Some solid tips for any new stalkers.

[Buula]

Greetings my fellow stalkers, please take some helpful tips with you on your adventure:

To unlock all the shooting range weapons, save the game, buy ammo and magazines for every caliber. The weapons will be unlocked in the range even after you reload your save.

Save the starter regen artifact for a mission.

Store your flashlight in your left leg pouch.

The best stashes may require some creative free climbing.

Try to only use the machine at base to heal yourself, much cheaper than regen or syringe.

There are goodies hidden around base, find them.

The fog eats time stalker, for a full day in the zone, enter the fog no later than 2 a.m.

You come out of the fog at one place, but you can enter the fog at any location.

If you don’t like traveling at night, use a sleeping bag to sleep pretty much anywhere, remember to pick it up.

Use hold to grip stalker, it may take time getting used to but using equipment is snappier and prone to less fumbles.

A periodic save in the zone may help you from repeating a 15 min run.

Real stalkers stab fragments while smoking a cig.

Save all artifacts and only sell them for missions, they will never decay in value.

Save all fragments and try to use them for missions; sell all fragments before taking a trip into the zone, these will decay to nothing.

There is no shame aborting a mission stalker, if you have a load of fragments and artifacts but no missions for them, accept mission, take a nap, abort mission to refresh missions.

The enemies are creatures of pattern, lean the attack patterns to cut through them like dogs.

Repair knives and wd40 before they break.

Real stalkers don’t put their guns on safety.

Bullet ricochets hurt.

Ammo and weapons are expensive, choose what you purchase wisely and consider the odds of finding it in the zone. Ammo, attachments, and magazines maybe a wiser purchase.

Invest in yourself stalker, going in with good equipment will help you come out will good loot.

[nifty50]

Laser pointers make you as visible as using a flashlight at night.

Creatures all have a critical part where extra damage is done. Learn them.

Keep your weapons in good repair. You can only pay to repair weapons when they get low in durability. Get in the habit of maintaining your own weapons after each mission.

You can use vises on work benches to hold your weapon for easier cleaning.

Stop to listen and look. Always running makes you more noticeable and you can run into anomalies before you notice them.

You can pay to "repair" cans of food cheaper than you can buy a new can

[Ravage]

I concur all points.

First and foremost, don't be afraid to go out with just a spare pistol and EXPLORE or scout out areas. Bring a monocular.

If you start taking damage from an unknown source, move back or sprint forward as long as nothing else appears to be in front of you. When you're safe, look back and see what ti was. Was it an anomaly you've never encountered before? study it. -there are no gunshot anomalies FYI, find cover.

If you already have the long-guns you know you want and will play with, don't be afraid to buy ammo for them even though the economy is yet to be rebalanced.

If you're living paycheck to paycheck (ingame) and you come back after a mission and still have a bit of cores/artifacts, run between the mission terminal and trailer to make sure you've exhausted the core/artifact fetch quests before you sell them.

Before walking into the ominous hands (you'll know it when you see it) back up your save, or start a new one. continuing after completing the game is buggy cause your map book/journal dissapears and cant be retrieved, your inventory also completely dumps.

If you're NOT playing on ironman: dont be afraid to savescum when you're about to climb something or reach a high place you have to 'throw yourself into' like a hidden area -you'll know them when you learn to recognize them.

You don't "actually need" more than three magazines for any gun. (except for PM and T33 pistol mags) and it's better to carry boxes of ammo than a bunch of filled mags. Can easily find a save spot and consolidate ammo. but it depends on your play style and budget.

and last but definitely not least: HAVE FUN.

[nifty50]

You can't outrun spawns (those freaky spagetti things). The best you can hope for is to break line of sight.

Spawns tend to pause their advance for a half second before "pouncing". Strafe sideways at that point to make them miss. They're immobile and vulnerable for a few seconds after they pounce.

Sound is as important as sight. Enemies and many anomalies have their own sound that you can learn to recognize.

Monsters respawn every time you re-enter the Zone. You can't permanently clear an area. However, you can sleep in the zone and the area will remain clear of enemies until you exit the zone to go back to base.

Your location on the map is shown when playing on "easy" mode. In "Normal" and above, you need to learn the landmarks to learn where you are on the map.

[Ravage]

Originally posted by nifty50:

However, you can sleep in the zone and the area will remain clear of enemies until you exit the zone to go back to base.

The only exception is when you're doing the castle siege mission, the mimics and dark fragments inside the north apt will respawn. I have recreated this 100% 3x times in a row. Glitched the hell out of my mission. doesnt always a happen if you use the bed in the east apt. but sleep in the castle or anywhere outside it's render area and it happens 100% of time.

v1.0.5526

[nifty50]

Originally posted by Ravage:

Originally posted by nifty50:

However, you can sleep in the zone and the area will remain clear of enemies until you exit the zone to go back to base.

The only exception is when you're doing the castle siege mission, the mimics and dark fragments inside the north apt will respawn. I have recreated this 100% 3x times in a row. Glitched the hell out of my mission. doesnt always a happen if you use the bed in the east apt. but sleep in the castle or anywhere outside it's render area and it happens 100% of time.

v1.0.5526

I stand corrected.

[Ravage]

Originally posted by nifty50:

Originally posted by Ravage:

The only exception is when you're doing the castle siege mission, the mimics and dark fragments inside the north apt will respawn. I have recreated this 100% 3x times in a row. Glitched the hell out of my mission. doesnt always a happen if you use the bed in the east apt. but sleep in the castle or anywhere outside it's render area and it happens 100% of time.

v1.0.5526

I stand corrected.

technically i think it's a glitch, so no you're not at all wrong. and it's an excellent tactic for clearning the entire map if you want to explore the map in peace and not worry about enemies lol. costs an ungodly amount of ammo since most of the cores would go bad/couldnt carry them all.

[nifty50]

Another tip :

Cores weigh 1 kg each and will slow you down if you gather too many. Check your weight and if you are overloaded drop something. There is no weight limit as such, but its tougher going when you're over 40 kg or so.

[JTJones71]

I would also add, if you are going out on an artifact run, or just exploring and not doing a mission, learn where your safehouses are at close to base, and you can also leave your sleeping bag at home, that's another 3kg of weight you can leave behind.

[david.burghardt]

To increase longevity, you can leave food/ammo/meds/wd40/etc. caches around the safe houses for instance. It can save you a lot of pain in the later missions if instead of having your gun jam half the time while your avatar is constantly blinking and yawning (I agree that sleeping bags are dead weight once you know your bearings), you periodically head back to the nearest safe house for a nap, some stalker's delight and some bore cleaning.

Cigarettes are great for cutting down on hunger and sleepiness in the home base, just like in real life. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. This is less useful in the Zone due to the time dilation, but I guess it still helps a bit if you can do it on the go.

[nifty50]

For those cursing not being able to grab the pen in the field to make notes on your map, you can make notes on the big map at the base, and they'll show up on your field map as well. Use the "A" button to switch between pen and eraser, and "use" the pen (trigger button) to make notes or erase.