There are a lot of misconceptions held by quite a few of those who play STALKER. This article is intended to correct as many of these as possible. It is an ongoing work; there's lots of stuff we know that ain't so. Warning: Some spoilers, obviously.
Artifacts:
Some artifacts are generated by anomalies after a day based on a probability calculation, and every day thereafter until the quota for the anomaly is filled. Some are found in secret stashes, some on bodies. Some are randomly spawned when you break a crate. And some artifacts are put in the game by the devs, in special crates/cases or in the wild.
The probability calculation for generation of artifacts by anomalies is flawed; you probably won't see a lot more after the first day.
In the vanilla game, Moonlights, Flashes, and Sparklers can only appear between midnight and 5 a.m. in the wild, either near locations that have Electro anomalies, or when deliberately placed in the game's all.spawn file by the devs. An example of such a placement: The Monolith headquarters.
Also, breaking a crate can yield an Electro artifact, but you won't know that until you return to the area during the wee hours of the morning.
Whether crate-spawn, anomaly-spawn, or dev-spawn (heh), all Electro artifacts switch offline if the in-game hour is not between midnight and 5 a.m. -- even ones you drop on the ground, once you go beyond 50 meters from them. And they won't switch back online until the next midnight, and they might roll somewhere else.
In some cases a crate-spawn will skip the test to see if you are greater than 50 meters, so you might see it anyway. Typically you will have to move away and then come back, even if the hours are suitable for Electro artifact visibility.
No, that glowing red object produced when you die in an anomaly is NOT an artifact. It's a piece of your skeleton, with an anomaly effect.
Artifact protection is applied to the amount of damage after the protection of the suit. If the suit has 50% protection against bullets (fire_wound_protection), and you have 25% protection in artifacts, then you receive Damage x (1-0.5) x (1-0.25) or 0.375 Damage, not Damage x [1-(0.5+0.25)] or 0.25 Damage.
Maybe a better example would be: 50% shock protection from armor and 90% protection from Battery artifacts still yields 5% of the original shock damage applied to you every time the Electro fires.
Guns:
The in-game default accuracy display for weapons is misleading. For example, the Big Ben (Big Boy) is shown as having zero accuracy, but it is actually more accurate than just about any other handgun. To see the first-shot accuracy without the recoil and rate-of-fire adjustments, use the Weapon Stats option in the ZRP Modifier.
There are two components to aiming: the accuracy of the gun and the inaccuracy of the Marked One's stance. Accuracy of the gun depends on the default for the weapon, adjusted for the different ammo types and for the gun's condition. Essentially, the shots will strike inside the inner ends of the crosshairs.
The Marked One's accuracy component is added to the gun's accuracy. No matter what anyone tells you, iron sights are best (Marked One's "inaccuracy" contribution is 20 times less than standing in vanilla), although recoil makes a difference on subsequent shots. The crosshair settling time can still apply, so wait a moment without moving before pulling the trigger in zoomed mode.
The following is a relative comparison of accuracy with a low-end weapon and a high-end one, assuming a 1.0 k_disp multiplier for the ammo (which is not true of the PM; see below). Shorter is better.
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-- The weapon's basic accuracy
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-- Marked One's inaccuracy contribution
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PM (Makarov) pistol in 100% condition, ignoring ammo (fire_dispersion_base = 0.4):
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Gauss rifle in 100% condition (fire_dispersion_base = 0.01):
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Marked One standing (vanilla disp_base = 0.8):
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Marked One aiming via sights or scope (vanilla disp_aim = 0.04):
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Marked One shooting from the hip with PM:
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Marked One aiming with PM:
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Marked One shooting from the hip with Gauss rifle:
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Marked One aiming with Gauss rifle:
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What makes the accuracy even worse is the ammo. While gauss rifle ammo has a 1X multiplier, PM ammo has a 3X multiplier. So take that red line for the PM data and triple it!
Marked One shooting from the hip with PM, adjusted for 3X ammo (see note):
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Marked One aiming with PM, adjusted for 3X ammo:
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Note: A space was inserted to allow the line to wrap in a smaller window. Expand your browser if needed to compare. You can test this effect yourself in a modded game by changing the k_disp value for +P+ ammo (ammo_9x18_pmm) in gamedata\config\weapons\weapons.ltx from 3 to 1. Then switch between normal 9x18 ammo and 9x18 +P+ (AP) ammo in a weapon that uses those ammo types, like a PM pistol (Makarov), and watch the crosshairs change.
And no, the difficulty setting does NOT determine how often YOUR shots hit the target. It roughly determines how often the NPC shots hit you, maximum if the NPC is within hit_probability_max_dist (in gamedata\config\weapons\weapons.ltx), which defaults to a mere 10 meters. It drops off from there. Set it to a higher value (like 100 or 1000) for a tougher game at any difficulty level.
Yes, there are mods that claim this affects the player's accuracy as well, but these mods also change other parameters like the fire_dispersion_base of some weapons and/or the k_disp of ammo. In my tests with adjusting this hit_probability_max_dist variable, I was able to headshot an NPC 30 meters away in one shot with hit_probability_max_dist=10 with an Abakan, while setting it to 1000 resulted in my needing 4 shots with all other parameters unchanged. No, that's not scientific, but it is my experience -- the same kind of "proof" as the ones who claim otherwise.
The placebo effect might be in play: You expect the adjustment to improve things, so you tell yourself it's better. But don't go by feelings. Go by fact.
A simple proof: Later, more accurate weapons will still hit within the crosshairs, but those crosshairs will be much closer together. And don't forget that when the image zooms, so does the hit circle. The accuracy improvement may not be as obvious.
The MM/AS/ZRP 1.05 RC1 demo has a few features to support experimenting. You can add an invulnerability artifact, you can tweak the parameters of the player's contribution, you can tweak the ammo component, you can even check the NPC's health as you ping away at him.
Memory:
>> I have more than 2 GB of RAM, but the game says I'm running out of memory?
By default on 32-bit operating systems like XP or Vista 32-bit, an application can only use 2 GB of RAM. There's a tweak for Vista using bcdedit to extend this a bit. For XP, lower texture quality or use static lighting in resource-intensive places like Army Warehouses. Look up "process space" for details.
Myth: You need 2 GB RAM to play this game.
Fact: No, you just need enough page file (virtual memory) size. However, the more RAM you have (up to 4 GB), the less swapping of data to/from the hard drive, which may improve the frame rate.
Mutants:
Searching a mutant body will show an attitude that is actually the one from the last human body searched.
There is only one psydog in the Red Forest. Kill it and the phantom pseudodogs disappear. But they also disappear if you get out of the psydog's range.
All controllers do have a ranged attack, where they grab your point of view, pull it toward them, then throw it back. But not all controllers use this attack right away.
Controllers do have a melee (close range) attack: Your mental health drops. If you are running on novice mode, this is negligible; you will recover faster than you will lose mental health. If you are playing at Master difficulty, you will see the brain icon (green, yellow, red) appear on your HUD. You can also watch your mental health drop; it is the blue bar on your inventory screen in vanilla. That is NOT your armor condition; to see that, click the Marked One's image on the right and look at the green bar in the armor stats box in the middle of the screen.
When that blue bar completely disappears, you die.
Psi Helmet:
The unadjusted psi helmet is NOT as good as the calibrated one, but it is far better than no helmet at all. With no helmet, your health takes damage in a psi emission field like that in Yantar and Red Forest. With an uncalibrated helmet, you will get the yellow screen effect sooner and with more intensity. You will see more mutant phantoms in Red Forest.
An alternative form of protection in vanilla against psi emission fields is rupture protection, believe it or not. You'll take less damage by equipping Goldfish, Gravi, Wrenched, or Kolobok artifacts, and wearing suits with good protection against mutants.
Storyline and Quests:
Exiting from the Agroprom underground via the wrong exit will not complete the "Find Strelok's group's stash" task in vanilla. This is fixed in the ZRP.
You must search Ghost's body to get the objective to see Guide, but you must first have talked to Mole at the entrance to the Agroprom tunnels west of the Institute, or searched his body before going below. Merely going back to the tunnels and getting Strelok's flash drive does not work.
Unique items:
Items in the vanilla game that are marked unique may not really be one-of-a-kind. Some one-of-a-kind items are not marked unique, like the Beretta found on Bullet's friend. Some non-unique items with the upgrade symbol (white arrow on green background) include the Sniper SGIs found on Twig and Leshiy, the Kombez Freedom M2 outfit (found in the Freedom armory and on a secret), and the Tunder/Groza modified for 5.45x39 ammo (used by Barin and occasionally sold by Sid, up until the first time you talk to Wolf after rescuing Nimble). You can also get a new "tourist suit" from Sidorovich each time he wants a Night Star.
