Tip no.1, PICK AUTHORITY
Authority will be of great help, it gives you more reputation, that means lower prices, you can tell the bandits to fuck off without killing them, you can make some territory missions for the military without killing the objectives, overall i think that this perk is essential to make the game easier.
Tip no.2, DON'T KILL BANDITS
I know, they are bandits, but a lot of their missions give important stuff, and they are necessary, from getting to the dark valley to getting to some darker places, they are very important in the mod.
Tip no.3, HOARD, and DON'T SELL ANYTHING THAT IS HARD TO FIND
Hoarding is a very important part of the mod, don't worry about getting your things stolen, it doesn't happen (i believe, i have like 6 backpacks in the floor of rostok so i guess it doesn't).
Now, about the selling, i recommend you to grab every trash you find and save it for later, a lot of quests ask for junk, a lot of them ask for food (that is HARD to find, i only eat bread crumbs lol), a lot of them ask for guns. keep everything in your local stash and only sell what you think you can find easily.
Tip no.4, DON'T BE SHY, USE THE FAST TRAVEL ADDON IF YOU DON'T LIKE BACKTRACKING
I know that this is controversial in the stalker community, but in this mod, you'll have to move, A LOT, there's searching quests, and they take some time, so, no worries if you use fast travel, some people don't have all the time of their lives for a mod, you can still play the mod without it though.
Tip no.5, READ, READ, and READ
Please, read the PDF, read the notes you find, and read the important info on your PDA (that is kind of bugged lol, might repair it later), they have so much information, you will understand more of the mod and maybe you can resolve one of your problems.
Tip no.6, MAKE THE SEARCH QUESTS ASAP
There are four easy to get characters (AFAIK) that give you search missions, finishing these missions give EXTREMELY GOOD rewards, so make them as fast as you can.
Tip no.7, ACCEPT FANATIC'S THREE QUESTS THE FIRST TIME YOU MEET HIM
For some reason his quest to get the Wild Territory transition disappears if you don't accept it for the first time, so i would suggest getting it.
SOME PHOTOS OF THE SEARCH MISSIONS CHARACTERS
Have fun with the mod!
Good tips, thanks.
Far as I know you'll easily run into finding basic toolkits in various stashes, though finding the advanced and expert types are EXTREMELY rare.
The only Advanced toolkit I found so far was one placed in the hideout in Agroprom underground. In Strelok's hideout where the container would have been.
Out of pure chance I found one Expert toolkit early in the Swamps from a stash. Haven't traded either of them yet as the crafting tools are more valuable specially if you use the inventor perk.
A final resort to obtaining a toolkit is from wooden boxes, keeping some intact saving before destroying them to see what they drop, if they don't have it then reload and try breaking them open later after a mission or two. They cycle through different random drops after time.
Also if you find a mysterious drug vial (removes -9000 rad), hold onto them, they are extremely useful if you really need to recover an artifact that lay at the bottom of boiler and burner type anomalies and you don't have the protective suit yet to do it.
any idea where bergamots stash is in the rookie village? two hours ive been looking!!