No stash farming at the start Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

So i just started out as a recon and ran around collecting the stashes i know in zaton and bought myself a upd, gasmask, pistol, hi tier cooking supplies and a PDA marked backpack since i like to roleplay a bit and hide some stashes of my own. The second day i did the raid on schevchenko and sided with Beard ofc. After that i follow Spartacus in to the ranger station and interupted the trade. Now i almost had 88k so i could buy the SSPM suit right away and i find this quite boring since i like to gradually get better gear and work for it. So i came up with the idea to not be able to loot stashes until it is marked on the map, this would encourage to make bandits / mercs surrender and give you their stash coords. This is just a thought however and i will try it out. Please let me know what you think and post your own ideas how to make the start of the game more miserable.

The idea sounds interesting to me, yeah. Therefore the "surrender-function" would have to work better though. I had many enemies lying on the floor in 2.1.1, but i couldn't talk with them at all. Do surrender'd enemies only tell you "vanilla stashes" or do they also "know" the "misery stashes"?

If you pretty much know all the stash locations - the Black Road start isn't a problem either. (In fact you have a fully functional Makarov & Shotgun after 3-4 min...) Not to talk about that fully functional AKM...

I have to say - i like the idea! If it would be an option i would definitely activate it. I know - theoretically its possible to do this by urself and only loot stashes that are shown on the map - but well. If you know that there is a stash 50m away... I can't controll myself to not loot it then. But if it wouldn't be lootable until its "known"...

Would be great.

Edited by: henniheine

My personal way to limit cash income is to limit my trade options.

Beard only buys "shopping center" items. Drinks Food (only cooked mutant meat!), porn mags and such. No weapons. He buys artifacts though.

Owl is largely the same, he buys well maintained weapons, ammo, explosives and weapon attachments.

Tremor/Medik buys various medical items.

Wandering stalkers buy everything, so they are the place to sell poor-quality weapons, misc items, mutant parts and such in Zaton. They'll quickly run out of money though.

In Yanov Station, Bonesetter acts as Owl and Hawaii as Beard (minus the artifacts).

The Scientists buys mutant parts, artifacts and medical items.

@ PerXX,

I think this only slows down the pace in general - especially the part of selling low quality weapons only to other stalkers. Normally you run to Beard or the Hawaiian with them. In your case you either have to run through the whole map (or go to Yanov / the Skadovsk) and sell the shitty weapons there to other stalkers.

Doesen't make a really difference in the end besides from needing more time to do so.

Do the stalkers inside of Yanov/Skadovsk get new inventories/money with each reload? In that case it wouldn't make a difference at all. And if you would have to search other "new" stalkers throughout the whole map it would simply take more time.

Besides the "low quality weapon" part - i play pretty much the same way.

Well, players will always do whatever it is easiest for them to grind money. Whatever tem bring to the game to make it more difficult, players will always find their ways to grind money. Making economy harder and harder will only last for short time until expirienced user find another way to grind money. Any further attempt to make game harder in that area will only make game more artificially difficult to the absurd level. That will actualy make whole game less interesting to play.

Now, besides stashes defined trough vanilla game system in all.spawn file, this mod also brings two different type of dynamic stashes. One type of dynamic stashes will be spawned as soon as game starts. Another type of dynamic stashes are those that are revealed only by surrendered enemies. That type of stash is spawned only when surrendered enemy tells you about it. Each map contains about ten or so such stashes. You may pass trough that places numerous times and there will no be stash there unless surrenered enemy revealed it.

Oh, there will be also third type of dynamic stashes in 2.2, used for solving kindergarthen quests and some other things.

Edited by: kcs123

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The last few starts, I've mostly done this.

The exceptions being picking up the TOZ and makarov at the blackroad start, and a quick run to grab the cooking stash so I can cook. Not grabbing the TOZ would definitely slow things down much more... I usually hunt mutants to make money starting out.

Hmm.. if you truly did this, it would mean not picking up even the makarov on a blackroad start... a knife only start would be rough...

Hopefully eventually we can figure out how to randomize what appears in the initial stashes so you can't just pick and choose a few to jump start you. It would make the stashes a fresh experience each time.

If thats possible - it would be great, yes.

Honestly, I don't think it makes much difference. I've had playthroughs where I've looted every stash I know of, and playthroughs where I didn't loot any. The only real differences were that it changed the order I did things in (because I couldn't afford a science suit for a while) and that I didn't fully upgrade all my end-game gear (and most upgrades make only a tiny difference to performance anyway).

Over the course of a playthrough I earn most of my cash from selling what I loot off dead NPCs. Stashes can provide useful cash, especially early on, but they're a secondary source to me.

Well that's the thing, to be able to stash farm and get a SSPM suit just a few days in the game seems cheesy to me. It feels too easy to start a new game with this method and that is why i limit myself to not pick up any stashes and to me that makes the game more rewarding because you really worked for what you have. I do pick every stash up eventually i just don't want that big jump start. In a way you do have a point but i must disagree and say that it would make a difference but that is just my personal opinion and I won't tell you that you're wrong.