got clear sky in the mail today will install it in a bit.

So-so. While it's often beneficial to keep your distance from enemies and move carefully and quietly, it's near impossible to actually sneak up on anyone, and if you attempt any sort of silent kill (even with a silenced gun) everyone and their mutant mother is going to hear it.

Mods fix that I'm assuming?

I actually had a lot of luck with silent kills once a I got the enhanced rifle (its got a scope and a silencer on it and was tooled to be a make shift sniper rifle) that the Duty general guy sends you to get. Of course, I never gave it back. That thing was both accurate AND very quiet. I cleared several camps without alarming anyone.

Of course, this was well over halfway through the game.

Hmmm. I think I'll download Complete 2009. The freeplay thing sounds nice, and it improves the stealth, among other great things.

After reading through this thread I broke down and bought SoC. I really hope its worth it.

I never had an issue with AMK's blowouts, which is nice, because AMK is also an excellent, albeit very russian, mod.

I haven't tried AMK. Does saving during a blowout work? In Oblivion Lost any save made when a blowout had started would often be corrupt if you'd try to reload it.

But even without blowouts I'm happy with Complete 2009.

Recently got back into SOC but after playing for a while I realised my Steam file was corrupted and I couldn't save. Re-downloading now.

Indeed it does - not, of course, that I'd recommend saving during a blowout.

AMK may or may not be your thing. OL took a lot of inspiration from it, but went in a totally different direction - AMK is hard. Proper realistic hard - not unfair, but if you play it like OL you'll find yourself one day, with a bullet in the leg, bleeding badly and no more bandages. It's also, personally, my favourite mod for SoC by far, at least partially due to the massive expansion of the text messaging system that's already there - many a-life events now have messages sent from the stalkers taking part in them. If a stalker comes across a dead man, he'll tell everyone about it. If he spots a strong mutant, he'll tell people about it, and maybe ask for help if he doesn't think he can kill it himself. You may or may not be in the area. But the important thing is that it doesn't just give the illusion of a living world, it *shows you* a living world.

How's the functionality of this AMK mod? Looked into it, sounds interesting, but also a bit obscure. Is it buggy? Readily available in an up-to-date English version that can be linked to? Does it increase the requirements of the game, i.e. through enhanced graphics and the like?

It's mostly compatible with Complete's visual enhancements, if you want graphics - but AMK is gameplay only, so almost no additional performance load. Mechanics wise it's pretty bug free, but it's also very... russian, the translation is often imperfect, though mostly functional.

http://www.amk-team.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=480 should do, I think - it's been a while since I last installed it. There's also a 1.005 patch lying around somewhere, but the 1.005 patch itself doesn't do much so I never bothered looking for one - though it'd be essential if you were steambound. AMK is actually quite popular among a lot of stalkers, even with the relative obscurity - it's just that good.

SoC came in the mail today. Loving it so far. I was getting overwhelmed at the camp where you rescue Nimble, so I tried to run away, and ended up flat on my face after I ran straight through an anomaly. I managed to snag a Viper 5 off of a bandit, but I don't have much ammo for it yet. That one silenced pistol has been my go-to weapon so far.

Yeah, keep that silenced pistol handy for later on. There's a place where stealth is VERY useful. And the Viper 5 is the sub-machinegun, correct? That's a pretty good one to keep around for the time being, as well. Though when you get your hands on an AK-type weapon, I'd trade it out.

Yeah. I'm hoping one of the bandits at the hangar will have one.
I just finished up helping Bes with the bandit ambush. I even managed to save the guy being held up when you first enter Garbage.

Well, I just found Streloks group stash, and for my troubles I received a Stalker suit and a fast firing Ak 47, which is somehow more accurate than the normal Ak 47 is. I also managed to snag an Urchin and a Flash (+72 end. One).

Whenever I loot a stash, I don't find anything. Is this a bug? My version is patched to 1.005.

No, stashes are empty by default. The way it works is that when you loot a corpse, you have a chance to find info on their PDA about any stuff they've hidden, marking that stash on your map and filling it with loot. Basically it's a chance to randomly learn about some free stuff, but instead of the entire package appearing when that happens, all the empty containers are already in place as potential loot piles.

This only applies to "stash" searchables, though. Things labeled "box" or other containers can be actively searched.

Is there a chance not to find anything when you loot a marked stash?

There's always something in them, but sometimes it's only a couple tins of food and a medkit (most of the time it's something better though.) No stash ever gets used twice - at least in my experience - and even if you check a stash first and 5 meters away find a PDA with the marker, it will still be filled. The marker then disappears when the stash is emptied.

Not that I know of. Once a stash is learned about and marked on the map, it's essentially "activated" and its designated items appear, and will stay there until you take them.

Huh, well that's weird. I was in Agroprom and got a stash location, but when I went to loot it there was nothing there in the stash.

Well, there's always the occasional bug...

Unless it was a glitch, you were probably checking the wrong spot. Often a marker will appear on the map, but the icon doesn't tell you if it's on the floor, in the rafters, on the roof, under the floorboards, inside a closet, or any other possible altitude. In a place with large, multi-floor buildings like Agropom, there can potentially be two nearby on different floors.

Actually, in vanilla SoC stashes occasionally appear empty when found. Not sure if it's a bug or a feature.
To deactivate them in that case, put something in it, close the dialogue, and then take it out again. This allows the stash to be reused. It'll also reveal wether it was actually the marked stash (since the marker should disappear afterwards).
And yes, I'm pretty sure you can find the same stash multiple times in vanilla. You just need to make sure the marker disappears.

reminds me of a translating error in SHOC. For some reason all instances of attic or the like were translated as basemant, making it impossible to find some stashes without a good helping of dumb luck, like the one in the attic of a building in the rookie village in the cordon.