I asked this in the recommended mods thread but I guess nobody saw it there, so here again:

"SoC has the most fucking annoying bug that nobody here mentioned before. That is basically you can't play stealthily because if you are noticed by an enemy and then reload a saved game in the same area, enemies will be automatically alerted by your presence and will know where you are. The ZRP mod that everyone recommends doesn't really solve it, though it somehow makes it more bearable. So, is there a mod out there that completely solves this problem?"

After playing a bit more, I noticed this mainly happens around soldiers.

Pretty sure it's something you can't fix, it's just how the engine works. The games also have problems with weather where loading a save can suddenly change a rain storm into a sunshine.

I think you'll just have to bear with it. Be glad the game doesn't force you to stealth.

It's a well-known issue but it doesn't mean that you can't play stealthily. Just don't save when there's a direct line of sight between you and a nearby enemy.

No that doesn't work either, at least that didn't work for me in the Agroprom mission or the outpost mission.

I don't think I've ever been able to be stealthy in vanilla SoC. The best I've ever been able to do is out-maneuver enemies that I was already in combat with.

Yeah, well, the moment you try to kill anyone enemies pretty much become aware of your presence anyway. It's really not a game where you can kill everyone in a large area without raising attention, it's just that you can get to places without being seen but most of the time you only do that to flank enemies or get behind them after they already spotted you. Yeah, stealth works just well enough to eliminate single enemies or the first guy of a whole group - and of course to outmaneuver them during combat as you said. However, I just actually managed to steal the documents from the military base in Cordon without being seen or killing anyone. The stealth system actually works surprisingly well as long as you move slowly and switch to the "low" crouch when getting very close. I really need to see whether I'd be able to eliminate a few guys in a row with the knife if I actually stick to minimal speed, especially since your visibility is supposed to be minimized with the knife equipped (lower than with any gun or even binoculars).

Huh. Maybe the key is just to not kill anyone?

I wonder if it's possible to steal the case from the military outpost stealthily.

I've also wondered if the silencers in vanilla SoC actually make any difference whatsoever. My experiments seem to suggest that they don't.

Yeah, I remember LURK stealth working pretty darn well when I last played it.

yeah it was definitely in the right direction, but again, due to limitations of the engine, it still wasnt quite right, and almost went the other way sometimes, with ai sometimes being blind or just completely useless.

definitely a very good achievement though considering.

to be honest, i personally dont feel that even in mildly vanilla (complete. ZRP, those sorts of mods) the game the story and the system isnt really broken at all due to a not particularly well implemented stealth system.

the game never has really been marketed as such and if im honest, it always impressed me more in medium range firefights and tactically practical situations.

to each their own i guess, and thats the beauty of this franchise..... try ALL the mods, i guarantee youll never find one specific one you love and will in fact compile a collection of favourites, with elements from each all drawing you to their respective mods.

That's why I play ZRP. I don't consider stealth to be a necessary part of the STALKER games, and the mods that try to make it more viable (*cough cough* Complete) make the game too easy for my tastes.

yeah, i dont know if i have a favourite to be honest, tough one to call. i do like though, that there is a wide choice available to cater for alot of tastes, as best they can.

this has always been one of my favourite franchises, which i followed right the way from the first hint of SHOC, all the way through to the buggy, cut, very different rough diamond mess we finally recieved (about 3 years late or whatever it was)

SoC Complete has a working Stealth system, but it brings at the same time a much more serious problem in the game: Easymode.

Equipped with a Scoped Weapon, you can wiping out Enemy Camps from the Distance without triggering Alert. Hell, even nearby Guards around 70 Meters standing still as it nothing happened, because the "deathsounds" (knifing, screaming, falling to ground etc.) are greatly reduced. And this completely tooks out the Challenge of the Game and this is surely not what the Developers wanted.

It has also his Reasons, why Stealth is not a primary element of the three games.