Maklane’s Better Zone – Overhaul
Maklane’s Better Zone – Overhaul – Hard & Fair
Tired of adventuring through The Zone without being able to use your favourite weapon? Feel like you’re missing a greater sense of progression? Enemies throw too many grenades and are sponges? Then this mod is for you!
This mod is intended to be played on ‘Hard/Veteran’ difficulty. (Seriously, try it!).
*This is a compilation and tweaks of all my mods to date (and some brand new ones). From now on I will no longer make separate mods. All the effort will go into improving this mod to the best of my knowledge.
This mod is safe to install/uninstall and won’t ruin your saved game.
What has improved?
Roadmap
– Working on balancing “time to heal” and other behaviors of the meds
– More to come
Due to popular demand from the community, you can now enjoy/test my work with shotguns in a separate mod. People seem to be enjoying it as kids. You will find the mod in the files tab.
Update v0.8
– Reduced cost of improvements by -1.5% (-14’5% total)
– Adjusted the coefficient of sale and purchase value.
– Reduced the value of various consumables such as bandages and sausages.
– Slightly increased the value of some ammunition.
– Adjusted armour durability to work as expected.
Have you tried the mod? Share your feedback in the comments section so I can continue to improve it
Economy
– Reduced the price of some consumables. You will now receive less money from the sale of bread, beer, cans of food etc.
– Slightly increased the price of medicines and medical kits.
– Weapons now have more durability, so you will need to repair them less.
– Increased repair cost by 22%.
– Reduced the cost of upgrades by 13%.
– Increased the price of artifacts by 4.50%.
Armour
– Adjusted armour prices, weights, durability and protections to make progression make more sense.
It also gives more variety to armour stats, making their differences between factions and their purpose more noticeable, so you’ll have to pay more attention to using the armour and artifacts you have properly.
– Armour generally protects less from physical damage, but at the same time, NPC aiming at medium and long range has been balanced, (Maklane’s Better Gunfights No Aimbot NPCs) making firefights last longer, more interesting and fairer. You’ll now be able to move between cover to find the right angle or avoid grenades, all while still taking less effective enemy fire depending on the NPC’s weapon, skill and distance from you.
Gunfights
Maklane’s Better Gunfights – NO Aimbot NPCs
For NPCs only: Increased the amount of bullets affected by the dispersion coefficient at medium and long distances, making gunfights more entertaining and fair.
NPCs fire in bursts, by default the amount of bullets in each burst varies depending on the weapon equipped by the NPC and the distance from target and within that burst, a minimum amount of bullets will be affected by the dispersion coefficient.
This mod increases the amount of bullets affected by the dispersion coefficient at medium and long distances, making gunfights more entertaining.
The dispersion at short distances (CQB) has not been modified.
Weapons
– Reduced weapon wear and tear when firing.
– Weapon durability has been increased, so you will need to repair weapons less often.
– Weapon weight has been adjusted.
– Adjusted the overall damage of weapons and they now do more damage, except for the PM 9×18 which has had its damage reduced.
– Damage is now more dependent on the ammunition used.
In the case of the Player, all weapons of the same calibre have the same base damage and penetration, so the main factor in determining damage is the ammunition used: FMJ, AP, HP or subsonic.
– For balance reasons, this logic does not apply to pistols or the M10 Gordon.
The main difference between one weapon and another of the same calibre will be accuracy, handling, weight etc.
Shotguns
– Improved feel when shooting shotguns, they are now more brutal. Adjusted pellet dispersion and increased accuracy of slug ammunition.
Ammo
– The price and weight of ammo has been reduced considerably, so you can choose which weapon to use and enjoy your gaming experience more (thanks to Grok for the idea). The price of AP and HP ammo has been reduced but to a lesser extent, this ammo is still meta and you will have to manage it.
– Increased AP ammo penetration.
– Increased the damage of HP ammo and reduced its penetration.
– Reduced Time To Kill (TTK).
– Adjusted shotgun ammo. The pellets now act more like buckshot and the slugs type (single pellet) are more accurate, with more penetrating power.
Grenades (Grok’s)
Merged with Grok’s Less Grenades Thrown so credits to him for this part:
– Chance of NPC throwing grenades reduced.
– Changed from 100% to 25%/50%/50%/50%/60% depending on NPC rank.
– Increased delay from 20-35s to 40-50s for low ranks (no change for high ranks).
Grenades (Maklane’s)
– Grenades are now more dangerous.
– Grenade damage has been increased.
– Explosion area has been increased by 17%.
– F1 grenade will do more damage to heavily armoured NPCs.
Weight:
GRENADES WEIGHT
RGD-5: -40%
F1: -33%
AMMUNITION WEIGHT
Conventional ammunition (bullets): -33%
Gauss ammunition: -25%.
RPG ammunition: +20%.
CONSUMABLES WEIGHT
Bread: -50%
Canned Food: -25%
Spoiled Canned Food: -25%
Sausage: -22%
Energetic: +10%
Energetic Limited: No change
Bandage: -27%
Med Kit: -47%
Army Med Kit: -35%
Eco Med Kit: -42%
Anti Rad: -50%
Hercules: No change
Cinnamon: No change
Beer: +7%
Water: -27%
Milk: -14%
Psy Blocker: -50%
Mutants
Tired of burning gunpowder to kill a piece of meat? Getting bored standing on a box? Pigs still won’t fly? Then this mod is for you! (Note, pigs doesn’t fly!).
This mod is designed to make your adventure in The Zone fairer and more entertaining. It adjusts the parameters of mutants to reduce their health points, but also balances in depth the type of damage they inflict and the amount.
**The following damage values refer to the damage done by mutants to other NPCs and to you as a player
Blind Dog
Total HP: No change
Sprint Speed: 600 -> 655
Base damage slightly increased. Less bleed damage, less armour penetration and a bit more armour wear.
What you’ll notice the most is that if you’re wearing good armour, it will protect you as it should, in return they’ll damage the armour a bit more. They’re also a bit more agile.
Bloodsucker
Total HP: 500 -> 220
Sprint Speed: 900 -> 840
Less direct damage, higher lacerations that inflict more bleed. Increased armour penetration on claw attacks.
These changes live up to its name and make it a fearsome but fair opponent.
Boar
Total HP: 270 -> 155
Sprint Speed: 750 -> 820
They now deal more armour damage, have higher armour penetration and are slightly faster.
Burer
Total HP: 500 -> 310
Sprint Speed: 300 -> 280
Just balanced his one melee attack, now with lower armour wear and higher bleed damage. The rest is untouched, he’s still as friendly as ever.
Cat
Total HP: 400 -> 285
Sprint Speed: 570 -> 615
Less direct damage, less armour wear, more bleed damage, slightly faster
Changes resemble more laceration damage.
Chimera
Total HP: 2500 -> 1450
Sprint Speed: 800 -> 825
More base damage, less armour penetration. More armour wear. More bleed.
It used to be complicated, now it’s complicatedly expensive.
Controller
Total HP: 650 -> 515
Sprint Speed: No change
Nothing has been changed apart from his health points.
Deer
Total HP: 600 -> 400
Sprint Speed: 700 -> 715
Increased damage, increased armour wear, increased bleed, less armour penetration.
Ever hit an empty can with a stick?
Flesh
Total HP: 360 -> 135
Sprint Speed: 400 -> 425
Jump: 20 -> 25
Max Bleeding: 100 -> 29 (the pig will bleed out easily)
Modified slightly to become a direct source of dopamine and fulfil its function, a piece of meat to shoot at while going from point A to point B. Now these will go down with two good shotgun blasts or bleed out while running away.
Poltergeist
Total HP: 400 -> 310
Sprint Speed: No change
Only his HP has been touched
PseudoDog
Total HP: 300 -> 185
Sprint Speed: 550 -> 535
Only its HP has been changed and its speed has been slightly decreased.
PseudoGiant
Total HP: 4000 -> 2450
Sprint Speed: 500 -> 515
Same damage, higher armour wear.
Don’t forget the grenades, he’s still a tank.
Snork
Total HP: 150 -> 130
Sprint Speed: No change
Slightly more damage and more armour wear.
Space bar spammers, don’t you love them?
Tushkan
Total HP: No change
Sprint Speed: 550 -> 565
Jump: 20 -> 23
Lower damage, lower armour penetration, higher bleed, more armour wear.
These now jump a bit higher, so you can use your pistol a bit more.
Installation
Unzip the 7z file to get the .pak file.
Move the “.pak” files to the ‘~mods’ folder which you can find at:
Steam:
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl\Stalker2\Content\Paks\~mods
Gamepass:
XboxGames/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2- Heart of Chornobyl (Windows)/Content/Stalker2/Content/Paks/~mods
**If the “~mods” folder doesn’t exist, create it!
Compatibility
Compatible with any mod that does not modify the following files:
NPCWeaponAttributesPrototypes.cfg
NPCWeaponSettingsPrototypes.cfg
PlayerWeaponSettingsPrototypes.cfg
DifficultyPrototypes.cfg
CombatSynchronization.cfg
[MutantName].cfg
[MutantName]Abilities.cfg
AmmoPrototypes.cfg
ArmorPrototypes.cfg
ConsumablePrototypes.cfg
GrenadePrototypes.cfg
WeaponPrototypes.cfg
I highly recommend this mods:
– NullMoxy’s Real Weapons Names
– Painter of the Zone Better Blood Wallmarks
Do you enjoy this mod? (or any). Remember to endorse/like so others may find it as well.
Issues & Feedback
Have you found a bug? Would you like to give your opinion so that the mod can be improved? Let me know in the comments/posts.
Before reporting that there is a bug, that the mod does not work or that the game crashes, be sure to:
– Unzip the downloaded .7z file using 7-zip
– Test the mod alone, without other external modifications
– Some changes may take a while to be seen due to the nature of the game mechanics themselves.
