Wild Territory - A level that needs to be fixed

[Mazryonh 0]

I remember that in the original unmodded SoC, anomalies would not move. While I am grateful to the AMK team for adding in blowouts that moved the anomalies, apparently the law of unintended consequences had to strike a few times along the way. One of the ways this shows up most is in Wild Territory.

 

Whenever you load a save from when you enter a level for the first time on that playthrough, the anomalies also spawn in random areas. While this normally isn't a problem and most NPCs with AI scripts to walk to a certain location are usually smart enough to avoid anomalies in the way (such as Bullet in the Dark Valley who must go to a certain location to rescue his friend, or the Stalker who tells you about the ambush on Mole's men when you first enter the Agroprom Research Institute level and then runs over to the Eastern complex to join the fight), one notable exception is Professor Kruglov when you first enter the Wild Territory level.

 

Because the Wild Territory level is not an open field like the Agroprom Research Institute and the Dark Valley, his AI pathing script is very restricted and doesn't allow him to change his path at all to avoid anomalies. While his armour allows him to shrug off the effects of walking into Electra and Burner anomalies, Whirligigs, Vortices, and Springboards are an entirely different matter--they always kill him instantly, just like any other NPC who walks into them. I believe the AMK mod calls those last two anomalies types "Mincers and Mosquito Balds." Unfortunately due to the fact that these anomalies can spawn in anywhere (changing location after every blowout) it is often likely that he'll walk into one--and be killed instantly--if one just happened to spawn in his path.

 

During my last three attempts to escort Kruglov to Yantar, the following things happened to him.

 

1) Once when he was running to the ambush site by the second group of mercenaries that spawn in after you agree to escort him, he kept running into a Vortex anomaly and was killed by it, EVERY TIME, since he couldn't avoid it.

 

2) Another time I was more successful and managed to get him to the Burner anomaly tunnel, but once he walked out of it, he was ALWAYS killed by a Springboard/Mosquito Bald anomaly that was directly in his way.

 

3) My most recent attempt (the one that eventually caused a bug to arise that stopped me from sleeping or using the Stalker chat network) was the most successful. I managed to get him to the other side of the Burner anomaly tunnel and got his recipe. Unfortunately, the random anomaly spawner had one more surprise in store for me. As he was making his way to the exit to Yantar, he always walked into a Whirligig anomaly that sucked him up and killed him. I eventually figured out that if I went to the exit towards Yantar before he did, he would still be considered "alive" by the game engine and then would spawn as normal inside the Mobile Science Bunker. I was proven right, though I had to discard that savegame as well because of the severity of the bug that hit me.

 

You might be wondering why I'm so concerned about a fictional person in a computer game. This is partly because of the fact that if you escort through the Burner anomaly tunnel, he will give you a recipe you can't get anywhere else, and second, I much prefer to escort him around Yantar rather than the other Ecologists.

 

I can think of two solutions for this problem. One is simply to make Kruglov immune to damage from those three anomalies. The other is to change the anomaly spawning code so that those three anomaly types (Whirligig, Vortex, and Springboard, or Whirligig, Mincer, and Mosquito Bald) simply never spawn into the areas Kruglov walks into, unless the mission has been failed (i.e., if he has been shot and killed or eaten by a mutant) or if the mission is successfully completed. Since Kruglov sticks to a very limited area when he runs to the exit of Yantar, I don't think this would be overly complicated either.

 

I have also wondered what would happen if a blowout happened in the middle of the "Escort Kruglov" mission. While I've never actually tried it for fear he might be caught in the blowout and then get killed, I don't think it would be very difficult to make him immune to blowout damage. Or have the AMK developers already taken measures against this?

[Mazryonh 0]

CarbonMonoxide:

 

3. Avoiding anomalies - once the area is clear, run away from Kruglov towards Yantar like hell. Getting away from him more then 150 meters (AFAIR) will switch off the Alife and in that mode he will ignore all of the anomalies. Wait him to meet you at the exit. Talk to him, then try to run away again.

PROFIT

 

Actually, I'm not even certain that it's possible to get 150 meters away from Kruglov once his AI routine makes him run towards the rendezvous point where he'll give you the recipe, as there's very little remaining of the level once you go south of the Burner anomaly tunnel. Besides, that strategy can't solve the problem that results if an anomaly spawns RIGHT AT the rendezvous point where he meets you, which will mean that either he will be killed by the Springboard, Vortex, or Whirligig anomaly, or that he will be waiting for you right in the middle of a Fruit Punch, Burner, or Electro anomaly, so it will be near impossible to talk to him and get the recipe without getting yourself killed.

 

In fact, I already do my best to kill ALL the Mercenaries and monsters in the level BEFORE talking to Kruglov, so that's not really a problem. Sadly, anomalies cannot be moved or neutralized in any way by the player, so that's why I made this thread so as to highlight just how difficult the "random anomaly spawner" makes this quest to be. After all, the AMK team made it so that Kruglov is the ONLY one who can give you an artifact recipe as well.

[Mazryonh 0]

ahilej,

 

Did you set blowouts to occur every 12 hours? You can only sleep for a maximum of 5 hours with your sleeping bag, and then you can't sleep for a number of hours. I set my blowouts to occur once every 30 hours, so using that method would take a very long time. It would be better to use CarbonMonoxide's method and load a save from before you entered Wild Territory for the first time so the anomalies will go to different locations. Even so, that method still has its own problems . . .

 

CarbonMonoxide,

 

Normally that would work for me, but unfortunately as I take care not to enter Wild Territory too soon, that usually means enormous hordes of mutants have gotten there, including a large group of Electro-Chimeras. Everytime I have to restart the level from an earlier save, it means I have to kill them all again. Many times Kruglov was eaten by a bunch of mutants getting close to his location long before I could even get near his area. It would make a lot more sense if the mutant population was capped at some maximum when you enter an area for the first time, since they usually aren't being killed to reduce their numbers the first time you enter the area.

[Mazryonh 0]

ahilej,

 

Yes, I know where to get the Flamethrower, and I recently just got it from Screw at the Freedom base. Unfortunately for some reason Stalkers keep dying for no real reason in the centre of the Freedom base, including the very important NPC named Max. With this death, I have been completely locked out of the opportunities to join the Freedom faction, the ability to complete 3 quests, and possibly some artifact recipes as well.

 

I use an Nvidia 9800 GT, which is not too bad today, but definitely not enough to handle the very large monster mobs that can spawn in. It may in fact actually be a problem of the XRay Engine when it can't handle all the pathing problems of the various monster mobs that can spawn into an area you haven't been to in a long time.

 

I think something else that needs to be fixed about Wild Territory is how after you've saved or killed Kruglov, the Mercenaries and Bandits keep spawning in the same areas all the time. Unlike levels like Cordon or the Dark Valley, there's no variation as to where they spawn, so it's a very linear level with very few surprises as to where your human enemies are likely to be. Having groups of bandits, mercenaries, or military wander around Wild Territory would be nice. In fact, having them wander around Lake Yantar after the X16 Psi-Emitter is turned off would be nice too.