Nimble

 is a major character appearing in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost Alpha from v1.4002.

"Stalker who got his name for being nearly invisible and truly indispensable. The trader turns to him for sensitive missions such as spying on someone, snooping around and eavesdropping."

- PDA contact biography

Background

 * Introduced into the game from v1.4000 onwards.
 * The AI controlling the character has numerous bugs and failings.
 * Talking with Nimble will lead him to discuss his background or lack there of.
 * According to Nimble, "I'm a waif with lots of thieving experience and some criminal records. Had to run here (zone) to avoid the jail."
 * It appears he wants to try and turn his life around. Assuming this statement by Nimble is true, "I'm really ready to help someone out, have a talk about life, listen to people."

Side missions

 * There are two distinct 'classes' of side mission offered by Nimble:


 * Those that involve searching for specific items during your travels (Find the Groza refers to a specific "Tunder" 5.45 in a specific area and will not complete if the version from Yantar is offered)
 * and


 * A set of jobs to locate similar, but more "mundane" unique items from specified general areas (which may vary from game to game) that function more familiarly as typical Side Missions. Several of these may be completed before and/or in conjunction with a pending "task."
 * Although this ostensibly suggests that there should be a separate class for Side Tasks; since none of Nimble's missions/tasks need to be undertaken in order to complete the game, they should all be classed as Side Missions.


 * Tasks:


 * Find the Groza
 * Find the revolver
 * Find the experimental ecolog suit


 * Jobs:


 * Find mail jacket (1st mission)
 * Find anomaly jacket
 * Find improved "Viper 5"(Next two missions) (Known as HK MP5A3 9x18mm in later versions)
 * Find improved "IL 86" (bugged up to v1.4005, issued from v1.4007)
 * Find mercenaries' improved outfit(Next two missions)
 * Find stalkers' improved outfit (Find the variant Sunrise-5 outfit)
 * Find improved "TRs 301"(Next 2 missions)
 * Find Duty hunter PS5 suit
 * Find soldiers' healing outfit(Next 2 missions)

(Some of the placeholders above may need reclassification)


 * NOTE that it is possible to accept and then refuse a mission.

(This is subject to rigorous testing) If one task, like 'find the Viper' is declined, there are no more tasks.
 * 1) This will almost certainly break the sequence if a task is declined.
 * 2) If a job is accepted and then refused, a subsequent "job" will be offered.

Nimble's tasks are given in sequence corresponding to where you throretically should visit, i.e. the Double-mail jacket, Skinner Anomaly and Viper 5 9x18 are all in early-game maps such as the cordon and garbage, whereas the Tourist suit and Hunter PS5 are found in later-game maps such as Yantar and Swamps. The same goes to Nimble's jobs.

In addition, the tasks are given out in a rather odd manner e.g. the mail jacket job is the very first task given out, followed by subsequent missions being offered in pairs. If you opt to pick one task, the other cannot be activated till you've completed the first one. So after you have given the mail jacket, he will ask you to find both the skinner anomaly and the viper 5 9x18. only one can be taken, and must be completed first before the next mission can be accepted. After completing both missions, he will then offer the next two missions.

Trivia

 * He has the appearance of Nimble in the released game.
 * He is a member of the Loners.
 * The biography "info" is probably a nod to his clone's appearances and functions in the other S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games.
 * He sleeps too much.
 * v1.4007:


 * All of Nimble's "jobs" now have an "idle_time = 864000" declarative in the 'taskmanager.ltx' file.
 * The implication being that there is a 10 day repeat cycle coded whether the target item is on the board or not.
 * The implications of this are twofold:
 * 1) The mission is reissued ten days after being completed.
 * 2) The target is not respawned, resulting in an impossible to resolve mission.
 * Speculation might suggest that this coding was intended to operate in conjunction with some mission time declarative, after which a "mission fail" would ensue, followed by an eventual "reissue". Unfortunately, none of Nimble's jobs have any time factor coded, with the overall result being that these jobs will be reissued ad hoc.

Gallery
See also S.T.A.L.K.E.R. wiki reference