Observations

NOTE: Please delete or move if already posted somewhere or if I violated something? AFAIK I didn't see a post with all of the points in one spot just trickled around. I hope this is okay...

I wanted to post some of the little things I've learned playing this incredible mod. Nothing here is criticism, more of hints etc. All of these things pertain to the main story arc of the game as I haven't finished past that point yet.

1. Artefact recipes that you can see in your Diary tab does not actually work. You need to have it in the encyclopedia tab either under Artefact Modification / Recipe.
   

   Example:

2. Don't sell all of your weapons/armor/misc items, at some point in the game you will find that someone will be interested in certain items. Try and find a way to store it for later or save 1 or 2 of each. You'll be thankful you did. (Especially artefacts!)

   Item example:

3. Try and follow the quest directions as best as you can. Don't deviate from them. Quest can also spawn unique spawns that are quest locked, even if they seem like it's not.

   Quest Example 1:

   Quest Example 2:

4. Cars/Trucks that you can enter can be driven but you have to start the engine. By default the ] key is used for engine start.
   
   
5. Aim for the head. I know this seems obvious, however this applies to all animals and mutants as well. 1 well placed shot to the head will do more damage to a bloodsucker compared to many shots to the body.
   
   
6. Shotguns are amazing. And realistic, a couple of buck shots will absolutely wreck pure havoc on a bloodsucker

   More:

   
   
7. Higher tier artefacts weigh a lot more compared to low tier artefacts. Not a huge deal as the pro's heavily outweigh (pun not intended) this fact but if you're not careful you can easily find yourself unable to loot as much because you're not used to the extra kg.
   
   
8. Radiation will damage/degrade your armor/suit. So if you have an expensive armor that you just created you might want to consider not wearing it doing menial tasks like artefact hunting or just traveling from location to location to stop the degradation.

   More:

   
   
9. When changing keymaps or any kind of settings, you must save and then exit the game itself. This will push the changes to the saves. If your game crashes before you graceful exit, the game will NOT save those changes and will have to keep changing it back. Learned this the hard way when I kept crashing because of some kind of problem with bloodsuckers killing me.

   More:

And that's that. Again sorry if this is not allowed, I didn't see many of these points mentioned in a single post and thought it be nice to post this up. No hard feelings if not allowed.

Thanks!

Hi StonksGoUp. No need to apologize, it is always good to hear what different people think about StalkerSoup, and especially what their experience of the game has been. You raise some interesting points and some useful tips that new (and not-so-new) players will hopefully find helpful. Even those of us who have been playing StalkerSoup for more years that we care to admit, often forget some of the the basics, so it is always useful to have an occasional reminder.

Thanks, StonksGoUp, for your comprehensive hands-on report, and I look forward to seeing more from you as you progress through our favorite game

1. Your observation on recipes not working from the diary is a good one, as diary notes found from others on artect modification won't necessarily give you the actual working data to do so. A note on this has now been added to the PDA Guide, which will appear in the next patch  

3. You're right in that the game is very dialogue-driven, and it's important to follow instructions closely as they're usually based on the informant's experience. Info on that specific Night Star you were looking for has been clarified within Sid's dialogue for the next patch

6. Yes, bloodsuckers are terrifying, and as you progress through the game you'll meet stalkers who'll tell their own tales of them, the philosophy of a trainer specializing in bloodsucker post-trauma, and the diary of a stalker who transitioned...

9. Thanks for this info too. It'll be added to the Installation Guide :-)

Finally, if you'd prefer your post to be in the 'Game Gudes' section, please go [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], create a 'New Topic', and repost it. We'll do the necessary tidying up, and it'll free you to edit and add more to it later on

Thanks guys! Appreciate the kind words! I will most certainly update any new findings and such