NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[Nightwatch]

Thanks busetibi, I'll certainly keep your offer of help on my mind.
And, I can now say that, as of my considered opinion based on bitter facts, any one with a piece of mind (who has not yet committed themselves to Vista) should stay away from it at all costs. It's a "visually" nice looking OS which also offer some small nice benefits, but, in final analysis it's too untrustable and volatile, on top of its well reported performance problems. You're lucky now that you were careful enough to stay away from this OS. It's prone to "glitch" at any time on anyone as it has done on me, with some very bad consequences.

[fiznerpin1962]

There are reasons I still use XP - and drive an '81 Chevy pickup......

[Grump642]

Nightwatch, is there any way of stopping all those trucks at the Bar to AW level changer from moving??? It's a little disconcerting to appear in the middle of a truck!!! They all slowly move towards the level changer and bunch up. I even took damage once when appearing in the middle of one. Also, hard to get out!
PS- Thats on the Bar side.

[fiznerpin1962]

I always move towards the blue circle on the radar until I am no longer closing the gap. Then I "about face" & start walking (approx. 10 feet or so) until I get the change prompt. Works every time.

Never spawned inside a Mercedes panel truck, though....

[Nightwatch]

Grump642
You spawned in the middle of a truck? There is always a new thing that one can hear in STALKER. I thought they were helping to enhance the feeling of abandonment in the Zone. They never caused a problem to me as far as I remember, and they make it more challenging for the player to navigate between the anomalies while there are quite few tracks lying around.
Anybody else who has found problems from the tracks, like piling up at the Level Chenger point?

[busetibi]

I've had then floating about 6ft off the ground just before the Bar/AW switch, more so on the right side of the road as you walk up to the AW switch, but I've never seen them "bunch up" at the switch nor have I ever spawned inside a truck

[Nightwatch]

Yeah, it's my experience as well.

And, while the "floating vehicles symptom" as occasionally witnessed in the Zone has been referred to, then I think it's the time and relevance that I should this:

Actually floating vehicles matter has been resolved (in fact it's on 2.4 as well) by the inclusion of barin's ingenious script. (as far as I'm aware, OL and some other mods also use that script.)

-you may still see some vehicles float, while they had not been floating before, strange? No... This is how and why-

1) This barin's script hits the vehicles upon the actor's entry into the level, as if you are hitting any vehicle. You know that when you hit or shoot a vehicle it drops down if it was floating before. So they come down to the ground.
(This works on the vehicles that are spawned through the all.spawn)

--but..NOTE: as it always happens with Xray engine, and that it is a bit senile and forgets almost everything after a reload, when you reload the game in that particular level, the game does not always (mostly) remember that the vehicles in the level had been hit. Here they go floating again.
If you die or whatever reason you reload the game on any level, so you may see vehicles back on the air.

2) Some vehicles that are spawned by script (not by all.spawn, like GSC vehicles) cannot be hit by barin's script, as I see, because they are created (spawned) by script commands and because of that it's not possible to enter section names as opposed to what can be done in all.spawn. So, then this blow/hit wave in the air misses those vehicles that are spawned by script commands.

PS:
important info: But I've managed to make our APCs (all are spawned by script commands, not by all.spawn) stand on the ground on their very solid tyres, so to speak, without floating.

However, if you reload, like all other vehicles they will become prone to float, as Xray will prove its senility.
So notice that they are solidly on the ground as seen in the pictures that I posted in previous pages.

(PS-2: We have now 13 more APCs in v3.0, making the total, say, what, well over 20. Hmm, 27 I guess, I need to recount, lol)

[busetibi]

can't wait to get amongst them and lay them to waste

[Nightwatch]

I'll be installing STALKER in a few hours and hopefully will continue to work from the same point again. All this turmoil only cost 4 days, well, not that bad when you look at the scale of the problem.

[Kaidonni]

I'm curious...do artifacts respawn after Blowouts or a certain amount of time? So far (and to be honest, I've only stayed in Cordon, around the rookie camp and bridge), I have only found the Nightstar that Sidorovich wanted me to get for him. All the other artifacts have been from rewards (I haven't checked many stashes). I'm hoping that I can go artifact hunting every now and then, and not just get them from rewards and stashes.

EDIT: Hmmm, just had a CTD, with the following error according to the XRay Bug reporter...

XR_3DA.exe caused BREAKPOINT in module "C:\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl\bin\xrCore.dll" at 001B:00587CB5, xrDebug::backend()+165 byte(s)

Hmmm, two more CTDs. The first after being killed by a chopper in the rookie camp, while loading the same save, the next after reloading game and trying for that save...

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : error handler is invoked!
[error]Function : invalid_parameter_handler
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xrCore\xrDebugNew.cpp
[error]Line : 800
[error]Description :


stack trace:

I'd just like to add that the choppers were not giving up. They'd fly away, out of the level, then they would come back. Two of them. No matter what, after a short while, they returned. Right from when they appeared at the abandoned farm, to the bandit camp, to the rookie camp. Even after a Blowout wave (the first showed up right before that begun). Basically, there'd usually be one at a time, although as one was leaving the other could be heard approaching, and they'd do a single strafing run on approach then leave, losing interest immediately. I haven't had issues until today with this mod, I played fine over the weekend. It's just centered around these two attack choppers. I'm thinking it has to be them, somehow. I have had another chopper attack me before now, in the rookie camp, but he remained, hovering above, then eventually left - and did not continuously keep returning after a short while.

[Grump642]

Oh yeah? If it's weird or strange, it will happen to me! Look at what happened at NPP. The luck of the Irish, I guess.

[Grump642]

Plus, get this. I was doing the repel the Monolith quest for Freedom the the AW-Red Forest level changer. We were waiting for them when a Horror time happened. In the middle of it, here they come! Can't see shit! Then, as I kill the last of them, here comes a blowout!! I ran to the boss, got my reward, finishing the quest, and hauled butt to Freedom's base for shelter. After the blowout, I ran back to get my loot, and found Freedom already looting!! Got what I could, and headed for the Bar. When I came out of the level changer, this is what I found waiting!

http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv340/Grump642/Soc/ss_grumpy_03-10-09_22-44-39_l05_bar.jpg%20%20Monolith!
There were 20+ but I killed some before the screenshot. As I was finishing them off, here come 3 fire-dogs. Made me drop my shotgun. When I finished the last one, I looked for my shotgun only to find Duty looting the bodies! And one of them had picked up my shotgun!! Cost me 43+k RU to get it back. Jeeze... It was a bad day in the zone.

[Nightwatch]

Well, you've just dived into the game as it seems Kaidonni
As you'd notice, I've shortened the error log that you posted as we only need the part that follows the "Fatal Error" title.

"XR_3DA.exe caused BREAKPOINT ...in xrCore.dll" and the .."xrCore\xrDebugNew.cpp" are engine based problems, for the first one GSC had included fixes in the patches after the SoC release, helped but not fully as it has been seen time to time.

A few notes from the experiences: try not loading as soon as you are killed. Waiting for a second or two seems helping. Also, opposite is true, too, so meaning that if you wait on the "game over" screen too long, game is getting more prone to get a crash , because the game itself is continuing but the actor is not around, a lot of checks start to fail.

on the helis: In Cordon, helis have two sets of random patrol behaviour, you seem to have been struck with a turn of a rather persistent phase, heli seems to start tightening up the screws a bit there. Change the level to garbage, if you are Ok with it at this very time, then come back again. You may find a changed cycle.


Grump642

Wow, very involving story. You've hit the jackpot there. Tiring, but must be quite exciting dealing with all those events one after another. And, you've survived.
PS: your picture is again missing buddy.

[Grump642]

http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv34 ... 05_bar.jpg Don't know why that happens.

[Kaidonni]

Hmmm, my HUD isn't like Grump642's. I am assuming he is using a mini-mod or something? Unless, of course, I've had the mod installed incorrectly the whole time (I did forget the 1.0005 compatibility patch before, and ended up reinstalling the mod thinking it was something that installed wrong...).

I never usually have CTDs with Stalker. It is extremely rare. So last night stood out like a sore thumb for me. I decided to reload to a much earlier save, right before the choppers started attacking (before I took out the mutants at the farm).

I did have another error I haven't mentioned yet. A graphical one. The canteen of a dead loner seemed to...well, part of it stretched out to infinity, across the map. Like a bar (not a drinking bar ). Into the distance. The canteen/belt looked like it had also come off of the concerned loner, too, but it shouldn't have.

[busetibi]

Hmmm, my HUD isn't like Grump642's. I am assuming he is using a mini-mod or something? Unless, of course, I've had the mod installed incorrectly the whole time (I did forget the 1.0005 compatibility patch before, and ended up reinstalling the mod thinking it was something that installed wrong...).

nope, he's using a hud which you can turn on or off in the Additional Options menu, while playing,pause the game go into Options, then Additional Options menu, Dynamic Hud ( I think thats what you call it)

I never usually have CTDs with Stalker. It is extremely rare. So last night stood out like a sore thumb for me. I decided to reload to a much earlier save, right before the choppers started attacking (before I took out the mutants at the farm).

I did have another error I haven't mentioned yet. A graphical one. The canteen of a dead loner seemed to...well, part of it stretched out to infinity, across the map. Like a bar (not a drinking bar ). Into the distance. The canteen/belt looked like it had also come off of the concerned loner, too, but it shouldn't have.
yep that can happen, I've seen it with bodies as well, if you shoot the object it "snaps" back to the original shape/form

[Nightwatch]

Grump642
Yup, saw the picture now. Theer are still alot of red dots on your radar, you seem to be having a ball there, but I bet it was not funny while dealing with all the hostiles at that time.

Kaidonni
It's OK now, so you've put the 1.0005 compatibility patch, things should get in line. I didn't know that you were running 1.0005, maybe I should've asked.
Also, I don't thing there's anything wrong with your HUD (though I haven't seen a photo of it) if you are comparing it with Grump642's HUD. Because I've seen it in my game as well.
He must be running a resolution nearing 1680x1050 something, so the HUD changes. If you are running 1078x768 vicinity, your HUD will be different. So nothing to worry there.
The other thing, about the occasionally stretching out dead bodies, this mod is very heavy on all accounts on resources; it has quite heavy shaders and textures that may occasionally push the limits too far for systems at particular poits of their (and its) operation. The mod does not use any other graphical engine altering stuff, it's running on vanilla physics engine, does not include any DLL or any engine stuff.

What card are you running? New drivers are usually seen improving graphical performance; but not necessarily the engine.

busetibi
heh he, you beat me on posting.
___________________________________________

Edit/add:

Just as we all speak about the engine time to time, look at the situation now. After the rebuilt and reinstall of VISTA, the perfectly working STALKER has stopped working. I'm using the same game, same saves, same settings, same everything! ....And I haven't even add single comma, or a word into the mod since I last left it when it was perfectly running. I'm trying old saves, as had done so many many times without even a glitch, now Xray is dying on me. It's giving me "Xray stopped working," randomly. damn. I have reinstall STALKER. Anti virus was running during the installation, maybe something didn't install properly. I've never seen such a sensitive, capricious engine.
don't play STALKER guys, when if your spouse is watching a romantic film, Xray may start to cry, what an embrassing scene.

[busetibi]

http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv34 ... 20Monolith!

can't see the jpg Grump, says its been moved or something

[Grump642]

http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv340/Grump642/Soc/ss_grumpy_03-10-09_22-44-39_l05_bar.jpg%20%20Monolith!

can't see the jpg Grump, says its been moved or something

Try the last link I posted. It works.
Yes this was not funny, but sure was fun.