this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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Still playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly. Before anything else, I'd like to get one thing out of the way: I'm an idiot. Descriptions for (most?) Anomaly mods aren't as bad as I thought they were, it's just that ModDB has no indicators there's anything beyond the initial sentence or two if you browse the site with JavaScript disabled. So yeah, that was a fumble on my part but also why the heck does ModDB show all of the text on normal mod pages but doesn't for Anomaly addons?!
I was expecting to write something like "I didn't do too many changes since last week, mostly just started using modded exes and made some further gameplay options tweaking" today but... yeah, no. While my mod list is far from the behemoths I tend to play with in something like Bethesda titles, my Anomaly collection grew way faster than anticipated. Here's my current mods list if anyone's interested:
Full mod list
I'm sure this list will grow as I spend more time with the game but even these additions make for a fun return to the zone. I'd like to once again thank @Coelacanth@feddit.nu for their help with figuring out a good starting point with modding Anomaly. I still need to check your base list and your alternative LASS population addon but I'll get there.
As for the game itself, once I got my bearings it turned out to be somewhat easier than I initially thought it would be. I'm currently playing on medium difficulty and progression settings (with previously mentioned custom tweaks) so I might have to play around with those a bit more. I don't mind though, it's suppose to be fun not feel like a punishment.
Besides that, I decided to give The Elder Scrolls Online another go. Its latest update included difficulty setting, a feature intended to tackle one of my main issues with the game (everything being a cakewalk).
I quickly started to regret my decision thanks to a launcher issue which prevented me from downloading files with speeds above 5MB/s. Anything higher would leave it in a perpetual cycle of downloading at max speed for a few seconds followed by freezing for a couple minutes. Thanks to that I got the "pleasure" of experiencing internet speeds I didn't have to deal with in years. Can't say I missed that.
Thankfully, things were better once I finally got into the game proper though I can't say much yet as I only played for 2 or so hours last night. There are 3 new difficulties available and bumping it even by 1 makes a noticeable difference in combat. I'm not sure yet if I'll stick with that (I didn't want to go too crazy before checking out the new balancing and remembering how to play) but it's a good sign.
One thing I'm not fond of is the fact that one of the skills I use with my Nightblade adds permanent passive movement speed increase as long as it's equipped. I'm sure it's cool for people who like to sprint everywhere but for me, someone who likes to act like part of the world, seeing my character move like I'm watching a video at 1.5x speed is a little jarring. Looks like I'll have to keep (un)equipping it if I want my experience to feel right. Oh well...
Well, that's the thing - STALKER players are generally masochists who hate themselves and love misery! The punishment is the fun! How else would mods like Fatal Error be so popular?
I'm only halfway in that camp, though, even though I do enjoy the loot/survival/scavenging based gameplay. I don't play the G.A.M.M.A. modpack myself, but I do use a similar design philosophy to that in my own custom list where traders don't sell guns or armour, everything drops in low condition and you need to scavenge stuff for parts to progress (I forgot to mention Weapon Parts Overhaul probably).
Oh, I totally get that. My own preferences lean heavily towards style of gameplay that most people would call tedious and annoying, I'm just not into "1 hit death, enemies spot and attack you from the other side of the map and you dehydrate in minutes" type of thing. That's why I usually start with medium difficulty settings and bump up from there as I get the feel for how things are balanced.
Punishment IS fun, over tuning on the other hand can be less so. Since everyone has their own preferences, that sentence is purely subjective for every player and what they see as too much.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. It's a fine balance between immersion (which to me is one of the main draws of STALKER) and enjoyable gameplay. I tried playing a Call of Chernobyl-based modpack called A.R.E.A. as a counter example, and that shit is just pure pain. Way too much "realism", way too little fun. It was certainly interesting but... yeah.
Though actually on the note of spotting you from half the map, there are a ton of helpful AI mods that are pretty much standard that I should probably also dig up for you...
The video you sent me pushed me into another marathon of mod browsing so thanks for that... Nah, seriously - thanks! I found another 5 or so mods to try out already, though most of them are gameplay related rather than graphical ones.
I was actually planning to try out the Alife collection for AI changes as they seem like a promising set of improvements. Have you tried them? Are they any good or are there others you'd recommend over (or in addition to) those?
Which is the Alife collection? I think what most people are playing with now is Alife+, although that got released a few months after I stopped playing the last time so I have no first hand accounts of it. I do have a couple of good AI mods in that sheet I linked, like Semi-Radiant AI and rank-based travel.
Otherwise like ReDone Combat AI, RE:Vision, Stealth are popular mods. Probably also want Decreased Enemy Bush Hearing Distance, Zone NPCs Can't See Through Bushes and Zone Mutants Can't See Through Bushes and Ghillie Rework. Some of these mods probably need some minor compatibility work for script merging or at least load order management.
Useful Idiots that I already recommended is in my opinion essential for companions (and includes the functionality of the He Is With Me mod you already have installed, I would just replace that with it). Companions Disable Headlamps In Stealth is also good, I'm trying to remember if there is a newer version somewhere though. There might be.
These were just some off the top of my head, I'm probably forgetting something.
Yeah, by collection I meant all of the modules, including Alife+. According to the description it's more of an extension to the vanilla system rather than an override so it should be compatible with at least some of the stuff you mentioned (probably, we'll see). Thanks for the links, as always.
I don't really care for playing with companions to be honest, not at the moment anyway. The only reason I downloaded "He Is With Me" was to test it with a specific situation during a rescue quest. That said, I'll keep those mods in mind if I start longing for a party.
That's fair enough. I personally love playing with companions, especially since the TALKER mod with AI dialogue lets you have some really fun emergent narratives and role playing.
Yeah, it's mostly a mix of "I don't trust them to act I as I want" and "I don't like feeling responsible for AI". It's not really a Stalker thing either, I just like wandering on my own in games. I'll most likely give them a shot here just to test things out but that's about as far as my plans go for companionship at the moment.
I'm always wary when it comes to gen-AI powered NPCs. On one hand I can appreciate the idea and the dream of having truly unique virtual characters, on the other I have rather... strong feelings towards gen-AI (for multiple reasons) and don't really want to interact with it or support it in any way. At least TALKER has Ollama support so that's something.
That's totally fair. Even though I like using companions I don't always use them, the lonely desolate vibe is definitely part of the charm of STALKER.
I totally respect a dogmatic anti-AI stance. I hate gen AI for most things, in particular art - where I want absolutely zero AI. I personally think dynamic dialogue in a sandbox game is one of the best use cases for it, but I still do hate the intellectual property theft and environmental impact.
I'd love to be able to approach the topic from a more neutral or even positive stance (I really like the idea of AI on a conceptual level) but I simply hate how it came to be and how it functions nowadays. Existence of open source models does help but it's not easy to change my mind on this with all the other stuff surrounding the tech. Well, that and I don't have the hardware to run local models anyway.