First Impressions

[deadman1]

Beware the Snorks!

Actually I had my first meeting with snorks a little while ago. I was going back to the boat in the middle of the night, it´s pitchblack and suddenly the "the can see me" meter on the minimap turns green all the way. I hear a growl and in the light from my headlamp I see a snork, remebering Art´s tip about the power of the knife, I wipped it out and gave the snork a quick slash when it jumped me. A few seconds later, another growl, slash and another dead snork. :-X That thing is seriously overpowered, witch I´m very grateful for  ;D

[Art Blade]

Hehe!  ;D :-X Well, maybe you are. You are a ranking officer from Russia, and a secret mission... obviously Russian SpecOps are well trained :)

[Art Blade]

So, it's a hell of a game, isn't it?  ;)

It is.  :)

I have just asked a stalker where I could find artefacts in Pripyat, and he said he'd look for them in the tunnels which run under the city... I haven't even been there yet! Let alone found out how to get down there.

[PZ]

Great graphics  :-X  The only thing I would have changed is the scope view - I like how the scopes w@&k in FC2 - the periphery is simply out of focus.  One question - do the scopes hold steady like in FC2 or do they weave about like in FO3?

[Art Blade]

Thank you, PZ :)

They are steady scopes, no taking in breath and holding it or the likes. But the bullets are ballistic projectiles, a little guessing where they might hit (they leave traces) and perhaps the seconds shot does it (if targets are far away) while short or mid distances are a piece of cake. :)

[RedRaven]

There are a few mods available with alternate and replacement scopes so will check them out and see which ones compare to FC2.

[PZ]

They are steady scopes, no taking in breath and holding it or the likes.

lol, that's good - the vanilla version in FO3 makes me feel like I'm a drunkard trying to fire a gun!

[Art Blade]

Something else I kept thinking about, this CoP is even worse than FO3 with regards to collecting stuff. While it is necessary during the main campaign, it is hobby during free play.

A typical scene of free play:
I leave the base (launderette in Pripyat) carrying 10-15 drinks (in case) called "Hercules" which give you a five-minute-boost of 20kg extra carryweight. Then I carry two artefacts called "Goldfish" which give you 12 extra kg each = 24kg, and I have a 10kg buffer in my exoskeletton to the upgraded 90kg backpack. Now my entire loadout consists of 19 artefacts (10 different types, 9 of which are double), two identical exoskelettons (one backup), two identical FT-200M with target tracker scopes, one G37 high accuracy (sniper replacement assault rifle), like 1,200 armour piercing rounds of ammo, and some other stuff like food and meds. Total 75kg. Max carryweight, using all means, is 143.99 kg (144 would be overencumbered).

So I leave the base, see some mercs down the road, kill them, loot them, and am already at like 100kg. Then I notice bodies from whatever fight had happened moments ago, and I loot them. The stuff is just too good to allow it to rot away, or someone else to take it away. Now I'm at 120kg. I sigh, turn around, and walk those 500 yards back to base, have the gear repaired, stash it away, and there comes an emission. So I keep stashing away, making room for more loot, and when the emission is over, I rush outdoors and try to locate the bodies of those stalkers who had fled from the emission (why didn't they stay here with me?) and again they had tried to hide in an open staircase. So I loot them and carry the stuff back to base. I have it repaired and stash it away.

I decide I have already collected so much loot that it would be a good idea to make a trip to Jupiter and Zaton to sell the stuff. On my return and after spending 5k on the guides, I still have between 30 to 50 k more on my bank account. Like that, I'm now scratching at 700,000 RU, and most of the money is from selling loot to the right people.

Usually a trip doesn't take long because I am so soon near my carryweight limits that I return with the stuff and start over, same routine  ;D

[Art Blade]

Alright. So there is no achievement or prize if you honestly worked your way up to 1,000,000RU as there was for your first 100,000 cash. Now that I did find out, I now no longer need to sell stuff to get rich, nor do I have to keep looting like a maniac.

I'll see if I can resist looting  ;D (of course, a little ammo and meds... hehe)

[deadman1]

I just left the Zone after selling all my stuff. It took a couple of trips but I ended up with a little over 700 000 RU, not a bad nest egg for my retirement  ;). The end credits was quite enlighting too. (That´s all I´m going to say about that)  :P

[Art Blade]

Hehe  :) I've just returned to a savegame when I had the choice to achieve "friends of Freedom" and I did so, this time. Offered more gear, I've seen scopes for guns now I didn't know existed (one was yellow and one was blue at front and end) and a better version of Freedom armour available... who knows what else there is.

However, I have decided to do it better this time than during my last playthrough where I didn't expect the passage to Pripyat to be that long etc, losing all my men both on my trip to Pripyat and during the next unavoidable mission (retrieve unknown weapon aka gauss rifle). I want to keep at least the men on my way to Pripyat. I don't know if we can keep the men alive whom I'll have to accompany to get that rifle. Things to do this time: Prepare, with knowledge of what is going to happen  :)

[Art Blade]

Man, I've assembled the team, got that seva suit, just to find out Nitro doesn't use mine. It stays in my inventory, thanks... Just threw 20k away to have no carryweight problems on the way to Pripyat. Taking my time, I have to say, it is probably the most interesting part of the game: Try to keep your four fellow stalkers alive through all that mess :) And since it is linear (open world tunnel sounds rediculous, anyway) it is even more nerve wrecking (there really is no way back, it's a one-timer). I've already used up one exo and switched to the fresh backup. Apparently it pays off  ;D Going back into the tunnel now...

[Art Blade]

Turns out that I had saved just around the corner of the exit when I decided to write the previous post. LOL

Was good to see how cutscenes play out differently, and now those characters are still alive and interact. The gauss mission however... I tried two times, and even those different tactics (don't follow, instead climb the ladder together with the team's sniper -or- enter the opposite wing of the hospital where Monolith are supposed to surprise us) didn't pay off. All team memberes died (well, so did Monolith team). We are talking about approximately 20 enemies vs a team of 4+me. The third time it finally worked: I entered the appointed wing but went upstairs although not to the highest accessible floor. I was about in the middle of everything but on the appointed side. I killed the gauss guy (who drops off a roof and then drops his gauss rifle) who is either hard to kill or scripted to die theatrically. From my position I was able to adress all floors on the opposite side (wing) and we finally managed. On our side two dead, three alive :) But it didn't come easy. Something that helped a little was that the third time I decided to take a nap until 3:00am so we arrived at dawn. With daylight brightening up the battle scene, it was more fun.

[smg id=2051 align=center width=400]

[fragger]

I'm a bit of a latecomer to the Zone, so I'm still figuring things out and finding my way around, but so far, I'm impressed. Graphically, it's great to look at. Lighting and weather effects are excellent (sure does rain a lot!) and unlike in FC2, night-time is actually like night-time, ie. dark! Thank heavens for my headlamp.

At this stage I don't have much to add to what's already been said here. I got off to a bad start because I somehow dropped my initial weapon, I think while I was trying to figure out how to lower it, and some other stalker nicked off with it >:( Then I got pounced on by a pack of dogs while I was making my way towards one of the helicopter wrecks and used up most of my pistol ammo in the scrap before remembering that the knife worked better (thanks for that tip, Art :) ). Then I got killed in an emission (I didn't know about the PDA showing you where to go). Lesson learned – an abandoned guard shack does not provide sufficient protection from an emission.  Not an auspicious start to my stalking career :-\

A tad wiser, I started again, and have been going ever since. I can see that this game will have considerable replay value as there is just so much that you can do and there are so many possibilities to explore. I'm finding it a little bit overwhelming, but I'd rather be overwhelmed than underwhelmed ;D You're certainly spoiled for choice in this game regarding side missions and such, it seems to me there's a lot of different ways that you can go. There's a lot to learn as well when it comes to characters and locations.

Still early days, but I'm becoming more immersed all the time. I'm also determined to play all the way through on vanilla before I think about modding.

One niggly personal gripe - I do miss my vehicles. I'm not used to all this walking around everywhere. I'm guess I'm just going to have to fitten up some ;D That trifling irk aside, I think I could easily get hooked on this game.

[RedRaven]

sure does rain a lot!

Hahahahahahahaha..... at least its not just me getting wet in the acid rain !

Don't forget about the perpetual full moon.

[Art Blade]

Nice read there, fragger mate  ;D :-X I cracked a smile when reading that you dropped your initial weapon without realising, cause I did, too  ;D Only they didn't nick mine, I just reloaded because I couldn't be bothered to keep searching the area for it ;)

And yes, the allmighty knife does wonders  ;D

Keep going, mate. You'll soon notice that a vehicle won't be of help much, and that you're far better off walking because of the stealth factor. Well, you can't leg it all the time though, but you wouldn't be sitting in your car all the time, either. So walking is it, and crouch and super-low crouch (CTRL+SHIFT by default; apparently remapping those keys screws with the game engine ie you cannot low-crouch if remapping those keys).

To get rich, sell everything to everyone at the beginning, and artefacts only to Beard, informations to Owl -- except the PDA of the stalkers you'll find inside an anomaly only detectable with a prototype detector later on in the game (Jupiter). That PDA of the founder of Duty is essential to tip the favours of either Freedom or Duty. Choose wisely whom to give it to.

That's about it. Oh, and if you are working with a group of people (not counting bandits) try your very best to have all of them survive whatever you do, use savegames a lot. The savegame is actually one single file that gets overwritten every time you press F5.

Alright, have fun... and once you're through, modding will be the next step to having even more fun  ;D

[PZ]

About the walking aspect - for those of you that have played FO3 - how does it compare?  I've discovered that my patience is a bit taxed in FO3 unless I use fast travel.

[Art Blade]

At the beginning you may think "wow, huge area, long walks." Then, later, you may think "I can't walk for a minute without being attacked by something" (or finding stuff you want to collect, loot, explore...). So the three areas Zaton, Jupiter and Pripyat seem huge when you don't know them, but once you know them you'll realise that it isn't quite that big at all. Travelling between maps always requires you to use a guide (in exchange for money), travelling inside a map doesn't require a guide, but at times you may want to treat yourself to using a guide (for less money).

So it is not as massive as FO3, hence you will get over the thought of being in need of a transportation.  :)

[PZ]

Thanks, very good to know!  :)

[fragger]

Cheers, all :)

@Art: You're right, after playing some more I realise that if I was in a vehicle, I'd be having to stop every few seconds to hide, check out something, or do battle. So vehicular transport wouldn't really be suited to this game. Thanks for the additional tips there too mate, very helpful :-X

[Art Blade]

Welcome :)

There is one more PDA that you should not sell to Owl, it is when you do the stalker mission to prevent a weapons deal, you sneak up with some stalkers to the facility on top of a hill rather close to the Ship (argh, I hate it not to have an English version of that game, lacking "proper" location names). The boss of the badies has a PDA, too... keep it for later on ;)

[Ricamundo]

Sorry to bump this old topic, but i just found a used copy of COP on Amazon.ca for $15, so i ordered it. 8) Looking forward to giving it a go.

[Art Blade]

Because of FC2 I'm currently using my XP partition where I've also got CoP installed, so today I gave it a nostalgic go and played a bit. What I had forgot is how the graphics keep freezing once and again, not long, just enough to annoy me  ;D The other games I played recently don't do that. Just in case you're experiencing those lags, that's quite normal, you may want to reduce the gfx settings if it's too hard on the nerves  ;)

But the game deffo is a lot of fun. You can mod the game, you know :)

[PZ]

Bumping old topics is good, Ric - brings back good 'ol memories  :-X

Enjoy the game, and let us know your thoughts.

[Ricamundo]

I'll do that. :-X I got a confirmation email from amazon, and in it they had a link to STALKER Clear Skies, the newest game of the series. If i like COP i may grab CS as well. 8)