you for your hard work!
Uh, I accidentally downvoted you!
1) Smoke grenades must be reworked, as they only flee a stalker, but they do not affect the visual. A good model (the one from Mr.Rifleman) is already available, but I have to rework this aspect before inserting them.
Incendiary... it would be better to create an RPG warhead. They're not so common.
2) There's already a transponder in the mod (look in the previous updates), and maybe in a later build could be effectively applied to squads.
C) Flares are already in Shoker. Both pistol launchable and hand one.
Smoke must be reworked to be effective, as I said before.
D) That's a very good idea!
E-F) That's indeed a great idea too.
Thank you for your suggestions, I have really appreciated them!
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Including these types of mutants into your mod would make EVERYONE want it in a MAJOR way!
Many of these I've never seen in any STALKER mod before.
WOW!
Stalker-mods.clan.su
and
Stalker-mods.clan.su
and
a TON of new suits and NPCs from here:
Stalker-mods.clan.su
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These NPCs would be GREAT to have!
Stalker-mods.clan.su
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Mi24 CAS shouldn't be there. As you know from story, sky near the center of the Zone (where whole game is set) is full of anomalies. This is why whole Operation Fairway failed. This call-in would interfere with story, making a huge hole in plot.
Artillery support, on the other hand, is great idea :) might be crazily overpowered (I imagine dropping it on Waste Processing Station would make this mission ridiculously easy), but I'm sure you will find some way to make it balanced.
That's where I were uncertain of it.
Operation Fairway failed because the helicopters were flying during an emission, causing the anomalies to move and rendering the surge protection device on board useless together with the old anomalies map taken by the helicopters that were flying towards ChNPP in SoC.
In fact, when the 2 helicopters for the extraction come, they are fully functional and armed too.
This because when they start from their base they had remapped the whole sky for the anomalies, moved because of the last surge that forced the Ukranian military into the Laundromat.
I had to documentate both on STALKER Wikia ( Stalker.wikia.com ) and in the game files (above all, the radio chatter with SBU in the Laundromat near the end of the game).
I know it would make things easier, but with limited support a player must choose what he's up for.
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