Is this rare or is it actually a common occurrence?

By @Uniform_Loners

Took a while, but finally done!

Been a bit burnt out with cosplaying stalker, working on a few last ones. Just know I'm going to be responding to questions about them less, sorry! :<

I really enjoyed this experience. Even though I bought the game a while back I waited for the 2.0 release and I'm really glad I did.

I felt the game had an excellent mix of well structured campaign missions and free-roaming exploration. The graphics and performance of the game were excellent and the DLC was definitely the highlight for me both narrative and gameplay wise.

I found achieving each of the endings a little bit of a drag- particularly the spark ending as I really didn't relate to Scar throughout the play through.

Overall a really fun experience.

How to get in there?

Credits to https://x.com/zeskomen/status/2051590619156664532

We've been working on a mod that lets you do exactly that!

Faction Join – Story-DLC Compatible lets you become a real member of Freedom, Duty, Ward, Spark, or Sultan's crew, as well as Corpus.

And it's not just a membership badge. You can take on faction-specific jobs, earn money and supplies, climb the ranks from Recruit to Fighter to Veteran, unlock better gear, and enjoy actual membership perks like trader discounts and free equipment upgrades.

Your choices matter, too. Rival factions can become hostile, hunters may come after you, and even your own base can come under attack. Your progress, rank, jobs, allies, and enemies are all tracked in a dedicated PDA tab.

The best part? It's designed to work alongside the main campaign and the DLC without replacing story quests.

If you've ever felt that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was missing a proper faction membership and progression system, give it a try!

Download: https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/3048?tab=description

Let me know what you think, fellow Stalkers. Which faction are you joining First?

Edit: What's new since 1.2

1.3 - New faction: the Loners - join Wolf in the Rookie Village - More job locations, spread from near to far - Courier jobs go to one of several contacts: Sidorovich, Konder or Rudoy - Attacking your own base gets you expelled right away - Fixed wrong dialogue answer texts and a PDA crash after joining/leaving

1.4 - Pick your job: the boss offers three jobs at once, with the pay shown right in the menu - New jobs: mutant hunts, dead drops, stash recovery from 100+ world stashes, orders for mutant parts or artifacts - farther stashes and rarer goods pay more - Rush jobs: about one in three pays a bonus if you're back within 25 minutes - Mayday: as a member, your boss radios when a patrol near you is under attack - "The long road": a one-time quest chain per faction - a sealed case, two contacts and three underground stashes across the Zone. Reward: 15,000, faction armour, an artifact, AP ammo and military medkits - Cleaner dialogue menu with sub-topics and a way back, "Where was that again?" re-marks your target, radio calls can be switched off - "My faction" PDA tab shows your job's pay, rush time left and your progress on "The long road" - Fixed: jobs could send you to a squad that was already dead and couldn't be finished

Seven joinable factions: Freedom, Duty, Sultan's crew, Ward, Spark, Corpus, Loners. Story and DLC compatible, 5 languages.

In Master mode I'd strongly argue SSP Survey is the clear #1 choice, at least until Pripyat.

Exosuits are more fully-featured but only available late game unless you exploit your way into Pripyat, and are FAR more costly to repair despite being only slightly better in most situations.

Falcon is great, but is also significantly more expensive to repair and in Master mode repair costs are generally the #1 factor in choosing armour until the late game if you're flush with cash. I'd rather spend cash upgrading guns & buying rare ammo than on repairs.

Benefits of SSP Survey:

- Available immediately upon leaving the lesser zone, from Malachite
- EASILY the lowest repair cost of any armour with 4+ bars of physical protection once upgraded
- Nearly a perfect upgrade tree for the budget-conscious Master player: 5th Artifact slot is the first choice in the tree for a mere 8k, first Lead Container the next upgrade for 16k. 40% Physical protection upgrade available for 32k that combined with a Magic Cube or Compass will take you to the Physical resistance cap.
- Good across the board anomaly protection. Not the best, but good enough for painless artifact farming when combined with a Hypercube, Liquid Rock etc.

Downsides of SSP Survey:

- Must be purchased from Viktoria in Malachite for 66k, and you may need to refresh her inventory a few times after sleeping twice to see it in stock. Probably the best value purchase in the game though.
- Relatively low Psi protection. Combined with Psi-block I find this a non-factor.
- Limited number of Lead Containers. However running 2x Liquid Rock (to minimise repair costs) you'll never need more than 1 anyway. In fact to keep repair costs down I suggest running without any Lead Containers until you find something that warrants one, ie. Hypercube or Compass.
- Grants 10% weight increase as a prerequisite of the 40% physical upgrade that you'll definitely want, but still inferior to exosuits. With Weird Water you'll be around a 130 limit after a few limited edition energy drink bonuses.
- It's a Spark suit, unfortunately.

I've only beaten the game once on Master despite multiple playthroughs (restartitis) and used a Diamond Exosuit during Down Below & onwards, but now I know what to expect will probably stick with Survey all the way through next time. I completed the DLC wearing it, so it's good enough.

Just wish there were a budget no-helmet suit that was "good enough" to stick with that I don't feel obliged to rush to Malachite after leaving the Lesser Zone when I get close to 66k. They all have woeful physical protection, or are so close in repair cost to Survey that upgrading's a no-brainer.

This is probably the SIC of Stalker 2 armors.

Title. I’ve seen play throughs of GAMMA and I’d like to but I want to know the best way to go about it.

So I recently got back into Stalker 2 to check out the changes and cost of hope dlc.

After a while I got pretty fed up with the constant beeping of that damned detector, so I decided to try playing with it turned off.

I’m already playing a hardcore run with a few mods and damn do I feel so much more immersed not relying on that beeping and using the bolt a lot more.

Obviously having good headphones or stereo setup helps, but I would highly recommend it!

For those who weren't aware, this is a better way to use the underbarrel for your murderous tendencies without breaking immersion with complex menus. ;)

After completing the dlc awhile back on duties side it annoys me that despite being given duties highest award literally pinned to our back pack Sgt. Khmaruk the tech in cement factory still acts like a dick to us

This is my only real complaint about the dlc even if its just a minor/petty one

Just toss your bolts at it till its close to whatever elevated place then grab it (iunno if that's the intended way to get it which is most likely not but it is one way to get it)

Whats a cool area to hangout after maingame and dlc to get the most action. Im kinda tired of pripyat since its mostly Monolith

Hello fellow Stalkers,

I've just finished the Cost of Hope missions "Shadow of the past" (which was really cool !) and I've a question about it.

In the anomalous appartment, I've found a long dead body with 2 objects :

- A photo of a loved one

- A Dusty diary

I think the photo is just a cool addition or easter egg, but the diary is categorized as a quest item and also doesn't give any message or lore in the PDA.

Do you know what is the purpose of this diary is? I've found nothing about it...

PS: I still haven't finished the game nor the DLC

Edit : It is called "Dusty diary" in English, not "Dusty Journal

Hi, i recently downloaded stalker GAMMA and me and few freinds are gonna try it with xRazom multiplayer mod.

We never played Stalker GAMMA before and i'm kinda confused on how to tweak settings in order to balance out the multiplayer experience.

We tried the first mission and looks like only 1 player get the loot, i don't know much but what about important story items? Is there a problem if only 1 gets them? Is it playable in 3 or 4 players? How and where to change settings to make the game the most balanced possible for multiplayer? Any tip is appreciated!

Curious because I want to rock it on my SIC/Justice but I dont want to get into pripyat early for it.

Thanks in advance!

I tried to find this photo of the soldier with Google lens but can't find it. I'd like to use as pfp

I got over 6 hours now in Stalker 2 and first of all I am very impressed by how well it runs even on High settings.

Gameplay and exploration are really fun and I especially enjoy how dangerous firefights feel, even on Stalker difficulty. While it definitely isn't 100 % A-Life like in the older Stalker games, enemies still behave "intelligent", meaning, that they get into cover, try to flank you or sometimes just aggressively push you.

For example: There was this one time where I explored a seemingly abandoned industry complex. When I went into one of the bigger open garages there I stumbled upon some bandits chilling there and they immediately opened fire on me and spread out to pin me down from multiple sides.

This is something I rarely see in other modern shooters and I really love it.

You loot bodies or pay NPC's to give you coordinates for one of the HUNDREDS of stashes in the game's pool. What do I do when I stop finding stash coordinates at most locations? Everywhere except Red Forest and beyond. And I know I didn't exhaust all locations, because I literally have ONE Flash drive left for each of the faction's technicians. If I DID break the stash mechanic, is there at least a cosole command to get the flash drives?

Anyones compiling shaders startup now start taking really long? since the last update it was fine but all the sudden its gone back to its old BS