Major Update #2

The results are in, and the following weapons have been added from Super Mod Pack:
-Mosin Nagant (This is old news, and I added it before anyways, after a reskin and new orientations)
-Raging Bull

And that's it. All the other ones either had poor animations, poor models, poor textures, or just didn't fit in with the game (See Vulcan Chaingun).

Stalker needed a good Bolt-Action Rifle, and a Revolver never hurt nobody. It hurt to watch the MP40 and the STG44 go, I really would have liked to see bandits carrying WW2 era weapons, but they were too poorly implemented. I'll probably reskin them and re-animate them after the base release, or when I have time to work on new features instead of balancing current implementations. Expect to see a release soon, the weapon loadouts are being worked on at the discretion of my good friend Giegue, and bugfixing and other balance issues are being worked on.

Just recently I've been fixing crashes related to NPC drop probabilities, and overall trimming for performance. The AI has undergone a complete overhaul, creating a dynamic visibility threshold, which makes NPC's detection variable to lighting conditions. During the night, or even during the late evening, you can L.U.R.K (couldn't resist) in the shadows from enemy NPC's without being detected.

NPC's no longer have a static visibility threshold, which was completely retarded to begin with. This entails NPC's detecting you regardless of circumstance within a certain radius, which was, get this, 15ft in Oblivion Lost and Vanilla. Now the knife has newfangled possibilities, with no sound being emitted from stabbing your knife, and NPC's not spotting you automatically.

NPC sound detection has completely changed, NPC's no longer have super-sensory hearing, and they can't distinguish your footsteps from allied NPC footsteps anymore, making flanking maneuvers a possible, and often necessary tactic now. If you were to fire a weapon, and maneuver around a box, it's possible to knife an NPC while they're in alert status, remaining undetected.

Work has even undergone to fix Vanilla NPC bugs, NPC's can now detect flashlights, and the "look at the sky and walk forward" error has also been fixed, as well as many different problems regarding AI. This was merely a sound detection error, for instance an NPC heard a noise in the distance and they became fixated upon it, often regardless of your interference. However little testing has been done so I can't say for sure whether or not this has been fixed.

The latest edition of aLive, version 1.6 has been implemented into Stalker. Oblivion Lost utilizes version 1.4, and subsequently raped the shit out of it with retardedly high blowout triggered monster spawns, resulting in packs of random and unfitting monsters piled up against level transition points.

1.6 fixes that issue, having much more regulated spawns, untouched by Kanyhalos. Since 1.4 much work has gone into smart terrains, which dictate the terrain NPC's and Mutants can traverse. All mutants and Stalker can travel far and broad across the zone, for instance, I noticed a group of Bandits from Cordon in Dark Valley, who had taken over the base that had once had the Gauss Rifle Scammers. Of course I killed them, while they were playing Guitar, and I noticed they were using the weapon loadouts from the Cordon Bandits Spawns.

I also noticed Bloodsuckers had taken root in the previously uninhabited factory next to the Military Checkpoint at Cordon Bridge after I had returned from Dark Valley. I also noticed a Giant traversing the Dark Valley forest. After I engaged it in battle, I ran into the bandit base and watched it level the bandits inhabiting the building, (The ones who were waiting outside it anyways).

You'll notice more unscripted events then ever with the latest implementation of aLive, all of which don't detract from the main plot, which has had much effort placed into preserving, while improving the aspects surrounding it. You'll be happy to know that all of the weapons that have been implemented have gone through perilous quality control, and have been reoriented and completely rebalanced so as to not stray from the feeling of progression and scaling the original had, albeit someone broken in vanilla.

The current set of weapons is a composite of Arsenal, Vanilla, and various other implementations from standalone mods. Needless to say there isn't a single weapon implemented that I haven't went touched. Work is currently being put into where they're implemented, although most NPC's will carry similar loadouts as to vanilla, although bandits have been redone completely, and more variety will be available for each faction, confined of course to the logical access they'd have to each weapon, and the ammunition theme they'd have.

Finding the right balance between realism, fun, and balance, was a very hard obstacle, making each gun feel different, have different strengths and advantages, and have generic improvements were all taken into account. There will be circumstances when even an AKSU is preferred, because it's lighter, higher RPM, and better handling make it a preferred choice for close-range combat to even the AK74 at certain times.

Needless to say, new parameters needed to be added in order to create proper scaling and balance for each weapon. Weapon sway is now a reality, making the human factor prevalent in Stalker, rather then raw weapon statistics.

I wanted to give all the L.U.R.K. followers a little more insight into what's being done between my team and I, we're working hard to refine, build upon, and overall improve the Stalker experience. I feel confident enough to say that L.U.R.K. is now the definitive visual overhaul, combining elements from Clear Sky, various modders, and meticulous tweaking from myself and additions from myself.

The atmosphere and gameplay elements have been refined and overhauled to preserve and enhance the original objective. To create a living, breathing zone, lead through the eyes of a real human S.T.A.L.K.E.R., taking into account realistic human parameters, everything to weight, capacity, speed, and accuracy, without crossing the boundary that game developers avoid with reality simulation.

I believe we've reached the threshold for the definitive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience, and I plan to continually improve it after the initial release based on input from fans and followers, and myself.

I've posted image galleries for Cordon, Garbage, Dark Valley, and the Bar. See for yourself how far the Aesthetic factor has departed from any other modification (I'm aware of the visual errors that can be depicted from the images, and work is being done to fix them):
Cordon/Escape
The Bar
Dark Valley
The Garbage

Note that most of the images were taken during the afternoon for in-game time, so the weather cycles are fairly hard to see, currently working on implementing distant landscape textures from Argus onto Clear Sky dynamic Skybox textures.

Also note that the complaints over removing Blowouts are being heard, however it'll remain a reality until I can properly refine them, in both gameplay and visuals. Argus seems to have set to work upon improving blowouts aesthetically, therefore it seems that refining the gameplay aspect falls upon me.