How to Advance in the Game

[Kimogard]

Hello people,

I would like to inquire a bit on how to advance on the story of Call of Pripyat for the beginning is a but confusing and overwhelming compared to previous stalker games I've played recently. I started with SoC and decided to move along with Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat.

So I'm not exactly sure how to beginning the game properly. Should I do all the helicopter finding missions of the beginning? Are they necessary to continue the story? Should I start by doing the missions that Sultan gives me?

Anything that can help me understand the game thematic and make it more smooth for me will be highly appreciated. I really want to advance in the story properly.

Thank you once again.

[IIIIlllIIIII]

I'd recommend exploring the map. Loot stashes, sell things, make some money and buy gear before doing any of the helicopter quests.

[SoldierScar]

You have to go to all heli locations, all yellow markers on the map are story oriented, everything else are side quests. But do the side quests they are good, not like in the first game randomly generated boring ones.

[arottweiler]

Collecting and selling artefacts is the best way to make money and you need money to get a decent gun and armour. Doing the missions in the Skadosvk is a good way to make money early on and you can take on the Sultan mission but like all missions in the game they lead to different outcomes and affect the achievements you get. Some achievements don't make much difference but some can be a big help especially early on in the game. It's how the mission outcomes affect achievements and how they all intertwine that makes me really take my hat of to the dev team behind CoP.

The Echo detector you use for detecting artefacts is useless and the Bear detector is only slightly better so it's when you find a Veles detector you can start some serious artefact hunting and be making large sums very fast. You don't get it until much later in the game but there is one in a stash on the Jupiter map in vanilla so you can get it straight away.

As already mentioned there are a lot of good side quests such as the Scientists so you can spend a lot of time doing them and keep the main story mission on pause.

[Martial.Lore]

Advancing in this game is gear based. If you have the gear to do certain missions and side missions then go ahead and do them. There's no particular order to completing missions. Your can explore the Zone for a long time without doing a single one, getting income to buy better gear the whole time.

[Heresy]

COP is different from SOC in the fact that it has actual scripted single event side quests.

-The Blood Sucker Lair
-Missing Stalkers
-Documents for Owl
-The bandit hit
-The ambush at ranger station
-The Dredge Station
-The Scientist in Boiler

These are all scripted missions that have varying rewards depending on your own output. Unlike SOC which contains nothing really like this other than randomised hit or mutant hunts.

I advise that you do all these side quests as they are fairly memorable and offer a much different experience. Once you are done with Zaton you can go inspect all the helicopters, However the one up on the plateau involves another scripted side quest.

Nothing is really hidden or misleading. Just pick away at whatever tasks people offer you on the Skadovsk and once you have depleted everything in the zone you will be ready to move on.

The helicopter to the West can easily be inspected right at the start of the game. The one in the Antenna Complex will require a gear check (psy res) and the one up on the plateau involves another gear check ( fire resistance) so they all come progressively.