Oblivion?

nah, once I got tired of oblivion, I never went back to it. Morrowind had more replay value, honestly. Oblivion was only playable thanks to mods.

I applaud you.

I go back to Oblivion and Shadow of Chernobyl fairly often.. but that was before I got Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat. I like Oblivion's DLC, especially Shivering Isles, althought I went through it too fast. Got a bit too gung ho with the whole becoming a god thing.

SoC is good story wise, but I hate it how you can't repair your weapons, especially when you get one of the rare modified weapons. So far I'm loving Clear Sky and mostly because of the faction wars and the weapon and armor upgrades. I've made my AK 74 more accurate with less bullet drop than a Vintar BC, with more common ammo to boot.

Not that the Vintar was ever accurate...

pretty much all major mods and unofficial patches to SoC include weapon repairs. I think Rebalanced did this with weapon repair kits, and complete did this with the barman offering repair services. It's one of the many reasons I always recommend playing STALKER with Rebalanced. Complete had a nicer sound and graphics overhaul than Photorealistic Zone/Atmosfear which was Rebalanced compatible... really too bad you can't have both, because gameplay wise I preferred Rebalanced, because they introduce some more dynamic faction elements, more and tougher creatures, enemies, and AI. Complete just did AI fixes.

Complete did a really nice job updating the weapon meshes, graphics, names, handling characteristics, sounds, etc... to be more realistic. Rebalanced just focused on the ironsights and handling for improved balance, and reintroduced the P90 which was cut from the original game for some reason, and added a few others like the Bizon and Mosin Nagant.

Anyway, there's a Complete mod for all STALKER games, and several other nice mods out there that fix things the developers left out (much as there are mods of that kind for Oblivion). I always recommend unofficial patches in both cases.

The atmosphere of STALKER is what made that game great. It blended so well with the gritty realism and steep difficulty curve, that it always had you on your toes, and let survival instincts kick in, like it had really dropped you in the zone.

Personally, while I like the weapon upgrades in Clear Sky and CoP a lot, there were still some really nice unique weapon finds to be had in SoC. Ultimately though it was the story and the feel of the maps in SoC that did it for me. CoP was severely lacking in both departments, and it felt like both sequels had far less to do to get involved in the game.

Right now I'm sporting the unique "Sniper" AN-94 with suppressor and grenade launcher (all around good marksman rifle, and obligatory given the availability of 7.62 ammo), a G36 with suppressor and grenade launcher, VSS Vintorez (my favorite sniper rifle in the STALKER series.. though the upgraded Dragunov SVU in the latter games was also quite nice), and a SPAS-12 shotgun (which, while nice, would be a lot nicer if the mod upgraded it to be more like the real thing--4 rounds a second and holding 9 rounds)

Wow.. you're carrying 4 weapons at once?! At the most, I've only carried 2, and that's at the beginning of games with the Pm and double barrel. I find one weapon and use it exclusively until the next big weapon comes. I prefer to hang back and fight, so a good scoped assault rifle does the trick for me, cause I can still spray if mutants get too close.

Also I'm a scavenger at heart, I carry around way too much gear around with me at once, because I love looting bodies and I never decline an extra medkit or bandage. I can't picture carrying an additional 3 weapons and ammo with me all the time.

When ammo is scarce (and it should be... always play on Master, use Rebalanced if you can) it pays to have multiple weapons with overlapping roles that use different types of readily available ammo. If I run out of NATO, I can switch to the AN-94 and use the 7.26 that everyone is dropping, and vice-versa, etc.

Also late in the game you can do away with bandages (use artifacts to stop bleeding), vodka (keep a few antirads for emergencies, but use artifacts to lower radiation), etc... don't carry more than one thing of food, sell any artifacts you don't need, don't collect grenades or ammo types you'll never use, etc... and you can keep the weight down. The hard part is picking up ammo if you're not using it fast enough, you can start getting too much weight, and need to drop some. The 9x39mm ammo for the Vintorez is especially heavy.

Personally, I usually modify the system.ltx and actor.ltx to give myself a 30-50% increase in carry capacity, mainly so I can haul around things like gas cans or spare weapons to hand out to other STALKERS who I want to survive. It helps keep me from needing to stop as often to unload excess stuff, though, too. It accumulates really fast especially if you're scavenging in the middle of a hostile area and just hitting take all to save time.

For some odd reason when I use aritfacts that are supposed to decrease bleeding it always increases. And I mean quick.

oh! -# bleeding means decrease bleeding RESISTANCE. You want +# bleeding. Generally the artifacts that give -rads cause increased bleeding by lowering bleeding resistance, while slugs, mica, etc... increase bleeding resistance at the cost of more weakness to burns.

Ultimately the main effect of increased bleeding resistance is that your health doesn't drop as fast when you start bleeding, so you can go on bleeding without ill effects and let it heal on its own, instead of stopping to use bandages. It also stops a little faster with better resistance, but the main improvement is reduced loss of health.

Once you find a Mica, just carry that with you at all times, and you'll never need bandages. It gives +600% bleeding resistance, or something rediculous like that, so you only need the one, and can use artifacts for other effects in your other slots. I generally use mamas beads and kolobloks, or something to reduce rads, and nightstars, if I don't have mama's beads.

Which game are you talking about? I'm talking about Shadow of Chernobyl

yes, same.

Had to make a quick check in the STALKER wiki. Artifacts that reduce bleeding simply do not work for me. I'll get grazed and in no time the bleeding turns dark red.

And 7.62X39 ammunition aren't in any of the games. 7.62X54 is the closest and it only appears in the latter two games and only used with the PKM. The Abakan uses 5.45X39 like all the other Warsaw Pact assault rifles.

that is strange, as bleeding can never increase in the game, only decrease with time, unless you're continuing to take damage.

7.62x39 ammunition is the standard used in all AK-74, AKS-74U and AN-94 rifles that appear in the game, as well as some other rifles such as the modified Groza which are re-chambered to accept that round.

That' what happens to me, if I don't apply a bandage I'll continue to bleed out. Oftentimes I'll have to use multiple bandages.

It's 5.45X39. The 7.62 round was outphased as soon at the AK 74 was produced. The 7.62X39 round was made for the AK 47 and its variants, all of which are absent from the game, unless your mods wrongly inserted the round into the game.

Is it? My mistake then, perhaps I was thinking of something else. I might have to double-check the game, as I know it's in there somewhere. I know the game intentionally mislabeled a lot of things to skirt licensing issues, and the mods were supposed to actually*correct* a lot of that, though i know some of the descriptions slipped by.

Also, I do know there's an AK47 in one of the games, CoP it was, I believe, though I'm not sure which ammunition it used.

also FFFF keep hitting the wrong button somehow.

It's in Clear Sky. The Trophy AKM 47/2. It uses 7.62X54 PP ammunition, same rounds used in the PKM or RP-74 as it's named in the game, so it's a machinegun round, and therefore used incorrectly as well. The licensing issues are used with the weapons, ammunition retains their real names.

Also, shotgun for muties all the way...

It's my MO to always carry one shotgun, one sniper rifle or appropriate analogue, and one assault rifle. Early in the game a scoped abakan fulfills both of those roles well enough, but later on, the best sniper rifles and the best assault rifles will be very different and not so interchangeable. I always pick the suppressed sniper rifle with the very best accuracy at the cost of all else, because that's what I need it for. an AR isn't always needed, especially early in the game, but later on it helps to have one with a common and readily available ammunition type (if only ammo for the Groza was more plentiful! I love that gun, but I could never find enough 9x39 for it.) For when you absolutely cannot afford to conserve ammo. Shotgun is the mutie killer, just because it's simple, effective at close range, and very very cheap to get ammo for. Buckshot is 10 rubles a shell, and good shotgun use is one shell per mutie.

I said come in; don't just stand there!

I once set off a chain of exploding barrels to let myself in... incidentally, duty still liked me, but the game didn't.

I managed to glitch that game so many times it's not even funny. Bestowing the miracle of unattended permadeath unto important characters isn't the best way to make things work smoothly.

I think I would have enjoyed the game a bit more if it worked a bit more like GTA. Like, have a default sandbox mode where you can romp around blowing up shit, shooting people in the face, etc at leisure with no irreversible consequences, and then have the various quests woven into that if you decide to shove a grenade up some character's butt instead of returning his father's long-lost rifle then that has storyline consequences.

Instead, they way they implemented it makes the entire game feel like a giant, convoluted escort mission.

The basic gameplay and story is great, though. It's just a shame that the plot/quest/whatever mechanics are messed up.

well it kinda follows the direction of games like morrowind where nobody is invincible, and you should know better than to just run around killing everyone if you actually want to complete the quest line. That said, actual completion is entirely optional, so if what you want to do is run around and kill everyone, you can do that.

Personally I usually try to avoid pissing off major factions or neutral stalkers, because it makes traveling a hassle when everyone is trying to kill you. The bandits, mercs, army, and monolith gives me more than enough to shoot at and stay busy without being harassed trying to cross duty, freedom, or neutral territory.

That said, I usually end up pissing one of them off eventually and then letting that decide who I side with... normally that means Freedom getting caught in a crossfire and me not realizing I had gunned one of them down while steamrolling a bandit base until I return to the army warehouses later and everyone hates me... so I murder all of them, loot their HQ and go join Duty.

Well, I don't usually make a habit of going around killing random NPCs, but they have a habit of dying on their own far too easily while I'm wandering around doing side quests, and as a result I end up missing content or messing up an endgame I was aiming for, or even just glitching missions completely.

hmm, I don't think I've had that happen, yet... at least not when it wasn't intentional by the developers (failing a side mission because the quest giver was killed). I did have it happen in CoP where one of the loners died, and as a result I wasn't able to finish the line to become friends with the loners, though i didn't realize it at the time... nothing major or main-story related, though.