The meeting of stalkers with crows in the Zone is a typical phenomenon. This type of mutant is the most common and numerous species that has successfully adapted to new conditions. It is about them that we will discuss in our guide to mutants from the STALKER game today.
general information
After the disaster in the Zone, only one species of surviving birds was discovered - crows. As for the rest of the birds, they were not able to avoid the negative impact of radioactive emissions and mysterious anomalies.
In order to overcome the gravitational anomalous disturbances that form a whole maze, military pilots from the STALKER world have to resort to the help of complex detectors. In this regard, the crows from the Zone went far ahead - not one of the birds has yet fallen into such a gravitational trap. No one can give an exact answer to the question of how they manage to avoid one anomaly after another.
It is possible that such a unique feature is the result of "positive" mutations that have occurred within the body. Today, scientists from the gaming universe agree on the theory of the developed brain of ravens, who managed to develop a number of complex sensory and mental reflexes. Moreover, the life expectancy of a raven from Stalker exceeds 100 years.
Behavior and habits
Typically, crows gather in small flocks (the number can reach up to 35 individuals) and circle high in the sky. The largest clusters can be observed near corpses and gravitational anomalies. No one has ever seen these birds land down or walk on the ground. Many individuals die during emissions. Sometimes, during the passage of the "Stalker", ravens can be seen next to the "craters", where they eat torn corpses.
This kind of mutant is pretty shy. If you wish, you can frighten them away from their homes, though they always come back and fly away completely only when they themselves want to.
Where do they live?
The habitat of the ravens from the game "Stalker" is different and not constant, that is, they never stay long in the same place and can be found absolutely anywhere in the Zone. Moreover, most often they can be seen near the corpses. Dungeons are those locations where crows do not live at all.
Reaction to mutants and humans
There is no exact information about how other mutants relate to ravens, since the latter spend all their time in the air and always stay away from other living things.
As for people, here the situation is almost identical to that with the mutants. True, on the part of some stalkers, one can sometimes observe a manifestation of hostility and aggression. So, for example, a character named Flayer once arranged a game in which participants had to kill ravens for money. In addition, in the absence of provisions for crows, I often play the role of food for hungry travelers. It also happens that stalkers crack down on birds just for their own entertainment.
Some interesting facts
- The authorship of the first raven models from Stalker belongs to fashion designer Ruslan Konovalchuk. After that, it was decided that the model would not be affected by any additional changes, besides increasing the resolution of the textures (twice). The programmer Dmitry Yasenev was responsible for the creation and study of them.
- The option to kill ravens was developed back in 2002. Later, before the release of "Shadow of Chernobyl", the developers increased the birds' HP, which made it much harder to kill them. However, already in the next parts of the series, the crows again received a reduced supply of HP.
- Assembly resources contain a saved image of a corpse of a raven (icon for inventory). From this we can conclude that previously the developers planned to introduce the option for players to eat dead raw ravens for players.
- Ravens are the least developed game mutants. Some models can safely fly through level geometry, while others can continue to perform flight animations even after they have fallen to the ground. Raven models are made using low-quality textures (in "Clear Sky" the situation has remained unchanged for the better) and do not play any special role throughout all the games.
- One of the types of interaction with ravens in "Stalker" was supposed to be a mini-game. Its initiator was a bandit, and the point was to shoot the ravens with a player (for money or any other reward).
Raven Merchant
If you install on top of "Stalker" a modification of the "Solyanka Team", then in the game at the location "Dump" there will be many new interesting characters. One of these heroes will be a merchant named Raven (not to be confused with feathered mutants!). If you start trading with him, having in stock several rare or modified trunks, then he will gladly exchange them for artifacts. In addition, he can sell parts of the mutants in exchange for a stock of weapons and ammunition. And Raven has an exclusive barrel - an igloo, which is also available for purchase.