Sharing Tips from Exp Stalkers Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Hello fellow stalkers. Please post your best tactical tips here for other stalkers makes misery bit lighter places
Tips regards to side quests, main quests, exploration etc. Please including details how to gain tactical advantage in specific situation resulting minimum expanses and maximum loot.
If you have come across a stage where games become too difficult, you can share the details here and see if anybody comes up with better approach.

PS: I fucking hate packs of dogs. They are fast and large in numbers.

Oh dogs. I've found that the best way to deal with them is to avoid them. Always have binoculars and constantly scan the horizon and areas ahead of you while you're out walking around. This way you can spot them and other trouble from far away. If you get into a fight with dogs, find cover or something to stand on. By cover I mean something that the dogs will have to run around, guard rails are the best imo. Since dogs can't jump, getting on some rock or structure will keep you safe. If you are caught completely in the open, move often and only stop to shoot one or two of them at a time. Grenades are difficult to use against dog hordes since they move so fast and so often. If you're persistent, you'll survive the horde.

I do most of my scouting with Sniper rifle scope. I often run into these blind fucks when they are around the corner and not barking.
Just yesterday I heard gun fire on the other side of a building in Pripyat. Curious what's going on I hopped over and found over 10 dogs shredding 3 Mercs to pieces. I regretted as soon as the last merc hit the ground. I knew I am next and took me 4 tries to make it out alive.

Take your time and go back and forth between the traders at skadovsk to see who has a better prices on items in that category. The difference can easily be several thousand RU.

If you see a cat, just freaking shoot it. Don't let it live. Those things make 0 noise and will kill you in a heartbeat. I've literally been sniping out the Mercenaries at the waste station only to have a single cat walk up noiselessly behind me and kill me.

Be careful on your way in and OUT of anomalies. I know you get antsy with all the radiation or damage to your suit or what have you but, I've harvested a few artifacts from an anomaly before just to rush a bit too much on my way out and ruin my suit to the point that I lost a great amount of money getting those artifacts.

Severely damaged guns are not worth their weight in rubles. Check enemy weapons for condition and to see if they have ammo in them, but don't carry any weapons with less than 50% health unless you want to repair and keep it.

Imported food items, Cigarettes, Medicine and Narcotics, Ammo, and Mutant parts are generally the most profitable things to haul back to base as far as their weight:price ratio goes.

Someone wrote:
If you get into a fight with dogs, find cover or something to stand on. By cover I mean something that the dogs will have to run around, guard rails are the best imo. Since dogs can't jump, getting on some rock or structure will keep you safe

I can't resist to say that you will need to discover new tactics to deal with dogs. Rocks still helps, but it will not keep you safe anymore.
You will find it soon enough when 2.1 become available with normal internet traffic

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Warning: I've seen six boars take out a pseudo giant within half a minute and that was pretty impressive, geeze the boars do much hurting on you. More then a pseudo dog, so do not risk getting hit by them they take you out in 3 slams (1-2 if you bleed out) when you wear moderate armour with 3 fireballs.

As for value the economy has been tweaked to make more sense and you won't find massive profits as in the beta of cigarettes and drugs. Mutant parts however do make a steady and valuable way of earning cash, be aware that it takes time to collect parts and that makes you prone to ambush.

If I find guns and they are not crap I attempt to sell them to a group of friendly stalkers I meet on the road, they pay about 2/3 of the value a shop does. This allows me to be in the field longer to collect things, to compensate I carry more ammo so that adds a few kg.

Be not shy to buy ammo from owl or beard (the last is cheaper but has a lot less to sell). You can buy the cheaper version if you find enough of the expensive version on the road, however ammo isn't that expensive if you play wisely.

As with mutties killing a dog and needing a clip (30 bullets) is a sign of waste. A dog isn't worth much as dog meat is cheap and its tail the lowest of the animal parts. Pseudo dogs and pigs have a higher number of parts they can drop (hide, meat, tail/eye), the psy even adds brain tissue which is a lot worth.

I do not allows engage mutties like pigs or boars as they can be an alarm. Bandits attack them and that makes them too occupied to fight me. As for packs of dogs I prefer to handle them with my most potent weapon: other stalkers!

PS: Allows carry a light pistol with you as a backup. With reduced weight some weight less then half a kg, just don't upgrade them as that adds weight, only add the bigger clipsize and weight reduction (if it doesn't have that already).

Edited by: Nyayr

I don't hang with other stalkers lol. I pretty much shoot anything that moves especially on 2 legs. I just wish I can loot their armor sometimes. I just recently quit killing zombies since it's waste of money on these guys. As for the dogs I know finding higher ground helps same as other mutants who can't jump, but seriously dogs are just bit too fast and too many at same time for my taste

After my 4^th playthrough of Misery (1^st time on 2.1) I can say that there are ten important tips I've learned to save my life.

1.) Trade as often as you can at Zaton instead of Yanov, especially after doing a few sidequests for Beard and Owl. You can jump between the two traders and compare prices, selling at prices averaging 40-50% higher depending on the item. Rule of thumb: Owl buys military and medical items much
higher, Beard buys mutant, food, technological items much higher. Repair items are split between the two. I easily reach 120k per trip out this way.

2.) If you don't care about roleplaying, the fastest way to gaining large quantities of loot and money early on is this: start by taking on Beard's quest for the Wheel artifact and kill the three stalkers that try to jump you. Take their loot. Accept Sultan's quest to jump the loners, then tell Beard and set up an ambush for Sultan's men. Take their loot. Accept the Ranger station mission, take the loot. Accept Owl's mission against the waste processing plant. Kill all the mercenaries, take the loot. Go to the substation, kill the mercs, take the loot. Finally, you can try out the Iron Forest anomaly if you're feeling dangerous and get the military/mutant loot there. All told by now you should have a few unique or rare weapons to choose from and around 300k from sales. If you do this fast enough it should be done in the first 2-3 hours of gameplay, and you're set with some mid-tier loot for all of Zaton and most of Jupiter.

3.) Money is for weapons, ammo, and armor! Don't bother buying food or medical supplies. The amount you can take from dead bodies is more than enough. Sell excess for some serious cash, along with some ammo types you know you won't ever use (such as 9x18 for myself).

4.) It is wise to carry separate weapons for human-hunting and mutant-hunting. Though some can share between each other based on caliber (5.56 is good for this) normally it's not efficient enough. Your mutant weapons ought to be close range due to their melee attacks, and humans ought to be mid-to-long range. Buy only calibers for each that will work well. Good mutant calibers are buckshot, .45 ACP Hydra-shock, and 5.56 regular ammo. Good human calibers are any sniper rounds or any AP and DU rounds from rifles.

5.) Carry only what you need. For a long trip this normally amounts to 100 rounds for both weapons, a couple bandages and medkits, an anti-rad/tobacco kit, a couple tins of food, and situational drugs if you'll be in a particular environment (psy-drugs for controllers, for example).

6.) Repair everything yourself! I can't stress that enough. The amount of money you save is the difference between struggle and extravagance, even if you have to buy all the materials. Only buy repairs if they are under 25%, and only if you can't find a 100% gun from Owl. Also helps save you from weapon jams and pesky screen cracks on helmets.

7.) Artifacts are swiftly becoming obsolete in the game. They're completely pointless without lead-lined containers in 2.1, and though I haven't tested them much I still find them much less appealing than equipment due to their heavy weight and severe penalties. Not much point in selling them either, as the most I see them go for is around 10k. Rarely worth the continual radiation burst.

8.) Buy a quick-release system when you can. It helps in the heat of combat to drop your bag of holding for mobility reasons, and is also useful for those moments where you need to collect more loot than your backpack can fit. Drop the backpack off, collect all the loot, go sell that loot, then go and pick your backpack back up. See? It's your own personal stash!

9.) If you hear fighting, go towards it. You can snatch up some free loot often from the aftermath.

10.) If you haven't figured it out yet, your success depends on LOOT. Getting it, selling it, repairing it, upgrading it, etc. Even the players with the most mad skillz can't take a psy-hit without the proper armor, or go plinking exo's when their guns are jamming like mad and ricocheting sub-par bullets off of monolith soldiers. Loot makes Misery go round. Well, that and F5/F9.

TheRaptorFence wrote: After my 4^th playthrough of Misery (1^st time on 2.1) I can say that there are ten important tips I've learned to save my life.

1.) Trade as often as you can at Zaton instead of Yanov, especially after doing a few sidequests for Beard and Owl. You can jump between the two traders and compare prices, selling at prices averaging 40-50% higher depending on the item. Rule of thumb: Owl buys military and medical items much
higher, Beard buys mutant, food, technological items much higher. Repair items are split between the two. I easily reach 120k per trip out this way.

2.) If you don't care about roleplaying, the fastest way to gaining large quantities of loot and money early on is this: start by taking on Beard's quest for the Wheel artifact and kill the three stalkers that try to jump you. Take their loot. Accept Sultan's quest to jump the loners, then tell Beard and set up an ambush for Sultan's men. Take their loot. Accept the Ranger station mission, take the loot. Accept Owl's mission against the waste processing plant. Kill all the mercenaries, take the loot. Go to the substation, kill the mercs, take the loot. Finally, you can try out the Iron Forest anomaly if you're feeling dangerous and get the military/mutant loot there. All told by now you should have a few unique or rare weapons to choose from and around 300k from sales. If you do this fast enough it should be done in the first 2-3 hours of gameplay, and you're set with some mid-tier loot for all of Zaton and most of Jupiter.

3.) Money is for weapons, ammo, and armor! Don't bother buying food or medical supplies. The amount you can take from dead bodies is more than enough. Sell excess for some serious cash, along with some ammo types you know you won't ever use (such as 9x18 for myself).

4.) It is wise to carry separate weapons for human-hunting and mutant-hunting. Though some can share between each other based on caliber (5.56 is good for this) normally it's not efficient enough. Your mutant weapons ought to be close range due to their melee attacks, and humans ought to be mid-to-long range. Buy only calibers for each that will work well. Good mutant calibers are buckshot, .45 ACP Hydra-shock, and 5.56 regular ammo. Good human calibers are any sniper rounds or any AP and DU rounds from rifles.

5.) Carry only what you need. For a long trip this normally amounts to 100 rounds for both weapons, a couple bandages and medkits, an anti-rad/tobacco kit, a couple tins of food, and situational drugs if you'll be in a particular environment (psy-drugs for controllers, for example).

6.) Repair everything yourself! I can't stress that enough. The amount of money you save is the difference between struggle and extravagance, even if you have to buy all the materials. Only buy repairs if they are under 25%, and only if you can't find a 100% gun from Owl. Also helps save you from weapon jams and pesky screen cracks on helmets.

7.) Artifacts are swiftly becoming obsolete in the game. They're completely pointless without lead-lined containers in 2.1, and though I haven't tested them much I still find them much less appealing than equipment due to their heavy weight and severe penalties. Not much point in selling them either, as the most I see them go for is around 10k. Rarely worth the continual radiation burst.

8.) Buy a quick-release system when you can. It helps in the heat of combat to drop your bag of holding for mobility reasons, and is also useful for those moments where you need to collect more loot than your backpack can fit. Drop the backpack off, collect all the loot, go sell that loot, then go and pick your backpack back up. See? It's your own personal stash!

9.) If you hear fighting, go towards it. You can snatch up some free loot often from the aftermath.

10.) If you haven't figured it out yet, your success depends on LOOT. Getting it, selling it, repairing it, upgrading it, etc. Even the players with the most mad skillz can't take a psy-hit without the proper armor, or go plinking exo's when their guns are jamming like mad and ricocheting sub-par bullets off of monolith soldiers. Loot makes Misery go round. Well, that and F5/F9.

That are some good tips here. Myself try this time Dark Road and Dark mode, without killing wandering stalker groups. Much harder to get some serious money, without such profitable farming I really need to search all stashes that i can remember to get some good armor and weapons.

The AK-74 (Modern/Camo/blue-tape-on-magazine-version), at least as a sniper, makes for an exceptional choice in long-arm. It can become extremely accurate, and when paired with a PSO-1 4x optic and a suppressor, serves as a highly effective DMR yet retains the closer-ranged combat abilities. It is also inexpensive to buy/repair, maintain, and feed, with 5.45x39 regular and AP ammunition common throughout the game.
I used it as my primary/go-to gun until halfway through Jupiter, only because I'd found that one very special SG550 and had the cash to upgrade it in a similar fashion (as well as having collected a lot of NATO rounds!).

A little snap I made in another post about ambushing stalkers and how they behave (AI).

Someone wrote: A little thing about enemy AI.The whole notion of misery is to handle enemies by ambushing them rather then engage headon. If you get spotted the first you got to do is take shelter in shrubs then move to nearby shrubs so you don't get grenaded. Enemies spot you well when they are on a height and you are below. Their sight is however a cone forwards so they don't see you creeping on behind them (unless you keep your light on... or make a lot of noise). I myself got killed plenty of times especially by mercs who have can kill over 100 yards. Sitting behind a rock doesn't make an enemy that spotted you suddenly lose sight of you. They know you are there might see parts of your body sometimes and have a lock on you. This lock makes them now even fire into bushes you hid as they know you are there. When seeing mercs for example fight other stalkers you can see this behaviour easily. You are best choice for an ambush is attacking them with a grenade while they traverse. Or killing some off from bushes and then remaining quiet, after a while they lose track of you and go on their business allowing a second attack. As noted it isn't CoD.

overhead wrote:--' I've played all stalker without problem, I play many many FPS and I've never see that !Enemy have overpowered weapon and helmet and I'm just with my MP44 and my shirt...

I always play the black road so no armoru and no weapon besides they crap you find early (worn makarov and a knife) and I manage everytime, you have to develop skill and lowering the difficulty only makes you less succesful. As for stalkers with heavy equipment it is more clear that cheap ammo does little on good armour and less on exo. The low pistol ammo is so weak even a headshot isn't fatal, however good ammo IV/V pierce kill even the most armoured stalker, so buy ammo.

TheRaptorFence wrote:
1.) Trade as often as you can at Zaton instead of Yanov, especially after doing a few sidequests for Beard and Owl. You can jump between the two traders and compare prices, selling at prices averaging 40-50% higher depending on the item. Rule of thumb: Owl buys military and medical items much
higher, Beard buys mutant, food, technological items much higher. Repair items are split between the two. I easily reach 120k per trip out this way.

I'd state it that Owl pays better for 'entertainment' items / information items / full quality military items ... this includes skin magazines, drugs, drug making kits, maps, ammo. He'll only buy almost fully repaired weapons/scopes. The one exception is the useless ammo, which he still buys for more than Beard, but it's only 2 or 3 rubles, so doesn't really matter.

Beard buys everything else.. artifacts, utility, parts, food, garbage, misc.

TheRaptorFence wrote:
7.) Artifacts are swiftly becoming obsolete in the game. They're completely pointless without lead-lined containers in 2.1, and though I haven't tested them much I still find them much less appealing than equipment due to their heavy weight and severe penalties. Not much point in selling them either, as the most I see them go for is around 10k. Rarely worth the continual radiation burst.

I'll have to disagree here though. Artifact hunting may be much less profitable, by design, but artifacts still provide far better effects than equipment. A single artifact can provide approximately double the protection of steel plates, and bleeding reduction, using one slot. Now if you want to go tripping through anomolies, you want to take it off...

Drengor wrote:

TheRaptorFence wrote:
7.) Artifacts are swiftly becoming obsolete in the game. They're completely pointless without lead-lined containers in 2.1, and though I haven't tested them much I still find them much less appealing than equipment due to their heavy weight and severe penalties. Not much point in selling them either, as the most I see them go for is around 10k. Rarely worth the continual radiation burst.

I'll have to disagree here though. Artifact hunting may be much less profitable, by design, but artifacts still provide far better effects than equipment. A single artifact can provide approximately double the protection of steel plates, and bleeding reduction, using one slot. Now if you want to go tripping through anomolies, you want to take it off...

I agree, artifacts main usefulness is in my view to reduce bleeding (fireball/mama's beads/eye). Seriously some enemies can damage you for 5-10% health and cause a bleeding that kills you, like bloodsuckers, pseudo dogs and high pierce ammo from high end stalkers. Also with a strong fire resistance, of lets says 3 or 4 of them i can enter any flame area without the need for a biosuit, I just use the CS3, freedom or sunrise suit I prefer. Weight is not that much of an issue if you use drugs a plenty, especially epinefrine for an assaulter is extremely long lasting (more then a hour). A steel plate has 32 defence, while an eye has 36 or the fireball sports a massive 59! I prefer the eye as wearing two of those generally makes you never bleed unless hit by something like a chimera, which is generaly a death sentence as he does easily 80-90% damage.

However don't forget things like battery or shell that add psy resistance and stamina recovery at the cost of bleeding. They match very well with eyes and allow you to get darn close to poltergeist without damage. In misery know be aware you can encounter sometimes half a dozen burers and their psy emmision stack up! I really like the freedom suit that allows me to handle 2 eye and 2 batteries/shells!

I actually agree with Piot about artifacts. They are usually heavier and less profitable for transport. On a good day I would lose only money for getting artifacts. On a bad day I lose a lot more. I dropped a good condition rifle in the Chemical field once, repair bill was so stiff I need 10 more artifacts to get it paid off.

Keep this going. This is one of the better threads I have seen.

nleksan wrote: The AK-74 (Modern/Camo/blue-tape-on-magazine-version), at least as a sniper, makes for an exceptional choice in long-arm. It can become extremely accurate, and when paired with a PSO-1 4x optic and a suppressor, serves as a highly effective DMR yet retains the closer-ranged combat abilities. It is also inexpensive to buy/repair, maintain, and feed, with 5.45x39 regular and AP ammunition common throughout the game.
I used it as my primary/go-to gun until halfway through Jupiter, only because I'd found that one very special SG550 and had the cash to upgrade it in a similar fashion (as well as having collected a lot of NATO rounds!).

I totally agree with this. In fact the only weapon I found to possibly improve on this idea of a long rifle/pseudo sniper is the Duty camo Akaban. I use that as he describes above but as it is hard to find (Cross your fingers you get one in the corpse pile when you solve the duty founders disappearance) so I would stick with the "blue tape" version for awhile as well.

For the sake of this thread I'll share a little last resort tactic to beat the Iron Forest if new STALKERS are having trouble that cannot lose.

First, make sure to bring your favorite mid/long distance weapons along with whatever it is you will need depending on whatever has spawned in your playthrough this time like psi defense stuff for controllers etc etc. Now, head to the teleport that makes you appear behind the IF next to the mobile home looking building. Once you pop out of the wormhole, quickly smoke your weed or pop your pills or whatever defense you have brought against psi attacks as you are now very close to some powerful muties who wish to melt your brains into slurpee goo and we can not have that happen!

Head to the area where the chain link fence meets the brick buildings and hop onto the first level of ledges, steps whatever it is and once your one that first elevated step make a hard save. Now you must low crouch jump onto the very thin chain link fence though it may not look possible it is. Pnce you land on top make another hard save. Now is kind of tricky. As you slowly work your way forward toward the little brick building in the corner of the IF the game kind of makes it feel like you are about to fall off so you must counter that by pushing into the next direction. It is really hard for me to say in text the feeling along with the visual I mean so you will just have to do this and see yourself. That is why we made those saves!

Once you have made it all the way to the other side you can do little crouch jump bunny hops until you are on top of the little brickhouse in the corner of IF. You are now in a PERFECT vantage point that overlooks the whole IF and almost nothing can get yiy here! If controller alarms start to go off you need only duck behind the barriers around the edges! Zombies cannot hurt you of course. The poltergeists will not come this far allowing easy sniping. The bururs can be tricky of course but just try to hide behind the bricks.

The BEST mutie though and I mean it THE BEST lol is if you are lucky enough to fight a chimera while up here. It is HILARIOUS as they will keep leap attacking you and flying over the building while you gut shot them in the middle of the leap. It is great, miserable fun!

I hope this can help someone!

Edited by: TheTarman

Gotta try that Iron Forest spot.
I normally stay clear of areas where controllers trolling. Their attack gives me motion sickness.

One of the best starting location to find 20k worth of stuff are stashes on shevchenko. There are 5 stashes total, one that is not unmarked after picking.

Don't forget if you play black road the loot on the nearby tower, use the ladder its behind it. It has a repair kit worth almost 10k!

Not sure if anyone knows, but are corpses found in places like the bloodsucker lair, near crashed choppers. Static in Their Loot? Atleast on the same class (I know things like that vary between USS class choice)

Coldavoral wrote: Not sure if anyone knows, but are corpses found in places like the bloodsucker lair, near crashed choppers. Static in Their Loot? Atleast on the same class (I know things like that vary between USS class choice)

Nope. All those items on quest corpses are random in each playtrough.

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I know that one of the four corpses always has an artefact. I don't remember if the loot is identical every time, but they all have a weapon always. And lots of stuff too.

E: Too late.

Edited by: Savikas

It could just be chance then because both times i did the bloodsucker quests on two separate black road starts and found a mosin nagant. PPsh and stg with scope. Odd

EDIT: to clarify, those weapons were found on the same trio of corpses in the room where grouse picks the lock.

Edited by: Coldavoral

I can garantuee that they are random, though dead soldiers do have a smaller selection of weapons, you more likely to find abakan, dragunov, ak-74 etc... I never seen them have double barrels shotguns and mosin nagants. The rest of the stalkers at the bloodsucker tend to have various gear; scoped aks, dragunov etc but also can have crap, similar to mid-high end bandits. I usually find there a lot of AKM, AK-74, Ak105, Aksu for example.

A tip for all the newcomers:

It's about the bloodsucker lair destruction mission. I've seen in numerous STALKER gameplay videos how people place the canister and fight the bloodsuckers on an open field while dying quite a few times. The easiest trick is to move behind the pipes (So You're between the pipes and the metal fence). Bloodsuckers can't attack You and they'll start running around using the same path. You can kill them easily if You know where they will appear.

Another option is this. I place the cannister but never twist it go down the elevator and stand in the corridor by the door Grouse picked. Lob 1 grenade at long range and another just fast rush back into the room stand behind drop closet (bloodsuckers can't reach you) and usually shoot them with a shot gun or the .45 round. You can side step a little so they try to rush and move back and shoot them again. There are 8 bloodsuckers In truth you don't need the cannister at all and you can avoid being WPP merc sniper food. I'm just whack myself as I like putting the cannister there, for nostalgic reasons 'My finger on the button'

This way there is never any gas and I can later go down to clear out critters that roam in there, like zombies. It is more challenging but you can collect the parts without having to wear a biosuit (a regular armour (sunrise/cs3) get wrecked in the toxic). Also sometimes creatures that die of gas go wander down the elevator shaft out the pipe and back down the shaft again =P

Edited by: Nyayr