Since the thread got revived a bit in particular concerning mods, I'll share what I've been personally recommending for years for first-time players.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the Complete series of mods for the various games, but they do alter the games in some areas such as gun handling, so it is not recommended if you want the closest vanilla experience for a first playthrough. If you don't mind that much, Complete is fine to use but it is outdated as far as I can tell, it's an old mod.
These are mods that don't change the vanilla experience much but improve graphics, because these games have a lot of mods of various scopes for them that offer a lot of replayability, you don't necessarily want to jump into mods that change the game up a lot on your first playthrough.
- How to prepare the game for modding. Link.
- Cromm Cruac's Texture Packs: Absolute Nature and Absolute Structures. Link.
- The Zone Reclamation Project (community bug fixes, MUST-HAVE). Link.
- Shaders Max. Link.
- Weather Overhauled. Link.
- FoV Switcher (optional). Link.
Note concerning Shaders Max: If you get weird graphical glitches such as odd looking shadows in buildings it would be from Shaders Max, make sure you are using one of the shader presets from the mod (user.ltx) and not the default one the game generates or one from another mod. On Windows 10 it's located in C:\Users\Public\Documents\stalker-shoc). Put your chosen user.ltx preset there from Shaders Max. I don't have the mod available on my PC right now but I think the readme in it mentions this as well, always just read each mods instructions but it's all pretty much straightforward.
When you want to play Shadow of Chernobyl again, there's these mods I recommend too (they're much bigger and combine the above mods as well). They are for Shadow of Chernobyl b Call of Pripyat and Clear Skies has its own set of mods like unique to each game like MISERY.
- Autumn Aurora 2. This is my favourite mod overhaul for the game. It's a beautiful and melancholic autumn overhaul of the game's world and includes a port of the AtmosFear mod for Call of Pripyat by Cromm Cruac to Shadow of Chernobyl. It's a brand new look for the game and was also featured on PCGamer. Link
- L.U.R.K.
- O.G.S.E. - Old Good S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Evolution.
- STALKERSOUP.
- Zone of Alienation.
- NLC 6/7.
There is also a huge mod project called Call of Chernobyl that has combined all 3 games into one, as well as restoring lost/not fully implemented content and maps by the devs. It's a whole new standalone game using a re-implemented XRay engine.
You need to have one of the games installed to prove you own it but it doesn't actually use the game (again, standalone). The point of it is that it's a huge base game now for mods to add onto Call of Chernobyl, it's a huge free-play experience and for modders to script and make more stories/missions/etc since it combines the entire zone across all the games. There's many mods for the mod in itself already.
Trailer and
official page. (you can find more mods for it on the addons section)
On a side note, personally I like how the vanilla gun system works in the games because this has always been a sort of FPS-RPG, and I also like the degradation system because it's not annoying like other games, it fits into the narrative and story. To add onto this, mods extend existing functionality of this system that the devs never "turned on" but did implement. For example, various mods re-enable parts of the A-Life system so that NPCs loot other NPCs, so that loot is persistent among the NPCs in the world. The reason is because the A-Life system already simulates all NPCs in the game even if you are nowhere near them - that is why you can come across a lot of interest things in the game when journeying around, if a NPC picks up a great condition weapon from another NPC they killed, uses it, then dies and you come across their corpse, that is the same persistent weapon that has been through two NPCs hands.
Again this is The Zone, not every weapon or armor is going to be 100% condition, but this doesn't mean they don't exist - they do, but they are rare, and if you manage to find one it's great but it will degrade over time too but not at a stupid level that makes it annoying. Guns have stats to begin with, and the level of condition further influences these stats, so a gun with 10% condition is going to have a negative influence on the accuracy regardless even if the base accuracy stat of the gun is good. The game also models things like bullet drop and ricochet too which plays a role which upon the release of the game in 2008 not a lot of FPS games had. A low condition weapon adds a lot of tense moments to gameplay when it may jam as well that a lot of players can attest to, but it's never been annoying. Ultimately it will boil down to personal preference, it's like with Morrowind, some people like the way the mechanics work, others mod it so it's like Oblivion/Skyrim.
