How To Stalker 2: Tips And Tricks

So, I'm about 15 hours into Stalker 2 and I figured I'd set up this guide for sharing tips and tricks that can help others get to grips with a game that pulls no punches if you come at it the wrong way.

Initial Thoughts

1. Ego will be your downfall
   If you're playing on Veteran and keep getting smoked or can't get the economy to work out for you: lose your ego and drop the difficulty. Stalker 2 is a hard game and even if you're a Stalker Grognard that can clear SoC blindfolded with knife, only there are differences in gameplay that makes Stalker 2 a different beast. It is also early in the days of Stalker 2 and a lot of the stuff that will eventually make a Veteran run a breeze (like knowing where the good loot is) still isn't out as common knowledge.
   
   
2. Adapt or die
   This isn't Gamma or Anomaly. Stalker 2 tries less for the immersive sim vibe and more for the survival horror vibe. Any fight against monsters or animals is a pure waste of resources, and I think that's highly intentional as to bring the resource scarcity of the zone to the forefront. There are a lot of things that you can do or that works in Gamma or Anomaly that you can't do or won't work in Stalker 2. Don't be hardheaded, adapt to the systems in front of you instead of trying to play to systems you wish were in the game.

Exploring

1. Travel light
   We all have that urge to carry 500 rounds of AK ammo, 20 medkits, 25 bandages and as many anti-rads as can physically fit in the inventory after you've brought your four favorite guns along. But don't. Ditch as much as you can by selling or keeping in your stash (having a few hundred rounds extra in the stash is a good investment) and strike a compromise. Try to never bring more than 10 of any supply and prioritize stocking up along the way by hitting stashes and points of interest. Never bring more than 3 guns (one for each slot) unless you're absolutely certain you'll need that RPG. By the time you're turning back to base you'll be waddling along under the weight of all the guns you've picked up either way.
   
   
2. Click on icons on the map
   Did you know that you can click any icon on the map to have it highlighted on the compass at the top of your screen? Once you know where you're headed do that and save yourself many jumps in and out of the map. Also, main quests, side quests and miscellaneous map point can be individually highlighted on the map, meaning that you can create a route for you to follow.
   
   
3. Refer to your map often
   Not only will it automatically mark out new points of interest if you're close to them, but routes in Stalker 2 are seldom straight. Don't be afraid to detour if something seems like it might be fun to explore or could hold good loot.
   
   
4. Know the ammo preferences of the factions in your area
   If you are headed into Freedom country you'll face lots of NPCs with 5.56 ammo, Duty uses 5.45 and so on. Knowing this and having spare weapon that you can use can really save you both ammo cost and carry weight. Even if you only get 4 bullets per enemy (a conservative estimate), that's double what you spent if you downed the enemy with 2 head-shots (or one miss and one hit) and it will quickly add up as you methodically fight your way forward. If you're uncertain about what ammo to bring, 5.45mm is plentiful almost everywhere in the zone so you can never go wrong with that AK-74.
   
   
5. Use your PDA to keep an eye on the time
   The day-night cycle on Stalker 2 is painfully fast so ideally you'll want to set off at first light, and aim to be back, or at least heading back when it's starting to get dark. Combat at night can be a lot more dangerous than during the day, enemy humans have great aim in the pitch black but you won't if you can barely see them! Same goes for mutants, if you can't see them till they're right in front of you then you're not going to have much time to react and start aiming & shooting, getting to cover or fleeing to a safer location. You're also more likely to run or wander into an anomaly at night too because of the poor visibility.

Combat

1. Single shot mode is your friend
   As cool as it is to get an AK-74 and spraying it full auto like your average Soviet conscript, it is not very efficient in Stalker 2, for several reasons. First, ammo is not very abundant and tends to be pricey, so you don't want to waste it. Second, it will degrade your gun like no man's business, which will cost you even more on top of the ammo. Third, the recoil of anything but the SMGs is so high that you aren't hitting anything past that third shot, so please don't "spray n' pray" your way throughout the Zone.
   
   
2. Head-shots are your best friend
   Every NPC you meet has body armor and everything in the zone has a weak spot on their head. Even a basic bandit can take 4-5 rounds from an AK to the body on Stalker difficulty, but falls to a single headshot from every weapon. So conserve your ammo by waiting for those headshots. This also means that scoped guns are worth their weight in gold, as they make those head-shots much easier.
   
   
3. Find cover, even before shooting a single shot
   The AI has godlike aim and their guns hurt. Make it a point to find something to keep between you and the enemy. Stalker 2 has a pretty good situational aiming function built in and Skif will helpfully peek over or lean out from cover to aim. This saves you both med-kits and armor durability. Keep in mind that bushes and other foliage is not cover and the AI can see right through it.
   
   
4. Move!
   The AI might be godlike in terms of finding you when you try to sneak, but once in combat the AI does not know where you are if you vanish from their line of sight. So make it a habit to move around, preferably while staying in cover. Flanking enemies makes fights much, much easier. Even if you can't circle the enemy, just switching between two firing positions gives you a few extra seconds to line up those juicy head-shots.
   
   
5. Running breeds cowardice? Not in the Zone
   Is a fight too tough? Running low on ammo? Advance in another direction and survive. Apart from quest fights, you can avoid pretty much all the fights in the game. You can even run away and come back a few minutes later to get the drop on enemies that are back to patrolling instead of fighting.
   
   
6. Creatures have heads too
   Remember the head-shot thing back in 2.? Yeah, that applies to monsters. Yeah, it applies to shotguns. While you can hip fire your shotgun against monsters and animals, your chance of scoring head-shots drop dramatically and with them your chance of dealing high damage. For comparison, it is possible to drop a Flesh with one shot from an M860 at close range if you hit the head with all pellets but will take a minimum of two shots if you fail to get that clean hit. So line up those shots and make them count. Against tougher monsters like the Bloodsucker it makes a world of difference to drop them in 6 shots compared to 10+.

Equipment and Economy

1. If you can get your hands on it, it can be sold
   Artifacts? Sell. Guns? Sell. Ammo? Sell. Medkits? Believe it or not, also sell. Once you learn to conserve your resources in combat by not imitating Rambo, you'll soon be waddling back to town with 20+ medkits and tons of spare ammo. Sell it. Pick up damaged (yellow condition) guns and sell them. Sell any suits you find that you don't need. Guns will be your primary source of income for a long time, but all those medkits, grenades, sausages and vodka bottles will be a nice boost.
   
   
2. Early on, try not to buy anything
   I get it, that AR416 looks real tempting in the early game and you want a proper stalker suit, but they are traps set for you by the Stalking Industrial Complex. Also avoid buying ammo and supplies unless you absolutely need them. When you start swimming in Coupons you can lax up on this tip, but for the first 15 hours you are better off by following the next advice.
   
   
3. Stashes? Loot 'em
   Most stashes contain a few supplies and some ammo, which is not all that exciting but helps you stock up on supplies without buying and gets you some vendor trash if you are already overflowing. But some stashes come with extra bonuses, like suits and guns. This is how you get your main gear besides quest rewards. A GP37 or Vintar might look cool, but an AK-74S with a scope will serve you through the entire game. Stashes with suits in particular will save you lots of money.
   
   
4. Corpses? Loot 'em too
   A measly 4 pistol rounds might seem like they are not worth your time, but in the early game they absolutely are. On very rare occasions random NPCs also drop suits of their faction which is worth thousands of coupons once you hawk it off. Even if you don't need the pistol rounds, check all the corpses just in case. Also, if weight is your concern and the guns they have ain't in a great condition, unload them and take the ammo.
   
   
5. Only repair gear that makes up your main loadout
   No, not even if you want to use that cool GP37 you just found on a dead enemy. It will set you back mightily and those 15k coupons could have gone into a bunch of upgrades that would have made your AK better. Only ever use guns you can find in pristine condition.
   
   
6. Hold off on upgrading your suit
   They are expensive and in the early game you will find better suits often. Once you are fairly certain that you will keep your suit for a while (around the time that you start finding faction specific suits) you can go to town on those upgrades. In fact, if you're a true miser you can probably get away with not repairing your suits at all until you leave the starter village.

On Artifact Hunting & Anomalies

1. Don't hoard artifacts
   Weak effect artifacts can generally just be sold, once you can replace the ones you're using with the medium effect or better ones later. So stuff like Chemical, Electrical & Thermal resistance ones can be kept untill finding better versions, Bleed resistance ones are generally a waste of time IMO, they're not very effective from my experience, and you'll ideally need to find an artifact that removes Rads before bothering wearing ones that *Give* you rads in addition to their benefits! As a general rule: keep uncommon or better, sell commons unless you have a use for them (like your first rad removing artifact for example, of one that improves endurance).
   
   
2. The Magnificent Magnetic Cave
   In the Lesser Zone, you'll probably be getting your first artifact from the Magnetic Cave spot, remember this place! It's close to the starter base camp, and the anomaly will respawn another artifact after ~24 hours, so you can use this to earn a bit of extra cash and get a few starter artifacts. Generally I go there at the start of the day, then do other stuff, go back to camp, sleep, and repeat. There are a few other anomalies in the Lesser Zone that respawn artifacts, but their respawn times vary and I haven't quite nailed down how long each one takes yet but its something like 48-72 hours or so, the Magnetic Cave is the fastest respawning one.
   
   
3. Use artifacts to get more artifacts, positive feedback loop style
   When you have some artifacts that protect from different damage types you can use them to make future artifact hunting a little safer, saving you some damage and wear on your stuff. For example if you're going to raid the Magnetic Cave again and are still getting used to the activation range of the flames then make use of a thermal protection artifact if you have one, you can deal with the rads after you are finished, beer and vodka are cheap and plentiful and fine for counteracting the rads from common & uncommon artifacts.
   
   
4. Anomalies will strip your weapons naked
   If you're not at risk of getting shot or attacked by mutants while in an anomaly artifact hunting then I would unequip and move ALL your guns to your backpack. When you activate an anomaly and take damage it ALSO damages your guns! And repairs are not cheap! While in your backpack they won't take damage from the anomaly.

[shogun459]

Artifact Hunting
#4 That is pure Gold.
Wish I had known this before I started.
Nice Guide you're on my favorites list now.

[xenotomix]

With pleasure :D

[Skitz524]

nice, thanks :)

[xenotomix]

Yeah, pretty much. Still remember things from Clear Sky

[Traltwin]

It's funny... I learned most of this from STALCRAFT X ... It's neat how most of the learning from other Stalker or Stalker-Like games are transferable :-).

[aqpaubrey]

thanks for this

[xenotomix]

Thanks

[victorious yogi]

This was a helpful read. Good job on writing it.