 05:47:38 6 August 2007 |
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NatVac
Senior Resident
On forum: 06/15/2007
Messages: 3579
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Alternities 1 - A Classic FPS Mod - Discussion
English version, for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. versions 1.0001 and 1.0003
Version 1.0 - 2007/08/06
Improved accuracy, better weapons, and better weapon/inventory management are the keystones of this mod, compatible with patches 1.0001 and 1.0003. This is a classic-FPS-style modification of STALKER, with an extreme de-emphasis on the role-playing-game aspect, for the frustrated few who feel forced to fight at novice difficulty in the normal game.
Roll your own mod: A short introduction to modding is included, with references to changes in the included files.
*** NOTE: This mod has not been tested with widescreen monitors. ***
Fixes:
Fixes from the 1.0004 patch that are already fixed or worked around in this mod, thanks to bardak:
3. Fixed crash when the player approaches someone from the Monolith's gulag. (Pripyat crash fix)
4. Fixed Voronin's mission for elimination of a bandit. (Poker fix)
5. Fixed random missions at the wild territories. (You now get them!)
7. Fixed the barman's random mission of getting rid of snorks in the dark valley.
9. Fixed the random mission of killing mutants when a pseudodog is among them.
12. Fixed the variety of goods at the bar and at Petrenko's after completing a random mission.
15. Fixed the patrol path at Yantar, which looked like random crashing. (Yantar crash fix)
Probably fixed:
6. The random mission of bandit elimination at the Cordon.
8. The error of the random mission of defending a camp when moving to another location or saving/loading.
10. The random missions of killing mutants.
Other fixes, thanks also to bardak, me, and others who posted public info:
Yes, Virginia, you CAN complete the "Find Strelok" mission. (Requires starting a new game.)
You can exit the Agroprom tunnels either way and still get task completion credit by the time you talk to the barkeep.
You can complete the "eliminate Skull group" quest even if you save/reload in the middle of the fighting.
Stalkers don't die in fires when they spawn. (They can still occasionally die due to two bodies in same space at spawn time.)
Reputation won't flip back and forth between excellent and terrible, so you can more easily get a different Wish-Granter ending if desired.
Fanatic's rookie group now acts the way it is supposed to.
Thanks go to GSC Game World for an awesome game, and to bardak for eliminating most of the problems with crashes and quests. Special thanks to Niphty for his modding tutorials (Ziphty is a nod his way), and to Melodic, Victim, Ceano and others for sharing their ideas, tips, tricks, mods and textures on the GSC forum site. I hope we're still friends, since FPS is blasphemy for many of them.
Other mods included:
No Head-Bobbing by PiIsARational (can be adjusted or removed to restore original wobble)
No Time Limits on Quests by PiIsARational, modded for quest fixes
(optional 10-Day and 1-Day Quest Time Limits versions included)
Show Reward Mini Mod v1.02 by onionradish
My own version of a flashlight mod (can be removed or replaced easily)
My Treasure Manager hack: less spam of same low-level secrets, more different secrets
Unique weapons don't degrade, based on work by gullgotha from comments by SN271
GP37 (G36) can be upgraded with grenade launcher and silencer, courtesy SiriusStarr
Other Changes:
Mouse movement in UI reduced: Inventory grids tweaked for less scrolling. Save game name field lowered. Main menu's "Quit to Windows" is duplicated and directly quits (may take a moment; look at lower left corner of screen). Log and History buttons lowered in PDA. Certain weapons and artifacts are marked as quest items, so they don't clutter your inventory when trading or searching bodies (can be changed). "Eat" in inventory popup menus has a larger clickable hotspot, as does "See you!" in most instances. And you can switch between a GP37 equivalent and a sniper rifle with a single keystroke.
Non-storyline NPC and animal bodies disappear in four game hours after death (24 real-time minutes) after you leave a level. Easily tweaked, but don't make the time longer without starting fresh.
Very few weapons will be actually dropped by NPCs when they die. Exceptions include upgraded weapons and certain high-end weapons like rocket launchers and the FT 200M (FN2000). Certain late-game weapons can now be had earlier, if you are thorough in playing the game.
Carry explosives (thanks to NoMore): Dynamite, barrels, canisters, fuel cans. Barrels and the like are very heavy. This first release has a generic inventory icon and doesn't have explosives descriptions, but the names should be enough. For example, a "Full_barrel" is heavier than a "Barrel".
No bad night vision. The night vision active sound looping is eliminated, although you are still making noise.
Belt items maximum is now six instead of five.
You are more likely to find RPG ammo on dead RPG-wielding enemy, and you will find RPG-wielding mercs where you found mercs before, including the Cordon and Army Warehouses. In fact, if you shoot the rocket-firing dude before he launches, the rocket launcher will still have the rocket.
You can carry more stuff: 150/200 kg. You don't get hungry as quickly as before. You can jump higher to simulate the ability to climb, and with an artifact you can run without tiring if you are not overburdened. This is all tweakable.
Outfits show their various initial protection values in inventory, so you can see before you buy.
Some quests can stack. For example, you can have both "eliminate the Wild Territory bandits" from Voronin and Barkeep at the same time. You shouldn't see certain repeating tasks again after completing the objective until you claim the reward (only with the default No Time Limit Quests).
Secrets show the zone where they can be found with a level abbreviation prefix in your PDA's Message History. The notice will stay on the screen a bit longer when you get the secret. (Stash contents listing is optional.)
No more repetitive chatter from Snitch, bar drunk, Duty guard, or Professor Sakharov.
Pripyat over-the-top background battle sounds not played.
All bread is consumable, although some is stale. Food item weights now correspond to impact on hunger reduction. (Energy drinks have no impact on hunger.)
Some secrets tweaked to yield more ammo instead of the usual minor stuff.
Textual changes have been made to correct errors, like "Shell" instead of "Battery" for the 30 chemical burn protection artifact, or "Protect the stalkers at the Agroprom" when they mean "at the campsite".
Of course, conversations will vary to support the mod storyline.
In this initial release, the NPCs are 20% more likely to hit you with their shots at all difficulty levels, and their outfits protect them more.
Note that some minor bugs in 1.0001/1.0003 are still there, like the grenade launcher misfiring the each time it is first used. (The workaround is to fire it empty, let it reload, use it, then unload it before switching modes. Yes, it's a pain.)
License:
The major portion of this work is copyrighted by GSC Game World, and is included here by their sufferance with the understanding that it will only be used with a legally-licensed copy of "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl".
You are free to use this mod or portions of it for any non-profit use as long as you give credit to the party or parties responsible for the portions you use.
Gameplay Tips:
Try playing on Master difficulty. You'll die a lot, but it might not be as frustrating.
Practice with the weapons. Zoomed mode still takes a second for accuracy to settle, just like unzoomed. Single-fire mode is much more accurate than full-auto after the first shot.
The bad things have tough bodies, in some cases much tougher. Go for the head shots.
For the maximum Ziphty-sales-rep storyline experience, don't run-and-gun against the neutrals, at least not until you have talked to them. This is partly for the story, and partly for the weapons they'll give you from time to time -- which they won't drop if you "do them in" first.
Use your mouse wheel to scroll in large inventory lists if you still need to scroll.
Don't immediately go to Chernobyl in this version. Enter the Pripyat stadium on the left or right through the broken fences, and clear out the stadium. Then return to the other levels via the broken fence for much more gameplay, since a lot of changes happen after you "open the road to the north".
See if you can collect all seven Ziphty weapons (six unique) and as many of the Ziphty artifacts as possible. |
| 08:27:33 6 August 2007 |
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NatVac
Senior Resident
On forum: 06/15/2007
Messages: 3579
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That's funny, Ceano -- I've never had a problem completing that mutant mission with my mix of bardak's fixes. That's not saying it can't happen, but I've not seen it. I have had to chase down a dog, or wait a bit for whatever mutant is missing to come back. They do come back after a bit, or some anomaly completes the task for me.
Now, if you are running with the default no-time-limit, then all you should have to do is clear out the zone of all mutants to get credit -- and you may even be able to go to Red Forest and come back to complete the task.
Since you can't possibly have played through the game that quickly to have that problem already, my guess is that you loaded a previous save. You can play the game that way if any previous mods used were not the kind to add custom items, but yes, stuff will be broken because it started off broken from the saved game. Permanently-offline mutants are common in the vanilla game.
Plus you are probably missing all of the surprises and new guns, except maybe one new gun. But that's the best gun of all, in my opinion...
What do you mean by "vanilla game fixes"? The patch by bardak is just that, although it does have a custom treasure manager (which can be taken out). But if "my version" doesn't fix the problem you are experiencing, then neither will bardak's vanilla game fixes. Are you thinking of something different, like maybe a selected portion of the fixes?
@ Fatrap: I was thinking "Okay, now I can relax with Fatrap's Fun Pack," but that website requires all Javascript enabled and I'm using a proxy that blocks some Javascript. So far I've not been able to download it. I'll try again after some sleep. |
| 16:36:27 6 August 2007 |
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ThomasGideon
(Senior)
On forum: 07/13/2007
Messages: 60
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Not my style of game, BUT...
Good to see someone take this on. I think it will do the STALKER community good, since there are those who DO like this sort of game.
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| 19:56:08 6 August 2007 |
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anton_es
the STALKER who leapt through time
(Resident)
On forum: 04/11/2007
Messages: 295
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i read the readme, ... why the complicated installation instructions ?
is it not possible to use this mod with the mod manager ?
meaning that we don't have to do the clumsy gamedata.normal / .alt1 thing ? I can see that combining this mod with other ones can bring errors, but I shouldn't have any problems using the mod manager
and trying it out ?
or is there something i missed which makes your version of installation mandatory ?
thanks, toni |
| 21:49:27 6 August 2007 |
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NatVac
Senior Resident
On forum: 06/15/2007
Messages: 3579
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@ anton_es: "Rename your savedgames and gamedata directories, unzip, rename the gamedata.alt1 to gamedata, start new game. Change fsgame.ltx if you haven't already done so."
No, there's nothing that makes those installation instructions mandatory. Why did I make them so complicated? Because folks have just unzipped mods to their STALKER installation directories and overwrote parts of existing mods. This avoids that, reducing the grief experienced by the user of the mod muddle, and subsequently experienced by the producers of the mods. 
You can try it with the Mod Manager. It shouldn't be that hard to get the mod into a form that works with it. No warranties, though, so a backup of everything strongly recommended.
Weather mods, shader mods like Float32, texture mods and most reskins should be okay. I use the mod with Ceano's reticle pack to distinguish the special sniper rifle in the game from the others, and highly recommend it.
But there will be serious conflicts with most mods that change the nature of gameplay. While I'll do what I can to help make things work, in some cases it will not be possible.
Just like Fatrap's effort, this is my first time for this. Please be gentle...
@ Fatrap: More tutorial stuff to come. Thanks for the feedback. I hope to do the same for your mod, and keep this mutual-appreciation-society thing going. 
@ Ceano: I'll try to see if I can duplicate the problem. I can put debug code in the script to let me know the status of things...
@ ThomasGideon: Thanks for the nice comment; I hope other RPG aficionados consider the mod in the same tolerant way you do. |
| 04:15:43 7 August 2007 |
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NatVac
Senior Resident
On forum: 06/15/2007
Messages: 3579
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Okay, it looks like the mod is probably not compatible in its current form with widescreen displays, based on information supplied by MeshGearFox in Fatrap's FPS Fun Pack mod discussion thread.
To play the game in widescreen mode: you currently will need to edit the system.ltx file in your gamedata\config\ directory. Under the [inventory] category, change the "max_belt = 6" line to "max_belt = 5" and save. (The stuff on the line from the semicolon on is just a comment.) That's it.
I'll get an update out after the fixes are determined.
There are already two other changes in that file: The max_weight is currently 150 and the take_dist (the distance at which you can search a backpack or talk to someone) has been upped from 2 to 2.2.
To all:
This mod is an attempt to reduce the need for certain repetitive mouse motions, to avoid repetitive stress injury (RSI) or carpal tunnel inflammation.
One factor was the micromanagement of dropped weapons to reduce lag. I was always picking up after these dead guys, then searching them, moving the picked-up weapon to the body.
This is rendered moot by destroying the active weapon when the NPC dies. Usually, this weapon is the slot-2 rifle. If you wound the enemy, he will usually have both weapons in his backpack when he finally dies.
As mentioned in the "changes" document, certain late-game weapons will still be dropped, with what ammo is left in the last clip loaded. Upgraded weapons and quest weapons will also be dropped.
Remember, it's all tweakable.
Enjoy, or let me know why you didn't! |
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