Essential mods and patches

[triple_agent]

Are there any essential mods for the Clear Sky that best be employed right off the bat for the sake of optimum first playthrough experience? Any good mods for the second possible playthrough? Any patches necessary, without which to expect terrible bugs and crashes?

I repost this question from the Shadow of Chernobyl forum, but since Clear Sky is a different game, I believe the case needs to be put separately.

[Decane]

Vanilla Clear Sky is the most broken of the 3 official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and contains a few bugs that have a debilitating impact on one's ability to progress through the game if one is unlucky enough to encounter them. The probability of encountering said bugs is moderately high.

The SRP (http://www.moddb.com/mods/srp) fixes these bugs and many others, so I would recommend using it. The SRP requires patch v1.5.10 to be applied to the game. Note: The latest officially released version of the SRP (v1.1.2) is not the most recent available version - you can get the latest work-in-progress version from here: https://github.com/Decane/SRP.

[triple_agent]

Originally posted by Decane:

Vanilla Clear Sky is the most broken of the 3 official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and contains a few bugs that have a debilitating impact on one's ability to progress through the game if one is unlucky enough to encounter them. The probability of encountering said bugs is moderately high.

The SRP (http://www.moddb.com/mods/srp) fixes these bugs and many others, so I would recommend using it. The SRP requires patch v1.5.10 to be applied to the game. Note: The latest officially released version of the SRP (v1.1.2) is not the most recent available version - you can get the latest work-in-progress version from here: https://github.com/Decane/SRP.

Great, thanks for the answer. "Sky Reclamation Project" sounds good. After the download, there are some folders that say certain functions are optional. Do you recommend all of them to be thrown into one bag or actually some of them to discard? Besides, I will have other than English language version of the game, will the SRP pack work with it?

[Decane]

The SRP should work fine with languages other than English. I suggest reading through the included documentation for advice on what optional features to install. Many will suggest sticking as close to vanilla as possible for a first-time play-through, provided doing so doesn't ruin your enjoyment of the game.

Be warned, however, that CS has some of the most questionable design decisions in the entire series, so you may wish to be a little less conservative here with installing quality-of-life improvements for a first play-through than you would be with the other two games.

[triple_agent]

Originally posted by Decane:

The SRP should work fine with languages other than English. I suggest reading through the included documentation for advice on what optional features to install. Many will suggest sticking as close to vanilla as possible for a first-time play-through, provided doing so doesn't ruin your enjoyment of the game.

Be warned, however, that CS has some of the most questionable design decisions in the entire series, so you may wish to be a little less conservative here with installing quality-of-life improvements for a first play-through than you would be with the other two games.

You are very competent, thank you for the professional instructions.

[triple_agent]

I found something that is called "Perfect Clear Sky", it is a graphical facelift - link HERE. Any info on that? Is it worth the 2,5gb download? Furthermore, is it compatible with the SRP?

[evilernie]

if you can find it the (arsenal mod) real world weapons and gameplay changes, i dont like to play clear sky without it.

[kaay]

If you dont like vanilla or the modified SRP, you could try ogsm http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-clear-sky-ogsm-18-ce-2014-gereng/downloads
Its very easy compared to vanilla, has improved graphics, less buggy faction war, absolutely horrible translation, but all in all is quite fun and very satisfying gameplay.
The german language line at the traders is about special offers they have, usually very expensive and exotic stuff.
Played about 30 hrs of ogsm so far and having great fun, the mod is obviously intended to be fun not frustrating or...erm..."realistic", a welcome change for stalker mods.