Banditry and profitability of Artifact-hunting Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Hi there folks. Old Misery 1 veteran here trying to find my way theough Misery 2.1.1.

I noticed most bandits are autmoatically hostile in this new version. My question is: If I work for Sultan and the skadovsky bandits should I be able to get the Boss achievement eventually and start being recognized and respectd by bandits in the wild ? (Instead of received by gunfire as in the beginning of the game ? )

Besides it, I also noticed bandit-hunting is one of the more profitable ways to acquire wealth and useful gear now. If I avoid it altogether, can I also access good gear and wealth through other means (say, through Artifact-hunting ?). I played through Misery 1 with my Recon specialist avoiding combat as much as possible. Can I keep this modus operandi in Misery 2 ?

Thanks in advance.

Artifact hunting is much less profitable, and requires a green ecologist suit unless you want to spend all your hard earned loot healing and fixing your armor. Anomalies are just flat deadly if not properly equipped. I've never know anyone to side with bandits before. The Mod is pretty much skewed to bandits/mercs are everyone's enemy.

Hmm... does that mean there is no aternative to acquire cash consistently except preying on bandits/mercs ? This is bad news for me, since I dont like to play Rambo everytime, and prefer to sneak and infiltrate as much as possible.

About joining Bandits, it was always possible in Vanilla and Misery 1). You just needed to do all Sultan missions until you get the Boss achievement. This resulted in Beard paying protection fee for you for the remainder of the game, and bandits in all maps ceasing to bother you, and even talking things like "Hey youre the man!" or something. I think it helped you on some quests (like the Vano debt one ) but am not entirely sure.

I lack the experience with that plot choice to say ... locating and looting stashes will get you started. You can plant landmines just outside skadavosk door and frag stalkers every time an emission ends ...

But thats not realistic in the slightest, is it ? I mean, I dont see how that would be the preferred course of action of an army covert operative on a recon mission like Degtyarev.

Well, thanks for the tips Jasper. Ill try to find my niche in Misery 2.1.1 in some more. If I cant find alternatives to killin and exploding dozens of people for money, I think Ill just go back to Misery 1.

Edited by: lessavini

Joining the bandits is well out of character unless it promoted completion of his mission. I'm not certain, but the bandits and mercs seem aligned. I would assume if you kill the mercs to get the laptop at the processing plant, it would probably make the bandits hostile. If not, bandits take over the plant now after you clear it. I may have to explore that plot line just for shits and giggles and some variety. It would also be interesting if anyone can complete the game without resorting to killing some faction consistently for loot.

jasper34 wrote: Joining the bandits is well out of character unless it promoted completion of his mission.

Yup. I think thats the idea behind the possibility of joining / becoming friendly of the different factions (loners, bandits, duty, freedom), getting access to info and resources important to your mission. If I remember correctly, when you befirend the bandits, Owl at the skadovski gives you maximum discount on his wares, and the bandits around zaton get more numerous and well equiped while the loners get less numerous and poorly equipped. This makes sense from the military point of view, specially if you remember that the loners and Beard are basically smugglers trafficking on artifacts to the outside world.

I'm not certain, but the bandits and mercs seem aligned. I would assume if you kill the mercs to get the laptop at the processing plant, it would probably make the bandits hostile. If not, bandits take over the plant now after you clear it.

Well, I wouldnt say so. Owl is aligned with the bandits, and when he sends you to get info on the mercs in the processing plant, it seems to imply that the two factions dont relate to each other. To be more precise, these two factions - mercs and bandits - do not seem to constitute unified bodies like Duty and Freedom do. Each band is independent from each other, so the bandits from the skadovski, lead by Sultan and Owl, are not affiliated to the bandits from that outpost in Yanov. The same goes for the mercs, the ones at the processing station are not affiliated to the ones at the workshop (who ask you for food).

The only faction the Bandits seem to have some relation is Duty, as evidenced by the deal with Morgan by the ranger station. Even then they seem more like business partners than actual allies.

I may have to explore that plot line just for shits and giggles and some variety. It would also be interesting if anyone can complete the game without resorting to killing some faction consistently for loot.

This is totally possible in Misery 1, which made the game enjoyable for pacifists (or cowards hehe) like me. As an example, I always took the notebook from the mercs in zaton in a full stealthy way, without firing a single bullet. The same is true for the Vano debts and hostages situation in Yanov - the game allowed you to take non-violent solutions to both quests. In other words: the game didnt force you to make things in the same single way, it was open enough to accomodate various approaches to the different situations. Sure, it wasnt true for 100% of the quests (eventually you HAD to use force) but it was true for a big part of it. Sadly, Misery 2 seems to have lost this quality, obligating you to resort to violance most of the time.

Do you think its possible to progress in Misey 2.1.1 in this way ? Perhaps editing the Artifacts files to make they worth a little bit more so its a viable way to raise money ?

Also, do you think its still possible to stealth your way to the notebook in Zaton mercs, and to negotiate with the bandits in Yanov for the hostages and Vano debts ?

Edit: oh I know this is offtopic but how do I get the original intro cinematic back ?

Edited by: lessavini

I know some players pride themselves on being sneaky but also the mercs are more aware than ever. It would certainly be a challenge. There is a Ghillie suit, now which couldn't hurt for sneaking around. The beauty of Xray is that you can edit almost anything to tailor to your tastes. I would probably try it without changing prices first. The non-violent path would save a bundle on weapons/ammo, but you would still need something to defend against mutants. I would say it would probably be slower going. There are some mods to the mod that affect prices and artifacts, I can't recommend one. I know you can still negotiate, I just like killing bandits and mercs ;-) Some can and do follow other friendly groups around and loot their corpses and mutants they have slain, etc. Easier than changing a bunch of prices might be to change your armors weight carrying capacity so you can carry anything you do find to sell off. Don't forget, they made all the artifacts very radioactive and heavy so you have to possess a container for each artifact you haul around and the containers are heavy too. Watch your back Stalker, when you are sneaking up on them creatures are sneaking up on you too ;-)

Thanks for the help. I just looked in the mods section, as by your suggestion, and found out this "Les Miserable" for version 2.1.1 which seems to be exactly what I was looking for.

Edited by: lessavini

Does killing the bandits that are hostile from the get go affect any of the bandits you do missions to curry favor for later? Does not killing them until you do something for Sultan make them neutral or friendly?

I'm not sure how does that work in Misery 2. In version 1 your relationship with all factions was controlled by a table in a file, whose numbers changed according to your actions (the more you help them, more friendly they get, and the more you kill them, the more hostile). Some achievements also affected it ( the Negotiator and Man of Balance gave relationship bonuses across all factions, if I remember right, while the Expert Stalker made bandits attack you more in search of your artifacts).

But I don't know how it works in Misery 2, as they changed the default logic of the game (is: Bandits were not immediately hostile before, now they are). It would be interesting to go through the Sultan quests just to see how it turns out. But it wouldn't be completely out of place if those bandits that keep spawning in ranger station and processing plant kept being hostile to you even after you turn into Kingpin (Boss achievement), because each band is its own thing, acting independently.

I'm going to try JUST killing the ones by the ranger station and see if I can complete all the bandit related quests. I never even tried a single bandit quest before, just shot them on sight.

I find that going out hunting with the decorated TOZ-34 with 50-60 buckshot and 30-40 slugs is very profitable. Boars can be killed in one shot from a distance with a slug, and their hides and such are very valuable. Same goes for fleshes and snorks. Cats aren't really worth hunting, their tail is only 500 or so rubles and you'll often spend alot of ammo just trying to hit them. Bloodsuckers are very worthwhile too, just a bit more risky. You can still one-shot bloodsuckers though.

As for artifact hunting, artifacts aren't worth nearly as much as they should. Then again most of them are trash and have no real use. A rare artifact will get you about 10k rubles. Standard artifacts about 5-7k rubles. Get yourself a PMK Gas mask and head to the Claw anomaly and Dredge station from time to time, you'll be pretty much immune to the radiation there and artifacts are fairly easy to snatch. The caves under the burnt farmstead are very good too, if not better.

I think that with the diplomat achievement you maight get neutral with the bandits. At least in Jupiter. After getting it, I noticed that bandits werent shooting me, wich was confusing at first. After killing them nontheless, they once again become hostil all around the faction.
The Boss achievement doesnt seem to help. Might be wrong, but as far as I know Bandits will still want you dead. Sultan doesnt care who gets killed outside of Skadovsk, so with the Boss achievement, you pretty much on your own.

As for proffit. Its not hard to make money. Bandits are easy to kill, but provide very little loot. Mercs are alot harder, but usually provide much better gear. Artifact hunting requires an ecologist suit and smart play to turn it into proffit. Some anomalies can be explored with only a gas mask "dredge station, claw anomalie with radiation and gravity, and the Scar anomalie with psy field and some eletric anomalies that are easy to avoid".
Alsow, the easiest way to make money is to flesh hunt. its simple. Shoot a flesh once with any type of round "9x18 because its super cheap". This will make the flesh agro you instead of just running away. By then pull out you knife, time your atack and heavy stab it. This causes them to flinch, blocking their atack and allowing you to continue to stab him "go around and stab his ass".

Fleshes and relatively weak, easy to find, predicatble, cheap to kill and the best part, is that they provide with alot more items then say Boars. Rarely you will find a flesh that gives "nothing usefull". If your lucky you might get 1 hide, 2 eyes and 3 meats from a single flesh.
These parts sell pretty well too. hunting is where the money is at. xD

Edited by: *Raubtier*

I sided with the bandits until it was time to take the svarog detectors away from the stalkers. There simply are no stalker artifact hunting parties to talk to or attack. I spent a game week and never got to where the icon shows where the other artifact hunters are about to beat you to an artifact. The bandits that repopulate the processing plant are neutral, the rest were all friendly except one odd group was still hostile in Zaton. I'm about to find out in Jupiter.

Damn, thats unfortunate. That Svarog job is cool, and I suspect it was a requisite for getting the Boss achievement plus Owl discounts. Perhaps the mod Devs could take a look at this ?

Thanks for the time in investigating the matter, Jasper.

Edited by: lessavini

I'm going to see if after I get a 2nd Svarog from the scientists I can get that quest to finish. I'll let you know. I couldn't find either of the two NPC's that lead those missing artifact search teams. I don't know if they were killed off by hazards of the zone, or what.

Jasper, not much help but Ive found this description of the Boss achievement. It seems the Compass quest is mandatory to earn it. And it also indicates bandits should get friendlier to you, while Stalkers some times attack you openly.

Stalker.wikia.com (click)

Offtopic: please bros, if anyone know to put the original CoP Intro back I appreciate the help. Ive found out where the 2 files for the new intro are (the music + movie ones) but cant find how to make the game ignore it and go with the old Intro.

Edited by: lessavini

Maybe rename the old files the same as the new. Copy/paste over new files and replace. I'm one or 2 scientist missions away from being able to buy a second Svarog and try completing the quest to take away from stalkers. Damned mutants keep almost killing off key characters before I can complete quests involving them. I've been just in time so far. All I need is to get mutants to wipe out the bandits holding Mitay so I don't have to pay that ridiculous toll after paying them off. A Pseudogiant wiped out half the monolith guys that joined duty while they were walking to train station. I killed it just before he could wipe out strider.

What is your switch distance ? Perhaps putting it too high above 300 is the cause for this.

Or the mod devs could make Strider and all others quest-important NPCs immortal (Petruha, Noah, etc). Perhaps this should be a better solution since its a lot of fun to play with high switch distances.

Edited by: lessavini

The original Important NPC's are all hard coded. I think if they could, they would. There are more mutant spawns in Misery and as far as I know there is no way to make a character immune to mutant damage. I made Noah fully immune to all other damage and he can still be killed by a kitty cat. The only thing they might be able to do is change the type of damage mutants cause to something there is an immunity setting for.

jasper34 wrote: I'm going to see if after I get a 2nd Svarog from the scientists I can get that quest to finish. I'll let you know. I couldn't find either of the two NPC's that lead those missing artifact search teams. I don't know if they were killed off by hazards of the zone, or what.

Just for giggles, I used the debug tools to spawn 2 detector_scientific's and behold I can complete the Boss questline. I discovered a funny thing, I know the debug spawner is supposed to make things appear at your feet, but I thought I would be clever and make "spawn all items on actor" true thinking it would make things spawn on me instead of on ground. It gives you one of everything !!!! I couldn't even move. I suppose if someone wanted to start the game with one of everything after he gets to the ship initially you could stand next to your box and save, edit the debug tools and presto have everything to try out. Put all the stuff you aren't trying right away into your box so you can move. Sell off what you have no use for and upgrade away.

Honestly, you can make a ton of cash by stealing everyone loot sack lol

But if being a jerk is not your thing, you can be a bug hunter and go park your butt atop the tree anomaly. From there the only thing you worry about is falling and giants. Otherwise you can just snipe the crap out of critters and anything human(ish?) at the gas station. =D

Plus if you are daring and had enough revenue to get a heavy jacket + an M8 or M12 helmet. You can slip by much of the poison pads under the tree with enough anti rad/poison meds =D

I find this to be kinda interesting when I get bored. You just see the world as it is slowly moving by and WHAM, a huge fight between one thing and another and you rake in the loot =:)

Edited by: ZoneWizard

Yeah, I have never lacked for cash. There are just so many ways to make money. All you really need is patience.