NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[Nightwatch]

It's been a nice chat to read, Such impromptu debates and walks through the memory lane always add more of a human face to any thread, saving it from being some ice-cold technical manual served direct from the refrigerator. (on the side note, I hope -and I'm sure- things will go get much better for you 3040Krag, these are hard times, no one is immune. There was once a redhead woman in Finland who said to me: "there's always a sun shining behind every grey cloud." --something like that, but that's true.)

Well, on the patch matter, audioave10, thank you for asking about it, shows that interest still awake on the mod.
I'm working on making the Pripyat Snipers Valley Assault alive on broader range of PCs. It's been delayed more than I would like to, I know, but as said, I'm dealing various problems accross the range nowadays and this job requires clean thinking head, of which I'm having very few hours in a day, so rationing to many things waiting on line, lol, so, I hope it won't be much longer now. I wouldn't like to give a sort of release date at this stage, but we're talking about a few weeks top, instead of months.

[3040Krag]

Thank you for the encouraging words, Nightwatch. If I'm sounding depressed, it was not my intention.

On a different note, going back to NPP I hit a bug that sounds similar to one reported in this thread. If I enter the former C-Conscious hologram/power supply room (now dark), the control room door closes and locks behind me and the door to Stancia2 is also locked.

I threw a Gauss gun into the hinge of the door to Stancia2 until it glitched the door. Instead of opening the door (expected) the door smacked me to the other side of the door. I was able to retrieve the gauss gun. So, I'm in Stancia2 now. Going straight back to the secret lab was a no-go, the door is locked shut. If nothing else, I can use the final teleport to re-enter Prypiat, I think.

Also, if I go back to Sarcophagus from the lab, there is only one changer, the changer from sarcophagus to lab. There is no changer from Sarco to Stancia1.

Does the fact that I "killed" the hologram dude in the c-conscious/power supply room the first time through, and was then "teleported" to the Stancia2 beginning have anything to do with the locked doors and seemingly missing changer?

[3040Krag]

Stupidly quoted myself instead of doing an edit. D'oh!

[Nightwatch]

You're welcome 3040Krag, everyone is depressed one way or another at one extend or another; that's part of being a human, I guess.

That hologram room glitch, which previously audiave10 had as well, has been removed in the coming patch. It was a two-stage transporter, now reduced to a single, straight changer to the outside world from the hologram guy's room. If you continue to get stuck on the room while trying to go outside, I can send you a small patch which had sent before to audioave.

Due to your PCs technical problems, it'll be hard to judge from here whether the symptoms are caused by the Xray-engine's random glitches or by the technical problems that you face on your side, on your PC. However, one thing is for sure that, even if you enter the lab from the NPP grounds through the CC room, you cannot still get out of the basement level to the outside, towards the Pripyat looking side of the complex, to where you first enter the basement levels in the midst of an ongoing blowout. (I hope I managed to describe the level changer's position)
Exploration of inside/basement levels is possible but you can't go outside and walk back to Pripyat though the LV which took you down the basement/lab/sarco levels.

In order to get back to Pripyat, you'll need to take the flight from the roof where the last battle takes place in NPP.

[3040Krag]

Ah, so Sarco, Secret Lab and Stancia2 (with the teleporters) are a kind of closed loop. There's no going back to the prypiat-looking NPP level from the sarcophagus level. Only by flying (LOLOL) from the last teleporter to Prypiat may you leave. OK, I can dig that. I have plenty of food, ammo and all that's needed for an extensive holiday in Stancia 2, so will exhaust it before going back.

Thanks! I may take you up on the file offer, but only if I begin seeing some decent spawning in those last three levels.

[Wombat_70]

Nightwatch

As a matter of fact I'm also locked in the hologram room and no way out same as 3040Krag I've tried the same trick
to open the door but no success, so I'll be very happy if you could send me that little patch that you mentioned to 3040Krag.
Thank you in advance

[rockingmtranch]

I've always been able to open that door using a large weapon (missile launcher, sniper rifle) and standing as close to the hinges of the door as possible at a slight angle, and hitting open and drop at the same time. Props the door open and I grab the rifle from the other side. Then the changer kicks in down the hallway.

[Nightwatch]

OK, I'll post the file as an "attachment" to my next post. Allow me some time to get back to my files on my home PC, I'm at my work right now.
When you've got the file and dropped it into the gamedata folder, as expected, you need to reload from somewhere earlier and then enter the CC room once again and take the whole dialog with that hologram guy once again, and at the end of the dialog you will be transferred outside directly, like in vanilla.

[Nightwatch]

I'm making a new post , so anyone who waits for it can get an email message that the post is made (provided that you've subscribed the thread)

OK, file is ready Wombat_70, and for everyone who wants to use it in their game. This alteration will remove the "after the dialog" episode that is currently available after you've spoken with the "CC consciousness/hologram image" at the control room NPP, in which you have chance to wander around and investigate the room (though there's nothing to investigate, really), and will now replace it with a direct transfer of the player to the NPP outside grounds to stancia2 (with which offers transporters from roof to roof) provided that the player chooses not to cooperate with the CC there.

Everyone knows the drill, but for the sake of members who less frequently/or the first time play the mod, I should repeat that the attached file must be unzipped (NOT into the gamedata!) into any folder of your choice in your computer, then find the gamadata folder inside the unzipped folder and drag-drop this gamedata folder into the STALKER directory on your PC, merging and overwriting as required.

(PS: after attaching this file, I'm off-line as the new realtek driver clashed with the sytem, I'm having freezes, fortunately on this browser is still working. Task manager doesn't wotk either, so can't shut down open windows, dragging the browser around the screen as I write. I need to uninstall the damn driver after a hard shut down and reboot.)

[Wombat_70]

Thanks nightwatch and best of luck with your realtek driver replacement .

[Nightwatch]

You're welcome.

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(PS: yes, thank you, I uninstalled the Realtek driver '97 6305 PG 537, which would supposedly give those equalizer bars which were missing from Realtek HD driver; it did, but didn't go well with the rest I guess. I reinstalled the old Realtek 6015859, things got back to normal. I again don't have equalizer bars. Also found that Internet Download Manager was no good on my Win7 64 system, it's gone now, too. )

[busetibi]

Sad, Abit was beginning their decline then, their best BIOS people went to DFI. Still good hardware tho. Abit being second-rate was sad, they did some amazing hardware before they took the slide. Awesome BIOS for teh DFI'!

I still have a propane-charged, phase-change cooler stored in my garage. -80C CPU temps was uber cool at the time. 3dMark, oooh!

I married and had children later in life, at 57 y/o it's weird to be gaming, prepping for "retirement age" and having kids in HS at the same time!

nothing weird about gaming, at any age
hies btw

[3040Krag]

hies back at you. Yes, gaming itself isn't weird, it's the combo that feels that way sometimes. My youngest and I used to make the counterstrike circuits, sometimes separately and sometimes gaming together on the same server. He's a headshot artist, I'm more of a camp and snipe type.

[busetibi]

CS player, I could never get into that game for some reason every time I looked at the servers they were all playing the same two or three maps, (desert sands or something like that) being the more popular but having said that the game sure had/has a large following, not sure if it's the same now as I haven't played online for a few years

[3040Krag]

Some maps were overused, but one reason for that was that those maps were well laid-out for team tactics, with good choke points, ambush sites, and cover. We played CS from the early beta days through to today. I like the game because it lacks AI, you played against RI (or sometimes not so intelligent lol).

The biggest problem was with the cheaters. It was always refreshing for an admin to bitch-slap an aim-botter/wall hacker, then ban him. The cheating still waxes and wanes, so I don't play it much anymore, though finding a cheater-free game is pure joy for me.

[3040Krag]

OK, I'll bite.

I'm running artifact recipes for sh*t's and giggles. Hey! It feels almost like a virtual Christmas WITH is a "meat mincer"? It factors in a majority of recipes, is not in vanilla nor most other STALKER mods, and I can't find any.

I can find whirligigs, burners, springboards, electros and fruit punch. But I never see (in the minimap or main screen) anything else.

I've looked and looked. Where can one expect to encounter this awesomely named, though shy, anomaly?

[audioave10]

Did you say something about Artifacts?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmHq-3sV ... re=related

[Nightwatch]

Many Artifacts generations, as the "AMK random and dynamically mobile anomaly generation," are random and changes by the hours of the day and how and how many you collect them. You just need to search for them and do side missions as well. Some are given as rewards. Low CPU/RAM/PSU power can affect the outcome negatively.
Though, some players have almost charted the highest probabilities of various artifact generation, it's a very long hours of determined observation

[3040Krag]

My quest is for the meat mincer anomaly. Meat mincer is the catalyst in numerous artifact recipes, however I cannot seem to find a meat mincer.

Does it have a unique graphic on the mini-map? What does meat mincer look like?