NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[guren2147]

Thanks for the reply,NW.

Unfortunately,even I follow your advises,problem still remain.
I even uninstalled the whole STALKER game and re-installed it into another hard drive,but alas,nothing changed.
No initial blowout,no horror-time,and no update for those side missions.
How strange...anything else I could do to solve the problem?

[Grump642]

I expected hard, but WTF!!! Came to Garbage and went over by Bess. 1 Bandit on the loose before we even start. I shot him 6 times, at close (10') range with a 12Ga!!! He did not die! I did! Emptied 2 20rnd clips of 9x39 into him at close range, he did not die! I DID! This has happened 6 times! Did you add an immortal!!
Edit; Damn, I love it!

[Grump642]

Thanks for the reply,NW.

Unfortunately,even I follow your advises,problem still remain.
I even uninstalled the whole STALKER game and re-installed it into another hard drive,but alas,nothing changed.
No initial blowout,no horror-time,and no update for those side missions.
How strange...anything else I could do to solve the problem?

Hey, did you check the alternate options tab when you hit escape? And make sure everything is set right?

[rockingmtranch]

Thanks for the reply,NW.

Unfortunately,even I follow your advises,problem still remain.
I even uninstalled the whole STALKER game and re-installed it into another hard drive,but alas,nothing changed.
No initial blowout,no horror-time,and no update for those side missions.
How strange...anything else I could do to solve the problem?

Sounds like a bad download.....something just didn't come through right or it unzipped hinky. Try another download? Try unzipping the original again? Last resort, try changing your options to non-horror, play a while, change it back to full horror time.
Just throwing ideas out there for ya.

[Nightwatch]

Hey rockingmtranch you've started as well, great

Thanks Grump642 for solving that question of double artifacts, you're careful indeed, otherwise it's be difficult to to try to guess it.

You're doing great fiznerpin1962 Just reloaded 8 times? It's nothing! I had reloaded almost twice of that before coming to the point where you are now.

guren2147
Could you give the PC specs next time, including your PSU as well. I feel that something may not be pulling things well enough. Having said that, please bear in mind that, the first Horror-Time sometimes can come quite late. Not always the case, but you may not even see it until you've arrived Dark Valley, I remember that it had happened a few times this way, then it starts hitting quite often. Though, what you said about not getting the initial blow-out in Cordon makes me think that either something doesn't go well with your installation, or the running software/processes alongside, or some hardware related situation, such as Power Source in fact. Let's see the specs this time once.

Hi Remac, nice to see that you've grabbed this version, too, as another long time players of the mod And thank you very much for very kind words, I'm flattered. Not seeing the update of that side mission, could be because of 64 bit, I'm guessing, as I haven't tried the mod on 64 bit. Side mission is there, as you see it and confirm it, thanks, and its update situation/dialog there, too, in the files. Why sometimes engine skips it, is a question indeed. One answer lies in Quad-Cores, maybe more importantly for those who use Quad-Cores. (like me, I've upgraded to Quad, and STALKER kicked me hard, it's not optimized for it all) Core2Duo CPUs may have some delays in creating and calling stuff, and Quads are the worse. After changing to quad, I noticed starkly now, sometimes I need to wait very long minutes until some characters to appear, APCs, and the items in stash boxes. One solution for it, is to reload the game, before the events or after breaking the boxes for example, then things pop up. 64 bit may be giving another type of delay, it'd be good to verify this however.

[busetibi]

two blow outs, one horror time, all in Cordon, a day and night (game time) with the side quests thinggy, I noticed when sid asked me to get the artifact for him, (which I found beside the bridge) first time back to him he didn't ask for it, but the second time he asked.
those with side quests delay, just keep at it, they'll ask in the end.
finished Cordon (day/night/day, game time) lets see what Garbage has to offer

[fiznerpin1962]

I expected hard, but WTF!!! Came to Garbage and went over by Bess. 1 Bandit on the loose before we even start. I shot him 6 times, at close (10') range with a 12Ga!!! He did not die! I did! Emptied 2 20rnd clips of 9x39 into him at close range, he did not die! I DID! This has happened 6 times! Did you add an immortal!!
Edit; Damn, I love it!

No, just Kevlar underwear. That and you have neoprene bullets. I feel your pain, man....

[guren2147]

Well here are my specs:

AMD Athlon 4800+
2GB RAM
Nvidia 8600GTS
PSU:350W

BTW,I'm a Traditional-Chinese-WinXP user,could it possiblely be the cause of a bad install?

[fiznerpin1962]

Damn! Lost the quest for nimbles armor already and it hasn't even been 8 hours game time yet!! That bastard must have went & got it himself....
Oh well... got me the NW deagle replica, an MP5, & an AK-74U tactical - time to go wup ass on the military @ the bridge.

edit: Oh yeah, and two pineapples I went to get when I lost the nimble quest.... could come in handy with these damn robocop bandits....

[Kaidonni]

I'll be starting Full Horror Time today rather than Extreme (tried Extreme, but I didn't much care for that one chopper pilot getting in the way of me exploring the houses at the rookie camp). Besides, I never got very far on Full on 2.4, so it might be best to try the mod out that way before I try to go Liam Neeson (as in Taken) .

I experienced the same issue with 2.4 with the quests. Sidorovich didn't always ask about the Nightstar. I was sort of hoping to keep it for myself, but, meh, I couldn't be that cruel. Couldn't sell the item anyway, and can't remember if I could even stash it. LOL.

I never attack the Military at the bridge...you might be able to guess why. And them being difficult to kill is not the reason. Their 'backup' is.

[Wombat_70]

Finally got to 100rad bar and got the Dark valley mission, mean time a monolith invasion
occurred and they killed the Duty outpost by the dogs paddock, so bye bye dog mission.
Damn monoliths also killed all the guards by the general Veronin head quarters, Arnies also dead .

I've been killed countless of time, my Groza-NT is about to reach the end of it's usefull life and I can't
afford to purchase a new one, got the lab key from Borov that's was a tough one to put him to sleep
also got his mini gun and I'm just about to get back to Bar to sell my hard earned stash.

I didn't think that the Groza-NT would wear out so quickly since the condition_shot_dec is set to 0.0 by
default, strange, but theres nothing much I can do about that now.

It's a very tough game and it's only the begining, I might start praying pritty soon

It's 2.00 am and I can hardly see my writing, time to get some sleep

[Ultradad]

Hello there

What can i say, this mod is brutal . I finally picked up the dark vally quest so its all hands to the pump , got to get in there first, soon as i get near the zone it all kicks off, only thing that didnt pop in was necromungers from cronicals of riddick

A few quests that cannot be finished so i will list them and my computer setup. I have a e2140@3GHZ, 4gig of ram and a 4850 XFX running on vista 64bit. These quests worked on v2.4 so not sure if its me or if something is amiss

The Sid and barkeep quests seem fine so far no probs with them, the one for medkits from fox, couldnt hand it in, hes dead now but quest still in log and his marker still on map.
Dutyer at gate for mammas beads, i got first part the eyes but wont update quest
Mole bugged out again, tryed it by restarting area a few times but had to kill him to move quest on
The two guys in carpark in garbage, one for stalker suite and a modified MP5
Carpark in gorden, kill the bandits, so may bandits keep respawning i think it bugged out

The above quests not game breaking or cause problems unless theres a nice weapon from them .I will say the helicopters are just nasty and wont leave you alone lol but when i went to agroprom to do that area when i zoned back into garbage the helicopter spanked me soon as the level loaded up so i had to zone to gorgon then upto garbage to avoid the bugger , but he chased me from there all the way to bar zone entrance

If you want main characters to stay abit longer your gonna have to toughen them up a bit, wolf only lasted 30 mins in game, i only managed to do starter quest from him before he died

http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/rr127/Ultradad2008/Attackofthecats.jpg

Between large groups of mobs, armybase, horror time, helicopters and the kitchensink the starter village is the last place i want to be in Stalker right now

Love this mod, keeping me on my toes big time. Got to fight my way into the dark vally now

[Ultradad]

Hello there

I just remembered, the electric anomolies dont seem to be working properly, not sure if they appearing below the floor or sometimes above it as if its floating as you can see in this screeny but you can hear it and see it on the radar with the detector equiped

http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/rr127/Ultradad2008/Electicalfieldsnotworkingproperly.jpg

When you throw a bolt at it it makes a strange clicking noise when it hits the field. Oh well back to work, i can hear the dark vally calling

[Balious]

Sorry for the long reply. I won't be posting any pictures right now as I don't feel like using IE(Internet Explorer) much at the moment.

I noticed one thing while playing EXTREME. Some NPCs are much weaker then usual. Wolf for one who dies from the starter handgun in one or two hits. Petruha also seems much weaker as he seemed to die in the second or third bandit assault. Fox may still be strong but I havent had the chance to test but he is much stronger then Wolf though.

I have encountered a few crashes in my play. Two of them being the contacts page as I acidently push its button instead of the medkit. Another one which according to Jamie was a random double error that shouldnt happen again. And the last current one was in horror time (a zombie spawn finally scared me) and as I was heading to fox to help him up (the quest) a blowout happened. Just as Fox was getting up a Firebite attacks him so I shoot it and a crash with no log error but there was stuff in there like i only closed the game.

Overall theres been some fun and I now have a minigun waiting to be used. Soon im hoping to head to Garbage and await the dangers. I also have met a Bloodsucker next to Nimble's suit. Killed it with one offshot. I guess it was a weakened Bloosucker.

[EggChen]

Ok, back home and got an hour in on a PC with decent FPS... some thoughts and questions!!

Choppers are awesome, bringing more atmosphere than blowouts ever could. I've never been a fan of the blowout obsession in Stalker modding, and as a result have never played a mod that included them. Anyway, back to the choppers, I'd just wasted the bandits and rescued Nimble, was heading up to the tunnel where you find the jacket and I heard a chopper in the distance. it made me turn round and run back for cover. The reason these are better than blowouts, your not limited to set hiding places, and you can fight back. Blowouts you just sit there waiting

Question - I experienced (and endured) the weak blowout in Cordon, how do I know where to take shelter? Can some of the seasoned NEWSA players list the shelters on each map?

Question - Do the SKYCE shaders somehow limit FPS? I ask as on vanilla Stalker my GPU gets pretty hot (70+) and no matter what I do FPS shoots up to 150+. Just exited NEWSA and checked rivatuner, GPU never got above 55 degrees, just wish I had checked FPS in game (don't get me wrong it was silky smooth, just wondering if VSYNC now works).

Took out a number of firebites, an izlom, a bloodsucker and what seems like a never ending stream of dogs, boars and fleshes. Absolutely massacred the soldiers by the bridge, then hid from the backup that arrived like a big wuss. I've scared off a number of choppers with sneaky shots at the cockpit or tail rotor, got one smoking and he "bugged out". My current weapon of choice is the Storming Abakan retrieved off Friar's rotting corpse, I did not stop to ask him what he was doing in Cordon, just dropped a grenade on him.

Certain aspects of the mod are not my cup of tea (there is no critisicm there whatsoever), but I'm continually impressed by some of the events, and even though the weather is a bit freaky, it is like a showcase for the graphics engine. At times you see the stark changes and impressive moods XRAY can conjure up at will

Not one single CTD, and my contacts page is mapped to Caps Lock (I press it constantly to see who is around me, I have done so in every mod).

NW - Great work
I'll admit here openly that I have removed the textures in the level folder, but other than that I have not tweaked anything.

PS. I am playing it on Xtreme, I just could not have coped with the younglings mocking me.....

Edit : Question - I have "unique stashes" enabled but have not found a single stash yet, though I swear I saw one appear on my minimap, then dissapear a second later. Are stashes found quite rarely in this mod?

[Balious]

Ok Egg I try and help you as much as I can.

About the blowouts. To me from what I know most places with a roof seem like a safe place but I could be wrong. the place next to Fox's protects you from blowouts and maybe the one on the otherside where there are three loners and a few Fleshes in that farmhouse. In Rookie Village Sid's is a safe place as expected and the two underground stairs places are safe places. Not sure about anywhere else in that area as I always hid with the loners as I dont like being alone.

First of all. Caps lock is your contacts key? I never use my Caps lock key unless I wanted to type in full capitals. Most of the time I open my contacts page it crashes (when theres quite a few people around).

On the Stashes part. I think unique stashes means they quite rare but good. If you were to lower it to something else you get a few more I think. I need to actually check my map for how many I have as I think I have only a few too and I looted quite a few bodies.

Anyway its time for me to enter the zone and stay there for a while. I need some peace and killing.

[EggChen]

Cheers Bal, still in Cordon and had another blowout and a horror time (horror time is freaky).

I guessed the basements would be good places, and when Wolf and two rookies ran down there I knew they must be! That stationary chopper thing happened again (first time was on my dad's PC), here is a screenie.



It seems to go there and sit about 10 feet above the ground after it loses you. Anyway, strolled up to it and took it out with a shottie again, explosion almost killed me. Anyone else seen this?

Edit: Still no stashes, but I'll leave it on unique.

[Nightwatch]

Hi EggChen, great to see that you're enjoying the game and I'm equally happy that you're having a smooth game Thanks also interesting notes on the game events. You're a force to reckon with against the choppers as it's obvious now, scaring away choppers with well-placed handgun-shots are not easy at all.

About SKY4CE Shaders, yes, they are quite heavy, and the author himself says that, particularly some aspects of it, are quite performance draining; yet they are very high-tech, offering the various latest generation effects, as you know.

On stashes, balious is correct here, choosing other more classic one will dramatically increase the amount of stash items you get, but works as more general. I tend to choose classic myself.

It's good that you're playing on the Extreme, buddy, so you can see the real weight of the game, as well as being able to see more of your own "gorgeous" APCs and Helis in their best dresses.

On the blowouts: The one in Cordon is of an introductory one as Russo puts it (it's ABC feature) and appears in the first 4 hours of the (ingame) play time. The rest will be more and more fearsome.
You are not in danger of blowout so much in Cordon, Garbage one will hit a bit more only. You can shelter in Seriy's hangar there.

Many places to hide in the Bar area, naturally; and in Dark Valley -this one is pretty severe- you don't want to be caught up in the open field, best places are: down inside the basement before the X16 door, or in a good shelter in Borov's building.

Usually, the closed areas, behind thick walls are the best places to hide.
In Red Forest you absolutely need to enter the Sniper Bunker, it's by the scripts "0" hit area, safe point. Outside, 100% dead zone.
Door number can only be obtained from some places where I wrote them in part disguise.

PS: something came up, I'm off the line, will be back shortly and continue, sorry..
-------------

EDIT/ part deux:

OK, Im back, strange, I'm still online in my status.

yes, underground places are also very good for hiding from blowouts.
In red Forest, if you cannot reach the Sniper Bunker in time when the Blowout hits (say, you're quite away) then the next best thing is to run back and hide inside that army checkpoint at the beginning of the level. Staying in the corner may be safe, but now the blowout is stronger in RF than it was in 2.4.

Oh, another nore, just came to my mind, as you are also using Quad like me, so you are prone to experience quite strange things in terms spawning delays and some behavioural patterns of movements (due to CPU core delays), but how your 64 bit will affect this, more postively or negatively, that I don't know, we'll see.
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Balious
Thanks for updating your quest. Wolf, Petruha, Fanatic ad some other main characters are just one step lower than being absolute "immortal" (which wouldn't be nice to make them non-dying anyway) so, in my game I've never seen Wolf or Petruha die in the hands of bandits, etc. Unless Wolf chooses to take on the APCs at the start and walks onto them. Fanatic may have a better chance of dying as he is quite often faced to deal hordes of (extreme) zombies. Things are not set/scripted and may differ in every new game. But you never know, if they take enough punishment from the enemy, they can of course die at the end. When you saw him die, it must be the case that he (Wolf) must have received a lot of prior damage. I've seen him many times in AW as usual. But Fox, is not so strong.
Mutants and others e.g. bloodsuckers at the beginning in Cordon are not so strong, wait for the later. Also, remember, this is a progressive logic game, things will react to how you play the game, and this will be more apparent in later stages of the game, Cordon is too soon for it.
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Ultradad
Great events over there that you've had. It seems you've managed to got away from that chopper pretty good -on both occasions. happy to hear that you're enjoying the game so far.
BTW, I've reduced anomaly fields of effect, and also lower the bold-detection thing steeply. So, it's abit misleading when the player throws a bold onto the anomaly and it doesn't show much impact, etc, in return. But it's still there. (That electro anomaly visual you mention, as I understand it, must be due to the level design in that area.) They are there, and they will electrocute whoever walks unprepared nicely (or severely)
APCs now, can go through anomalies with much less (many times with nil) damage.
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Wombat_70

You've already progressed to Dark Valley mission it seems, I bet you've left a lot of bodies behind. Graze-NT and other high value/rank weapons (also the suits) like all the others are governed by the level of your in game progress/standing. No matter they are 0.0 condition, overriding scripts determines that a lower ranking STALKER than a, say, MASTER level one, cannot have a fully capable (at its best) weapons. Things will get much better as you progress and increase your ranks. You may find other Groza_NTs, later in the game, as the money purses of NPCs get bigger they get hold of more and better weapons from traders (offline shopping) you may find some, though rarely, on their bodies later, too.
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Good going busetibi
And another note on the side missions while you brought it to my mind, though it's not the case for every side mission, side-mission giver NPC checks a bunch of many conditions before asking the side-mission, if not met, then delays it, if it is such a case for any side-mission.
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guren2147
Thanks for giving your PC specs, as I suspect your PSU power (350W) is quite (in fact, very) low, unfortunately. STALKER, and this mod particularly (because it pushes the game to limits) is very much power draining. With 350W your CPU and GPU (card) must be struggling to cope with demand, let alone the RAM, HDD, and all others. As it will help your PC ultimately, (whether you have played this mod or not) I suggest you consider seriously about getting a new (or second hand, of course) PSU which is not less than 500W with not less than 380W on 12V rail (preferably 2x12V rails, totalling not less than 32Amp)
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I hear you there, Kaidonni, good thinking buddy. You'll get back to Extreme mode you want to drink more blood, it'll be very soon I suspect.

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Great! make them sorry that they were born, fiznerpin1962

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[Ultradad]

Hello there

Here is a list of a few places where i run and hide like a girl when a blow out hits

Cordon: Basements in starter village, under stairs with boxes in carpark and i think building by fox is ok as well
Garbage: Tunnel near hanger, cabin by duyter at gate to bar area
Agroprom: Tunnel and main buildings and underground
Darkvalley: Main buildings
Bar area: Underground
Wild Territory: Both tunnels and i think cabin near 3 story building it usualy got wings of freedom suite inside it
Army warehouses: In ghost village 2 basements, one under a wooden pallet and where you get multi launcher from quest, understairs in freedom base and tunnel, not sure about cabin near zone to yantar but i have seen them run in there
Yantar: Tunnel and main buildings, underground
Red forest: Bottom of tunnel at brain scorcher, last time i was in there i was still getting back end of blow out, little undergound building at NE of map where you can zone and bunker when you can find the code to get in
Pripyat: Building with downed chopper at bottom of stairs, its usualy got raidiation there but with only 3 artifacts and nano suite not sure if its safe there now on extreme mode , main buildings, underground carpark

As for unique stashes i check all dead bodys and only got 3 up so far but theres always good stuff inside thats worth the run to get them