Tuesday 5 July 2016

So I have been playing ... (88). Next up in CoP Special Edition



I had recorded my first Call of Pripyat sessions with Fraps. Combined with my aging system's aging graphics, that often means jumping through bottlenecks, and balancing the low end of settings, and still ending up with stuttery footage. Meanwhile I'd achieved smoother results with OBS (at least in other games), but it wouldn't recognize CoP input... then after one update it did!  I rejoiced, dragged the visuals sliders up half a notch, and delved into the night.




Staying off the ship/camp in Call of Pripyat means no available sleep mechanics, means exploring through the in-game night. My quick'n'dirty workaround for the visual down-time would be to seek out interiors and industrial areas to shine flashlight on.




Around this time I became aware of a fatal flaw in my main plan (obtain detector, collect artifacts, achieve basic rad-protection, gain more freedom of movement). Namely, the starter suit of Special Edition has no built-in artifact slots. After some panic I attempted to get to that stash at the gas station in feeble hopes that maybe *that* suit has them. Initially it didn't go so well.




The second attempt to get the gas-station suit went better. It did have artifact slots, so gatherer-mode was a go. I'd still need a better detector, but- freedom!




By this point I'd started gradually gathering stash items, and created a few temporary doodad-dumping grounds. I felt it was about time to bring it all into the same general area. (Coincidentally, I'd caught  one of the Sevchenko Loners nicking my stuff.)





There is that distinct milestone in Zaton stash-collecting when you obtain your third Anabiotic. Which means you can now choose to inflict some precision-braindamage upon yourself. After that - all the blowout-watching.




Next breakthrough - Bear detector. Eventually I got tired of hoping I'd come by one in the wild, and went ahead with the Boiler event. (Immediately after I actually found one on a corpse too. Figures.) The unfortunate side effect was that Petruha had outlived his plot-usefulness and got caught in a blowout. I guess he would have wanted me to loot his suit (which I did).






Between sessions, I mucked up the recording settings, and had to scrap some unusable footage. Anyway, I'd reached the point in exploring where I'd found most of stashes, the A-life had become somewhat static, and the time seemed ripe to start poking at the helicopter sites, in a roundabout way. 




Even though I'd yet to enter Skadovsk, I noticed a ... noticeable stalker activity increase after I'd investigated the crash sites.




With the A-life spiced up, I had an excuse to spend another session beating around the bush, visiting campsites, meandering about perimeter, and triple-quadruple-checking all the bush for that elusive stash. I mean, I had made the decision to step aboard Skadovsk, I was just postponing the stepping itself.





Eventually I did get on the ship, though. 






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