Slowtrain

As I said, I don't believe you can cheat at a single player game. To cheat is to deprive someone of something via deceit, or to defeat another through trickery. Suggesting you could cheat at a game of solitaire is like suggesting you can cheat when you're single. There is no one to cheat. hmmm. What if you define cheat as breaking rules for the purpose of winning? But really the question is moot since in a single player game, you can cheat your heart out and who is going to care. Except maybe the game developers, I suppose.

I didn't know that. Duty Armor would seem a little overkill for Dark Valley though, anyway.

If my monitor was a CRT I'd have to worry about those 2 faces shattering the tube.

eh? You can cheat at solitaire. Nobody cares, but you can still do it. :/

I'm on veteran now. Its more interesting, I think. I'm pretty sure that you can switch back and forth in-game as far as difficulty goes, though I haven't tried it.

Don't forget to climb out through holes in rafters onto roofs and make jumps from roof to roof. If you are not carrying much, you can jump a LONG way. I've found some really good stuff in hard to reach places. Some of it is not even "stash" as such, but just sitting there.

I'm the same way. Eventually, if I have played a game totally to death then I'll started adding mods, but not before. SOmebody spent time balancing the game a certain way for a reason in most cases.

That's a high end artifact. I've never seen it in garbage, but there is usually one in Dark Valley somewhere around the entrance from Garbage. Less chance if you are playing at Vet or Master though

Also, you should note that you can use any stash location to stash your own gear. When the stash activates, you won't lose anything, it just adds the stash loot to whatever is already there. I do a lot of traveling between zones and since I like to travel very light (under 20 kg), I keep small stashes in all the zones that contain a weapon suitable for the zone, a small amount of ammunition, a few medkits, bandages, rad removers. Plus I have a few larger stashes that I visit when it is time to "load out" for a particular mission. Usually those larger stashes are kept at sites I visit frequently, such as the big stalker base in Garbage. At the larger stashes I keep any artifacts, an extra set of armor, plus a main rifle with a perfect condition backup and a ton of ammo, plus all my grenades, medkits, unique and/or rare items, etc and so forth. By keeping light, I can travel very very fast through and between zones. Keeps the game moving. Plus it feels right to travel light and fast as a stalker.

the patch doubled the cost of everything. Also, Sidorovich sells the stalker suit for 2x the cost of barkeep. (ie from barkeep the suit it only 30k). Except for very early, the only thing you should be scavenging is artifacts. There's not enough money to be made from hauling heavy firearms back to the traders. Waste of time. Also, remember most npcs who are not enemies will buy artifcacts and most healing items so you do not have to drag them all the way back to sell to a trader.

My google search tells me a viper 5 is a cricket bat. Huzzah for cricket bat based attacks! Like many other game Stalker doesn't use the weapons real names. The viper 5, I believe, is actually the mp5. I'm another who likes my game weapons, be they melee or firearms, to be realistic, rather than looking like a toy or something from a cartoon. Yes, STALKER changes weapon names slightly, but only slightly in most cases. SiG becomes SGi, Vintorez becomes Vintor. Probably saved them some money, not a b big deal. Still way better than Deus Ex for example.

Yeah, but now you have something to spend money on. In my current game I've burned through 4 merc suits, 8 stalker suits, 1 monolith suit and I havent even statrted Yantar yet.

Has anybody seen a full stash list anywhere on the internet? I have pretty much figured out how stashes work and am currently making an excel spreadsheet that lists all the stash locations, faction association, frequency of occurence, and contents. But eh, I'm not sure I want to do all that if someone else has already done it. I googled around but couldn't find anything, but I'm thinking one of you might have.

Did you leave without getting the flash drive?

I would suggest that you go back and look again. )

heh. no its not in there. You need to go further. Go past the burning helicopter and look for a way underground.

Follow the marker on the PDA, but remember to look both high and low. get it? haha you will. Make sure you check the area around the "family rifle" carefully as well. Yeah, I once derived a little too far and was suddendly dragged into a conflict with some Ruskie authorities. And I just wanted that stupid rifle. But I guess a sniper's place would be somewhere on the roofs, so maybe I should start looking there. Look low instead.

Pseudodog tails are somewhat rare, it took me forever to finally get one. They are one that animal that looks like a wolverine or something, very aggressive and snarling. The tails are really hard to see on the inventory panel as well. Make sur eyou look carefully whenever you check one.

Follow the marker on the PDA, but remember to look both high and low. get it? haha you will. Make sure you check the area around the "family rifle" carefully as well.

I've started a new game (NPP was really hard and I am taking a break) and have observed several things: Stashes always have the same loot each time they occur. Stashes appear to be weighted. The less good ones occur often, the better ones occur less. Therefore it is worth looting as many bodies as possible to get the rare stashes. Either that or there's a bug in how stashes are calcualted to occur. Same difference either way though Each time a stash is activated it adds another set of the same contents. If the same stash is axctivated twice without being cleared it will have double the contents. etc If a stash is activated more than once without being cleared the stash marker will remain when you clear it. To get rid of the stash marker, put something like bandages back into the stash, click take all. Do this as many times as the stash has been activated and the marker will clear. Do all the jobs you can find at least once, some of the jobs, even in the first zone, have pretty good rewards that are hard to get anywhere else. For example if you bring the psudodog tail to Sidorovich he gives you dart round for the shotgun. Theses are awesome ammunition, and despite playing through the whole game, I never aw anywhere else to get them. (There probably is though, but regardless they are rare)

For those who are interested, suipposedly the next patch is going to lower respawn rates as well as change spawning in border areas that cross between zones. This is not official, btw, just the word I am hearing. The next patch is also supposed to be compatible with current (1.1) saves. Again, unofficial at this point

d00d, you are nuts. Veteran difficulty is cracked. I tried that and went back to stalker difficulty almost immediately. This is already a hard game, no need to punish yourself. Notch down the diffculty and have some fun! (I believe you can change the difficulty level without starting a new game)

It occurs to me, Cant, that in that sense this game is one of your "unwinnable battles". The game isn't going to let you win (which is fine becuase winning the battle is not required to be successful), therefore your goal is survival, not victory (in any absolute sense). You should be enjoying it! Also, you know better than anyone not to use the word "realistic" when talking about a game. The internal rules to the gameworld are very consistent. There are a couple small inconsistencies that annoy me a bit, such as the fact that enemies appear immune to levels of radioactivty that would kill you in seconds, although enemies are certainly not immune to anomalies in general. But what are you goign to do, no game is perfect.

True, but when I find myself overwhelmed or too heavily put upon, I usually make a judgement call and run away like a coward.

Here's an example: There's a set of several linked missions that will end with you recieving something necessary to completing one of the key tasks of the game. If you succeed at all of the missions (or you can look at it as one extended mission in parts), the object you get has a higher level of quality and will protect you longer. If you fail at any of the parts the quality of the object is less and you have less protection. Also you can fail the first part, but still succeed at the following parts because the game wil offer alternatives. This is not a game of absolutes relative to success/failure; it is a game of degrees. It makes it much more interesting.