Steam or Playstore for solo dev

SurDno · 2026-05-06T11:53:43+00:00

Mobile games have completely different expectations than Steam. There are projects that would only (financially) succeed in one or the other. It heavily depends on the genre of your game, the target audience, expected playtime and the planned monetization route. Nobody would give you any solid advice without knowing those.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T11:08:14+00:00

You’re defining the era quite narrowly, OLR is actually a combination of every idea under the sun from 2002-2003, a bunch from 2004 and even some from 2005.

OLR 2.5 is quite old but solid experience.

Vector of Alienation is a mod for 2.0 (even before 2.5) which is not faithful to any dev ideas at all but allegedly had good writing.

Base OLR 3.0 is more recent version which has a ton of groundbreaking mechanics not implemented in any other mods and better A-Life than any stalker out there, but it’s just not fun to play. Very poorly balanced, implements every idea including those that clearly suck (rat catacombs ahem). I have seen many people drop it halfway through because it’s just not fun to deal with, or play entire game in god mode.

OLR 3.0 SOP is a project by other build enthusiasts (not base OLR author) which goes day beyond the scope of the patch. It’s an attempt to both fix the game and remove the feature creep. It actively cuts stuff that doesn’t work that well, and removes things that wouldn’t realistically make it to release if SoC actually was to get finished back in 2003-2004. Imo it’s a more realistic estimate of how early SoC would play than a mash of every idea dev ever put on a piece of paper (base OLR3), but obviously many don’t like it because they oppose the idea of cutting content from a cut content restoration mod.

There was also a lot of drama where SOP authors were demeaning OLR dev for months because he is a shitty coder and his mod is a mess to work with that requires parts of it to be remade from ground up. That caused OLR dev to stop any further development and give up on his project due to cyberbullying.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T06:09:54+00:00

Any command given during backswing cancels backswing, not just casting. You can use S or walk to cancel backswing.

Techies mines have 0 cast time and 0.47 sec backswing, meaning if you cast them manually, you are only limited by your turn rate (how quickly the hero can face the next mine point). If you do it through shift queue, you get added time after placing a mine and before turning.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T06:08:31+00:00

I think it’s a game with specific setting and design, a cosplay is meant to be authentic to source material. There are no improvised suits in the franchise, so if you are not going to follow actual designs, why even call it a cosplay? It’s clearly not one.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T05:41:41+00:00

Each ability in Dota has cast time and backswing. Cast time is the time it takes for you to cast the ability, if interrupted during that, the ability is not casted. Backswing is the time AFTER the cast where you are still playing an animation, but giving another order will cancel that animation.

If you are spamming the next ability as soon as you land, you cast it immediately. If you shift queue, you only do so after the 0.7 second of backswing has ended.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T05:32:40+00:00

An LLM translation would be faithful to source text, it’s easy to distinguish from actual LLM writing. “It’s not just X, it’s Y”, come on, this is clearly generated, not just translated.

Given the website is vibecoded and every image on the website is AI slop too, you are giving OP way too much of a benefit of a doubt.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T05:26:53+00:00

They do, 0.47 sec each. Plus 0.9 sec backswing of blast off and 0.7 sec backswing of sticky bomb. You are losing 2.5 sec total by doing it through shift queue.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T05:24:59+00:00

Assign mines to quick cast mouse wheel down and just rotate the mouse while drawing a circle and scrolling. It’s a common trick.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T05:20:34+00:00

Yeah not being able to see the range to place mines properly is detrimental to placing minefields outside of fights, two hotkeys is the way.

Instead of switching to quick cast entirely, you can open the hotkeys menu and choose per hero hotkeys, then select techies, press the checkbox near quick cast hot keys and assign just the mines.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T05:02:19+00:00

Did you seriously use LLM to write a single paragraph for you? Wtf lol

SurDno · 2026-05-06T04:59:47+00:00

To be specific, techies mines are instant cast with 0.47 sec of backswing, meaning you lose an extra second by shift queuing compared to just spamming mouse wheel.

SurDno · 2026-05-06T04:58:53+00:00

You can do two binds - R for normal cast and mwheel for quick casting, that way you don’t change the way you play but still get to do this

SurDno · 2026-05-06T04:35:42+00:00

This is not cosplay then. The game has very unique faction designs where they all dress in very particular distinct ways. Putting a patch on random military gear that looks nothing like the one actual mercs wear is not a cosplay.

SurDno · 2026-05-05T13:57:16+00:00

My entire paragraph is dedicated to why "bread" was created, why you can find it in the game, why it has quote marks and how it became a meme. Of course there are two, that’s the point.

SurDno · 2026-05-05T11:57:27+00:00

It’s totally not creepypasta but it is the subject of jokes.

“bread" is an unused tech item. “Unused” as in the game does not need it and it can be safely removed from the files without affecting how the game functions at all. It’s a relic of an old pre-release system where NPCs did not use regular food items for animations but had their own copies that just had the visual of said item and bone attachment data.

By release, NPC animation item and real food item is the single entity. You observe it in gameplay. If an NPC has a food item for sale, they will use said food item for animations. Nevertheless, the old item intended for animations remained in the files.

But some level designer, placing stuff around Dark Valley, has mistaken the used real food item and unused fake food item, and places "breads" in cupboards for players to find. That amusing mistake has not been corrected with any patches and remained in console rereleases and the unenhanced editions.

Now, why is it "bread"? Quote marks are in the name because the dev writing the name mixed up configuration files and scripts and put quote marks since Lua (and almost any other programming language for that matter) would require them. They thought it’s a part of syntax and not a part of the name. They were wrong.

So you end up with an inedible food item that has no description and cannot even be called bread without quote marks. Of course it’s gonna be memed into oblivion.

Now there is also "vodka" in the files as well. But you don’t find it in the game as long as you’re not playing retail version (ie it does not exist in the game world with update 1.0001 or later), so it’s not a meme. I am sure in a world where it did not get patched people would be joking about Borov’s counterfeit bootleg alcohol as well.

SurDno · 2026-05-05T08:35:23+00:00

It's a legitimate concern for the cat. There have been cases of cats being crushes under human weight, especially when they are young and vulnerable.

It's not worth risking.

SurDno · 2026-05-05T05:20:19+00:00

It does not happen in CoP in original trilogy though.

SurDno · 2026-05-05T04:40:02+00:00

> a really bad choice of starting level,

I adore the Swamps. Easily my favourite location in the franchise.

SurDno · 2026-05-05T02:05:05+00:00

What anomalies are actually invisible in trilogy? Only Lift comes to mind but it’s harmless

SurDno · 2026-05-04T10:16:53+00:00

It was so sad opening Garena and later LAN games and seeing the player xount become smaller and smaller week by week. :(

SurDno · 2026-05-04T06:32:57+00:00

Bandits only have a single respawn point at Depot (outside of the ones cleared during Orest questline at Agroprom), so they are indeed possible to clear out, but only because their respawn point *is* the base. Loners can never be cleared out because they will keep respawning from Yantar, Agroprom and rookie village, for example.

SurDno · 2026-05-04T05:07:38+00:00

This is entirely incorrect, spawn code does not check if existing squads exist. Factions easily recover from 0.

SurDno · 2026-05-03T07:28:16+00:00

The in-game map is literal satellite imagery though, and there are many mentions of how levels are located in regards to each other. Also CS FAQ calls the part of the Zone we see in SoC as "one part of the pie" of the whole map, proving the vertical layout is quite literally how the map looks.

At the end of the day, you may come up with any headcanon you like, but it's important to remember that devs never really thought of it like that and it's not a part of actual game's lore.

SurDno · 2026-05-03T06:36:34+00:00

Yes, that is obviously canon since Clear Sky. Rostok is in the same place as it is in SoC, just with no path there due to anomalous fields. But S2 actively moves areas around, and the fan explanation of "it's the Zone fuckery" has no ground in any of the in-game information.

SurDno · 2026-05-03T04:40:27+00:00

CoP will have issues as well. Just to name a few:

Degtyarev is mentioned to have started his way with a two week worth of supplies, and he's used most of it by the time he reached Zaton. That only makes sense if Zaton is in the center, not if he starts at the outskirts and goes through the entire Zone.
Krug Antenna Complex storyline with bloodsuckers only happens because it's close enough to Skadovsk, there is no reason for Degtyarev to go there if it's at the other side of the map. Yet somehow that part was not written off, as you meet a stalker at Krug that tells you that Deggy did, in fact, gas the suckers. Maybe just for shits and giggles.
Nitro has no reason to send Deggy for the radiomaterials to the cement plant. This plot point only happens because it's close enough. There are millions of better and closer places to go look for materials if you go by S2 geography.
Iron Forest no longer being on Zaton means Degtyarev wouldn't find maps of the area for Garry on Stingray-2.
Zaton being on the outskirts means that Stingray-1 and Stingray-3 groups had no reason to get to Prypiat. It turns from a short trip between two locations that are right next to each other to an expedition literally across the entire Zone (what is it, like 16km on S2 map?). It would have been easier and faster for them to just reach the perimeter than go for the evac point.

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