Progression System Overhaul – PSO (X-Labs questline) v1.0
This mod aims to improve on the Stalker 2 Free Play experience via providing a way to progress through the Player ranks from Newbie to Master doing a simple questline.
Required:
New Game Start – A free play mode attempt
NOT COMPATIBLE WITH VANILLA STORY MODE
Compatible with ongoing saves, but READ DETAILS
– Make Free Play great again: This mod aims to improve on the Stalker 2 sandbox experience via providing a way to progress through the Player ranks from Newbie to Master, meanwhile being connected to my other mod, Relation System Overhaul
– New laboratories quest line: Boozer in Slag Heap is looking for data related to Beta Psi experiments. Your job is to find underground complexes where this data is stored, and safely secure the data drives.
– A way to progress from Newbie to Master in Free Play
Quest can be picked up and completed with every faction – and has dialogs, journal entries, map markers and rewards.
Three simple tasks, each one of them promoting the player to the next rank
– Newbie -> Experienced | X3 in Cordon | Available from game start at Slag Heap (Boozer)
Experienced -> Veteran | Vent Undergrounds in Zaton | Available from Neutral (0) relation with Diggers
Veteran -> Master | X5 (Agroprom) in Yantar | Available from Friendly (401) relation with Diggers
– Without Relation Overhaul
If you are using only New Game Start mod, you can finish the complete chain from the start, since the vanilla relations are providing Friendly relations with Diggers by default. Please be aware, this mod only makes sense if your player rank is lower than Master; in this case you have a way to move upwards. If you are already Master, you only get the rest of the rewards. See known issues though.
– With Relation System Overhaul (the intended way)
You need to setup your game (when installing NGS) to Newbie rank.
The first promotion quest is available by default, but you need to work for the rest.
Since RSO 1.4 you are getting reputation with Diggers for every repeatable task you do in the Zone, no matter for who (reputation in Slag Heap is more like “fame”). If you are using RSO, you are starting on Disaffected (-200) relation level with Diggers.
You are getting +100 reputation for the X-lab quests, but you still need +100 to reach Neutral for the next one.
For the Master you need even more, +301.
– Known issue 1: Quests are not moving your rank up, but SETTING it to a certain level. If you are using it on an ongoing save, the first quest is going to set you to Experienced. If you were Master before, it will possibly move your rank DOWN (this edge case is not tested, but high chances). Be aware of this. But hey, at least you have a reason to finish all of them ;)- Edit: I will fix it soon, so will be usable on ongoing saves without having this issue.
– Known issue 2: Labs are in a weird place now, because the monsters there are world spawns, meanwhile the reward item became a quest item.
This means that the items are not available in the world by default, only if you have the active quest.
If you clean these places before you have the quest, you need to go back and retrieve the item (probably monsters will be dead).
– Known issue 3: Lab difficulty also needs to be adjusted. I am simply leading you to the places that are populated by Ekkaiaa’s New Game Start mod, and changing the items to quest items, while hooking a quest on it. I tried (and I managed) to find places that are somewhat matching their difficulty to the corresponding Rank quest, but do not expect Anomaly quality quest line pls. We are on a very simple level right now, but systems at least working together, and providing a goal & way of progression in Free Play.
What ranks give you?
The higher your rank:
– the stronger and better geared stalkers are roaming around
– the traders have bigger stock and better items
If you want to test the whole “questline”, only install New Game Start, and you will be eligible from the beginning for all of them without having to farm reputation. When you start on Newbie, slag heap trader stock is extremely small and provides basic items. You can check your progression on this trader for example. Both vanilla and popular overhauls like OXA Prototype using the Rank system to define the trader and NPC stock and item quality. For example in OXA Prototype (maybe in Vanilla as well) Exoskeletons are only sold from Master level.
How do I know that I am eligible for the next rank quest?
Keep your eye on the color of the Garbage Hub (Slag Heap / Diggers), it is updated after every quest, check when color changes.
The only way to gain rep with Diggers is to do repeatable tasks in the world (any of them).
If you are not using RSO, you should be green by default.
With RSO, you will be amber/orange.
Balancing and numbers
– For every task you will get a promotion, +100 rep to Diggers, money, and a surprise reward (not random yet)
– Once you finished the first task, you need to get 100 reputation, which can be covered by 4 simple repeatable task, or 2 artifact task
– Friendly relation for Master quest is more work: you need to get 301 reputation, which is 11 simple task, or 5 artifact task
Future of the mod
Creating quests via configs is very tiring, you need to produce insane amount of script lines just to have a simple fetch quest. It is absolutely possible (and I want to) extend this quest to some more interesting questline with more objectives, more lore (pdas, notes, audio recordings), but it takes time. With a fully fleshed out, immersive questline we might need to wait until we have the next phase of SDK.
But I would like to discover things like giving random items as rewards, messing with additional objectives. We will see.
How to install and use
It does not make sense to use it on an ongoing save (unless you are newbie), and can lower your rank, but if you want new quests just for fun, technically possible, no new game required.
1. Install New Game Start mod (if you are going to use Relation System Overhaul, pick a supported faction)
2. (Optional) Install Relation System Overhaul and overwrite original NGS files (main & faction file) [follow the instructions on mod site]
3. Open the downloaded Progression main mod .zip and copy the content to the ~mods folder (rank & questline files)
4. Make sure you have only ONE rank file, and that is Newbie from my mod
5. Make sure the questline file loads after the main file (default naming ensures)
6. DONE
If you want to test the whole “questline”, only install New Game Start, and you will be eligible from the beginning for all of them without having to farm reputation.
ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR SAVES BEFORE INSTALLING OR UPDATING MODS!
Compatibility
Compatible with every mod, but not compatible with vanilla story mode, since the main story handles the rank progression in the base game.
TROUBLESHOOT
I tested them countless times, but if you have trouble finding / picking up the quest items, and you have console enabled, you can spawn them into your inventory with the following commands:
XCreateItemInInventoryByID Progression_Experienced_USB 0 1 1
XCreateItemInInventoryByID Progression_Veteran_USB 0 1 1
XCreateItemInInventoryByID Progression_Master_USB 0 1 1
