S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[Gorth]

So, finding a bit of time in between sessions of Europa Universalis, I play Stalker.

 

Let me start by saying that, I love this game. Very much so.

 

Unfortunately, liking a game does note equal excelling at it.

 

Two problems so far, one insignificant and one that is more tricky.

 

The trader want's a dog part, not just from any dog, but a pseudodog. I've killed every canine I've come across so far, yet no matching dog part (I got some tails I think, but not what he wanted). Any particular good places to go looking for that particular breed?

 

That was the insignificant part. Not sure what happens long term when failing these go and fetch missions.

 

More tricky is how the heck do you survive the lower parts of the Agroprom research facility?

 

Especially the regular army guys (at least that is what I think they are) are making my life miserable. I survive the tentacled guy with the "predator" style cloaking skill allright (a bit of running, dodging and emptying my shotgun where I think his head is).

 

But the army guys are very good at creating a killzone at the doorway I have to pass through, no matter what I try, they always end up being able to bring two guys guns to bear on me.

 

Do I have to pass through these basements to progress the game (part of "Kill Strelok") or can I just skip this part and navigate around them and go elsewhere?

 

Should I just spend some of my precious handgrenades instead? I had great fun with these when defending the first stalker camp at Garbage. I really need to practise my headshot skills...

[Pidesco]

The pseudodog isn't one of those regular dogs, but a larger one that is much rarer. One place you can find one of those is near the cave where you go to pick up an armor for the guy you saved in that first assault mission. Note that the icon for the tail in the inventory is actually quite dark, so you might not notice it's there.

[Gorth]

I know the place you are talking about. None of the dogs really stood out in a crowd though and early in the game I used the "Take All" button, gathering bits and pieces of different animals, so maybe I was just unlucky and none was there. I've changed my approach and only take "go and find" type assignments when I actually have the xyz in my inventory

 

Since I can't carry unlimited loot, I've had to made some hard decisions too now, like what to keep, what to stash in boxes around in the country side, in case i need it later and finally, just to leave stuff behind... A packrat like me really hates leaving stuff behind >_

 

I ran into an armed gang of guys guarding a big gate leading north. I assume I have to do something elsewhere to progress past that point. Currently I am stuck at the lower levels of Agroprom though.

[Tale]

RE: Agroprom

 

My first time through it took me several tries as well. The shotgun is not what you want to be using. By this point, you should have a Viper, the 9mm SMG. You want to engage them from the furthest distance available, or make them come to you. Use a grenade as well, if you have any to spare.

[Pop]

Nonsense. What you need is the AK-74 that you picked up from the army dudes at the rail bridge. Slightly more accurate, much more deadly. When you come into the Agroprom Institute (after the little battle cutscene plays) run along the right side behind the boxcars. You'll come out behind a big concrete walkway/barrier. From here, you've got great cover and a good view of the army's heads. Shoot them off. If you're close enough the shottie might also work.

[Gorth]

Yeah, the "surface" combat wasn't so bad (I do have whichever one that allows you to choose firing modes from 1, 2 or A... I use 2).

 

While being quite decent team workers, you can still outmaneuvre the enemies, especially if you don't have any qualms about letting the other guys on your side get some of the attention while you get around them. They probably never saw the headshots coming from their flanks.

 

The problem is the basement, where I have to pass through a doorway, with what I think is two army guys waiting on each side of the doorway on the other side of the wall. I can't squeeze myself close enough to the wall to just face one at a time, as the other guys invariably gangs up on me in an area with little room for moving around.

 

If I knew that once I was through, I would get a break, I could probably solve the dead lock with a grenade thrown at the guys on one side and then running through the doorway with my gun on full auto trying to take them out asap, still leaving a couple of opponents, but at least I would only have to face enemies in one direction. Besides, as I have found out, there is nothing to gain from prolonged firefights in this game except jammed guns and deteriorating body armour

 

Reminds me a bit of some of the tactical decisions you need to do when playing Jagged Alliance 2.

 

Now where is the C4 and detonator when you need to remove a wall?!?

[WITHTEETH]

What annoyed me with STALKER is just taking a stroll through the nuclear winter wonderland and BAM, i get a message that I FAILED a mission... I can't fail a mission, agh! Ill pick the game up again, i just have other games im playing now.

 

Dp any of you people get random failed missions too? :blush10:

[Spider]

Yeah, they're time-based. All the non-special quests have a 24 hour limit on them.

[Cantousent]

Yeah, I found my runs pretty much didn't leave me a lot of time to do the quests unless I fixated on creating a plan. I did that for a while, but then I just didn't care if I had a few missions "fail." There were side quest missions that were important and I just put them up on a higher priority. At the time I played, some of the missions were broken where, even after I'd fulfilled every requirement, the mission never completed and thus timed out.

[Dark_Raven]

How is this on mid range computers? I heard its a resource hog.

[Gorth]

It runs surprisingly well (i.e. no lag or stuttering) on my 4.5 year old pc, a pentium4 2.8ghz and 2gb ram (and something was state of the art gfx card 4.5 years ago) on 1024x768 resolution and most fun effects on.

[Pidesco]

I find that RAM is key for this game, in terms of getting good performance. I play it at 1280x960, with every bell and whistle on, and it runs brilliantly.

 

For reference: 3.0Ghz, 2Gigs, 7600GT

[Tale]

If you play with the dynamic lighting, it helps to have float 32 installed.

[Sand]

I still need to beat this game. It tends to kick my arse quite readily.

[Pidesco]

If you play with the dynamic lighting, it helps to have float 32 installed.

 

While float32 made the lighting a bit better, it really didn't improve my frame rates at all.

[Sand]

Is there a turn base mod for it yet.

[Dark_Raven]

My pc should be able to handle it. I only have 1G of RAM though.

[Gorth]

Ok, somebody is holding the door for and I can't get it up

 

I made it to the lower levels of X18 and got the documents. When trying to get back up, not only is the door being held closed by a nasty burning "field", the otherwise docile anomalies suddenly shows a very ananomolious homing behaviour and started pursuing me. I run around for a while trying to figure out what to do and one lapse of concentration, "Whoosh!", Gorth Brulee... :sad:

 

Any tips to get the door up (I tried a generous serving of handgrenades but that didn't help either)?

[Pop]

Those aren't anomalies, they're poltergeists. They're invisible ape-things with telekinetic / pyrokinetic powers. Shoot the lightning-y floating cloud things. Shoot them good. After awhile, bodies will materialize. Then the door will open.

[Gorth]

Those aren't anomalies, they're poltergeists. They're invisible ape-things with telekinetic / pyrokinetic powers. Shoot the lightning-y floating cloud things. Shoot them good. After awhile, bodies will materialize. Then the door will open.

*Bangs head against wall*

 

Of course, if it moves, shoot it. When it lies still, shoot it again just to make sure. It has been too long since I played FPS type games (Painkiller being the last I think)

 

Thanks Pop, I'll give that a try tonight >_

[Gorth]

*Sigh* :sad:

 

Looks like this game isn't free of the unfinishable quest curse either. I don't know if there are/were any benefits at all to joining either Freedom (one kind of nuts) or Duty (nutty in a different way), but a guy named Skull made sure I can't do either.

 

He gave me a mission to take out a tower sniper, I said yes, after which the first thing Skull does is run out in front of me and charge the sniper tower single handedly. Of course he gets himself shot very dead. I took out the sniper without antagonising the rest of the Freedom camp, but now I can't finish it because my point of contact, Skull, is busy lying dead on the ground. I tried dragging his sorry corpse around a bit, poking him with my knife, no reaction. I tried to talk to all members of his squad, just to see if that would do the trick but no luck

 

Then I tried another approach and see if I could join freedom. First mission, kill the squad where Skull was a member. Much to my delight, once I threw a hand grenade into their little singalong around the campfire, the unfinishable mission disappeared from my PDA... just to be replaced with a new unfinishable one. It apparantly keeps track of how many Duty squad member gets killed, and since Skull was already dead, they keep running around forever looking for something to kill.

 

In disgust, I gave up and entered the red forest. I am now getting my butt seriously handed to me (repeatedly). Those Monolith (a group of real nutcases) guys have some serious equipment

 

(I was about to rant about instantly (and constantly repeating) spawning missions, that I had never accepted popping up in my PDA, but then I saw that there is a new patch out that claims to fix it. Time to try it out)

 

Anybody know if there is some kind of benefits to joining any of the factions? Anybody ever experienced Skull dying prematurely? If so, any workarounds?

[Tale]

You don't actually join Freedom or Duty, you just get friendly with them. And Skull wasn't the way to do that, anyway. He was connected to that, but kind of a sidequest on that path that you can pick up and do early. The actual quest for doing jobs for Duty comes from another guy who you get access to later, you'll get notified when.

 

However, by killing both Freedom and Duty guys, you just made things a bit harder for yourself in that regard.

Edited November 30, 2007 by Tale

[Gorth]

You don't actually join Freedom or Duty, you just get friendly with them. And Skull wasn't the way to do that, anyway. He was connected to that, but kind of a sidequest on that path that you can pick up and do early. The actual quest for doing jobs for Duty comes from another guy who you get access to later, you'll get notified when.

 

However, by killing both Freedom and Duty guys, you just made things a bit harder for yourself in that regard.

I went back to an earlier save, before attacking the Duty guys. I am still on "friendly" terms with both (although I did kill the tower sniper, my last save before that is waaay too old). I am now busy strying to figure out how to survive the red forest. But thanks for the info. It just looked like both wanted you to sign up and maybe there was some kind of trade off between good and bad things for each of them. Now off to kill more Monolith guys... without getting myself killed all the time...

[Tale]

You don't actually join Freedom or Duty, you just get friendly with them. And Skull wasn't the way to do that, anyway. He was connected to that, but kind of a sidequest on that path that you can pick up and do early. The actual quest for doing jobs for Duty comes from another guy who you get access to later, you'll get notified when.

 

However, by killing both Freedom and Duty guys, you just made things a bit harder for yourself in that regard.

I went back to an earlier save, before attacking the Duty guys. I am still on "friendly" terms with both (although I did kill the tower sniper, my last save before that is waaay too old). I am now busy strying to figure out how to survive the red forest. But thanks for the info. It just looked like both wanted you to sign up and maybe there was some kind of trade off between good and bad things for each of them. Now off to kill more Monolith guys... without getting myself killed all the time...

 

If you're at the point where you're killing Monolith guys, you should have already had the opportunity I was talking about. There was a general (or something) or some sort back in The Bar area that's blocked off by Duty guys. However, it's often a good idea to just avoid doing things to get too friendly with one that'll get you unfriendly with the other. I just want to warn you about that. There's not much benefit to getting either side green to you, except it makes the other side red.

Edited November 30, 2007 by Tale

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Hint - Free Merc Suit From A New Game

 

At the very beginning of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., you will need to talk to a stalker named Wolf. Behind Wolf is a ladder that leads to an empty backpack in the attic.

 

Climb the ladder, but do not enter the attic. Instead, walk around the ledge formed where the roof and walls meet and work your way onto the roof of the house.

 

Once on top, you will see that there is an identical house north of the one you are on - sprint and jump to the roof of that adjacent house.

 

When you get to the second house's roof, carefully make your way to the side with a large hole in the roof - you should be able to make out a wooden crate.

 

Shoot the wooden crate and a Merc suit will be inside - grab it!