S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Mods? As in any good ones?

[Mr Bean]

I'm thinking of digging out S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for another play through, seems there been a few patchs since I bought and beat the game in the first week. Close to a year later, are there any mods worth a damn for me to download and liven up the game for the second go-around?

[Stark]

Oblivion Lost, the end.

Get it here. It's one of the only mods that does 'everything', and getting different mods to play well together is a pain in the ass.

This mod wants to get closer to the old Oblivion Lost, and give the best performance what is possible, with using the 3 best mod features:
Total Freeplay, Modified A-Life, and Reality Enhancement.
It is recommended to play in HELL difficulty!
This mod works properly only with 1.0005 patch!
Features:
- Custom Oblivion Lost menus and backgrounds
- Greyscale menus and buttons
- Added the "Turn on the engine" to the options/controls
- All cutout mutants and vehicles
- Two boss enemy characters (Burer and Koshei)
- Added the Psy Dog as a new mutant (with attack effector)
- Level changers from NPP to Pripyat (Total Freeplay - removed last portal)
- Removed the scripted blowout and the deadzone from the NPP level
- Artifact activation (with different looking)
- Random Blowout (spawns mutants and artifacts)
- NPC's can buy everything from the actor but in very low prices
- Reduced NPC's sightseeing radius at night
- Increased and balanced weapon damages to make the game harder and more realistic
- The crosshair reduced to a dot
- Reduced HUD and removed NPC counter
- 24 hours cycle weather in all levels (days are lighter, nights are darker)
- All traders can repair
- Atmospheric sky textures
- Restored the Sun and the Moon
- New stalker and weapon textures
- Sleeping bag
- New skins for mutants and vehicles
- Replaced sounds of weapons, materials, nature, music, misc., etc.
- Replaced all dialog sounds to russian
- Modified, unlocked wild A-Life
- More types of skins of mutants and bandits

The custom HUD is even non-shit, unlike the others I've tried, it's very minimalist. The biggest awesome for me is the pitch-fucking-black nights, making the game far more atmospheric, and the NPC stealth/detection system actually working, so it's now possible to sneak around at night knifing people without everyone magically knowing what you're doing. And running from zombies at night while navigating by the stars in a lightning storm where every lighning strike is followed by 'nnnnghhghhhgggAAAAAH' as the zombies catch sight of you again is great stuff.

Oh wait, also use float32, it replaces the shaders ingame with better/more efficient ones, so that the game looks better and runs WAY better. In 'vanilla', even my 8800GT can't push the grass setting all the way out without dropping heaps of frames becasue the 'vanilla' grass-shadowing shader is complete balls. It also helps with the darkness, as it makes the lighting much sharper and parking a car with the headlights pointing in the door of a building and hiding in the darkness so you can kill everyone who comes out is great fun.

Install float32 first.

[Jaepheth]

does that patch fix the "I can't hit a guy 50 yards away with a rifle, but they can hit me at 200 yards with a pistol"?

[Stark]

does that patch fix the "I can't hit a guy 50 yards away with a rifle, but they can hit me at 200 yards with a pistol"?

Yes.

[weemadando]

Bastardo!

I can't get it to work. Keep on getting CTDs with it.

Hmmm. That feature list is tempting, must get it working properly!

[Stark]

Make sure you've got 1.0005 patch.

Unpack the mod to a folder.
Unpack the mod-patch to that folder.

Move that folder into \stalker\gamedata.

It'll work fine. You need to edit your fsgame.ltx so the gamedata line reads '$game_data$ = true| true| $fs_root$| gamedata\'.

[weemadando]

Hmm. That edit I haven't done. Could well be the issue.

[Nephtys]

Wait, this patch enables vehicles? And actually accurate weapons?!

[JointStrikeFighter]

Wait, this patch enables vehicles? And actually accurate weapons?!

Yeh it makes the game WAY better. Other important changes are the weight limit is raised to 80kg and sprint distance is massively increased thus reducing the amount of time you spend just walking from place to place.

[Anarchist Bunny]

So no longer will the 0 accuracy handgun(the one that uses rifle rounds) fire 5 feet straight and then turn midair 60 degrees. Or the early handguns shots fire like the barrel has a mm of wobble room?


My god, STALKER with shooting. What a novelty.

[Stark]

The game still becomes too easy and boring about midway through the game, even with the increased lethality. Once you have a G36 or FN2000 or even scoped AK, it's all over and it's just headshot after headshot.

My biggest gripe is they made the MP5 a pistol-slot gun, but not the sawn-off. I've wanted a sawn-off backup weapon since the game launched. FOR CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.

[Anarchist Bunny]

The game still becomes too easy and boring about midway through the game, even with the increased lethality. Once you have a G36 or FN2000 or even scoped AK, it's all over and it's just headshot after headshot.

My biggest gripe is they made the MP5 a pistol-slot gun, but not the sawn-off. I've wanted a sawn-off backup weapon since the game launched. FOR CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.

Really? Because from about garbage until the Lake I used the pistol slot for most long range encounters since it was far more accurate then the rifles I had at the time, and used the full auto AK or the shotty for upclose encounters.

[CaptHawkeye]

Really? Because from about garbage until the Lake I used the pistol slot for most long range encounters since it was far more accurate then the rifles I had at the time, and used the full auto AK or the shotty for upclose encounters.

You must have never encountered the Fast/AK-74. Somehow, that gun managed to be MUCH more accurate than the stock AK despite firing faster than the normal rate with no apparent visual change to the weapon. It will also be the first weapon you abuse headshots with. Since like Stark said, the guns only get more and more accurate as the game goes along. Get a scope for the AK and all guns after it, and you'll learn a new meaning to the term overkill. Sniper rifles? Quite simply, [Bill Paxton]game ova man, game ova![/Bill Paxton]

[Anarchist Bunny]

Really? Because from about garbage until the Lake I used the pistol slot for most long range encounters since it was far more accurate then the rifles I had at the time, and used the full auto AK or the shotty for upclose encounters.

You must have never encountered the Fast/AK-74. Somehow, that gun managed to be MUCH more accurate than the stock AK despite firing faster than the normal rate with no apparent visual change to the weapon. It will also be the first weapon you abuse headshots with. Since like Stark said, the guns only get more and more accurate as the game goes along. Get a scope for the AK and all guns after it, and you'll learn a new meaning to the term overkill. Sniper rifles? Quite simply, [Bill Paxton]game ova man, game ova![/Bill Paxton]

Oh that reminds me, Sniper rifle bullets weigh about 10x as much assault rifle rounds as they suffer from a much greater downward pull then they do, making the GK36 a much more effective sniping weapon than any of the actual sniper rifles.

And the Fast AK was sort of a transitional weapon for me, about the time I started using it as a sniping weapon, I got my hands on a GK36(I did the Exoskeleton Stalker mission really early., but I used it early on just to pump a lot of rounds into the chest in close range combat.

I also got I think it was the Walther pistol early from a cache in a radioactive car truck near the airfield in garbage, which was more accurate the most any pistol until the Tavern selection got its first upgrade.

[Stark]

Do you think this shopping list is impressive? Everyone knows the G36 etc is ludicrously, game-breakingly accurate - that was the whole point of my post! Even on hardest, by the time you get to the wilds the game is a boring headshot-fest, and arguing the wheres and whyfores of particular guns is irrelevant.

Since it's relevant, I'll point out Oblivion Lost broadens the range of weapons at traders. You've actually got something to spend all that money on, and that over/under shotgun is pretty cool to use at the start of the game. Not being stuck with shitbox guns at the start is cool, and the increased accuracy and lethality means scrabbling for ammo isn't such an issue anymore (and the traders sell most all of it anyway). Grozas were almost worthless until late in the game due to ammo restrictions (the 300 rounds you find above X18 don't last too long).

[Darwin]

Jeezus. I installed this a bit back, but only just now started playing.


it seriously makes it a whole new game. I stacked the two mods above with a separate enemy detection mod, real weapon names, and 10-day non-critical missions, and it's working out quite well..

I was a bit freaked with the first blowout I experienced though, especially since I was fighting dogs at the time. I took advantage of the next one to attack the Cordon military outpost while everyone was writhing in agony and made short work of it, even got an Abakan out of the deal!

[Stark]

Uh, Oblivion Lost already has enemy detection improvements and real weapon names.

10-day missions is so hilariously lame I can barely speak. Ten whole days? You can finish the game in ten days! No rush!

[Darwin]

Uh, Oblivion Lost already has enemy detection improvements and real weapon names.

10-day missions is so hilariously lame I can barely speak. Ten whole days? You can finish the game in ten days! No rush!

Man, I don't wanna feel rushed!

most of the non-plot missions are lame anyway..

I pissed off the soldiers and they wiped out everyone in the newbie village.

[Stark]

Yeah, that's totally unique.

Frankly, I found even the reduced quest time was too long. I mean, 12h? That's enough time to drive from one end of the game to the other, sleep for four hours, and then do the mission. Having a journal full of dumbass quests is good for WoW, not good for STALKER.

[Ethereal41]

I am technologically retarded. Can somebody please give me idiot-speak instructions for how to install this mod?

[Stark]

More idiot-speak than 'unzip to /stalker/gamedata, then edit fsgame.ltx so the second line reads '$game_data$ = true| true| $fs_root$| gamedata\''?

[Ethereal41]

Thanks Stark! I love you too.

[KlavoHunter]

I think I'm gonna go reinstall Stalker!

[Ethereal41]

Ok, I freely admit my technological stupidity. I edited the file to read 'true', but winzip isn't working. How do I apply this file to Stalker? Do I click 'open' or 'save'? Then what?
Argh!

EDIT: Thanks to all who helped! I finally got this mod working.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Its a rar file. Download 7-zip