As I said, balancing without being OP. Barrel length also matters the shorter the barrel the more pellet spread IRL those factors are being considered when tuning with how firearms behave in the game. If you want to be really pedantic (which I am when it comes to balancing) then you also have to consider IRL not every shotgun is going to be slug optimised either, particularly not ones taking multiple types of shells. Every NPC (or player) being essentially a "shotgun sniper" would be unbalanced, and frankly, just absurd. The Toz range balances out nicely with the convenient fact it has the longest barrel, is only 2 shots, and slow to reload. In other words, the player has a fair chance if they come up against a single or multiple NPCs with them. Other shotguns are every bit as deadly due to them having higher ammo counts and being faster to reload.
Anything that doesnt overwrite files already contained in AHD will be fine, other mods that do have files AHD uses will need manual merging.
I only use the r_pop Makarov model as a quick fix to the broken SRAP v1.2a model which uses a model with a silencer when you see it in NPC hands but if you tried to put a silencer on the game would CTD. Band-aid is just to not allow the silencer attachment in the config but that's still kind of an untidy fix as you'll see a silencer attached still to any NPC holding a Makarov or when you see one on the ground. Sadly I'm not a modeller, if I was I'd probably fix the model outright in Blender. Hell I'd do that if I even hand the time to teach myself modelling, but I don't :o(
I noticed the weird way the textures and normals are made though, the diffuses have some kind of black magic going on with them that I haven't been able to identify. Diffuses of the quality you see with r_pop that are DXT I'd say are BC7 because there's no compression artifacting but that isn't the case and even the modded engine doesn't properly support BC7 it'll just crash so it can't be BC7. Stranger still is that the r_pop textures have the wrong filesize to be compressed or uncompressed as well. I have no idea what's going on with them I have never seen it before. If I could I'd use BC7 for everything I even tried prodding the OGSR devs to properly support it but it doesn't seem like they are interested in doing so which means I have to hand touch up every sodding diffuse with colour artifacting and normal\bumps with compression artifacts as a result. Hopefully with the end product nobody can see those ****** artifacts created with the BC3 compression that has to be used by the time I'm done with them.
On your first point I could never find out or see a difference when adjusting impair values so I just took a shot in the dark with my notes at a best guess what it would do if I was designing the engine and I always consider until tested otherwise a feature that doesn't seem to be working as a broken\incomplete engine feature. Anything with a "?" is where I'm not entirely certain on functionality, Western\Eastern logic differences I guess :p Thanks for that clarification though I can add that into the notes.
For k_dist, yeah that's intentional as part of the ballistics refining I'm doing. Shotguns tend to be deadly at anything up to around 100 meters (I dare you even with the best armour on to take a point-blank shot from even a lowly bandit with a BM16 loaded with buckshot ;p ) but due to pellet spread and factoring barrel length drops off after that point AFAIK so I've been trying to get shotguns to be as deadly as they should be without being OP. Still trying to get the darts and impact shells to behave more realistically though.
This might be something I noticed and fixed with the last update (1.45) if its what I think it is but would require a new game to fix as it was a rather nasty bug. I'm only vaguely remembering this one though. I'll load up one of my test saves and hang around in Pripyat for a while but I haven't had any crashes when running tests in Pripyat.
EDIT: Thinking on it thats not the bug I was remembering, it looks like some kind of vanilla bug as AHD doesn't include the xr_walker script. I'd suggest downloading ZRP and seeing if the xr_walker script from there fixes your error.
Some manual merging is necessary with ZRP if you want to play AHD with old X-Ray and not OGSR. For other general install matters refer to the pinned news article.
You sir, have saved me. I've been itching to play the Resi remakes with a proper randomiser now I can for all 3 :D
Thanks. I have a few things left to do for AHD to round it out and finish bringing it up to snuff when next to CoP so everyone can look forward to that ;)
Download AHD v1.4, along with the v1.45 update and the hotfix. Extract\install in that order. Optional texture packs only provide marginal improvements at best and are only really provided for placebo.
Believe it or not, AHD I just consider an "easy" side project to SIN :p I still have some more things planned for AHD to round out the vanilla experience but it might take a little while to do some of the work is long and repetitive just due to how the game is built.
Thats a new one on me, I'll add it to the install notes.
Without seeing the error log I couldn't say but the problems a few people are having running the mod all seem to be with the steam version so to start with as Sabre suggested add -steam to the shortcut target field outside of the quotes.
eg; "F:\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - SoC\bin_x64\xrEngine.exe" -steam
Making sure you have Visual C++ 2010 Redist installed at minimum will help as well.
Got a link for your mod? I'm always curious to check out new SoC mods because it's the game that needs the most love as it's basically the unloved child of GSC despite it making stalker what it is today.
PM me a link with your crash log(s) so I can take a look. Something weird is going on there, definitely a conflict of some kind.
EDIT: I take it you are installing Absolute HD to a clean unmodded version of stalker?
Yep I found that bug a couple days ago it's a screwup the developer of SRAP v1.2 made. I have a bandaid fix for it in the next update but its easy to fix yourself. Go to Gamedata > Config > Weapons. Open w_pm.ltx and scroll down to silencer_status, change it from 2 to 0.
Absolute HD includes pretty much everything you need for it to run out of the box you just need to install openal32 if you haven't already and edit the gamedata line in fsgame.ltx to true | true if you haven't already. With those two things done just extract the gamedata and bin_64 folders to the main stalker directory. I have the retail version of the game not gog/steam so can only comment for that version but AFAIK the process is the same for gog\steam versions.
Are you using a retail, steam, or gog version of stalker? AFAIK the installation should be the same for all 3
> drop gamedata & bin_64 folders into your main stalker directory
> install openal32 if you haven't already
> change the gamedata line in fsgame.ltx to true | true if you haven't already.
That's it.
Read the installation instructions... they are in the description for this download.
Ah that would be why you had issues. I've been modding Stalker a _very_ long time, as in, before retail SoC was released messing with all the leaked betas and such so my mods are made on the retail 1.0006 version of SoC not the Steam or GOG versions.
You need the v1.41 patch, I managed to mix my scripts up somehow. I'm trying not to deviate from the vanilla experience which is why my changes to their bullet-spongeyness has been only moderate but if purists are fine with me going into more depth I can beef up the punch of early game weapons a bit.
Extract the gamedata and bin_64 folders to your main stalker directory.
You haven't edited fsgame.ltx. Change the $game_data$ line to true | true ;o)
It would be a lot easier if a few people stepped up to help with certain aspects but I will go it alone if I must, the whole reason SIN development has been so long is because I've never had a consistent team behind me outside of a couple of people. Then theres the whole thing of you know, making games is long work anyway.
I'd need to know what files you've edited to say what the issue is. Shoot me a PM or something.
Just extract the contents of the archive from the openal website and double-click it to start the installer ;) Are you using Steam or GoG? This mod I made on a retail copy of SoC v1.0006.
The aim of Absolute HD is to use at least 99.9% of the vanilla textures. Only extraordinarily poor quality textures that can't be reworked with a combination of by hand work and AI have more extreme measures taken but even in those cases anything done is made with the source material in mind to produce a replacement as close to the original as possible.
You need to download the latest OpenAL and install it from here; Openal.org
Thanks :o) AHD isn't intended to be a total conversion mod the purpose of it is to give people a complete vanilla experience done to modern standards addressing only issues that need addressing for a rounded gameplay experience, eg; traders being able to repair weapons and armour. AHD is for the purists, and first time players that don't (and shouldn't have to) want to deal with all of the original SoCs gameplay shortcomings.
ketxxx
Dave joined
My bio.. never been good at talking about myself so lets keep it simple. I am a highly skilled IT Technician, with experience in just about every field of computing there is. As a result, it allows me to do really cool stuff like this SoC overhaul / mega mod! People often question why I have put the last 3 years into this SoC mod, the answer to that is simple - because I care. I feel SoC was done a huge injustice by GSC/THQ, and intend to bring everything that was promised back into the game. My own envisionment of STALKER is radically different to anything you have seen and played before, down to the smallest detail TK will bring a perfectly balanced, tense, beautiful, immensely impressive overhaul to SoC. Oh, and there is no mod team here, the "team" is me. Just because nobody else wanted to help apart from play the betas I release. So I soldier on, relying on the SoC mod community whenever theres a barrier I'm not quite sure on how to smash down.