STALKER IWP with Call of the Zone 2024.md

Improved Weapon Pack for Call of Chernobyl with Call of the Zone

Overview

IWP + CotZ is a fine alternative to all of the Misery-based CoC variants based on CoM (Call of Misery) Like ANOMALY, Escape from Pripyat and GAMMA. It doesn't have all of the repair and artifact mechanics introduced by Misery and then taken much further by CoM/Anomaly/GAMMA, which can be a welcome change if you yearn for the original STALKER experience as in the original trilogy.

Old World Addon (OWA) is another fine alternative. It's a demake of Anomaly that removes all the many extra items introduced by Misery and severely simplifies the crafting and other systems to be closer to vanilla STALKER.

Call of the Zone is a superb mod for Call of Chernobyl, adding quests, better spawns and a host of other neat features all done very well. Unfortunately it needs base CoC which is quite out of date these days and is also more crash prone than the newer engines based on the CoP source code.

IWP is an excellent mod built on CoC but with a 64 bit engine and a host of its own lovely improvements. Paired with CotZ, you get a fantastic experience in the Zone.

IWP discord invite: https://discord.gg/QWf7YEaX

Mod Organizer vs JSGME

IWP uses JSGME by default. But JSGME seems unable to uninstall some of the optional mods that come with IWP, so this uses MO2 instead.

Install

This has been updated to use a new structure as you no longer need to use MO2 from the IWP discord. There may be small issues as I haven't tested this completely - not playing IWP at the moment. Leave a comment if you see any issues.

1. Install IWP and patches from ModDB
2. Download (ModDB) Mod Organizer 2 Support for Improved Weapon Pack
3. Set up MO2
   1. Download MO2 directly from https://github.com/ModOrganizer2/modorganizer/releases/
      1. Download the .7z if you want to have multiple copies of MO2 and unpack it somewhere other than the main install
   2. Wherever you installed it, right click \plugins\installer_omod\OMODFramework.dll, select Properties, then tick Unblock near the bottom.
4. Follow the instructions video in the IWP MO2 Support file you downloaded.
   1. Copy the plugins folder from that file into the root of your MO2 folder, overwriting the plugins folder and files in it when prompted.
5. Run MO2 as administrator.
   1. This is really unfortunate, but you have to run it as admin for it to work with IWP.
   2. You can install and manage mods without admin privileges, but to run the game you'll need to run as admin.
   3. Have I mentioned this is bad and it sucks?
6. Copy over any of optional sub mods you want to use from the IWP discord into the mods folder you created. Have MO2 refresh itself to see those mods.
7. Install CotZ from https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-improved-weapon-pack/addons/cotz-quests-and-mechanics-for-iwp
   1. Install using MO2's add mod button.
8. Install other mods for IWP as you like.
   1. I use Absolute Nature and Structures since I am so used to Cromm Cruac's textures, I can't see the Zone any other way.
9. Leave CotZ as the highest priority mod - right at the end - so it wins all conflicts.
10. Start the game using the Launcher from MO2.

You'll need to start MO2 as admin when launching the game. Which sucks, but can't be helped.

Enjoy!

The MO2 link is no longer in the discord and is located on ModDB now Here
You can also use the most recent version of mo2 now

@Marzofrfr I've updated it. But as it says, I haven't tested directly myself. So if you have any more suggestions for improved instructions, I'm all ears. Thanks!