NLC 7: HE. English Edition. file

NLC 7 offers a deep and immersive experience that stands out in the modding community for its unique features and unconventional approach to practically all aspects. This mod turns the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe into an intense journey of survival and introspection, demanding a high level of strategy, patience, and attention to detail.
For a more detailed description, see this article.

The C-GPT 4.0 custom prompt, enhanced with manual tweaks, offers an exceptional translation of NLC 7's deep and beautifully written dialogues. Our goal was to faithfully adapt the jargon, idioms, and character-specific speech styles, ensuring an immersive experience for English speakers.

Despite the name, Hard Edition is an accessible and customizable version of NLC. It's also the first NLC version to have a full, proper translation. You can see a short list of differences between HE and the other modern fork, 3.9, below.

For those new to NLC 7, a variety of guides are available in the repack to help navigate the mod's complexities, from spoiler-free tips to detailed walkthroughs:
- Krokh's Memo: A brief and spoiler-free guide providing an immersive overview of the mod's philosophy.
- 35 Gameplay Tips: An assortment of specific advice to assist with game mechanics.
- General Guide: A comprehensive resource that includes some spoilers, detailing the quests and mechanics of the game.
- Quests Outline: An in-depth look at another player’s walkthrough, filled with spoilers for those who want an example of a path.

While we recommend experiencing the game without guides for the truest blind playthrough, these resources are available should you need direction or find yourself in need of assistance.

1. Double-click on "launch.bat" to initiate the game. A launcher window will open - the fields for PIN/Name are for your reference only and don't need to be memorized – feel free to enter any name.
2. Once your profile is set up, click the "Main Menu" (ГЛАВНОЕ МЕНЮ) button in the top-right corner to launch the game.

| ГЛАВНОЕ МЕНЮ |
| MAIN MENU |

| ЗАГРУЗИТЬ ИГРУ | <- Saved games will appear to the left after you make them in game.
| LOAD GAME | ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 　　　　Choosing a save file and pressing this button will load the save immediately,
‎　　　　　　　　　　　 　‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ skipping intro and main menu.
| ВЫХОД |
| EXIT |

| ПАРАМЕТРЫ |
| SETTINGS | <- You can change profiles and change in-game resolution there.

Optional:
Should you require additional tweaks, locate and install them from the "2. Optional Tweaks and Addons" folder.

1. Ease Into Adventure:
- Opt for the "Explorer" difficulty and "Explorer's balance" (found in Game Settings) as a first time player. The difficulty name is designed not as a commentary on your skill, but as a strategic step for all players to get accustomed to the game's unique mechanics and challenges without unnecessary frustration.
- It's natural to be drawn towards testing your mettle against the "Author's" difficulty. Remember, even seasoned NLC players find plenty of challenge in NLC 7. This mod is renowned for its gameplay complexity, randomness and multiple solutions to many quests, making it a unique experience each playthrough.

2. Launching the Game:
- Always launch the game via `launch.bat` to ensure stability and proper configuration.

3. Smart Saving Practices:
- Save progress with F6 near lit campfires.
- Use the Load Game menu for save management — back up and rename files, especially before quest completions.
- Keep your save folder orderly by limiting saves to under 30. This helps in maintaining game performance and reducing load times.
- Avoid saving during emissions or when your character has dropped a backpack to prevent potential issues.

4. Game customization:
- Tailor the game to your style by customizing keybinds for new mod features.
- Explore game settings to fine-tune gameplay features to your preference.

5. Preventing Crashes:
- Restart the game every ~3 hours to prevent out-of-memory (OOM) crashes.
- Excessive reloading, especially after frequent deaths, can trigger "Line : 498" crashes (OOM).
- OOM crashes can be mitigated by lowering graphical settings. Notoriously, lowering texture quality a notch can greatly help.
- Some crashes, particularly physics-related, may allow continuation if the error dialog is closed (Cancel/Continue). This can let you proceed without losing progress.

6. Utilizing Pause:
- The game pauses automatically after loading by default (Game Settings), which can be toggled with Backspace.
- Pausing is useful for reading dialogues at your own pace.

7. Static Lighting:
- Static lighting is unfortunately not supported by the mod.
- If experiencing performance issues, lower the graphical settings.

8. Dialogue and Quests:
- Engage with character dialogues; they can reveal multiple paths and outcomes for quests. Keep in mind, not all quests are explicitly tracked.

The game doesn't launch.
1. Install the libraries from the folder in your NLC installation called "1. Required Libraries".
2. Try launching the game as admin.
3. If you have Windows 10, you can try running the following command in command line, then restart your OS:　

reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\kernel" /v "DisableExceptionChainValidation" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

4. If you're using a laptop with RTX GPUs and have both integrated and discrete GPUs, the game may have 　
　difficulty selecting the appropriate GPU. To resolve this, disable the integrated GPU in the BIOS or use
　external software to ensure all graphics processing is handled by the discrete GPU. If your laptop
　operates in hybrid graphics mode, switch to "discrete only" mode—often listed as MSHybrid or dGPU in
　the settings. This adjustment will ensure that only the discrete GPU is active under "Video Adapters" in
　the Device Manager.
5.If an error pops up, mentioning $app_data_root$:
　Go to your NLC install folder and open fsgame.ltx in a text editor. Find the line starting with
　$app_data_root$= and update the drive and path to a valid location on your PC.
　Example for Windows 7-10:
　$app_data_root$ = true| false| C:|Users\Public\Documents\STALKER-STCS\
　Save the file. If you have trouble saving it, copy it to your desktop, edit it, then move it back.

The UI looks wrong.
- Try increasing the texture quality.

An error saying "detected untypical characters at 14" pops up.
- The path to the game should not contain Cyrillic symbols or be in Program Files(x86).

The game doesn't save settings.
- The mod needs a save to be made in-game to preserve the graphical/game settings. Start the game, change the settings, save near a campfire and restart.

The sky is flickering when moving.
- This happens often with AMD GPUs. In that case, try turning off Sun Rays, saving, then restarting the game.

A detector is not working.
- Always put detectors in the pouch slots below armor.

Artifact container is not opening.
- Close artifact containers by pressing the dedicated "Close" button, not by pressing Esc.

- Russian Packed HE Version (better performance, no file editing): Goo.su
- Russian Unpacked HE Version (easier file editing, worse performance): Goo.su
- KoT's Addons: Goo.su
- C-Consciousness Discord: Discord.gg

NLC 7: Hard Edition 2.3 was made by Kotovod, based on NLC 7 Build 3.0 6.22
Kotovod's special thanks go to: KoT, Дядя Вася, NLC developers, Zagolski, Карлан, OxyR, DSH, Den1s, Paradox, Ell, naxac

NLC 7: Hard Edition 2.3 was translated thanks to the efforts of:
Taim, 7th Outpost, Keatsy, Sivol, Vasim, yidrisov, skenka, E'ruiq, plisken, actor.gg, cj_jones, Ragequit, costinalamariu.

Previous hand-translation team:
Thumba-umba, smokinglizards, OnegRiot, Terry 'Sotov' Tuna, Carl Kuwait, DMZ, CourieR21, Mercenary_Scientist, dice, Redshift, Billy.

1. Сяк, Kotovod, Zagolski, and everyone else who contributed to NLC 7 as a whole and the Hard Edition fork.
2. The C-Consciousness Discord server: Discord.gg. Join us for tips, tweaks, addons and discussions in #nlc-general!
3. Jester, for his thorough English review of the mod: Gnd-tech.com (contains SPOILERS!)

There are two main modern versions of NLC: NLC 3.9 and NLC Hard Edition (HE). Due to the possibility to customize HE more and general differences in balance/economy, each offers a slightly different gameplay experience.
NLC 3.9 is closed-source, meaning players can't edit game files, making it a bit rigid. This also means translating this version is impossible until the developers decide to "open" it. It's known for being harder, with less accesibility and changing quests, some of them being less intuitive than in other versions.
NLC Hard Edition, despite its name, is actually easier than 3.9. It comes in both a packed and an unpacked version, allowing for game file edits. HE is more player-friendly, offering customizable features and two difficulty levels that affect more than just damage taken.

Game difficulty is selected when starting a new game and cannot be changed on that save. Some of the differences between two difficulties:
Medkit effectiveness, damage dealt to player, campfire light success, closest auto campfire lighting when loading a game, anomaly difficulty spawn, controller recipe drops, monster abilities (magnitude/frequency), save storage volume, artifact and gun conditions for bartering/quests, random item additions, service costs, stash expiry notification, vice repair conditions, crosshair and HUD elements availability, ADS sway, local item spawns, gambling luck, loot box spawns frequency and their contents, mutant spawn distance, health restoration during sleep.

Game balance can be changed at any point of the game in the game settings. Explorer balance changes the following:
PDA stashes outlines will appear automatically when receiving a random stash.
Pseudodogs do not use the special psy-attack.
Oxygen tanks are not required for labs.
Disables knife degradation when cutting mutant parts.

Artifact degradation ↓, artifact discharge rate ↓, sleep health restoration ↑, self-healing speed ↑, satiation duration ↑, campfire light chance ↑, tushkano aura distance ↓, blind dog panic distance ↓, blind dog psy-attack distance ↓, cat special attack frequency ↓, zombie special attack distance ↓, boar radiation distance ↓, pseudodog diversion probability ↓, pseudodog psy-hit power ↓, pseudodog psy-attack frequency ↓, controller psy-effect chance ↓, controller effect distance ↓, burer hit frequency ↓.

As a new player, selecting the Explorer difficulty can significantly enhance your initial experience with NLC. This mode offers a balanced challenge that allows you to gradually learn the game mechanics, making your gameplay smoother and more enjoyable. By starting with Explorer, you can build your skills and confidence with less frustration, which are crucial for long-term engagement and satisfaction.