If this is your first time playing, I HIGHLY suggest you don't use mods. At least try the game without mods first.

Complete mods are especially flawed. SoC Complete has several changes that makes the game easier. I personally don't like the graphics either. CoP Complete instead is less stable and can cause save corruptions.

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There are a few things that I could recommend for a first playthrough.

For Shadow of Chernobyl, I can recommend Zone Reclamation Project (ZRP).

It's an unofficial patch that fixes most bugs and issues and in the game without altering the gameplay. It also includes some improvements such as better menus. It also comes with a config program that includes a lot of options to tweak and some minor mods that can be activated.

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Unfortunately, there isn't much for Clear Sky that I can think of. You can try looking up Clear Sky Community Patch or Clear Sky Reloaded.

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For Call of Pripyat, get Atmosfear 3. It completely overhauls weather and lighting and makes the game gorgeous.
Also Absolute Nature and Structure addon texture packs. I personally would say turn off "psi storms" and "fallout rains".

Call of Pripyat itself was very well polished and needs no additional patches or fixes.

I might write a bigger guide later if I'm not lazy.

AH I just saw it. Thanks. :)

SWEET! I SO love you GoG! :D

I liked the psi storms, fitted nicely into the setting and added to the atmosphere.

What were the fallout trains? I don't remember that.

"The Zone is now even more hostile as radioactive and acidic fallouts occur from time to time. They can cause significant damage if player caught in the open without decent protection from armor, artifacts or drugs. The nearest cover is shown on the minimap when radiation or biohazard levels become deadly. Acidic fallout very quickly degrades the armor/helmets."

From the official site. I didn't play much with these since I just preferred keeping it blowouts only like in the base game.

Has anyone tried Misery mod to Call of Pripyat yet? I'm dying to try it but I think I'll wait until I upgrade, hopefully for a finale version too.

I'll say what I always say, and warn people away from STALKER Complete for SoC. While SoC Complete does smooth out a few quirks, adds a few improvements, and ups the visual fidelity, it does a few things I really don't like. The enhanced visuals take away some of the strange, cold atmosphere of the original and make some areas far too bright and happy. The rebalanced difficulty turns long range firefights into glorified target practice. Also, while the addition of a sleeping bag and the ability to repair items may make realistic sense, there's a lot to be said for forcing you to muscle through nights and scavenge for weapons and equipment.

Instead, I suggest the Zone Reclamation Project:

http://www.metacognix.com/stlkrsoc/index.html

An utterly fantastic bug fix mod that comes with a few enhanced gameplay features, all of which can be toggled on or off via a handy front end (something that STALKER Complete desperately needs).

From worth it mods :

ZRP
Complete
Lurk
Atmos fear

playing SoC for the first time, any recommended mods for a vanilla but relatively bug-free experience?

oh I see, will play vanilla then, thanks

if you do find it crashing a lot, then bomb back and say so - im sure we can help find something that doesnt change the experience too much. :)

I enjoy Zone of Alienation and AMK. Unfortunately neither work for the GOG version because they only run on older patches. Wish they had an alternate 1.0004 installer.

There's also some mod reviews I found, can't post links for some reason though.

You just can;t post any links yet because your current Rep is too low - when it gets higher, the forums will let you post links. That feature is just there so that GOG.com avoids any crazy spam outbreaks :)

Stalkersoup.

Playing it now and I believe it is the greatest mod for content ever made for Shadow of Chernobyl. Try it out if you want lots of items, locations and enemies plus a whole other bunch of stuff.