S.T.A.LK.E.R

Yup.

My favourite games really.

Although I read somewhere that the Russian military was going to spend some money on developing a computer game to recruit potential soldiers too.

Am a bit annoyed about the number of people who discuss the Stalker games that don't realise they are not Russian games and they are not set in Russia.

If you look at all the "latest" stuff in it and you will see Ukrainian "Fort" Pistols, and lots of western weapons and the "military" are Ukrainian forces.

Things I would like to add to the games include the ability to clean your weapons to improve reliability, and a wider range of high tech suits and night vision equipment and probably a wider range of monsters and larger more open levels.

The current game, STALKER:Call of Pripyet (spelling) sounds really good, but I need to upgrade my machine before I buy it.

Sounds like a faulty version.
Most of the reviews I have read suggest it is the most stable and least flawed version of the series.

Any new weapons in COP?

Can you use RPKs?

Does it still have PKMs like Clear Sky?

The weapon I would like to see added is the APS-B.

My fav weapon in the series was the super groza.

It was basically a hack where the Groza is modified to be able to fire any type of ammo with a magazine capacity of 500 rounds.
Every gun you find you pick up its ammo and then occasionally you look at what ammo you have too much of and you press the Y key to select that ammo.
The cheat design of the gun makes it worth 10 roubles and it fires all ammo with max accuracy at very high velocity to make it lethal with one shot with most ammo types.
It also has a horrendous rate of fire so the big mags are not the luxury they sound.
I don't need any other cheat to win in the first game.
It also means ammo collection is less of an issue and you don't find yourself trying to carry extra weight in extra guns in case you come across an area where the primary ammo doesn't suit the weapons you have.
The weapon itself will also take a scope and has an underbarrel grenade launcher fitted as standard and will take a suppressor too.

I tried the PKM in Clear Sky and it was fun if a little inaccurate.

Here is a pdf file of the book the Stalker games and movie are based on I think.

The book is called Roadside picnic and it is in English.

No pics but that means the file is about a quarter of a MB so it is a quick download.

www.cca.org/cm/picnic.pdf

Note it is a direct link to the pdf file so you can right click the link and choose "save as" to get a copy.

Just finished reading it myself and I quite enjoyed it.

It seemed to be set in the west as there was only one Russian in it... Kirill the scientist.

It was written in 1977 so although you can see lots of tie ins with the Stalker game there was also a lot of different stuff.

The zone is created by a visitation of advanced aliens rather than a nuclear accident based on events of Chernobyl.

I still found it a little confusing as it didn't really explain much about what the visitation was all about, but in that regard it was realistic as if it had really happened then there would probably be no obvious explanation either.

The ending of the book was as strange as the ending in the game.

I have a fairly old computer, so both the first two games take literally 10 minutes to start... the loading screens just sit for ages... but eventually it loads and it is jumpy at first but then it smooths out and is playable.

Personally I liked the range of weapons available in the games... the fact that it is developed by a company in the Ukraine explains the western weapons... personally I would prefer more ex soviet weapons... especially the Stechkin APS and APS-B.

I love using the Makarov pistol especially the suppressed model.

Would like to see the Kashtan, Klin/Kedr, and Vityaz added for SMGs, and of course adding vehicles would allow me to carry around more loot...

Call of Pripyat is hard to get here... they advertised it early, but most vendors can't get it... I am a very patient person however and will wait till it goes to budget...

Well Stalker 2 gets me excited...

The last time I used Steam it took me about 3 hours to load Half Life 2 as part of the Orange Box, which included the original Half Life (I already had the full half life series of HL, Blue Force and Opposing Forces which I played repeatedly at University... especially Counterstrike). I also installed HL2, and episode 1 and 2 all at once. I didn't really mind the 3 hours it took till it told me I had to connect to the internet to complete installation.

4 days later I was able to play, but it took the shine off the game for me. Great games... marvellous graphics, interesting gameplay... hatred for Steam.

I think I will wait and build my own upgraded computer... my current machine doesn't even have USB2... yes, that was USB2... not USB3!

I can clearly be patient when I need to be... I have Metro 2033 in the box plus DCS:BlackShark in the box... waiting for a new computer... It is all waiting for a brand new Motherboard... the huge range of processors that fit the AM3+ slot means I can spend a little more on a good board and get a really cheap processor and a single RAM module and make other savings so the initial cost isn't too high, but after 6 months of the first upgrade I can then spend more money on 2-3 more memory modules and a new multicore processor and a better graphics card, later on I will get another card the same when the price has reduced over time and double the performance by bridging the cards with crossfire or equivalent... it wont be a fast process, but it should spread the costs so I can keep buying ammo...

As I mentioned above I do tend to cheat a little when I can in the Stalker games... I should be clear I never even attempt to cheat in multiplayer games, but I don't really play those much anyway.

I prefer killing bots.

As I mention above the main cheat I use is the Super Groza cheat, which completely changes the game for me. It can use several types of ammo and a few changes to its script by me adds all the other ammo types except grenades... including hand, under barrel, and rocket propelled grenades.
The design of the Super Groza means any ammo used is accellerated to very high muzzle velocity with high accuracy, and enormous rate of fire, though with the high velocity it is often a one shot one kill weapon so I only use full auto for large groups of monsters.

The advantages are obvious... with each magazine holding 500 rounds... in single shot you can normally get away with playing most of the game with one mag and not pick up any ammo.

I am a bit of a hoarder and pick up almost everything, so before the SG I was getting back to the trader with all sorts of calibres and types of ammo. Even though I used more ammo to get kills I found carrying enough types of weapons to use all the different types of ammo meant carrying too much weight.

I usually stay in the start area for quite a while and get as much cash as I can to buy the best protection I can and hopefully find a few anomalies.

One of the things I think the game needs is a lot more varieties of monsters and in larger numbers.

Another issue is that with FELIN and other infantry combat systems there is a risk that the real infantry combat gear will be better than the ingame kit, so adding better night vision gear, including thermal sights would be interesting though to be realistic they should be horrendously expensive.

I do like the fact that night vision equipment last more than 40 seconds like in Half Life, or 4-5 minutes in Battlefield 2. Real night vision lasts for hours at least.

Also torch technology has greatly improved and some LED torches can shine up to 200-300m+, with a dimmer to save batteries.

Adding a battery charger option to sleeping might be a good idea.

The ASh-12 would be a good monster gun...

Adding water areas would be interesting... imagine a huge underground water/river system or even lake with mutated life forms. A body armour suit with a closed off respiratory system to protect from radiation should be able to be used underwater too. A simple carbon dioxide scrubber and extra oxygen supply should allow operation for several hours.

Would be interesting to add alien artifacts as well as anomalies, and develop some sort of alien invasion or time travel elements to the story.