CoC 1.5 R6 Does AO make Armor useless?

[Shao]

So iam still enjoying No Death Runs in the less complex Mods like CoC.
And AO makes is alot more fun.

But every time i get a solid medium Armor and fully upgrade it, i die asap and pretty much from 2-3 shots sometimes 1 shot.

I even survive several Hits in my starting Armor from time to time, with healing in between of course.
But then i upgrade the Medium Duty Armor with solid +20% on Armor Stats (which looks like the highest Armor Stat of any medium Armor i saw) and i get killed by 2 low tier AK shots.

So to me medium Armor and upgrading them looks like a complete waste of time and money, because i dont see any difference when it comes to Bullet Protection.
Will the same thing happen when i run around with a fully upgraded military Exo?
I cant imagine what higher calibre Guns will do.

Sadly AO is the only Weapon Mod i found that works with 1.5 R6.
And without it its just a bullet sponge festival on both sides.

[Knight Siegfried]

Yeah, the mod AO weapons do much more dmg than vanilla. Makes sense if you combine it with hardcore enemy mods or want to make combat much hard on both sides. You can reduce the dmg of the guns but not sure how exactly

[Shao]

AO is so good, but also so bad.

I got lucky and found a Clear Sky Exo in a Stash in Cordon.
I upgraded the Suit with all Armor Upgrades, went outside and got 1 shot by a single Military Guy.

I mean whats even the Point of Armor in this Mod?
Who tought it was a good Idea to make Armor complete useless against Bullets?

These one shots by small Calibre in even the biggest Armors make this Mod more and more unplayable for me.

I wish there was a Version were it is impossible to get 1 shot by a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ AK in the biggest Armor with all Upgrades...
I mean i have the feeling i survive more Gunfights in the starting Jacket, then in an Exo, like wtf is this trash Mod...

[spaceweezle]

To my understanding, higher level armor improves overall protection, but it doesn't provide complete protection.

I think this is meant to reflect the variability of weak/strong points in the armors design. Just like in real life, armor has soft or weak spots to accommodate flexibility/mobility.

Have you ever noticed you can sometimes 2-shot a stalker in an exo, but other times they take half a mag ? That mechanic seems to be implying that you hit critical points in their armor. It would seem fair that the player is bound to this as well.

So there is a very good reason to wear high tier armor, just don't expect it to cover every inch of your body from every angle.

To add to this, if you look at the code that governs the AI in CoC, you will see they are capable of very quick combat response. Sometimes they can land a head-shot on you in a fraction of a second. This I feel compounds the whole variability of armor protection, as it's kind of like playing Russian roulette.

It sounds to me like the AO weapons could be over-tuned for CoC. You could fix that by editing their values, using similar CoC weapons files for reference. I had to do this for weapons I ported from STCOP- they were simply too powerful.

[Shao]

You nailed it pretty much with everything.

I like the A.I in CoC even with their flaw.
The Game teached me to avoid neadless Fights, because every Shootout can be your last.
Which is realy cool, because that Way the Game dosent get boring when you are just the unkillable God destroying everything without taking any damage.

But the russian roulette Part is my only problem.
It seems like it dosent matter if i run around in light, medium or heavy armor.
I can see the differences against Mutants, i can take so much hits from Dogs in my military Exo, while i was dead from 2 in the starting Armor.

Also i dont know how anti armor munition works with the A.I and AO.
Maybe this Munition can penetrate even the best Armor.
This would be realy bad, because there is no way t tell who can and who will use it.

I still have alot of fun in CoC Iron man Runs, but maybe i should tweak the AO Weapon damage, even if i have never down something like that.^^

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by Shao:

You nailed it pretty much with everything.

I like the A.I in CoC even with their flaw.
The Game teached me to avoid neadless Fights, because every Shootout can be your last.
Which is realy cool, because that Way the Game dosent get boring when you are just the unkillable God destroying everything without taking any damage.

But the russian roulette Part is my only problem.
It seems like it dosent matter if i run around in light, medium or heavy armor.
I can see the differences against Mutants, i can take so much hits from Dogs in my military Exo, while i was dead from 2 in the starting Armor.

Also i dont know how anti armor munition works with the A.I and AO.
Maybe this Munition can penetrate even the best Armor.
This would be realy bad, because there is no way t tell who can and who will use it.

I still have alot of fun in CoC Iron man Runs, but maybe i should tweak the AO Weapon damage, even if i have never down something like that.^^

Playing Ironman in a mod like CoC is a pretty crazy undertaking, especially at max difficulty. Not something I personally have the stomach for, even though I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of hardcore mods.

The RNG element alone deters me from even trying. Not to mention the staggering amount of AI spawns. There are deadly scenario's that seem unavoidable, like when you level change and spawn right next to an enemy group wearing Exo's, or catch a stray sniper round with your eye-socket.

I die in CoC all the time. Sometimes I die like 5 times in an hour of playing. Granted, I play as bandit and have modded the economy to be much harsher. But I still die way more in CoC than I ever did in Misery. So Ironman is off the cards for me. But I commend anyone for doing it.


I'm pretty rusty with modding this game, but iirc there are two ways to modify weapon damage- The weapon itself, And the ammunition it uses. Find weapon files in "H:\Stalker COC data 1.5\gamedata\configs\weapons" -Or similar directory. Ammunition data is in Weapons.ltx.

For weapons ,modify the "Hit_power" value.
For Ammo, see the following lines:

k_dist = 1
k_disp = 0.7
k_hit = 1
k_impulse = 1
k_pierce = 0.62
k_ap = 0.62
impair = 1
buck_shot = 1
tracer = on
;tracer_color_ID = 1
wm_size = 0.07
k_air_resistance = 0.5

[Shao]

I play Iron Man without the Iron Man Mode activated, simply because of Bugs and suoer unfair stuff.
I died while walking over a little split in the Ground, i died from falling down 2meter, i died from spawning in between 3 Boars ect.

If i die that way i load my last Game, if i die from a instant kill Grenade which wasnt called, i load the Game and if i would die (nowdays i hover over the ESC Button when i switch an Area) by spawning in a Horde of Enemies i would load again.

When i die any other way (and i die alot) i create a New Character).
This way i avoid unfair death, but still have the thrill of a No Death Run.
And after years of Diablo 2 Hardcore and countless No Death Runs in Dark Souls, Dead Space or Resident Evil, i realy dont bother with losing my Character, because every Minute of the Run is fun and intense.
Only when iam a greedy idiot and die by attacking a random military squad i could slap myself.^^

And thanks for the Infos, when i die the next time i will play around with the damage values or maybe adjust the Armor Pen.

I never made it higher up then Army Depot (i pretty much clear every Area and Main Quest and iam addicted to Stashes), so i cant imagine what kind of Firepower awaits me further North.

[spaceweezle]

I'm not good enough for Ironman, but my own little rule is I can only save every 20 kills. Makes it feel a bit less cheesy that way.


I've noticed there are several hot-spots in CoC where a lot of action happens:

Army warehouses - From the northwest monolith camp to the northern farm house. And Jupiter - around the industrial complex to the southeast. This is where I go to farm gear. It also happens to be where most of my deaths occur.

Red forest for me has always been a death-trap. You can't see anything through the trees, but they can see you. Though the sniper perch at the checkpoint makes for a very nice half-way house.

If you want the ultimate challenge I recommend playing as Bandit. Survival becomes really sketchy as almost everyone wants to kill you. It's really fun if you like massive battles and that underdog feeling.


This is what I love most about CoC- the constant mayhem.

[Shao]

Yeah the Wallhack is super anoying, i already hate the Swamp because of that and fighting around Bushes or Grass Hilltops is a bad idea.

Right now i stick to Loner starting in Cordon until i beat all the main Quest, if that ever happen.^^
But i already wanne play Warfare as Monolith or something like your Bandit run.

The idea with the Gear in the Army Warehouse sounds interesting.
Most of the time i stick to an auto Shotgun and something new i found on a random higher level Body.
And then i hope the Price on Nimbles military Exo drops fast.
Until today i dont realy know how the Prices on Nimble work.
I can kill 100 Enemies, climb several Ranks, come back to Nimble and the Price dropped from 200.000 to 191.000.
The i play for 30 Minutes do the first Quest in Cordon, give a random Loner who is hurt a Medpack, go back to Nimble and the cost went from 200.000k to 110.000 already.

And yes the mayhem is the greatest thing about CoC, i survived a shootout between military, bandits and some mercs near the railbridge in cordon.
Where i just tried to survive behind some boxes, while around me was the hardest shootout i was involved so far.
After that i was looting around 25 Bodies, i only killed 5 or so myself.
Then overloaded as ♥♥♥♥ i was on my way back to the Cordon Base, when the clock turned 20 and a Bloodsucker attacked me 20m away from the Trader.
I died because i was greedy from looting and was to slow, bt damn the experience alone was worth it. ^^

And btw how awesome would be a MMO Version of CoC?
I can only hope that Stalker 2 allows somewthing like that.
But chilling with some Guys in the Cordon newbie Base and then explore the World together, Pve,PvP maybe evens omething like Warfare.... damn!

[spaceweezle]

It's kind of ironic that in CoC, bushes are you're worst enemy, but in Misery they are your greatest friend- Well at least if you're trying to avoid being gang-banged by mutants. But yeah the damn grass, it's everywhere!

I'm not really familiar with Nimble's inventory system, I even avoid using him in Misery. The pricing and availability goes against the grain of my play-style. Personally I dislike how easy it is to gear up in CoC and how flaccid the economy was. I actually overhauled the economy so progression is a lot slower. Heavy armors are 400k+, Exo's are 900k+, artifacts don't sell for much, weapons cost a lot more to buy, repair and upgrade etc.

Something else that bothers me about gear progression is that sniper weapons essentially break the difficulty factor. I tried to remedy this by increasing the switch-distance, but the AI still cannot deal with you picking them off at long range.


Lol, I can totally relate to that story. Greed is usually my undoing too. It's funny how the AI will flock to your kills like hungry seagulls as you watch them through your scope cursing them. I die a lot because this forces me out of position, but I'm so greedy I keep doing it!


A stalker MMO would be cool definitely. But I reckon co-op would be equally as fun. I can't see it working too well in mods like Misery because the map doesn't have enough going on. But CoC would be perfect for a co-op experience. It would probably need some minor rebalancing to accommodate it, like even more aggressive AI, even more spawns etc, but holy crap it would be fun. I mean, if they released a co-op DLC for $150 I'd buy it lol. Hell I'd even team up with you for ironman. :D

[Shao]

Haha yes count me in, these 150 would be absolute worth it.
Cleaning Maps, splitting Loot, exploring Buildings, sneak around to avoid huge patrols... dman this would be epic.

Your Eco System sounds like a real pain in the Ass and i like it.
But more for a non iron man run.
Yesterday i died again in my military Exo, thanks to a laser guided Grenade right on my Head, even while slowly walking backwards.

Sniping is indead realy strong, but only realy long sniping is broken, because the A.I can even snipe back on mid range without a Scope.
Sadly on many Parts of the Areas you can abuse that.
And with sadly i mean, its one of the features that works in your favor, while there are alot who worka against you.

If i sneak up to the MG Guy in the military camp in the south of Cordon and kill him with one Knife strike to the back.
All the Guys who are on the other side of the Camp sitting at the fire are on full alert.
These Guys have super human senses.

I talked about the Grenades, who sometimes get thrown without the Guy yelling something sbout a Grenade and then they land pretty much 90% of the time on your Head and instakill you.

Fighting on Hilltops is suicide because you cant see their Head coming up the Hill because of the Grass, but they already start shooting at you.
Same behind Bushes, or these anoying Trees with the leaves on the left or right side, you cant even hide behind them and lean out because the leaves block your sight, while the A.I sees you all the time.

And they all have Eagle Eyes, spotting me from far awa, while i crouch between Rocks, not moving.

Sometimes they even spawn right on top of me, when iam on the edge of an Area and not even near an Exit Point.

So i think its fine that at least long long range fighting gives you an advantage.
You still need the good Scopes, a Sniper and enough Ammunition.
And like i said it only works on some Parts of the Maps.
The worst Part is, it nearly never helps in the Story Missions Underground.

But yeah the Game has it flaws, but nothing realy Game breaking i think, or i would have stopped playing this Game nonstop for the past Weeks.