Greetings everyone, Breaker_oak here!

So, I'll start with some not-so-good news. I've been having issues with my electricity supply again. Right now, the situation with power is more stable compared to what it was like in August. But sometimes the electricity is out from morning until evening or even night. So I have less time to work on mods, and this is affecting my development pace.

Now, let's move on to better news. As you probably already know, over the past few months I updated Anomaly to version 1.5.3 and started working on my own modpack - Anomaly Renovation. As you can understand, I'm currently dedicating all of my free time to this project, so I'd like to tell you more about it.

1) New balance of food, drinks, and medical supplies. It's quite difficult for me to describe changes to item balance in an interesting way, so I'll just say that almost every item has its own purpose and an appropriate price. I think I'll cover item balance in detail in the post for the first version of Anomaly Renovation, when I'll be describing all the mechanics.

2) New balance of suits. Now suits of each class (light, medium, heavy) are divided into types: research, combat, and universal. The first type is the lightest in weight, gives the biggest bonus to carry weight, and increases stamina drain the least compared to other suit types of the same class. The research type has good protection against anomalies and radiation and takes less damage from their effects, but protects poorly and wears out faster in combat. The combat type is the complete opposite of research suits. And universal suits are something in between these two types. If you compare a light combat suit and a medium combat suit, the latter will have higher protection, but at the cost of increased suit weight, reduced carry weight bonus, and increased stamina drain. The same applies when comparing medium and heavy suits. For each faction, where possible, the number of suits in each class equals the number of types, meaning 3 suits per class, not counting clothing like jackets or coats and exoskeletons. Extra suits were cut from the game so that the player can clearly see the difference between suits and not get lost when choosing.

3) New balance of armor and armor plates. Anomaly Renovation uses an armor plate addon. Torso protection for player suits has been reduced by half compared to NPCs, so in combat with stalkers you'll need to use armor plates to be well protected. Of course, some suits may already have a sufficient level of base protection to protect the torso even without using armor plates against pistols or standard rifle ammo of small caliber, but if you need higher ballistic protection, use armor plates.

4) New balance of ammunition. Now the use of different types of ammo for each caliber will be more noticeable in terms of effectiveness. Special attention was given to pistol ammunition. The hollow point type deals 50% more damage but penetrates armor worse, while the armor-piercing type deals 25% more damage and penetrates armor better compared to the standard ammo of the same caliber. Now pistols can be quite an effective weapon against stalkers if used correctly and with the right ammo types. As for ammo for assault rifles and sniper rifles, the enhanced type got a 25% increase in damage and armor penetration, and the armor-piercing type will have 50% higher damage and even higher armor penetration compared to the standard ammo type. That means even if an enhanced or armor-piercing round doesn't penetrate the enemy's armor, it will still deal more damage than a standard one. So now there's definitely a reason to use more expensive ammo. And if the bullet does penetrate the enemy's armor, they will die quite quickly.

5) Changes to starting equipment. The selection of items and the number of points for each economy difficulty have been expanded. Now you'll be choosing all your starting equipment yourself: gasmask, suit, backpack, knife, drinks, food, medical supplies, weapons, devices, and other consumables. Depending on your faction choice, the available items may differ, especially when it comes to weapons. You can choose from several pistols of different calibers, submachine guns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. You'll also be able to take additional ammo for points.

In the points above, I've described the most major and, in my opinion, interesting changes. Naturally, the amount of changes and work done for Anomaly Renovation is much greater - for example, adapting some mods from other authors to this pack, and various other little things. You might have a couple of questions about this project after reading this post. But since no one has asked me any questions yet, I'll do it for you and answer them myself)

What is the goal of the Anomaly Renovation project?

I want to improve or rework what's already in regular Anomaly (balance, mechanics), and also make the gameplay more interesting using mods (mine, or from other authors). That is, you shouldn't expect a huge amount of new content from this project in the form of tons of new food, drinks, medical supplies, weapons, locations, sound or graphics improvements (regarding new storylines and quests, I'm not sure yet, but maybe someday I'll try to make and add some if it works out). Anomaly Renovation is, first and foremost, a purely gameplay-focused pack, so it should turn out lightweight and not demanding on system requirements.

What is the main idea behind Anomaly Renovation?

The main idea is that preparation is more important than equipment. In the Zone, it's not the strongest who survives, but the one who is better prepared. Will you have enough of the right ammo to quickly deal with an enemy? Will the armor plate hold up against return fire? If you get injured, will you have the medical supplies to treat it, or at least buy time to reach a medic or a place to sleep and recover? Will you have enough filters to get to your destination and back to a safe place without inhaling radiation and toxic air? To survive in the Zone, you constantly have to pay. The one who is poorly prepared usually pays with their life.

Which mods will be used as the foundation, besides balance tweaks, in Anomaly Renovation?

I'll start with mods that affect gameplay: Toxic Air, Radioactive Air, BHS, System of Injuries and Diseases, anomaly armor attachments, Arszis Radiation Overhaul, Dynamic Zone Transitions. The pack will also use item and weapon animation mods: FDDA Redone, DAR, MRAA, yet another knife reanimation, Camera Reanimation Project I.N.E.R.T.I.A. The hand model pack required for some animations: T.H.A.P. Rework. AI and A-life simulation improvements: Useful Idiots, AlifeGuard, AlifePlus, AlifeBalance, AlifeTactics. This is not a complete list of all mods used in the pack, I've only highlighted the most important ones. For now, this is the minimum needed for the first version of Anomaly Renovation.

When will the first version of Anomaly Renovation be released?

The amount of work done on the pack is already sufficient for it to be playable. During a test playthrough, I made sure of that. On high difficulty and hard economy, it's genuinely quite challenging, but at the same time fun and interesting, and frequent deaths don't feel frustrating. So I think I've done a decent job. But despite this, the project isn't ready for release yet. It needs tweaks to trading, changes to item text descriptions and tooltips with important information, as well as a few other little things that don't affect gameplay but can ruin the first impression. I think I'll need roughly a few more weeks, in the worst case a whole month, to finish what's already in Anomaly Renovation.