A Stalker's Guide to Signal Detectors

This guide serves as a basic tips and tricks pamphlet for Stalkers in the zone. It's mostly comprised of resources I've come across, tips I've learned and general strategy.

Introduction

As you progress throughout the game, you'll unlock metal detectors and the SAK-1 Wide Range Detector for finding caches and signal trackers. For a long time, and as a newer player, I largely didn't bother too much with that loot until completing the main quest then realizing I really need to grind out those materials for bartering. This guide serves to help new players not make the same mistakes I did.

The SAK-1 Wide Range Detector

This little 3kg magic box will forever live in your inventory and become quite familiar to you as you grind trackers and signals. After spending tens of hours with it, I've come to learn a few little features.

Press X to bring up the detector.



There are a few things you will pay attention to: Battery charge and the signal.

Battery Charge

For the battery charge, you can see in the item description that it holds 1000 mAH. A short scan costs 40, a medium scan costs 100.
If you do all short scans, you can get up to 25 caches per device
If you do all medium scans, you can get up to 10 caches per device.
Short scans can be unreliable / hard to distinguish at times, and will fail. I suggest to save time and do medium scans to guarantee a hit.
Tip #1: You can bring multiple scanners for larger runs. I highly recommend doing this.

Signal

That little LED next to Signal flashes either dimly (medium range) or bright (short range). Depending on that LED brightness, you click the short or middle button then flip the lever to begin the scan.

For this image, the signal LED is 'dim'. I included the battery charge light as a comparison for a 'bright' LED.

With recent patches, it seems to oscillate and speed up and slow down in blinking, causing my short range to become unreliable.


On the right hand side, a little signal detection quest notification pops up with a percentage of how close you are. That percentage is useful to guess the direction when your candle becomes unreliable (especially on hills, buildings, cliff sides, etc.)

Tip #2: If the short is blinking like crazy, start scanning. You can then actually stop the scan instantly or give it a second or two, it will pick up the signal. I've had mixed results, but when the light is almost solid and bright, it saves time.

Target Acquired

You then use your Candle (equipped in your secondary/pistol slot) to look around. The hotter the wire glows, the better aimed in the direction you need to walk.

Remember that Caches are in a 3D world. They can be above and below you. Look up and down with the candle too!

Once you reach 100%, you'll hear the static and analog noise of a tracker and a little mound or bag will spawn, allowing you to loot.

Tip #3: Do not autosort afterwards. It will mix up your SAK detectors and bring the freshest detector first, causing issues. When one detector hits zero, move it behind/below the others.

Loot, Strategies, Upgrades

Trackers

Probably the most important barter material you need from signals. They're split into three different categories: Alpha (low level areas), Beta (midgame areas) and Gamma (end game areas).

Tracker Farming

To farm signals / trackers, I suggest the following areas:

Alphas: Black Willows (Stalkers), Kolos Agrocomplex (Bandits)

Betas: The Graveyard (Stalkers), Dead City (Bandits)

Gammas: Any north home base or middle area like Inflow or Mines.

Reasoning for the Alpha locations: low opposing faction count and usually low player count. Easy to farm, lots of running but it's close to your bases. Overall, not too terrible.

Reasoning for the Beta locations: The Graveyard and Dead City are compact, leading to shorter distances to run to each signal cache. The farming can be boring and dangerous, but you can get the trackers quickly. The run sucks though. Also, bring a lot of ammo and use stashes. Lots of nests spawn so PvE will be a heavy theme and unavoidable. Place rare blueprints and trackers in your stash, then when ready, gear up and transport it as needed. You can buy stashes at the Bar from the bartender. This was nice for me as I was making 150-200k a farming trip in Graveyard. Make sure to follow Tip 1 and bring multiple detectors.

Gamma: Yeah Gamma is the easiest. Don't need many of them, can safely farm some in your faction's base, and somewhat safe on your side of Mines or Inflow.

Why do I need all of these trackers?

I won't sugar coat it, the grind is a pain in the ass. However, once you talk to Spot (next to the repair guy at the Bar) and click on barter, you can see a neat little new detector called the Buryat.

The Buryat is way nicer for hunting as you have a little radar screen that shows a dot that you need to walk to. Your cache hunting times will be drastically reduced, and you don't have to worry about elevation distances anymore (unlike on the Candle).

The other big purpose is Artifact Hunting.

Artifact Hunting

Take out the Buryat and click V to enable Artifact Scanning.
When an artifact is detected, it will be a tiny red ping on your buryat, it appears after each radar ping scans.


















Follow the red dot and wham! You found an artifact!

Nastier areas right after eruptions have the best artifacts, such as Reflection or Black Detour. They can bring in significant buffs or large amounts of cash on the auction house.

Tips and Resources

Tip #1: You can bring multiple scanners for larger runs. I highly recommend doing this.
Tip #2: If the short is blinking like crazy, start scanning. You can then actually stop the scan instantly or give it a second or two, it will pick up the signal. I've had mixed results, but when the light is almost solid and bright, it saves time.
Tip #3: Do not autosort afterwards. It will mix up your SAK detectors and bring the freshest detector first, causing issues. When one detector hits zero, move it behind/below the others.

Use the map to prepare armor, loot, etc. See what sorts of environmental protection you will need:
https://stalcraft.wiki/en/maps

And that's it!

If you liked the guide, please Like, Favorite and Share! Help out your fellow Stalkers!

If you want to tip me, feel free to send Rubles to Gadwall in game :)) Thanks!

[Gadwall7]

@Mirosana: Not really, I can write an update for the guide here soon as I recently got a Pioneer.

The top left bar isn't signal strength, it's actually the amount of signals in your area, as far as I can tell.
Personally I just suggest running around and using medium, I've rarely used the long range since it drains the battery.
Hypothetically you could maybe bring a SAK and then just look at the blinking light... but then that defeats some of the purpose of the Pioneer.

[Mirosana]

Is there a way to tell when to use short/medium/long when using the pioneer 3 scanner?

[Ligma Ballz]

hello, i am sak 2 enjoer. welcome to my signals community

[Gadwall7]

I usually find them in the South Zone. I've not really found south weapon parts in the north before. A lot of my buds farmed weapon parts in Graveyard if you're kind of a collector, but almost all of it will get surpassed by barter/event weapons and armor by the time you find all the parts.

[pinkydude500]

Question, for the weapon parts and stuff that you can find, when they say 'found in swamp or beyond' etc, does that mean I dont really need to go back to loot for that kind of stuff?

[Gadwall7]

@Loni: When you click on that switch, it means the search is completed and now a new lil objective pops up on the right side of your screen, where you track down the signal. Use your Buryat or Candle to find it, like in the 'Target Acquired' section.

[Ligma Ballz]

SAK 2 FOREVER

[Loni]

I got a question
When finding a signal I've noticed that next to "search" button a switch also shows up.
After turning it on Detector started making static noises but other than than I didn't notice any changes, do you have any idea what it might do?

[Gadwall7]

Thanks man! I'll be writing one soon on subdivisions (clans) since there seems to be a good amount of confusion about them.

[Mistallaneous]

Moar guides, yours are the best ENG ones so far!