NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[DARK TEMPLAR]

OOO, an update

[DARK TEMPLAR]

Do not know if you are aware of it but two of the original three download links are dead, FileFactory is the only one that still has the main mod up.

[Nightwatch]

Ohh, yeah, an update is coming first. Then another one, major one. You are courageous . Good to know, you'll need it.

And, thanks for the tip on the servers matter. Yeah, the others have reconfigured their servers, links lost, but FileFactory the good old one remains operational, as you point out. But the 'Patch for mid/low range PC compatibility' seems to have gone, though. I'll upload it asap.

Meanwhile, I've found other servers which accommodate much bigger files than those servers which now are out-of-operation. NEWSA comes quite large as it is now, barely can be compressed just below 300Mb even by highest available compression rates. But. they are for the future, or as of backup facility. For the time being, single link Filefactory should be enough. If that goes, too, then I'll put the new ones in service.

[DARK TEMPLAR]

Two updates even .

Yeah, FileFactory will suffice for now, decent DL rates, there are better ones out there but it will do.

[DARK TEMPLAR]

A few things though, I hope that the occasional excessive brightness is gone and that the blue box in the bar remain a Safe box, it is really annoying find some of your stuff missing. I had to murder 3 dutiers to get my things back, some of them at least.
On a side note, any clues as to the content of the updates

[DARK TEMPLAR]

This place really needs a longer edit period.
As to the blue box, never mind, that issue can easily be circumvented, all you really need is at least 10k when you get to the bar.

The mod itself is not difficult, even the horror extreme on master, however it is difficult to play the game, that is to say it lacks optimisation a bit. Hopefully you have managed to smooth things out a bit more.

[Nightwatch]

The case for an extended time allowance to come back to one's post in these times of highly busy-life is reasonable enough. Editing time has been extended to 24 hours.

Also, what do you have in mind in reference to optimization you mention?

[DARK TEMPLAR]

Most of the crashes that I have encountered in the past have had something to do with memory usage, random ctd's when checking the contacts list for example, also I can only assume that the blank logs are a result of something similar. It is not that there is not enough memory, there is, more than required even but it often spikes for no apparent reason. Likewise the crash upon reaching a certain point after the duty perimeter, seems to be due to some sort of optimization fault in the 1.0005 patch or maybe something in the latest mod version has invoked it (need to check if this still happens with 1.0004), do not know if that can be circumvented somehow or would it be better to just run the 1.0004 version because when I ran the older mod versions on it, that did not happen.

Aside from those annoyances nothing else has popped up.



While bugs have little to do with optimization, it does not hurt to mention. If you try to open your inventory when there is a detector in it, it crashes, giving a *not enough space to place item error*, so that should be reworked a bit or go back to the old way of manually putting the detectors on your belt.

Hopefully all that makes some sense, not particularly good as a play-tester.

ed:Oh and the oh so often occurring *fuck you, I'm not moving* by Mole bug, that really irks me. Also, the quest markers not disappearing and tasks not registering as complete after they are done.

And nope, the bar crash is not game version related.

[Nightwatch]

Re your previous question, as to the clues on the contents of the updates, I'm pointing to a post published some time ago, it's in the middle of the page, 11th post. When more news available I'll post them, too. Thanks for asking

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3&start=2242


On the memory related issues that may arise in some players gameplay as on and off basis, these are RAM issues which are amplified by the STALKER's memory management problems. There are differences between RAM sticks on the market, of course; also when in pairs, pairs need to mirror each other, better to have factory paired ones. When STALKER and NEWSA involved (which taxes STALKER up to 4 times in places) RAMs need to match each other, fully functioning ones, (mem test good idea) also, CPU should generate enough juice for RAMs as well.
Also, particularly re STALKER and more particularly on this mod, laptops are a bit of no no, unfortunately. Generally they are not quite suitable gameplay anyway.

As to Mole situation, it's one of STALKER's delightful quirks, engine sometimes doesn't want to play ball as it's told so. Xray has a wonderfully enhanced very liberal AI (which is pushed even much further with added AI packs) so, sometimes when action is too dense around the main action scene, things get decided (or locked at this instance) differently to the original idea; he may detect still existent danger around, maybe rightly. But doesn't affect the gameplay at all. Mission continues.

If you have ideas towards the upcoming patch(es), now or later, let me now

[DARK TEMPLAR]

he may detect still existent danger around, maybe rightly. But doesn't affect the gameplay at all. Mission continues.

But that is the thing, there is no danger, even for him to detect, he simply stands there in the building, doing nothing, on occasions you can still interact with him but you get the regular NPC dialogue and trade option, leaving you stuck in the story, sure you can kill the bastard but that usually comes with repercussions.
You can of course try to resolve the situation if you have a hard-save before entering Agroprom, after a random number of reloads he will eventually do what was intended but it is rather annoying and time consuming.

As much as I hate to advocate my own possible demise, perhaps make supplies more scarce, perhaps re-spawns as well. It is one thing to do the Mole rescue with bunch of military grunts after your head but it is whole different opera when there are two to four helis raining down death and a apc lurking behind the wall waiting for you to stick your head out, however, since getting cash is not really a problem you can have over 100k by the time you get to the bar, where you can buy that one specific rifle and some rockets for it, making the whole ordeal much easier.
I simply used the Cordon-Agroprom route to get in, infiltrate the military base mind you only two kills were needed since only a skeleton crew was present, most were out taking a nature walk or something (on one occasion they were returning just as I was leaving and on another I later found them dead not far from the eastern entrance to the compound), got the case and was on my merry way to the bar, where I sold all the crap I did not need for a bit more cash and bought the rifle along with some ammo for a return trip.

Oh, you should check if you have removed all the features that you have used for testing, for example total radiation immunity for the character.
As for the horror time zombie spawns, it is extremely annoying to have them spawn right behind you, I suggest a small distance, not too far but just a little bit away from my arse.
Carry capacity should be toned down somewhat, leaving the 100+ kg for the exos and nano suit, which by the way seems to be slowly degrading by itself.
More unique silenced weapon sounds would be nice, like the Val and Vintar.
Perhaps move the Agroprom-Cordon level changer back a bit and remove the gate. Personally it really irks me that I can not get those artefacts that are on the other side.
While it is not really an issue and in a way kind of suits the ZONE, the weather and day/night transitions are a bit too sudden (e.g going from gloomy/foggy rainy to sunshine in just a moment), whether to make them smoother or not, meh, up to you.
Run speed should stay the same as in the case of lacking any other form of defence, it is your only card to play against helis and apc's That is all I can think of right now.
ed: almost forgot, spoken dialogue in Russian would be nice.
Make Arnie a bit tougher or upon his death a replacement appear.
This song into the game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rFye_yPyxs

On a side-note, have I mentioned how much I hate the helis in Cordon.

[La-Gator]

I am getting this error when entering agro underground after rescue Mole mission
rror]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...shadow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\xr_logic.script:406: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)


stack trace:
I am playing the US retail version patched to 1005 with no cracks hacks or other mods installed. I read a earlier posting about this same error and deleted gamedata folder and re-installed twice ,but keep getting the same error at the same spot.My system is Vista 32-bit with registery tweak for extra mem allocation, intel E6550 2.33 ghz, 4 meg ram, and 8800gt video card.
Any suggestions for a solution anyone?

thanks for helping.

[DARK TEMPLAR]

I am getting this error when entering agro underground after rescue Mole mission
rror]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...shadow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\xr_logic.script:406: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)


stack trace:
I am playing the US retail version patched to 1005 with no cracks hacks or other mods installed. I read a earlier posting about this same error and deleted gamedata folder and re-installed twice ,but keep getting the same error at the same spot.My system is Vista 32-bit with registery tweak for extra mem allocation, intel E6550 2.33 ghz, 4 meg ram, and 8800gt video card.
Any suggestions for a solution anyone?

thanks for helping.

Same error as I had, are you using a cracked executable, if so, then that is your problem. However if using the original .exe does not eliminate your problem, then I have no idea.

[Nightwatch]

Welcome to the forum La-Gator.
In addition to what DARK TEMPLAR said, I'd like to check if you've added the 1.0005 compatibility patch (that comes with the mod) as you say you're using the 1.0005 patch version of the game. While on this note, I should note that the mod is known to work better (optimized for) the 1.0004 patched game. The 1.0005 patch has not been found quite favourable by the gaming community after its release and majority have chosen to proceed only with 1.0004 version.

Various international versions should not affect the outcome as the game and the mod is being played from Japan to South Africa, but, there has been some words of caution and worries about the STEAM version, which I cannot comment on it as I haven't tried it.

Did you change any ltx or scripts files, I should ask this as of a checklist to go through.

Also, though very rare instance, your prompt may have been caused by some other underlying problem, which in turn may tackle (so to speak) the engine in such a way. It has been seen on STALKER vanilla that sometimes a particle(s) problem surfaces when coupled with other (rendering) problems exits in the agroghom tunnels at some points (not a mod issue) and our EggChen has created a special (dedicated) enhanced particle file for this mod which has eliminated this problem. Therefore, I need to ask, have you changed the particle file in this regard?

And... just noticed also, you have intel E6550 ... it's a Core2 Duo, a dual core CPU. Well, don't remind me of Dual Core nightmares! STALKER is as its worst on Dual Cores, generally. Spawning is late, first of all, ranging from several seconds to "non-existence of supposed-to-be-happening spawnings of various things, NPCs, items, creatures, etc. Plus many other unpredictable problems in the game, as one of the cores -quite often- decides not to play ball, and bypasses things.
This, also could be a symptom of it as well.
After you've checked the above questions, if things still doesn't proceed, we'll try some other ideas.

[La-Gator]

Welcome to the forum La-Gator.
In addition to what DARK TEMPLAR said, I'd like to check if you've added the 1.0005 compatibility patch (that comes with the mod) as you say you're using the 1.0005 patch version of the game. While on this note, I should note that the mod is known to work better (optimized for) the 1.0004 patched game. The 1.0005 patch has not been found quite favourable by the gaming community after its release and majority have chosen to proceed only with 1.0004 version.

Various international versions should not affect the outcome as the game and the mod is being played from Japan to South Africa, but, there has been some words of caution and worries about the STEAM version, which I cannot comment on it as I haven't tried it.

Did you change any ltx or scripts files, I should ask this as of a checklist to go through.

Also, though very rare instance, your prompt may have been caused by some other underlying problem, which in turn may tackle (so to speak) the engine in such a way. It has been seen on STALKER vanilla that sometimes a particle(s) problem surfaces when coupled with other (rendering) problems exits in the agroghom tunnels at some points (not a mod issue) and our EggChen has created a special (dedicated) enhanced particle file for this mod which has eliminated this problem. Therefore, I need to ask, have you changed the particle file in this regard?

And... just noticed also, you have intel E6550 ... it's a Core2 Duo, a dual core CPU. Well, don't remind me of Dual Core nightmares! STALKER is as its worst on Dual Cores, generally. Spawning is late, first of all, ranging from several seconds to "non-existence of supposed-to-be-happening spawnings of various things, NPCs, items, creatures, etc. Plus many other unpredictable problems in the game, as one of the cores -quite often- decides not to play ball, and bypasses things.
This, also could be a symptom of it as well.
After you've checked the above questions, if things still doesn't proceed, we'll try some other ideas.

I did a fresh re-install of the game and patched to 1004 and now things work fine. I did not realize but my xr-da exe was a modified one that I was usung when playing DKZ-NS and also a xr-dll file from tha same game. This mod wants the origional xr-exe to run right.
Thanks for the followup.
Also can you post a download link for the update patches?

[La-Gator]

Have new issues now. When I did the find jellyfish for nimble quest the game updated when I found the artifact, but when I returned to nimble witn it I cannot get a dialog with him to complete the quest. On two other quests, find 5 dog tails and bring a TOZ to other npc, after obtaining the items the game will not update the quests. I have a dual core cpu in my system and an earlier post said that there are issues with the game usung dual core cpu's. Also can you give me a tip on how to avoid or take down the heli that dogs you in the dump early in the game? I am returning with the agro documents on the way to bar but I cannot stop and help the duty fight off the mutants and get the gate to the road to bar without the heli taking me out every time.

[Nightwatch]

I did a fresh re-install of the game and patched to 1004 and now things work fine. I did not realize but my xr-da exe was a modified one that I was usung when playing DKZ-NS and also a xr-dll file from tha same game. This mod wants the origional xr-exe to run right.
Thanks for the followup.
Also can you post a download link for the update patches?

It's great news that the problem has been solved by that; and thanks La-Gator for reporting back the situation, so that it can be referenced in the future if any such similar situations were to develop.

Also, I'm attaching the "Mid_ResolutionPC_InventoryHelp" Patch under this post.

(Later I'll re-uploaded to the servers, as it'll take a good deal of time to upload servers and update the mod website accordingly, I'm quickly attaching it here.)

[DARK TEMPLAR]

Those tasks not working is a known problem, guessing some coding needs to be looked over.
As to the heli in Garbage, when you first enter the level, you talk to Sery and after that the heli spawns. You sit tight until the initial rocket and minigun run is done, then haul your arse straight to duty checkpoint zig-zagging along the way to lessen the chance of sudden and terminal lead poisoning. In the trailer there is a rpg, before you start firing that though, make a save as one rocket may not always take the heli down, in case that happens, you have the newly acquired Groza NT with about ten grenades which it launches at very high speeds, thanks to which you can with careful aiming score hits on the helicopter, if at least over five grenades hit it then you should be able to make the final shot with the rpg.
During the whole thing however you should be ready to quickly change your position as at some points it will retaliate, so if you are lucky or know exactly where to go you will live, some dutiers may die but meh, more loot for you.
However since you already went to Agro beforehand, try to get to the hangar, drop all non essential stuff there and hope it does not get stolen, then make a run for it to the checkpoint, rest of the ordeal is the same, hopefully you still have those grenades or have found stashes with more rockets.



Now as to the changes to the mod, definitely reduce the spawn rate as it can become a rather huge clusterfuck with over twenty bodies lieing in one location (the entire second floor in the Agro facility is covered with them currently).
The logic error crash when entering the bar perimiter is definitely a mod optimization issue as even a more powerful pc does not eliminate that issue.
Also if at all possible then removal of the Agroprom underground crash due to a modified xrgame.exe would be nice.
Another thing is the annoying amount of pop-up tasks, such as defend stalkers (again in Agro) where there is usually just one or two of them left at which point horror time or blowout triggers, spawning monsters who then rapidly proceed to bite their faces off, leaving me a fuck ton of failed missions. Not a high priority but simply really annoying.

[Nightwatch]

DARK TEMPLAR, I answered your question, providing an attachment as well and, as the matter was a vanilla matter, I also moved the last series of posts in that regard to a new topic in Modding Techniques:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1393

[ket]

definitely reduce the spawn rate as it can become a rather huge clusterfuck with over twenty bodies lieing in one location (the entire second floor in the Agro facility is covered with them currently).

You can fix this yourself quickly and easily, open stalkers.ltx, and change corpse_remove_game_time_interval and stay_after_death_time_interval. Number you enter is the hours bodies will remain.