Tips for a Budding STALKER Entering the Nuclear Exclusion Zone

Rookie, do you want to become pro STALKER?

Introduction

So you want to get rich by becoming a true STALKER? You see that nuclear plant in the north east of the map, and it just CALLS to you?

Sure, you could just run in, grab everything you can carry and try to run out.

But odds are good you'll die before you gain anything of real value. And odds are even greater that you won't get the juiciest bits before you die.

So you want to not die AND get rich? What is this, AMERIKA?!

Phase 1: Preparation

Shooting Strelok

It should go without saying, but you'll want some weapons before you head into the Exclusion Zone.

To that end, before you head in, you'll want weapons able to kill quietly and from range. The Exclusion zone has a substantially higher number of puppets/zombies, and more specifically, a high number of the suicide bomber puppets/zombies.

My suggestions for weapons are as follows:

• A fast killing melee weapon. A katana or medieval sword is good.
  
• A suppressed rifle with a red dot or holo sight. Because you want to save on weight when entering the zone, choose something that can kill most zombies with one shot such as an AK-47 or an MK18.

You will also want the biggest bag you can find. A hiking bag is ideal.

Zip Up

The next part of dealing with the zone is dealing with the radiation. The best way to handle the radiation is a full hazmat suit. There are currently two full hazmat suits, and both can be obtained while looting bunkers located around the map. Some bunkers have medical sections - look for locked wardrobes in these sections. Opening these locked containers sometimes yields full hazmat suits.

• The modern hazmat suit is bright yellow and bulky. It will make you stand out to anybody hostile who is in the zone. It also prevents you from sprinting. But, in its favor, it does come with built-in storage space to carry things both in and out of the zone and allows you to wear ballistic/stab armor underneath.
  
• The vintage hazmat suit is camo-coloured and smaller. It is camouflaged and looks cooler. You can't sprint or wear body armor while wearing it, and it doesn't come with as much storage space as the modern hazmat suit. But if you are on a server with lots of PvP, the vintage hazmat suit may be useful in avoiding detection by other players.

Can't find a full hazmat suit? Well, you can try to wing it with a gas mask or a rebreather and some potassium iodide. These won't protect you fully from radiation, so you'll need to move faster and avoid lingering if you opt for these choices. You may also stick to the outskirts to reduce significant radiation exposure.

I also recommend you acquire a few rolls of duct tape before entering the zone as well. These can be used to repair your hazmat suit if it gets damaged. Damaged suits do not protect you from radiation quite as well, so keep it topped up.

Don't Drop the Soap!

This next part of preparation seems odd, but it's key to having usable loot after leaving the zone. Every piece of equipment that exits the zone (including the stuff you bring into it) will be irradiated. You will need soap and a source of water to decontaminate items that come out of the zone. Every item and piece of clothing you want to keep afterwards will need to be decontaminated with soap and water if you don't want your piss to glow at night.

So amass as much soap as you can! Soap is typically found all over the map in residential areas and restrooms, but you can almost always find it in garbage dumpsters and garbage bags littered around the map. The quality of the soap doesn't matter, you just need a lot of soap.

The amount of soap you will need will depend on the number of items you carry both into and out of the zone. The more items, the more soap you will need. My recommendation is to have at least 20 full bars (10/10) of soap if you want to be sure you can decon after a run.

You Can Pick Your Friends, But Can You Pick a Lock?

Some servers have environmental locks (IE Police stations, bunker containers) disabled. If that is the case, disregard this section.

But if the server is using default rules, then you will need to have a decent amount of lockpicking tools available when you get to the reactor in the center of the zone. The best loot is hidden in locked containers.

So you will need to be looting nearly everywhere for lockpicking equipment. Ideally the 40 charge screwdrivers and advanced lockpicks. The locks in the reactor are iron/silver and very rarely gold difficulties.

And don't forget to practice! There are YouTube videos all over about how to lock pick in SCUM. And practice with your character on a lockpicking practice board to get your thievery level up.

Meds Meds Meds

You'll want some different meds depending on what you encounter in the zone. Here are my recommended meds:

• Tourniquet - A tourniquet can save your life if a zombie explodes near you by stopping the worst bleeding.
  
• Emergency Bandages - Always useful
  
• Pressure Dressing/Hemostatic Dressing - Can also help with severe bleeding.
  
• Phoenix Tears - These are extremely rare and extremely valuable. They are the equivalent to a stimpak or a healing potion. They will stop all injuries in their tracks and give you a substantial boost to health. They can be rarely found in locked containers in bunker medical sections.
  
• Painkillers - Can help you get moving if you're limping from an injury.

Count Me Out In!

Last bit of prepping you'll need is a Geiger counter. While not STRICTLY necessary, I recommend having one handy. You can find the analogue (more advanced) geiger counter in military bases and bunkers as random loot. You can craft the improvised geiger counter using materials found nearly everywhere. The primary advantage of the analogue geiger counter is that it can tell you the exact amount of radiation on an item or your character. But as far as getting around, improvised is just fine.

Counterintuitively, the Geiger Counter isn't strictly necessary for entering the zone. You can navigate without it and gather items with few problems if any. The Geiger Counter is more useful on the way out when you want to decontaminate items, because you can check what items are still contaminated.

That said, it is still useful to bring into the zone, as the ticking when it is turned on can tell you how close you are to the center of the zone. There are 3 different sounding tick rates you can hear corresponding to low, medium, and high levels of radiation.

Storage

One last thing. At time of writing this guide, there is no way to get the Sealed Uranium Containers without using admin commands. These are great for carrying contaminated items (such as depleted uranium and graphite) out, because (in the future) you cannot decontaminate those items.

At time of writing, you can just decontaminate DU and graphite like any other item, but that is unlikely to continue in the future.

Light Up My Life

Another thing that is not strictly required, but may be useful, is a light source of some variety. You can get lights for your weapons, work lights, or other light sources. The zone makes everything really dark and foggy, making navigation difficult. A light source can help alleviate that problem and speed up how quickly you get in and out of the zone.

Phase 2: Getting In

Just Before Entering

You can tell the boundaries of the exclusion zone by the color of tree leaves in the forest near the zone. Your camera will also change colors when you enter the zone.

Park your vehicle wherever you think it is safe and you can get to it quickly when you're on your way out of the zone. Check your gear. You want the following:

• Hazmat suit + bags + duct tape for hazmat repair
  
• Weaponry
  
• Lockpicks and screwdrivers
  
• Any meds and ammo you think you'll need
  
• Any storage vessels for depleted uranium/graphite (assuming they are available).
  
• Geiger counter if desired. Not strictly necessary for entering/exiting the zone.
  
• A light source if you have opted to bring one.
  
• Soap in your vehicle

Make sure to top up your food and water meters. As soon as you put on your hazmat suit or gas mask/rebreather, you won't be able to eat or drink until you take them off again. This is also the time to take some potassium iodide if you are going in without a full hazmat suit.

And don't forget to use the toilet! Last thing you want is your character doing the pee-pee dance while you're in the zone fending off zombies.

Decide Your Approach

You have a few options with benefits and drawbacks for getting in and out of the zone. Here are some options

• You can stick around the outskirts of the power plant and loot areas with relatively low radiation. While you won't get the prized depleted uranium and graphite, there's still plenty of high quality gear to be found in these areas. Because it is low radiation, you can spend a fairly long time in this area without needing to decontaminate. Just avoid the center of the zone.
  
• Death Truck for Cutie - This is a breakneck approach but can work really well depending on how familiar you are with the zone and if you get lucky with suicide bomber spawns. Instead of parking outside the zone, drive in as fast as possible and beeline for the reactor. Rush in, get the loot you came here for (DU and graphite), and get out. Hop back in your vehicle and beeline it out to the nearest water source. This method will substantially reduce the amount of decontamination you need to do afterwards (and substantially reduce negative effects of rad exposure), but it comes with a substantial amount of risk. If you get unlucky, you could lose your vehicle and your life when a suicide bomber appears at the wrong time or place. But, if you are in and out fast enough, you may not even need to decontaminate your vehicle or clothing.
  
• Slow and Steady Wins the Race - This is the recommended approach for first-timers entering the nuclear plant. Park outside the zone and walk in on foot. Because this method is more time-consuming, you will need to spend more time decontaminating afterwards. However, you can take your time and do things more slowly and carefully. You can learn the ins and outs of the zone.

Outskirts

The outskirts of the zone will differ depending on which direction you enter the zone from. I usually come in from the west, but you can also enter from the east, south, or north depending on where you want to end up immediately after you exit the zone.

The outskirts can have valuable loot. So if you only have a gas mask and iodide pills and can't risk high radiation, you may want to just look for loot in this area. Open up truck trailers and check the boxes inside. Check the big crates and boxes around the outskirts. I've found stuff like chainsaws, toolboxes, and other useful items in this area.

Listen carefully for exploding puppets/zombies. These can ruin an entire run. You can avoid them, wait them out until they detonate, or shoot them, but do whatever you can to avoid being hit by them.

To get further into zone, look for the giant smoke stack tower at the center of the plant and follow it.

The Plant

The plant itself is a high radiation zone that can be difficult to navigate. Many of the doorways and corridors are blocked, and even finding an entrance can be annoying. Once you're in, you'll want to look for any wardrobes (as they might contain graphite that is high value).

Listen carefully for exploding puppets/zombies. These can ruin an entire run. You can avoid them, wait them out until they detonate, or shoot them, but do whatever you can to avoid being hit by them.

To get to the reactor, you have two options:

• Get to the roof and drop in from the exploded section of the plant. This is the more intuitive (and frankly faster) way to get to the reactor. Be careful when dropping down - do not get too close to the exploded reactor as it can instantly kill you from radiation even with a hazmat suit.
  
• Look for arrows that have been spraypainted onto walls and boards inside the plant. These arrows will guide you towards the reactor, but they can be hard to spot if you don't have a light source.

The Reactor

When you're in the reactor proper, it's time to get to looting. Start lockpicking wardrobes and containers on the ground. Ground containers will typically have depleted uranium, and the wardrobes can have graphite, hazmat suits, and potassium iodide.

Try to be as quick as you can with looting. And the fewer lockpicks and screwdrivers you carry out will mean you have to decontaminate fewer things if you want to keep them afterwards.

Phase 3: Getting Out

The Reactor/Plant

To get out of the reactor and the plant, look for green lights that have "Exit" signs next to them. Follow the exit signs and you will be able to get out of the plant fairly quickly.

Listen carefully for exploding puppets/zombies. These can ruin an entire run. You can avoid them, wait them out until they detonate, or shoot them, but do whatever you can to avoid being hit by them.

The Outskirts

You are not out of the woods yet. This is a very likely time and place for things to go sideways. Do not try to rush towards the exit, as you can run into a horde of zombies and find yourself taking a dirtnap.

Listen carefully for exploding puppets/zombies. These can ruin an entire run. You can avoid them, wait them out until they detonate, or shoot them, but do whatever you can to avoid being hit by them.

Make your way back to your vehicle steadily, but carefully.

Home Free! ish

If you made it this far, congratulations! Hop into your vehicle and make a beeline to a spot where you can decontaminate in safety (typically a river or lake).

Phase 4: Decontamination

Rub-a-Dub

Now that you've got all your contaminated equipment, you need to decontaminate if you want to be able to use or sell any of it without suffering from radiation poisoning. Drive over to a place where you can decontaminate - any body of water will work.

Now, strip completely naked and put everything you brought out of the zone next to the water. You'll also want your geiger counter nearby. If you've gotten any radiation poisoning from entering/exiting the zone, now is also a good time to take some potassium iodide.

Grab your soap (you did bring soap right?) and start washing all your clothes by right clicking on them and selecting wash. Your clothes must be close enough to the water for this option to not be grayed out.

You will need lots of soap to repeat this process for every piece of clothing and item you brought out of the zone. For items other than clothing, you will need to "Decontaminate All" instead of washing.

The longer you spent time in the zone, the more decontamination you will need to do on the stuff that you brought in with you. If you drove in headlong and managed to get in and out in a few minutes, the amount of contamination you will need to remove will be very small. I tested this myself; getting in and out of the reactor with some depleted uranium in under 10 minutes resulted in only needing to decontaminate the DU. I may have accidentally destroyed the car by parking it too close to the river. But spending a half hour or more in the zone will mean that all gear needs to be cleaned.

The Rare Old Mountain DU

At time of writing, there is no legitimate way to obtain the sealed uranium containers meant to carry graphite and depleted uranium. As a workaround the devs have made it possible to decontaminate these items. Decon them as you would any other item and you can carry and store them freely.

However, do not expect this to last; depleted uranium and graphite will likely require sealed uranium containers in the future to safely store and transport them.

Phase 5: I'm rich!

CRAP!

Now that you have your DU and graphite, it's time to make some bank.

But hold on! That DU has a secondary purpose... making CRAP! Otherwise known as Crafted Armored Piercing bullets. If you have advanced engineering skill and sufficient components, you can make DU rounds (aka CRAP rounds). These bullets are very high damage and armor piercing, but are obviously very difficult to make. I would only advise making these rounds if you have excess DU burning a hole in your wallet lymph nodes or you regularly find yourself fighting other players.

Huzzah!

Take your sweet sweet graphite and DU down to the weapons trader (armory) in one of the trading outposts. Each full piece of DU will net you about $2500 each (or $250 per charge). Each piece of graphite will net you about $1800 each.

Now if you got a lot of loot, you may not be able to sell it all in one go. You'll want to store that loot until you can sell it or make CRAP ammo.

As of writing, the Sealed Uranium Containers are not legitimately available in game (can only be spawned via console commands). But you can decontaminate DU and graphite. This will allow you to tuck these items safely away in your loot boxes.

Too Rich!

When Sealed Uranium Containers become available, it is unlikely that you will still be able to decontaminate the DU and graphite. So you will need to keep the DU and graphite in these containers somewhere in your loot boxes.

You may also elect a secondary strategy for long-term storage instead of using these containers - place the DU and graphite into a chest and then bury the chest with a shovel. This will protect the valuables from being easily acquired by any other players, and will protect you and your gear from the radiation.

Conclusion

You know all you need to know now STALKER. Get out of here, and get to looting!