Stashes, Tips and Secrets

[fragger]

 ;D ;D

Sharp wits coupled with cutting-edge technology - unbeatable!

Imagine what you could do with a pen, seeing as how it's mightier. You could really write some havoc ;D

[RedRaven]

I found the knife more useful against snorks than shooting at them, its simply a case of getting the timing right from when they jump to attack then a quick combo attack with each mouse button does the trick.
Haven't had the balls to get close enough to a Burer to try it on them, very low crouch behind cover, peeking out with either the Q or E key to aim at the head for a qick shot or two does the trick well enough for me, the Hunting Shotgun with upgrades for recoil and rifled barrel works well, with the rifled barrel it cannot use buck-shot any more, only the solid slugs and you only get two shots before needing to reload but that doesn't take too long.

On the subject of Exoskeleton Armour suits- I never used them in the previous two games, too expensive and no running in them. But in CoP one of the Achievements you can get is "Weapon Systems Expert", you get it when you have found all 3 tool kits for Cardan, it enables him to make a Special modification to an Exo-suit which enables you to run again, Bonus :-X .


One last thing, in the "first Impressions" thread I mentioned collecting all 100 Zone Survival Tips, I now have screen shots of 96 of them. The 4 left to get are 7 , 73 , 82 , 88.  As soon as I have them I can put together a full list to post for every one to see. Also working on collecting all the Achievements to make a chart of them too.

[Art Blade]

The burer: my first encounter with already two of them was when cleaning out the tunnel in Jupiter (job given by the guy who stands guard in your quarters downstairs the railway station). I saved the game and did all kinds of stunts to take them down, involving 15 hand grenades and a lot of buckshot with my Eliminator (super duper shotgun with a scope on top lol) and so on, took a lot of time, too. For the fun of it, I reloaded and did it again, this time they threw massive objects at me, like gas tanks the size of a submarine and crates big enough to stash an elephant away in them, if cut into small enough pieces, though, and they managed to disarm me (I still killed them with other weapons I had on me). The third time, for the fun of it, I decided to just walk (can't run in my exo) up to one of them, only the knife in my hand which can't drop, and I stood there waiting for the ba$t@rd version of Yoda to blink and slashed his guts out. A matter of seconds, really. Never been so easy, the knife is my new favourite weapon when it is a matter of "close and personal" :)

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[RedRaven]

Nicely done, it was those two in the tunnel I used solid slugs from Hunting shotgun on, not been keeping any grenades found, always forget to use them anyway!

Just had a very odd thing happen at Yanov station, found the Oasis and took it back to the scientists at the bunker then went to sell my loot and get more ammo form Yanov, soon as walked through the door people started shooting so legged it downstairs to where the personal locker & bed are and hid there until the sounds of gunfire ended. Was not able to pull out any of my weapons at all, after a short while an announcement said yanov was safe and open again. Went back upstairs to find 3 dead bandits and 3 dead stalkers on the floor but for some reason all the Stalkers had gone from green to yellow on my map - weird!
Have reloaded previous save to see if it is going to happen again and try to figure out what's going on.

[Art Blade]

crazy, indeed. No idea what might have caused that... or wait... you didn't have some of those Russian blinis and a bag full of garlic for supper, did you? You know they don't have those environmental suits protecting them from gaseous anomalies, don't you?  ;D

Re: knife. I was just walking around in Jupiter Station to get those papers when a handful of madmen with exos and G37 and that kind of gear ambushed me... I took down three of them, including the exo, with my knife alone! The rest ate compact lead birdseed from my Eliminator. Literally blew them away  :)

And then, looting those corpses (I already had the content of three secret stashes in my backpack) my weight was worth around 113 kg (I have that Goldfish artefact wich adds 12kg of packing space to those 90kg of my upgraded exo) I was stuck with massive overweight. I opened the inventory and it was either G or F key which I hit for some reason, and the game crashed... back to quicksave now.

[Art Blade]

Proof of concept: knifed Chimaera  :-*  ;D (by the way, the armour was already damaged because I had a fight against a group of well-equipped mercs before, and the chimaera got its claws across my front once or twice, which made the symbol pop up green)

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[Art Blade]

Helo Crash Site @ Mine Field

That Helo in the very south of Jupiter (map 2) is apparently unreachable. You cannot find a way around it, you have to cross the mine field. I was unable to detect those mines, shooting the ground didn't set them off, neither did hand grenades. A single mine can turn your armour into scraps of armour. You don't want to know what it can do to you. So, here goes:

Enter the area and keep to the left wall (in the picture it is to the right) until you can squeeze through a gap between wall and fence, reaching the helo where there are no mines. I only set off one mine and survived it, well, I wear an exo.

Now the fun part: For some reason (maybe it won't happen to you) a big flock of fat pigs, boars and a few snorks desperately wanted to catch me where I was (I climbed the wreck of the helo just in case). The following display of "seek and destroy" was a cracker  ;D As I had hoped, they did a splendid job removing quite probably every mine there was.  ;D

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edit: typo...

[PZ]

That is my favorite description yet!  :-X

[Art Blade]

cheers :) It was unexpected, and it happened after I had inspected the helo (part of the main mission). It is possibly a scripted event.

So even better if you didn't set off those mines, without your armour gone, without your flesh barely sticking to your bones, and without having cleared the path for that flock of monstruous carnivores that show up just the moment you least need it, already drooling in anticipation of chewing at your unprotected face. Now, instead, you can sit on the helo like a distinguished person on a balcony at the opera, enjoying a terrific view, yet trying very hard to prevent that silly smile to show on your face while watching those buggers, tempted to applaud at how very expertly they blow themselves to smithereens.  ;D

[RedRaven]

Found these earlier, decent quality maps with English translation of the Russian text. 5 maps in total, Zaton, Jupiter, Pripyat, X8 lab and Pripyat underground.

http://stalker.filefront.com/files/Stalker/Call_of_Pripyat/Maps;11173

[PZ]

Nice find Red - the maps look great!  :-X

[Art Blade]

I can't download them (nothing happens) :(

***

Well, a tip for making good money:

DON'T sell anything but weapons and information to Owl. The guy in Jupiter usually doesn't give you as much for anything as Owl, so better take a trip to Zaton. This was how to save money. How to make money: Sell everything but weapons to stalkers. They pay a LOT of money for every kind of ammo and medical stuff. If you pick up weapons, unload them, collect the ammo, and sell it to stalkers. Like that even rotten weapons become interesting (mostly they are loaded). Repairing weapons for money and then selling them usually gives you very small profit, better leave weapons behind if they have more than two notches off their status bar.

[PZ]

Sorry to hear that you can't get the maps, Art - one thing I noticed is that there are 6-8 scripts that try to run when on the download site.  Some of them are probably necessary for the download to start.

On a related note, for anyone using Firefox and download sites like Rapidshare and Megaupload, this addon skips unnecessary pages for quicker downloads.

This is what the publisher says:

Wherever you need to click through ads or wait for countdowns, SkipScreen will be there to make your life easier. SkipScreen automatically clicks through the hoops to get to the content you want.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11243

[Art Blade]

thanks, PZ, sounds interesting. Did you try it?

[PZ]

Yes, I have it installed - was one of the Mozilla recommended addons.  However, when you read the reviews, some caution you to do the install through Firefox addon manager rather than through the executable available on the publishers web site.  The reason is that an Ask toolbar is automatically installed unless you check the box not to do so.

Installing from Mozilla was flawless, and I tried it at megaupload - worked perfectly.  While you still have to wait, Skipscreen automatically starts the download, allowing you to do other things without waiting (and forgetting) that you have a download click to attend to.  Over 3 million downloads and a 5-star rating, so it is probably safe, but no guarantees. 

[Art Blade]

thanks, mate :) Will check it out, but not right away.

[Art Blade]

Tip: way of the blade (killing any creature that chases you)

Those pesky mutants will try to flank and surround you. If you stay put, you'll most certainly suffer more or less brutal damage. If you run away, they will chase you until they get you. So there is one simple way of the blade... walk backwards and use the left mouse button (quick hacks with the knife) and keep changing directions respectively turn often. Try to face the creature and hit it with the knife. Like that, I don't waste ammo nor do I degrade my weapons on lower creatures. Like that, I kill rats, dogs, pigs, and boars.

Creatures that leap at you or use long range effects (controller, burer, ghosts, snorks, blood suckers, whatever) shy away if you run towards them, trying to put some distance between you and them, until they are up close and personal... and on the edge of your knife  ;D You can't even drop the knife, and it doesn't exhaust you if you keep slashing like a maniac.

Basically there is nothing that withstands the knife. Don't stand still, move, turn, go backwards, forward... if they chase you, go backwards. If they prefer distance, home in on them. If they jump, just do a sidestep... and watch them sail past you, then go after them.

Have fun, and godspeed  ;D

Dog fight. No more stray dogs in Pripyat!

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[Art Blade]

End Game

by the time I had got to the extraction point my weapon had degraded by around 40% and my exosuit by about 30%. So before you set off make sure you have more than enough ammo and medkits because you will need them!

I've amassed 200k+ RU so I bought another exo from Owl (40k) and upgraded it exactly the way I did my current one. Weighs only 15kg and has been upgraded to 90kg weight allowance. I'm carrying that around as a fresh backup exo  ;D

Then I have three G37 upgraded exactly identical with 100% accuracy. That leaves plenty of room for ammo and artefacts and perhaps a few different weapons. I hope it helps me  ;D

[Art Blade]

I found the UFO some stalkers were talking about. Examining it triggers a new mission. You find it in Jupiter, top left corner of the map. Just walk around the anomaly field and behind it at the same height level as the anomaly field you'll see it.
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[deadman1]

Does anyone know where I can find an "EYE" artifact? I´m still in Janow and have looked in all of the anomalies.

[Art Blade]

As far as I know it's a fire-related artefact. I'm pretty sure that I got it a couple of times when I was around very hot anomalies, like the one to the top left corner in Jupiter (the map where the Janow station is) or the burnt farmstead.

[RedRaven]

Its a tear drop shaped, thermal anomoly spawned artefact. As Art says try the burnt farmstead, or the Boiler anomoly.
I never managed to get Eye from the farmstead only fireballs. Did get a couple from the Boiler, but that could be just a case of timing as the other Stalkers also collect them.

[deadman1]

Thanks guys  :-X

[Art Blade]

There might be a trick to check for artefacts. But first, this info here:

Somewhere in Jupiter is a stash at a Cement/Concrete Factory I believe it was  (haha, I have to guess the English name and I can't even look it up now). It is on your PDA, the very northern circle facing a road junction. if you climb one of those large silos, on top of the roof somewhere (have to jump up to climb on a little higher level) there you will find batteries for the Gauss rifle.

Now, there is a more important stash, I'll tell you why in a minute. Remember the crash site at the acid swamp? There is a tunnel opening in a slope, follow it to the very end. You will pass an opening in the ceiling shortly before you get there, so walk on, don't go upstairs (where that horrorshow moment of sleeping mutants RedRaven engraved on video is) but go to the dead end. On the floor are pharmaceuticals, among which you'll find two packs of an experimental drug that enables you to survive an emission in the open. (If it's not there, then I have no idea where I got it from. But later you can buy them from one of the scientists :) )

Now to the artefacts and the importance of those drugs.

Go to an anomaly field (boiler anomaly) immediately (use a guide) after an emission -or- go there any time and use quicksave a lot. Wait for an emission ;D try to spend your time close to the anomaly field and use quicksave! You want to be able to reload the start of an emission. When it comes (wait for the emission warning), do one of those drugs. You'll pass out (screen goes black) and moments later the black screen goes back to normal. You'll get a notification that the mission to find shelter during an emission is accomplished.

And right before you might have spawned random new artefacts. ;D Reload and reload and reload until the right artefact has spawned. ;)

Make sure you have LOADS of thermal protection (you may want to use artefacts here) so that your armour won't melt away.

[Art Blade]

When in free play,

for some reason the stalkers flee from the launderette when an emission is imminent. I found out that they usually try to hide in a staircase of a tall building just down the road (NE) and to the right (W) but they always die there (there is shelter on the fourth or so floor, need to run up the stairs all the way and enter into a hallway, but they never make it). Keep your eyes peeled for grey dots (mostly 2) on the ground floor, mostly one of the stalkers is outside on the street, the other guy is in the staircase. They usually have a lot to loot... quick and easy... fetch it before other stalkers do, and return it to the mechanic for repairs, then stash it away. Made a lot of money out of that  ;D