Reply With QuoteEnds with the main quest. Loads of mods change that though.
I'm not asking specifically what there is to do just is there anything else in the vanilla game to go out and look for or does most of the game end with the main quest?
Ends with the main quest. Loads of mods change that though.
I have a separate save right before they lock you in.
I used that to wonder around and do some side quests (basically kill these guys, do this, that mmorpg stuff) but is that all that's there or is there other places to go to besides where the main story takes you?
That's it.
Yup; hunting, fetch quests and murder pretty much. They're kinda fun though at times.
Some of the mods make it more interesting. AMK (I think) has weird artifact crafting, which you've got to find the recipes for first, so you've got some spur to look around for rarities and stashes. Some also extend the point of no return so you can wander around the power station exterior and go back again if you want. (others have completely different endings based on the alpha)
The hunting alone is more interesting in SoC than the other two. Which is odd because it has no freeplay mode at all, by default. (I believe they said they would officially add it in a patch eventually. But they said that about a lot of things. Mods picking up the slack didn't give them much incentive to worry about that. And now they're out of business...)
That's kinda disappointing, especially since I just played through clear skys and it was awful.
One thing that I liked to do was raid bases at nighttime with a silence pistol and night vision, which could work better in clear skys if the A.I. didn't know exactly where you where if you sniped someone a half a mile away with a vintar and they somehow manage to land a grenade in your lap at sniping distance.
I just went through the first bandit base again at night in SoC with a noiseless pistol and if I shot a bandit isolated by himself they would all know someone was shooting. I don't remember the A.I. being so broken in SoC because I use to do stealth raids on the army base and no one would know where I was even if I shot someone in the head infront of a group of people close range with a silenced pistol (vanilla). I hear there are stealth mods which make them easier to the point where they are just plain retarded. I kinda wish the stealth panned out better in this game it could have been so epic.
That's because a silenced pistol isn't silent, it's just quieter than a non-silenced pistol.
That and dying people often cry out in some way and fall to the ground. All these sounds are simulated in space. That's why they usually wake everyone up and make stealth seem irrelevant.
Some mods tune it a bit better so it's not so impossible. But it's never like Dishonoured or something where after a time people get bored and go back to what they were doing if you stand still for a while (I'm not actually sure what happens there now I think about it. I think they eventually do this, but the area it all takes place over is much larger. Or something) If you wake dudes up and you can't deal with it, best thing to do is retreat to some distance.
My favourite goofy stealth mechanic is Skyrim. A guard shouting, "Is somebody there?" after an arrow appears to have embedded itself in their liver is pretty janky.
Yeah, making a fully functional stealth game out of Stalker is impossible, no mod does it particularly well. Lots of mods try. One of the more popular ones (forget which one) make you nearly invisible in the dark, but once you kill one guy everyone knows where you are. Some mods turn down AI's perception of sound. Basically you can't mod good stealth in without the AI becoming absurdly stupid.
If you're done with the main games unmodded, jump into some mods. If you're interested in stuff outside of the main story, you could try Stalker Soup's Collector Mod, or Sigorous Mod (a Call of Pripyat mod). There's also Priboi Story for SOC.
^thanks for the mod suggestions I'm going to look into those.
As far as stealth goes though:
Honestly it's just broken in my opinion. I'm not saying this because it's hard but because it's horribly inconsistent. I've had this inconsistent stuff in all 3 games.
Priypat:
I did the hostage mission in cop and capped a guy in the back of the head who was alone and all the sudden everyone knew exactly where I was even when they had no line of sight on me. I went deeper into the bandits base on a separate save and capped a guy who was within sight of another bandit and the guy just ignored it, walked over and looted his corpse so I shot him to, then 2 more guys showed up and I shot the one in back first then the other one and they didn't detect it.
Clear sky:
I once went in to clear the duty base out at night because I thought it would be fun. First time no one knew anything and I picked guards off at sniping distance with a vintar went inside and cleared out all the guards with a silenced pistol, then I went to replay it by loading a save I made right before I raided the place and somehow they all knew exactly where I was after I sniped the first guy and landed a grenade in my lap from sniping distance even though the first time they had no idea.
Chernobyl:
As said earlier I can't raid the bandits with a noiseless pistol because they hear me, yet for some reason in the army base I can kill the 3 guards guarding the main building at close range by killing the 2 in front first then the one in the doorway and they wont notice anything.
You know how your PDA map shows a grew dot for dead Stalkers? You know how everyone has a PDA? That sounds like hand-waving, but it also fits. Sometimes suspension of disbelief needs effort.
Still doesn't explain why I can shoots 3 already hostile freedom guards guarding a door at very close range without any of them noticing, but if I shoot one isolated bandit the rest of them know exactly where I am, or any of the other situations I mentioned earlier.Originally Posted by faetal
Honestly it probably was coded like this, not exactly but close to:
In all 3 games people are spawned as groups or by themselves (maybe even in the first one except they didn't show it on the surface) and the second somoene gets shot in that group by the main character if he's within their view distance they all are alerted of what he did as if they all got shot (which ties in why you can shoot people and if you're at sniping distance on soc they wont even notice and be able to snipe people without alerting the other people). In clear skies even if they're out of the view distance they still will get alerted as factions where pretty hardcore in this game and probably where coded more elaborately. Then you get members of a faction that aren't spawned as a group but spawn by themselves for a certain thing (patrolling guard, guard blocking a doorway, etc) that when they are shot no one else acts like they where shot to which is why in some cases you can shoot someone infront of 3 other people and in other cases killing someone completely isolated alerts everyone.
You can try to come up with all the canon explanations but they really aren't probable at all, and this is more thinking about how it was actually programmed. Even my explanation probably has holes in it because it doesn't explain what happened in pripyat.
Last edited by FatSpy; 5th Jan 2014 at 10:06.
Oh, I'm sure it's just sketchy programming, I@m just rationalising. If I'm running towards an area with 4 orange / green dots on my radar and one of them turns grey, I know that something has happened and to go check it out. I just imagine the enemy does the same.
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