NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[3040Krag]

OK, gotta beg for a hint here. I built a new machine, 3x core Phenom II currently running at 3.5 Ghz, 4 gig RAM, Radeon 4870/1 gig DDR5 at stock.

On a new Stalker 1.0004 install and new NEWSA Pro Extreme install, I can't find a nano suit anywhere. I'm in Prypiat and have cleaned house, searched all over the Red Forest, and no nano that I can find. I barely survived the RF blowout by racing back to AW, finding shelter with literally a second or two to spare - was dying fast. Walked most of the way because my Universal Protection suit limits stamina vs the nano suit. I remember Nightwatch telling me that the suit is won in a particularly bloody campaign, but which campaign? I've been all over the brainscorcher, even visited the little trailer where I found a nano and ABC repair kit in horror lite. Got some food and rad meds there, but no nano lovin'.

As an aside:

Like before (old ghetto system), Mole didn't really want to be saved, he stayed stuck in the "save me guys" mode no matter how many military I killed.

I talked to Max about taking out the Duty squad, did a quicksave, then as I blew up the last APC Stalker crashed. On reload, the whole Freedom base went on alert and wiped out the Duty squad, but both Lukash and Max both think we need to finish the job. No big deal, but the script seems broken if Duty is dead and neither Max nor Lukash know it.

Skinflint gave me a job to go to Cordon to get an armorer's repair kit, but Sid is blithely unaware I just came all the way from AW and has nothing to take back to Skinflint.

Good news is, I'm seeing a LOT more of the Dark Stalkers in this install. What is their hatred of Duty based on? Inquiring minds want to know!

[3040Krag]

Oh, yes - Prypiat sniper alley had an APC but no NPC's. After turning off the brain scorcher I traveled RF->Yantar->Wild Terr.->Bar->Army W.->RF->Prypiat. I guess it isn't in my tea leaves to face a tough sniper alley!

[Nightwatch]

I'm not quite a qualified person to give opinions on AMD/ATI systems, but as far as I can see, you have a substantial machine.
On the game questions, well, before coming to the Nano suit, you should not worry about Mole, at least in this mod, as his actions over there do not have any effect on the results of the mission. This is one of the side effects of having a non-scripted missions and AI, being free in great extent, but also related to the workings of X-ray engine, effects of which are closely related with the symptoms that you refer in your post. While STALKER has a very very good AI, which is immensely -and spectacularly- improved in this mod with XStream's unsurpassable AI work, X-Ray engine however suffers from several fault-lines (the blame lies on the shoulders of THQ, who forced the GSC to wrap=up the game too quickly).
Engine generates entities in different coordinates within the vicinity each time, and after each reload as well, to make the game challenging and avoid the scripted look of other games, however, sometimes they are spawned in some unmanageable places, even like inside the walls, which causes the game to abort (crash) without trying to "take a walk around the matter." Another one, is that the engine forgets the current standing of the mission if the player reloads before the end of the mission for whatever reason. This may make some missions to complete extremely difficult, as the engine resets the counting or following the events (like the required dead count, etc) and therefore still waits for that number or any other prerequisites to be reached, while they are already reached.
The problem you saw in AW is just like that.

Also, some games, not only STALKER, (let's be fair) may crash in the heat of the full-blown graphical spikes due to their particle engines seizure, as I've seen in many occasions in Fallout 3, during some big explosions and/or gun-fire complex.

(PS: I just saw your new post on Snipers Alley; yes, on some PCs, snipers and Monolith hit squad do not spawn when entry from BS (Red Forest), despite on many they do as you may see on the video on Utube. I've developing a patch to to make the event universally applicable, it's the only part of the coming patch (mainly a technical improvement patch, plus some features) that I'm still testing.)

Well, let's come to the matter of finding a Nano Suit for you; I don't know if you've checked the Mod's Website on the relevant notes. As you've noticed, Many things are different in Xtreme mode, not only the difficulty levels based on toughness/vulnerability scales for anything and everything (from NPCs to any creatures) , that's only one the elements that makes Xtreme mode very difficult than the other modes. Also, many things places are different, missions are different, challenges are different. So you won't find the same Nano Suit that you had found earlier while playing in other modes in the same place. On this Xtreme mode, you need to find two sets of numbers to open two locked doors, inside which you will find some valuable items. The numbers are collected from the bodies in other modes, but not in Xtreme mode, here you need to find the clues/numbers on various places. So, you need to look around very carefully to spot those numbers, with which you will be able to open those locked doors.
PS: so far nobody found the process of obtaining the numbers easy, be warned!

[3040Krag]

Thanks, Nightwatch!

I've already started making rounds through all the levels, I'll now be looking for those door codes. I have read this thread through, but it has been a while and this thread is BIG!

I'm not worried about the items listed in "As an aside:", just reporting them in case it helps with working on the patch release.

To the list, add can't find the dynamite in Cordon or the valise of papers in DV. And yes, I'm looking in the right places There's simply nothing there. I *did* find one of those funky barman_monster type items. Here, kitty kitty kitty!

[Nightwatch]

You're welcome. PS: For the DV case/valise, I remember finding the guy who carries it in the farm near the Cordon exit, and sometimes he was dead or I needed to shoot him for it, but he's known to be traveling around a lot, as the essence of this mod, so you may need to make some tracking and keep on playing the game and you may cacth up with him somewhere even unexpectedly.

[3040Krag]

Right now I'm on a (seemingly) masochistic mission to down any heli in Cordon. I've been able to take down every chopper that's attacked me on every level except Cordon (and Stancia and beyond as I really haven't yet gone there).

One on one, me against three, it doesn't matter - they waste me. Now it's personal

[3040Krag]

I found out at least one reason why the Dark Stalkers gun for Dutyers: They want Duty's job!





Yes, those Dark Stalkers are guarding the entrance to Bar!

[Nightwatch]

You got it there, 3040Krag! Great photos also. You've witnessed a major incident, dark Stalkers overrun the Duty post and took control of it.
Such events are not scripted, and not even random as far as the what random implies, (which, as we know, generally means choosing from preset situations), but here such events are somewhat organic, AI while free roaming bring movements in the game together and depending on what state they are at that given time, they win or lose... or both lose

Good luck with the Cordon choppers! Some choppers, the Garbage one and some in Cordon also, and a few along the way in other areas, use a different attack and pursue protocols, they are like dobermans in dogs world.

[3040Krag]

The Garbage chopper was cake. It's Cordon heli's that have me snookered!

Moving on, I haven't discovered any door codes yet, still...

I really don't need it now, having finished the NPP sequence and have entered freeplay mode, but!

I now have a Nano suit - and the entire suite of NEWSA firearms. How? I simply looted first the corpse of a bandit, then the corpse of a loner at the Stalker camp in Agro. I was so surprised I didn't take screenshots (sorry!). Nano suit, NEWSA pistol, shotgun, Groza, missile launcher, minigun and .45 carbine. Plus a ton of other goodies such as the SVD sniper, modified (Nato) grenade launcher and other goodies. All on two bodies. Since I already had everything I needed with the exception of the nano suit, I am now a very rich Stalker indeed!

So, it seems one or more NPC's have had access to the various locked doors, else the engine has glitched or something.

[Nightwatch]

That's a very rare occasion to find such a wealth of special armor and weapons on the corpses, but it is the result of NPCs being able to shop, buy (and in fact loot) with everyone and in everywhere you are allowed to do so. It's actually a tribute to the organic, symbiotic dynamics of this mod which is active for all participants of the game. (though you won't naturally see them doing that in graphics, I mean like a movie, as it happens off-line) However, the combination of items that an NPC has obtained as you say is a very much rarer instance in the game, because their chances of reaching such stuff is equally dim (in fact, dimmer) as well.

[3040Krag]

Deep into endgame play, I decided to take a trip to Cordon.

Having already (finally! yay!) knocked out the three choppers that had for so long made my life miserable, I expected a park-like atomosphere, at least WRT the military.

WRONG!

It's a freaking war zone in Cordon! Just north of the bridge there's an APC, another just south of the bridge, another near the car park. I could take out the one APC north of the bridge, but as soon as I TRY to take out the one to the south of the bridge, a pair of bulldog choppers were hot on my ass. In fact, one took me out with a missile before it was even visible

The APC's hate everyone and every thing, from stalkers to mutants to zombies.

I had to carefully make my way to Sidorovich's bunker, sometimes sprinting to stay just ahead of APC fire. Between the APC near the car park, horror time and the inevitable chopper run(s), cleaning the bandits out of the car park was a challenging task!

Cordon is now as bad as, maybe worse, than Stancia! Certainly not a park!

[Nightwatch]

Hey 3040Krag, thanks for the update. it's great to see that you're still getting the best of the action in return home from Stancia!
It's obvious you're one the top hard-core players to stand against that much of a punishment! Then, you'll surely enjoy the Xtreme++ that should come just around New Year.

[3040Krag]

Nightwatch,

I appreciate you (and the others) who have made a good game GREAT! Thank you

[Paradoxical47]

I need help. Running v3, on the following;
E5200@3.75GHz
4.00GB RAM
Nvidia GTX260
Vista 64 bit

I do have issues with loading quicksaves and oddly trying to get to the inventory. Hit 'I' and I get CTD, log says:

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : 0
[error]Function : CUICellContainer::FindFreeCell
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\ui\UIDragDropListEx.cpp
[error]Line : 508
[error]Description : there are no free room to place item

Looking at the error log I was puzzled by the 'E:\' - that's the DVD drive.

Need to get to inventory as I am about to die of hunger, which is different from being killed by the roaming Hind.

Now I have just backtracked saves, found OK in Bar area until a fight starts and then CDT,

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : ai().level_graph().valid_vertex_id(vertex->data().level_vertex_id())
[error]Function : CPatrolPathManager::select_point
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\patrol_path_manager.cpp
[error]Line : 164
[error]Description : patrol path[agr_krot_hold_fake_walk], point on path [wp01],object [agr_krot]

But what is really strange is that although the game has crashed, I am writing this listening to the bar music and a firefight. This is new. Def Xtreme Horror!!

And why are a lot the subtitles so...un-English?

As you can imagine, any help will be much appreciated.

[Nightwatch]

Hi Paradoxical47, thanks for posting an update in your game.

The "E" Drive that's mentioned in the log-file is actually points to the original developer's HDD location on his own computer, where he had installed his STALKER while developing it. So, it's negligible, nothing to do with your PC or files.

Reading the symptoms and that how you've managed to recover the problem when you've back-stepped to a Bar save, it's obvious that you've experienced a Corrupt Save problem. Though rare, it can happen in any game as you'd know, not only in STALKER, but that's no consolation once you've lost some number of saves anyway.

However, now your game should continue cleanly, but please try to avoid saving during high-action (e.g. gunfights, horror times) if possible, and that may help to the stability of the saves at some extent.

The crash that you've had in the Bar, on the other hand, is not a corrupt save crash, but it's engine related and much talked about the incidents where an (mostly) NPC gets stuck behind an obstacle or in fact gets spawned sometimes inside unmovable objects like walls, as you may see at some points during the game; and if the subject (NPC) is tasked to do something, then because the engine cannot recover the situation that it created (for example, instead of guiding the NPC either though the solid object, or around it whatever it applies; or dumping the NPC and its task), it abandons the game. I will lift some restrictions on the upcoming patches which should help at least a little bit to this problem.

However, on this current game, I can recommend that you should try sleeping in the Bar before the referred fight starts, so the game will deal the subject offline and you'd have skipped the problematic timeframe, or, also you can try to move outof the Bar asap to another nearest level, sleep a little, and then come back.

(Also, to your reference to some russian wording in the game, well, this mod is around 900 Mb and contains more than a couple of hardback size books amount of words, a massive amount have so far been translated, in fact two Russian Lawyers even helped at one stage, still some may remain here and there, but a mammoth amount of work done for free. I know you'd appreciate this of course. )

Hope your game continues from that point onwards comfortably.

[Paradoxical47]

Hi Nightwatch, thanks for coming back. Was still getting the crashes so I uninstalled and clean installed on a different disc. Seems to be working better, just got to the Dark Valley and only had 3 CTD which were random. Funny enough I have everything to max and as yet had very little 'Horror' wheres when the setting where lower the Horror was coming thick and fast, (they are brilliant by the way, as is the after shakes!)

I can see where you are coming from with the dialogue, Russian to English can't be easy at the best of times.

The only in game probs I have, and I really should re-read all these posts, is that I cant hand over items that have been requested by individuals, like Duty at the gate wanted a fleshy eye, which I got but can't give it to him, what am I obviously missing???

Paradoxical47

[Nightwatch]

Good to hear that your new installation cleared pervious problems. On the Horror Times: they are not related to graphical game settings in regard to being Low, Medium, Max, (but I don't think you mean those) however, their frequency and ferocity (in terms of mutants/creatures released, etc) can be set through the pre-set values on the main menu, but the Horror-Time is NOT a scripted-timed event in this mod, in fact not exactly a regular-sense randomized event; but it is thrown at the player on the basis of a multitude of checks done during the gameplay. All depends on how you play the game, and there is not a single answer to this question, as it does not only check (for example) if the player has completed "a particular mission" or "done this" or "that" during the gameplay, it checks many things a throws the Horror-Time on the basis of that result.

Sometimes Horror-Time can be postponed in the game up to the Dark Valley, where you should expect to get a quite severe one. or more than one, depends. They may come late (as well as early) but it's certain that you will be getting a lot of it throughout your game.

However, if you can't see any Horror-Time until the end of Dark Valley mission, then you should suspect that your game has not properly initialized from the beginning. It's called "a cold start," a term entered into STALKER dictionary by one of our renowned modder friends, fatrap.

As long as you've got any mission, normally you should be able to give the requested item to the NPC who requested it. Otherwise, I would assume that there's an engine glitch which, may or may not, be related a saving/loading problem, as the engine is known to be liable to (sometimes) forget somethings during this process. However, this kind of glitches is not unique to Xray(STALKER engine) it is also seen in much newer Fallout 3 as well, for example. It may recover later in the game suddenly, it's known to happen.

[Paradoxical47]

Thanks, cleared things up a bit. It certainly keeps you on your toes this, especially that darned Hind that chases me everywhere. 23 attempts in Rookie camp to shoot it down, and then the wreck landed on top of me, not what I was expecting at all! Still cant get NCP's to accept anything, but I think I'll re-start on a lower level and work my way up so I may be able to see where thing go a bit wrong, or not.

Any excuse to keep playing.


Paradoxical47

[3040Krag]

After several times through the game - most of which I discount because of my previous below-minimum PC configuration - I have yet to be able to finish a non-vanilla task.

I'm in my second play-through with upgraded system specs, and still cannot complete quests such as the Duty gatekeeper's need for flesh eyes. To Paradoxical47, be aware that these "broken" tasks do not adversely affect gameplay and can simply be ignored.