The concept of a "rare gatherable plant" is one I am yet to see done. In my experience, plants always spawn everywhere and in great number. Perhaps having many "bluff plants" could work (have 10 types of plant that yield no harvestables, and only one that is an artifact).
Could also use immobile hidden creatures that expel gas when attacking for anomalies...
Hmm, the issue there would be having the creatures respawn. I don't want there to be only a couple of artifacts per embark.
It's difficult finding the right balance between too much and too little.
Following on from the anomalies are creatures idea, is there a viable method in the current version of making creatures create usable items occasionally? This would ensure that the correct artifacts occur near the correct anomalies.
I would not have a clue, sorry.
I don't have very good modding skills. This thread is more to see if the actual concept could be implemented. If we can figure out a way to simulate all of the elements in the game then I'm more than happy to put aside the majority of my free time to work towards making this mod a reality.
It's just that I only really want to attempt this mod if it's doable with a large degree of accuracy.
Adventure Mode and fighting Bloodsuckers = Annoying.
Fortress Mode and a Bloodsucker ambush (more likely)/seige/snatcher = Nightmare Fuel
I can't wait; especially since death reports have to come in by witnesses now in the latest version.
Is there any way to give a creature invisibility, other than to make it a skulking civilisation? I'd love for the bloodsuckers to be horrors that pop out of nowhere, but I'm not sold on the civilisation aspect. I'd rather have them appear as normal creatures do on the map. I suppose I could make a duplicate creature that isn't in a civilisation so that we could have the best of both worlds.
I think the thing that I'm most excited about would be all of the different factions. We could have a thieving/snatching bandit civ, a full out siege civ with the Monolith, and some nice trading partners with Ecologists/Clear Sky, Duty, and Freedom. The military would probably also be a sieging civilisation. I'm not sure about the mercenaries...
I'm not sure how I'd put in the zombies though. Perhaps a civilisation that occasionally sieges with a controller caste? The controller could have an interaction to cause zombification, and perhaps random other effects like impairment of the brain, etc.
The real question is how I'd go about implementing the zone in all biomes. Perhaps this mod could be set after the zone expands or something? It'd be interesting to make mutated versions of some vanilla creatures, but I really don't want to lose the feel of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Maybe I'll just make a custom world where it's all temperate marshes, conifer forests, shrublands, etc.
What do you guys think?
EDIT:
Actually, I'm interested in hearing what you guys think about which faction you should play as. In the games all of the factions are organised enough to have bases.
If this idea comes to fruition then once everything has been implemented to a degree that I am comfortable with I might start working on different downloads for playing as different civs.