The MonoMartyrs Seek Revenge A free-play extension for the ZRP New: Cut Mutant support; see below While in the Cordon after dealing with the Monolith at the center of the Zone, you receive a transmission from the Barkeep: "Marked One! You're still alive! It was you, wasn't it? The last I saw of your PDA signal was from the very center of the Zone, and now the Zone is changing; there are no more new anomalies forming. And some of the Monolith have been giving up and turning themselves in, claiming no knowledge of what they have been doing the past few months or years. It's a miracle, something I don't believe in -- but that doesn't change it! "What did you do? Wait -- I must tell you something important: Not all the Monolith have come to their senses, and my agents have reported meeting several calling themselves the Monolith's Martyrs. They move freely among other stalkers, declaring openly their intent to kill the destroyer of their life's purpose. That has to be you! "One agent reported seeing one of these "MonoMartyrs" calmly tear apart an attacking gray pseudodog with his hands, taking very little damage in the encounter that should have killed him. "I'll let you know more as I learn it. I owe you that much, and more. Please take care, Marked One!" Followup transmission: "Marked One - here's a bit of news: The MonoMartyrs can be killed, although it might not seem possible. A stalker found the body of one, surrounded by a large number of mutant corpses. His weapon was useless, but it apparently worked well enough to take out the mutants. But -- get this -- he had an artifact on him! Now that the controlling agency is no longer in place, maybe they have access to the Monolith collection. The Zone is definitely changing..." =================================== *Blast! It's not over. Now I find out the powers-that-were were making super-soldiers, creatures with little or no awareness of pain and a much greater tolerance for damage before they succumb. Now they are just about everywhere, with gauss weapons and sniper rifles and the toughest bodies this side of hell.* =================================== The MonoMartyrs Seek Revenge is a mini-mod intended to show that modders don't need to modify NPC mesh files with a hex editor to create tougher NPCs. This first pass is more of a proof-of-concept than a refined product, but it works well enough as is. You can modify some settings for the MonoMartyrs. You can disable MonoMartyr spawning if you want to play without the bother. Or you can set the maximum number that spawn on each level, as well as the number that spawn in specific locations. You can also set the amount of notifications you receive -- how many alive on the level, and/or when each one dies. The MonoMartyrs add something new to the ZRP free play mode beyond just toughness. You have a chance of finding a useful artifact on their bodies in levels below Red Forest, and they bring advanced weaponry ammo (e.g., gauss, sniper rounds) to most of the early levels. Of course, to search their bodies, they must be dead, first... :) =================================== NEW: Cut Mutant Support This is a preliminary feature, as the cut mutants are generally extremely overpowered for reasonable gameplay. Expect their damage (delivered and received) to undergo a lot of tweaking. To enable the chance of the new mutant spawns, you simply check the checkboxes of the ones you'd like to feed, then click the Apply button(s). Unchecking the box for a mutant followed by clicking Apply will keep that mutant from consideration as one of the spawn choices. There are two pages of choices. At least one checkbox across the two pages should be checked to generate spawns; if none are checked then nothing will happen. The game will select one of the spawn types each time you load a save on a level. If the quota for that spawn type is filled, no new spawns will occur. The quota includes bodies as well as live creatures; bodies will disappear after four game hours although you may have to change levels or load a save. At least for now, you might want to reduce their numbers. The MonoMartyr Spawn Control page also applies to the cut mutants as well as the MonoMartyrs. To prevent the mutants from spawning on particular levels, you can put a pair of hyphens ("--") in front of the spawn locations in _custom_ext_zrp_mm.script. For example: l05_bar = { -- ["military"] = {pos=vector():set(56.08,-0.493,191.271),lid=26236,gid=1242,dist=100,min=1,max=spot_many} }, This keeps the Bar level free of MonoMartyrs and mutants.