Confused about starting new game and lack of artifacts

[Mazryonh 0]

Okay, after getting the advanced AI pack and the Dead bodies janitor, I started a new game as directed on Veteran difficulty. Unfortunately, there appears to be no sign of the free-lying artifacts laying around I remember way back when I first installed the AMK mod. Is this because of the new files I've downloaded and used, or this (yet another) bug with this mod?

 

I distinctly remember seeing plenty of free-lying Jellyfish, Wrenched, and Stone Blood artifacts at the start in Cordon when I first installed AMK. Should I just re-install the whole game and then reinstall the mod as well, along with the new files, or is this normal?

SIMPLE ENGLISH VERSION:

 

1) I have started a new game with AMK 1.4, EN 2.0, Rev. 22. It can be downloaded here:

 

http://www.amk-team.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=480

 

2) I have also installed the AMK 1.4 AI Pack, including the new "Dead Bodies and Weapons Remover." Both can be downloaded here:

 

http://www.amk-team.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=7155

 

3) I have also started a new game with this mod on Veteran difficulty.

 

In the UNMODDED game (without any mods), there are artifacts scattered in random places. They are randomly spawned by the anomalies. However, in the new game I've just started, there are NO RANDOMLY PLACED artifacts. Only those in STASHES and deliberately placed by the programmers are there.

 

I know that the AI pack makes the NPCs steal your stuff, but I have NOT LEFT Cordon yet. And how can artifacts I have not yet taken be "my stuff"?

 

I remember that when I first started a new game when I first installed the AMK mod, there WERE randomly placed artifacts.

 

Is this a bug? Or just the modder's decision?

Изменено 26 Июня 2009 пользователем Mazryonh

[Mazryonh 0]

Okay, I've made a version of the original post in Simple English. I highly doubt this is supposed to be how the new files work (no randomly placed artifacts).

[Mazryonh 0]

Ah, so "Random Rare Mode" doesn't mean that "most stashes you find will have their vanilla contents, a rare few will have random contents" as I originally thought, but actually that the stuff you find inside is actually the rarest of the rare stuff? Wow, the readme file for this mod definitely needs some work.

 

Yes, I know about trading with travelling NPCs. However, the situation I was describing was from a new game. It was all new, and yet the Cordon had no artifacts in the open whatsoever, even before the NPCs should have started working on looting the countryside, aside from that lone Jellyfish near the irradiated and anomaly-infested scrapyard where you see a flesh get gibbed by a Vortex anomaly, and the free-floating Night Star artifact north of the Bandit's car park that you have to retrieve.

 

I definitely will have a lot to spend my money on, since I just completed the "Assemble the Flamethrower" quest and discovered that those fuel canisters and Colloid Gas tanks I was blowing up regularly were actually required to make fuel for the flamethrower (they should have included that fact in the readme file too!). Now every time I want the flamethrower refueled I will have to shell out 30,000 RU and a bottle of vodka.

[Mazryonh 0]

KewlCrayon,

 

"Prototype" armour? Are you talking about Exoskeleton armour? I don't believe I've ever seen that in the random stashes. I suppose that's one case where the "vanilla stashes" is actually better, since if you kill enough lone Stalkers in Yantar you can get the PDA data for a stash in Pripyat that contains Fang's old Exoskeleton that has better nightvision and a 80 kg weight limit.

[Mazryonh 0]

Actually, after getting through to the Red Forest, I've never seen any randomly spawned artifacts, except for in the Agroprom Research Institute. I think it may be a problem with the original artifact-spawning algorithm in the original game. You can read how artifacts are spawned in SoC here:

 

A guide to artifact-spawning in SoC

 

Unfortunately the probability of artifacts spawning in is flawed and is extremely low. I suppose the fact that AMK modified the A-Life so that stalkers take the few artifacts that do spawn in when you're not in the map. I suppose a solution to this would be to make it so that stalkers only seek out artifacts when you're actually in the level, and don't do so when you're not in the level, as well as reducing the chances you get artifacts through random stashes. Right now I've got virtually no reason to look for artifacts out in the levels when I can always just check random stashes and get them.