Features you would like to see in the mod. Thread - Zone of Alienation mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Thread for requests, I am not obligated to fulfill them, but here I can listen to them in a more organized fashion.

I'd fucking love to see the Taurus, APS Stechkin, 1895 Nagant (suppressible), MP412-Rex, Glock 17, Glock 18c [30 round mag], G36c and VSK-94. Whether or not any of these are viable remains to be seen. Scrounge around and surprise me, Fatal.
Being able to attach shorter range optics like Micro CCO's, EOTech holosights, Red Dot sights, Kobra (I know you've uploaded pics of the Kobra but is it detachable?) The PK-AS Russian holo sight (which looks magnificent in my opinion) would be a huge bonus. I know you love being sadistic and totally triple x-rated hardcore, however not being able to repair your shit as a bandit/merc/monolith guy makes me want to be loner 4 lyf, despite the fact I hate the Cordon part of the game, considering the amount of time I've spent there.
The stuff you're adding now, especially the PMAG M4 get me quite excited about you adding new weapons. The weapon requests I made are all found in the SMP 2.4 (with the exception of the VSK-94, Nagant and MP412-Rex) so they do exist, and it seems likely that since your random weapon system is modular that these could be added by release.I sure hope you find a way to add the night vision scopes to arsenal/other weapons, because they are so fucking cool. Well at least the Gen1 is, cause it's the only I've found so far.
Finally I'll end on a question; will 1.09 be save game compatible? I don't wanna start again!

Edited by: Quirke

I'm already in the process of adding many, many new weapons, so many in fact that it has caused me to push my projected release date to some time in March.

I don't yet have a list, but expect many more types of weapons, VSK-94, and Vikhr being among them. It's also possible that many of the existing sounds for the weapons will be re-done. There will be enough weapons with kobra sights too. I will also have to work on a NATO equivalent for the Warsaw pact NV scopes, something like an AN-PVS4.

Like I've said in an earlier news article, the weapons themselves are just part of it, depending on the rank and faction of the NPCs carrying them, they could be found in completely different condition states.

I have a folder full of OGFviewer screens of potential candidates. If you like I'll PM you them.

Addendum, I've been meaning to do a video showcasing some of the new weapons for some time, but I'll wait until I have enough, and have modded the ui_icon_equipment.dds icon to show them.

Edited by: FatalFunnel

FatalFunnel wrote:

I have a folder full of OGFviewer screens of potential candidates. If you like I'll PM you them.

>If you like
Of course I'd like that!
What are the animations like for the guns? I assume you've only picked the finest examples of animation. In regards to the VSK-94 [my favourite example of slavshit] the only mod I've used it in was Misery 1.1 and the charging lever wasn't animated sadly. That sort of thing makes me feel somewhat less inclined to rain 9mm sniping death.

But yeah get those OGF screens to me and I'll be a happy S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Done.

Hey there FatalFunnel,

Hate to gripe, but I really love the idea of cooking artefacts, yet I find it so difficult to actually collect said recipes.
How about the idea, of adding the option to have all of the recipes revealed to the player, so that they can cook artefacts at their convenience.
Or making it easier to acquire the recipes, as in having snitch supplied with all of them for sale?
I'm not saying that you have to make the game easier, but searching for these recipes is like groping for something in the dark.

Other than that, perhaps speedloaders for specific magazines? I like loading my own magazines very much, the realism is very immersive, but loading takes so much time that it becomes a chore at times to refill all of my Stanag/Bakelite mags at the trader, (god forbid I be using the RPK-74). Alternatively you could speed up the animation a bit, which I know is already speedy compared to the speed at which I can reload pmags.

I'm not going to request more weapons, I'm well aware you're neck deep in weapon programming.
Anywho, great mod, I'm addicted to it, even though it's very unforgivingly punishing! ;3
Keep up the great work!

Oh, question: Are you forcing the scopes to be attached to the new bolt rifles you're adding in the upcoming mod? Optional scopes are much preferred for allowing use of the irons with the bolt action rifle. I find iron sights on bolt action rifles to be supremely satisfying. Perhaps a proprietary scope for those weapons could be sold from traders?

Edited by: Piznut

Piznut wrote: Hey there FatalFunnel,

Hate to gripe, but I really love the idea of cooking artefacts, yet I find it so difficult to actually collect said recipes.
How about the idea, of adding the option to have all of the recipes revealed to the player, so that they can cook artefacts at their convenience.
Or making it easier to acquire the recipes, as in having snitch supplied with all of them for sale?
I'm not saying that you have to make the game easier, but searching for these recipes is like groping for something in the dark.

This is being worked on by adding in flash drive info_portions, so that if an NPC with information dies, the player can still get the recipe info from them, not only that, but many of the recipe infos on flash drives will be changed around, so the information won't be in the same places as it is in vanilla, it's also possible that there will be copies of that information on other flash drives that spawn in different places, like in certain stashes, so that the information can be obtained even if it is already on an important character that you may have to kill in order to get.

Other than that, perhaps speedloaders for specific magazines? I like loading my own magazines very much, the realism is very immersive, but loading takes so much time that it becomes a chore at times to refill all of my Stanag/Bakelite mags at the trader, (god forbid I be using the RPK-74). Alternatively you could speed up the animation a bit, which I know is already speedy compared to the speed at which I can reload pmags.

I don't know how to do this, but if I did, I would probably add in a ui-component to reloading excessively-large capacity magazines. Some other mods have this.

My advice in the mean time is to resort to scavenging more filled magazines, instead of reloading empty ones, I barely have to reload mags in the mod anyways.

Oh, question: Are you forcing the scopes to be attached to the new bolt rifles you're adding in the upcoming mod? Optional scopes are much preferred for allowing use of the irons with the bolt action rifle. I find iron sights on bolt action rifles to be supremely satisfying. Perhaps a proprietary scope for those weapons could be sold from traders?

If the scope is part of the model, well, then I can't really do anything about it. However, I know the SV-98 has a detachable scope, and although I tested it as permanently-mounted, I could make a new config for it, and this also allows for versions using night sights.

Well, that all is actually very good to hear! The magazine issues aren't really so bad anyways, it's part of life in the zone. As for scopes on the models of sniper rifles, oh well, there really isn't anything much you can do about that, it'd take a lot of work. All in all, glad to hear all of this, I anxiously await your next news update! Good luck!

Thought I would take my gripes (sorry) to the forum.

I was thinking that a slightly easier mode (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that) not Vanilla easy what's so ever but just enough so the bandits do not one shot you with the sawed off from like 15 feet away (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that)
Adding a guide that explains the new controls and actual features (mag system, "Activating" artifacts something in the train section of the PDA.
Also adding some new Artifact.

Great job on the mod. Thanks to everyone that had a hand in this mod.

Killa1934 wrote: Thought I would take my gripes (sorry) to the forum.

I was thinking that a slightly easier mode (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that) not Vanilla easy what's so ever but just enough so the bandits do not one shot you with the sawed off from like 15 feet away (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that)
Adding a guide that explains the new controls and actual features (mag system, "Activating" artifacts something in the train section of the PDA.
Also adding some new Artifact.

Great job on the mod. Thanks to everyone that had a hand in this mod.

I do have some plans for several different difficulty modes, that change things like visibility of anomalies, starting equipment, AI behavior, and some other possiblities.

FatalFunnel wrote:

Killa1934 wrote: Thought I would take my gripes (sorry) to the forum.

I was thinking that a slightly easier mode (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that) not Vanilla easy what's so ever but just enough so the bandits do not one shot you with the sawed off from like 15 feet away (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that)
Adding a guide that explains the new controls and actual features (mag system, "Activating" artifacts something in the train section of the PDA.
Also adding some new Artifact.

Great job on the mod. Thanks to everyone that had a hand in this mod.

I do have some plans for several different difficulty modes, that change things like visibility of anomalies, starting equipment, AI behavior, and some other possiblities.

What level of hell did you pull the invisible anomies out of just got to ask. Also I am happy with everything else but the difficulty took me an easy 3-4 (including a random pack of 3 controllers that would wander in after a bit of fighting) to get past the car park. I cranked the difficulty of the game in the options and it just mad the AI dumb as a sack of rocks. They would look at me then aim into the sky.

One more thought have it less likely to spawn high level/annoying mutants in low level areas until a certain mission is done. In Cordon alone I killed 3 controllers 4 separate packs of rodents, 2 blood suckers, numerous pseudo dogs (not that bad but still...), a pack of snorks along with a pack of rodents at the rookie camp, and
all this is before even traveling to The Garbage for the first time. Love all this stuff was SO fun dealing with it but I don't want to until later in the game when I actually have a gun that can kill them efficiently. (Snorks new leap height had me shiting myself the first time I encountered them)

Sorry for the long post

Killa1934 wrote:

FatalFunnel wrote:

Killa1934 wrote: Thought I would take my gripes (sorry) to the forum.

I was thinking that a slightly easier mode (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that) not Vanilla easy what's so ever but just enough so the bandits do not one shot you with the sawed off from like 15 feet away (where the AI's see you then start aiming in the air Played it on Stalker and they started to do that)
Adding a guide that explains the new controls and actual features (mag system, "Activating" artifacts something in the train section of the PDA.
Also adding some new Artifact.

Great job on the mod. Thanks to everyone that had a hand in this mod.

I do have some plans for several different difficulty modes, that change things like visibility of anomalies, starting equipment, AI behavior, and some other possiblities.

What level of hell did you pull the invisible anomies out of just got to ask. Also I am happy with everything else but the difficulty took me an easy 3-4 (including a random pack of 3 controllers that would wander in after a bit of fighting) to get past the car park. I cranked the difficulty of the game in the options and it just mad the AI dumb as a sack of rocks. They would look at me then aim into the sky.

One more thought have it less likely to spawn high level/annoying mutants in low level areas until a certain mission is done. In Cordon alone I killed 3 controllers 4 separate packs of rodents, 2 blood suckers, numerous pseudo dogs (not that bad but still...), a pack of snorks along with a pack of rodents at the rookie camp, and
all this is before even traveling to The Garbage for the first time. Love all this stuff was SO fun dealing with it but I don't want to until later in the game when I actually have a gun that can kill them efficiently. (Snorks new leap height had me shiting myself the first time I encountered them)

Sorry for the long post

I've tried for a long time to tone down the mutant spawns, but I can never figure out where the AMK devs put them.

The regular invisible anomalies are from AMK, but really only 2 types are invisible. Hardcore mode is intended to have all the types of anomalies invisible.

I do plan on making an easier difficulty mode that gives the player a sawn-off at the beginning and a detector, but it's still not going to be all that "easy."

The AI is sort of dumb because of changes made to them that allows for easier stealth, but in the new patch this has been eased off slightly, they are more perceptive now, especially when you kill one of them at close range.

Could you make it so clips are used to load the obrez? Seems silly to load the thing slowly, one round at a time when Mosin Nagant clips are readily available everywhere and are nice and cheap.

Could you add an option to unload magazines? If you have a 30 round magazine with only 28 loaded rounds and a magazine with only 2 rounds in it it would be , much more helpfull to be able to load those 2 rounds into the almost full magazine.Also you should add an option to be able to reload at any time, the partially used magazine being stored in to your inventory, or better yet dropped on the ground.

anomaly placements should be redone, especially for the invisible ones.I could understand there is an invisible anomaly in the middle of a hallway/room if there was radiation there.But an invisible anomaly in the middle of a road??? come on, i want to play stalker not minesweeper, throwing bolts in front of me all the way from cordon to barkeep. As a side note, you could also add some small radiation warning or radio static when you get closer to one of the invisible anomalies.

kvaedi wrote: Could you make it so clips are used to load the obrez?
Seems silly to load the thing slowly, one round at a time when Mosin
Nagant clips are readily available everywhere and are nice and
cheap.

I could make clips, but I don't have a proper mesh for them. They could be used in addition to single rounds.

The
original reason why I did not use them, other than the lack of proper
clips, (aside from moon clips from revolvers,) is because I wanted some
guns in the game to serve as "scavenger guns." much like most of the
shotguns already do.

snaptastic101 wrote: Could you add an option to unload magazines?

1. You already can if you attach them to your belt, press 5, and right click.

snaptastic101 wrote: If you have a 30 round magazine with only 28 loaded rounds and a magazine with only 2 rounds in it it would be , much more helpfull to be able to load those 2 rounds into the almost full magazine.

Already possible if you are loading individual rounds, boxed ammo will be phased out in the future, so it will be feasible with all ammo types.

snaptastic101 wrote: Also you should add an option to be able to reload at any time, the partially used magazine being stored in to your inventory, or better yet dropped on the ground.

We tried this, it didn't work, we made compromises.

snaptastic101 wrote: anomaly placements should be redone, especially for the invisible ones.I could understand there is an invisible anomaly in the middle of a hallway/room if there was radiation there.But an invisible anomaly in the middle of a road??? come on, i want to play stalker not minesweeper, throwing bolts in front of me all the way from cordon to barkeep. As a side note, you could also add some small radiation warning or radio static when you get closer to one of the invisible anomalies.

What is Roadside Picnic.

Hey I posted here a while ago and I'm happy to see you made progress, enough to even make a new patch. I have a few requests that I believe others have had but I'll still state them. Even I started playing the mod, I played like normal and experienced the biggest brick wall I have ever seen in a video game when I tried to take the car park. It was like going from playing a flight sim about biplanes to flying a F-15 and taking on 6 Russian aces in SU-35Ss all at the same time. I was able to defeat the bandits but when I got injured I had no clue how to heal myself since med kits just break down into their components. So making a video on how to use the things from a med kit would be nice. My next one is really more of a bug but I might just be doing it wrong so I'll state it here. When I go to unload a mag, I go to inventory, attach it to my belt, exit the inventory, press 5 and then right click but it just acts like I shot into the ground and loads a single round and nothing changes. Am I doing it wrong or what? Next is the difficulty. I love absolutely everything about the mod......except the fact a bandit can one shot me with a sawn off from 30 feet away. Or if I try and take on the military who attack the loner village but then they call in a bloody Hind to take care of a few stalkers. I know you've said about making a slightly easier difficulty but I'd think it'd be nice if you had a difficulty level that basically went back to pre-mod levels but with the beautiful environment and amazing new weapons and mag system. You could name it "Pussy" and I'd gladly accept that title for having a fun time. Another thing is anomalies. I know the guy before said about it and you said "What is Roadside Picnic". I know you're trying to make it real to the book as possible but when I spend more time throwing bolts in front of me than actually walking it just gets annoying. There's a difference between realistic and just plain annoying and difficult.

Stelock wrote: Hey I posted here a while ago and I'm happy to see you made progress, enough to even make a new patch. I have a few requests that I believe others have had but I'll still state them. Even I started playing the mod, I played like normal and experienced the biggest brick wall I have ever seen in a video game when I tried to take the car park. It was like going from playing a flight sim about biplanes to flying a F-15 and taking on 6 Russian aces in SU-35Ss all at the same time.

The car park is not really as difficult as it used to be, since very recently Nimble is able to defend himself better, shotguns have had their damage increased, (this works for both the player as well as enemies,) and I am working on adding newer, more powerful ammunition in 9x18 and 7.62x25 form.

Another thing about the car park itself, is that it is not really intended to be the "first" encounter with bandits the player should have in the game, but this would be an issue with later versions of the mod where new maps might be added, to lengthen and slow the difficulty curve.

The initial reason why I made the car park so difficult in the first place is not to make the mod "hardcore" but to beat it into the player's head that this is not the way things are in vanilla, and that the player has to adapt and think around the plot situations rather than just blow through them. Of course, without moving the starting position to a new map this doesn't seem to be very apparent. There is of course the night star mission that Sid gives you at the start, which has the reward of a decent shotgun, and you can buy weapons from NPCs for relatively cheap prices.

Stelock wrote: I was able to defeat the bandits but when I got injured I had no clue how to heal myself since med kits just break down into their components. So making a video on how to use the things from a med kit would be nice.

I've been thinking of expanding the tutorial messages to be centered on mod-specific things instead of the vanilla instructions, things like medkits, mags, etc.

Stelock wrote: My next one is really more of a bug but I might just be doing it wrong so I'll state it here. When I go to unload a mag, I go to inventory, attach it to my belt, exit the inventory, press 5 and then right click but it just acts like I shot into the ground and loads a single round and nothing changes.

Everything except for the very end where it only loads one round is normal, unless of course you only have 1 round in your inventory, which happens in many cases. The loading animation is supposed to continue so long as you do not interrupt it, and it will load all of your ammo. The firing into the ground is normal, since that is how the ammo_manager unloads magazines, it's too bad that it immediately reloads them, in which case I suggest that you immediately switch to a sidearm or other slot.

Stelock wrote: Am I doing it wrong or what? Next is the difficulty. I love absolutely everything about the mod......except the fact a bandit can one shot me with a sawn off from 30 feet away.

Or if I try and take on the military who attack the loner village but then they call in a bloody Hind to take care of a few stalkers. I know you've said about making a slightly easier difficulty but I'd think it'd be nice if you had a difficulty level that basically went back to pre-mod levels but with the beautiful environment and amazing new weapons and mag system. You could name it "Pussy" and I'd gladly accept that title for having a fun time. Another thing is anomalies. I know the guy before said about it and you said "What is Roadside Picnic". I know you're trying to make it real to the book as possible but when I spend more time throwing bolts in front of me than actually walking it just gets annoying. There's a difference between realistic and just plain annoying and difficult.

I think you're too used to vanilla, it's not that vanilla is easy, it's that it gets people into bad habits that ZoA is meant to break, and very harshly.

When I think of the difficulty of ZoA I think of it being "hard but fair," this rule generally applies best to combat, since the player is always able to do an equal amount of damage to enemies as they can do to him, but increasing difficulty is not my sole goal in this mod. What I want more to do for the player is to make him more cautious, and part of making him more cautious involves slowing him down, (anomalies,) being ready for battle, (medical and ammo management,) and in many situations, simply unwilling to take on enemies better armed than him, (say your military patrols and helicopter from AMK mod.) As a result, the level of difficulty in ZoA is a constellation of different factors more than it is just one thing, but the overall aim here is to make you stop and smell the roses instead of just bursting through the game just on old vanilla SoC habits.

In short, slow down, think about how to approach situations, and make sure you are ready for battle because when it does come it's often just reacting and retreating if things get too dangerous.

Edited by: FatalFunnel

So, as I wait for ZoA to finish downloading, I can expect it to behave like Misery 2.01(brutal and unforgiving, but dying is still your fault)?

Hey FatalFunnel, I just started the mod and I'm really enjoying it. I died at the carpark after a long stakeout, but I like the new attitude I have to take and I'm excited to play more. Anyway, something I've always wanted is to remove the third person cam when the player dies and replace it with a cut to black. I was going to post it here as a suggestion, and then I thought I'd see if I could figure it out myself.. and now I'm back here. I tried poking around postprocess.ltx and effectors.ltx but I wasn't sure what I was looking for. It looks like I might even have to edit a PPE file, but I want to be sure I'm editing the right one before I dive in. Could you point me in the right direction? Thanks.

Great mod!!
I love the magazine feature, really ups the realism. Just one thing with that, maybe loose rounds in your inventory could be considered as clips, each on their own. The reasoning behind this is that once your clips are empty, you can still load single rounds directly through the breech of the gun.

This could have saved my life in a heated firefight with the military where I died because I had to resort to a crappy 9x18mm gun for which I only had the basic rounds once my trusted FNC and AWG ran out of ammo (I was on my way back to restock when I bumped into the, and had maybe half a mag in loose rounds and only 1 extra apart from the one that was loaded). Not easy trying to go for headshots from a distance with a pistol when you have a couple or army guys shooting at you with an AK...

The portions of this mod that I love are BRILLIANTLY done. Congratulations and thank you SO much for sharing with us!

As a former contributor to the Misery 2.0 mod, there is much here that I admire, so don't take this list of suggestions too harshly!

Reloading System
I'd make the "reload one round at a time" feature an option. It's very well executed, but, holy cow, does it take a LONG time to refill one magazine.

Please take a look at the GREAT tactical game 7.62 High Calibre for some inspiration on setting up a reloading system via GUI screens. The screen would make it easy to unload magazines, and reload them with a vast variety of different types of ammunition. One can alternate rounds of Armor Piercing with Full Metal Jacket in a snap, and even setup the last 3-5 rounds to fire off tracers as a visual cue that one's old magazine is about to need to be swapped out with a fresh one. This is an old trick that a lot of real special forces operatives do out on missions. I couldn't imagine how devastating it would be to alternate AP with incendiaries...!

Scopes and Iron Sights
Haven't played long enough yet to gain a scoped Eastern Bloc firearm, but I'm dearly hoping that when I do, that the thoughtfully designed, and iron sight friendly scopes function fully, that is one can use the iron sight by placing one's eye below the scope's higher placement. Today, many Western Bloc countries have scopes that have iron sights mounted atop of them, or a non-magnifying holo-collimeter, I certainly wouldn't mind gaining access to these as well.''

Also, please ensure that all holo-collimeters have aiming-chevrons that actually glow, even in dim/completely dark conditions.

AI Improvements
Currently, the AI seem like they rarely miss me at extreme distances. Please reduce the chances of them scoring headshots on a player who can't ever seem to land the same quantity/quality of shots against his enemies.

Ragdoll Physics
If possible, weigh the ragdolls so that they tip forward more with much greater frequency. Arma III did a great job with these. The overwhelming majority of the time, a target gets dropped while moving forward and their momentum is enough to tip the body in the direction it was traveling in. Even if they have little/no forward velocity at the time of being killed, their tilted body posture due to carrying all of his gear makes it highly likely that the body will have a forward tip at the time of the demise.

Sound Effects
They're great. The sounds of a round just missing one's head are terrifying to contemplate as the sonic snap is just PERFECT. A greater variety of call outs from the wounded would also be greatly appreciated.

Weapons
Uh...MORE please!

I would like the option to choose to load specific rounds into a magazine.
Like, choosing between PST and SP7 rounds to go into a 12 round magazine.

Also, I noticed that it's really hard to tell each magazine apart. Some why to differentiate them would be nice.