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VValkar

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VValkar

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About this mod

A Hardcore and realistic Zone Overhaul with many quality of life and gameplay changes making the game more immersive and hard so you can feel the tension of surviving in Zone everyday. it's for people that want more realistic and harder than vanilla experience while keeping it reasonable and not spawning enemies in your face every 30 seconds.

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VValkar Hardcore Realistic Zone Overhaul
v1.6.1 Compatible with Stalker 2 v1.3
Now Editing 3600+ Files

Read Changelog for changes

A Hardcore and realistic Zone Overhaul with many quality of life and gameplay changes making the game more immersive and hard so you can feel the tension of surviving in Zone everyday.it's for people that want more realistic and harder than vanilla experience while keeping it reasonable and not spawning enemies in your face every 30 seconds.

All the changes and features in the mod I do manually by myself.
Big Thanks to all the people featured on the bottom or in permissions for their contribution to stalker 2 modding and making the game better for the commmunity

 This Zone Overhaul is meant to be played on Veteran Difficulty 
  It is strongly advised to only use this mod on new saves (but if you really want you can add it to existing save on your own risk)

Warning: Since there are many items added; removing it mid save can cause many bugs errors or corrupt your save file

What does it do?
It tries to make the game much more hard and realistic

These are most of the features in the mod:

Difficulty and Economy:
  • much higher buy prices from traders
  • higher upgrade cost
  • slightly higher repair cost
  • lower sell prices on all items
  • higher sell prices on artifacts
  • much higher reward from side quests
  • Increased number of side quests available from barman traders to 5
  • Reduced waiting time for side quests refresh to 2 in game hours
  • higher artifacts spawn rate
  • adjusted artifacts prices which make it compatible with LINXZ1 A.R.T which is very much advised to use
  • repair cost is now 0.5x for friendly bases (green icon) so it's much better to upgrade a weapon and stick to repairing it in friendly bases
  • Now only technicians can buy weapons and armor(only above 90%); The higher tier the technician is the more he will pay 
  • For reference T1 technician will pay 10%; T2 technician will pay 12%;T3 technician will pay 14%;T4 technician will pay 16%;T5 technician will pay 18% And RostokTechnician will play 25% (There are much more calculations to all item prices so the 10% etc. wont be from what in game stat card shows you;)
  • Bartender and technicians have overall worse sell prices than gun/armor traders
  • New Saving system:
  • Now you can only save near campfires and Fire Barrels.There are total of 355 campfires and barrels on map near which you can save the game.Currently it does not require any items to light them.You will easily notice the campfires/barrels. For now you need to use XStartQuestBySID CampfireSave command to activate this mechanic.If you wish to disable it use XEndQuestBySID CampfireSave



Mutant rebalance:
  • You can encounter every mutant in the wild and their quanity is based on your rank and experience:
  • Mutant spawns are dependand on your level; the more experienced you get the more mutans spawn and new kind start spawning :
  • Experienced rank will activate PseudoDog; Burer spawns
  • Veteran will activate chimera; pesudogiant and deer spawns
  • Master doesn't add anything new but increases some spawn quanity
  • Mutants rebalanced making them less tanky but more agile and dangerous.Different species are now adjusted according to their nature So for example bloodsuckers and cats are less tanky and cause high bleeding damage while fleshes and boars have more health but are weaker and snorks deal bigger damage but are also less tanky.
  • General Mutant changes to damage speed health cooldowns and some abilities of mutants
  • added unique mutant hides with unique effects attached into artifact slot with low spawn % values:
  • Mutant Loot Adds loot from mutants which you can sell;The NPC ai can also loot the mutant parts
  • Lore Accurate Controllers : Overhauled controller and it's abilities to be much more dangerous


World loot generation:
  • Drastically Less Loot in the world, requiring you at times to depend on vendors and med
    • All Weapons and armor on ground will now have random durability from 8% to 22%
    • All quest armor and weapons from quests rewards will now have random durability from 8% to 22%
    • All dlc journalist armor has lower overall durability to avoid making it very op but keep it in game because you paid for it
    • All Dlc journalist armor and guns durability in stashes is random from 8 to 22% instead of 100%
    • Changes to Static loot on ground:
    • Removed 70% of Vodka; Bandages; Medkits; canned food;
    • Removed 65% of Bread; Sausage; Milk; ground spawned items
    • Removed 80% of static placed Energetic drinks
    • Removed 85% of static placed AntiRad 
    • Removed 82% of static placed grenades
    • Reduced ammo boxes  ammo quanity to 70% of original Value (except for APG7V)
    • Replaced 40% of Deleted Bandages and Medkits spawns to Ibuprofen and Yadulin
  • much less ammo and medical supplies and grenades from crates
  • much less consumables and items from dynamic loot generation
  • Factions Patch: Now killing npc will generate their faction patch in their loot inventory which you can collect or sell
  • Technicians rework Adds Trading ability with techinicians which have acces to all new Equipement and repair kits based on tier and rank
  • Extended Equipment with re adjusted protection values of new equipement.Adds new equipement such as backpacks armor plates ghillie suits etc. You can buy them at technicians.Some of them go either into head slot or artifact slot. 
  • The new equipement can be improved and upgraded at technicians
  • Sleeping bag is available to buy at technician but it will only start working after 1st in game emission
  • OXA - Oxide's eXpanded Armory Now at 2.0 With New equipement added.
  • Allows you to repair your weapon with cleaning kits which you can buy at technician or find in the world and help of maintenance kits which are rare stash loot; 
  • Allows you to repair your Armor with their respective repair kits available at technicians/ as npc loot based on tier/rank
  • NVGs that are obtained through story mission progression as a quest reward instead of money (t1: The Price Goes Up) (t2: To the Last Drop of Blood" /  "Law and Order") (t3: Visions of Truth). If you already completed the missions before  It was added use commands to spawn them from OXA Page.
  • Adds even more new unique equipement available at stashes and technicians based on tier/rank 
  • Pillhead - Substances Of Stalker are added to dynamic  loot generation



Consumables Overhaul:
  • Full implementation of Pillhead - Substances Of Stalker:
  • All values of consumable items are shown
  • Adds new medical items with different purposes
  • Food causes radiation
  • All consumables have advantages and disadvantages such as sleepiness gain/radiation gain/dizziness etc.
  • You can meet different stalkers in the World who can trade medical supplies in case you run out of them
  • Adjusted Pillhead consumable effects such as sleepiness points reduction or gain etc. to fit in 
  • medkits heal less and take longer to heal you in order to make player use them instead of keeping 500 of them in a stash. same goes for bandages which now heal less bleeding wounds and you might need to use 1-4 bandages to heal completely

Combat and AI


Weapons:
  • Higher and more realistic explosion damage rebalance and radius making grenades and other explosives much more dangerous
  • lower weapon and armor durability
  • OXA - Oxide's eXpanded Armory Allows you to customize weapons with more attachements; adding more attachements and  customizability etc.
  • Higher and more realistic weapon damage,caliber, range; ballistics and improved recoil + dispersion with Fully Unlocked Ballistics and Range 
  • hipfire is more usable
  • fmj bullets have less armor penetration to require use of better ammo in later game stages

Quality Of Life
  • Increased rate of tiredness (slepiness)gaining meaning you will have to eventually sleep
  • Healing, stamina regeneration,aiming,  and reloading Penalty when being tired increased 
  • Player movement rebalance: Vault over higher obstacles, reduced stamina costs for jumping and melee attacks and running
  • Improved lifespan of various objects, bodies, bolts, blood and wound decals
  • No Fov zoom in dialogs
  • Lower staming usage 
  • Higher zoom with free hands
  • no fov zoom when aiming with gun sights
  • All actions such as walking running crouching drain your stamina.You still regenrate stamina when walking but at a slower rate
  • Dynamic Weather Overhaul: reimagined  weather system for increased dynamism and realism. Eliminates predictable weather and enhance immersion and adjusts it graphically.
  • removed strange medkits sfx and effects like vignette during crouching
  • Added skif voice modulation when using GasMaks or GlassHelket but to use it you need to: Open Your AppliedSettings.cfg file located in AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\GameSettings and  change   VoiceModulatorsAffectPlayer = false to VoiceModulatorsAffectPlayer = true

Bleeding Overhaul:
  • Enemy NPCs now have a chance to inflict bleeding, tied to the weapon they use. Bleeding severity is influenced by ammo type, with the following multipliers:
    • HP (Expansive): 1.4x–1.6x
    • AP (Armor Piercing): 0.8x–1.0x
    • FMJ (Regular): 1.0x
    • SS (Flat): 0.8x
    Bleeding chance and points are calculated based on weapon Caliber; Muzzle energy and velocity.For example:
    • Being hit by a UDP has an 25% chance to cause 18 bleeding points.
    • Being hit by an AKM-74S has a 50% chance to cause 40 bleeding points.
    • Being hit by an SVD has a 78% chance to cause 75 bleeding points.
  • Bleeding damage no longer kills almsot instantly, as it's been reduced significantly. At maximum wounding, you lose 10.5 HP/s, but applying bandages lowers the bleeding rate, simulating a gradual recovery as you patch yourself up. Without bandages, bleeding won't stop on its own.
  • When heavily bleeding it's best to first use medkit which reduces some bleeding points almost instantly and slowly regenerates hp then start applying bandages.You can fully heal bleeding with medkits but you will get sleepy and tired doing it every time.
  • Mutants also inflict bleeding, scaled by their abilities and design.Mutants like boars, fleshes inflict minor bleeding with low chances, while cats or bloodsuckers, with their sharp attacks, cause heavier bleeding with higher chances.Bandages are now critical—without them, survival is nearly impossible.

  • Bleeding Damage is Tied to Movement Speed and Actions
  • Dynamic system where bleeding damage scales with your movement speed and the severity of your injuries
  • On less serious bleeding:
    • Damage applies only when sprinting (holding Shift).
    • No damage while idle, crouching, walking, or crawling or running.
  • On more serious bleeding:
  • No damage while idle, crouching, walking, or crawling.
  • Running (holding W) deals 50% of max bleeding damage
  • Sprinting deals full bleeding damage
  • Intermediate movement speeds (e.g., 650 units when overweight) adjust proportionally (~9.15 HP damage).

    • Damage dynamically adjusts based on your movement speed, factoring in weight penalties or modifiers that affect sprint speed.
    • All damage values adjust automatically from minimum to maximum based on your bleeding level and movement speed.
    • If you don’t have a bandage, you can move slowly to a poi to get bandages without bleeding out


Textures:

Installation guide
If you are updating delete all files in  Stalker2/Content/Paks/~mods/ folder
Download the Zone overhaul zip file

After you downloaded it and have one Zone Overhaul archieve :

  • Go to STALKER 2: HOC installation folder, open "/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl/Stalker2/Content/Paks/" folder. If there's no folder called "~mods", create it (don't forget to include "~" symbol!). Final path should look like this: 
  • Steam: /S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl/Stalker2/Content/Paks/~mods/
  • GamePass: XboxGames/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2- Heart of Chornobyl(Windows)/Content/Stalker2/Content/Paks/~mods


  • Unzip Zone Overhaul archive, and copy ALL files to "~mods" folder. (You should have 62 files)

  • In total before 2 required below installs in  "~mods" folder you should now have 62 files

Required  installs: 

  • Open Your AppliedSettings.cfg file located in AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\GameSettings and change VoiceModulatorsAffectPlayer = false to VoiceModulatorsAffectPlayer = true

  • To activate campfire saves use XStartQuestBySID CampfireSave


Recommended additional installs: 
If you found any bugs errors or glitches let me know in the comments

Compatilibity and editability
For now I edit around 3600+ files Which Makes it uncompatible with most existing mods


Special thanks to these people for their mods and contribution to Stalker 2 modding: