Pacing and progression

== Priorities ==
OP-2 is mind-bogglingly huge; anything under 300 hours for 100% can be considered a speedrun or at least an optimized playthrough. The original SoC storyline is just a tiny prologue or intro for the main game. There's enough content for months and months of gameplay. A lot of it is accessible without any guides and wikis, but a lot needs prior knowledge, and you're expected to watch video guides and read wikis. It's just the way it is.
You'll visit each location hundreds of times eventually, so don't mind delaying any quests you'd like to delay. You will always have to do something else in this mod. During the first 100 hours of the game, you can't possibly comprehend how huge it is.
SoC storyline unlocks a lot of traders, chain quests and other stuff, so you might want to give it priority to most of the side quests. In particular, shutting the X-16 brain down unlocks exosuits in the game (enemies start dropping them batteries appear in Sakharov's stock), so it's probably better to avoid large fights till that moment because you would miss on all that loot otherwise.
Making money is significantly easier with all vanilla locations and Bourbon unlocked (the trader who comes into Central Pripyat after beating the SoC storyline; he's accepting broken Monolith exosuits for a good price).
Refer to the Noteworthy items and selling prices for more information.
== Zone evolution ==
During the game, enemies routinely come and go to and from the certain camps on the locations; the normal spawns in the Zone are changing according to the plot events. Some locations like Jupiter only get populated with NPCs after beating certain quests, in case of Jupiter it's Collective trip (Buusty's quest line).
Some events result in upgrading certain enemies across the entire Zone. For example after Combat, rookie bandits start carrying "Gyurza" and SKS.
At the start of the Black Doctor's exoskeleton storyline, in the quest called "Black Angel", the "enemy evolution" happens, which mostly affects normal Monolith spawns. They become much more heavily armored and armed. This mostly obsoletes smaller calibers rifles, and demands carrying big guns.
After talking to Akill in Article No.58 and starting the storyline that follows, Blackwater mercenaries arrive into the game. They are also heavily armored (although generally use lighter weapons than the advanced Monolith). They only have a few normal spawns outside of the quests (hospital in Eastern Pripyat and Jupiter checkpoint), so most of your encounters will be related to the Article No.58 storyline.
== Plot directions ==
Regardless of what you're doing in the early game, your single bottleneck to progress the game further to the mid-game will be The casket and safe storyline. It will unlock Undiscovered Land and the linear part of the story in that location.
After finishing the Undiscovered Land part, you will gain access to the Warlab in Territory exploration. Reaching it is a major fork where the game plot splits into two huge parts:
* Narodnaya Solyanka plot: continue with Fang's quests and the Missing Girl storyline. This unlocks locations to the northwest, such as Red Forest, Limansk, Hospital, Generators etc, and the quests related to them. This part is mostly not dependent on the other.
* OP-2 plot: Complete the Scientific treatises (the last treatise is hidden in the Warlab), and start the Black Doctor's exoskeleton storyline. This will open up locations to the northeast, such as Eastern Pripyat, Jupiter, Zaton, Kurchatov-37, and the quests related to them. Certain questlines in this part, such as Sniper, depend on advancing the NS plot.
These two aren't mutually exclusive, but you can give one a priority. It's recommended to follow the OP-2 plotline first at least initially, as it offers a lot of money early into it, and also the access to traders like Dimak and quests like Mystery of the islands and The monsters' parts (Artifact Klondike) with huge rewards.
These two paths eventually converge again in the Wave of Mutants storyline, which serves as the gate to the late game.
== 100%-ing the game == 
The main achievement of the game is called S.T.A.L.K.E.R., it covers about 95% of the game content. If you're a completionist, you're unlikely to get it on the first try. You're practically guaranteed to miss something unless you're really careful and plan ahead with the use of prior knowledge, provided you don't drop the game somewhere mid-game due to the sheer size, of course. Many things are virtually impossible to find or even know about without guides.
However if you do attempt an achievement run, keep in mind that there are almost no useless items in this mod. Eventually NPCs will want everything for their cyclic and chain quests, even broken knives and silencers. Keep them in your stash and don't throw away. Never sell any items you don't know how to get in large quantities.
Other major achievements that cover a few quests and secrets that aren't in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. are:
* New Game - complete all available chain quests; required items are obtained in quests. 
* Card Player, given for collecting all 36 cards from Kuznetsov's deck.
* Vivid Nightmare - only play on Nightmare difficulty, never switching to easier ones.
* No-Cheater - never resort to built-in "cheating" features like the superjump in the options.
== About hoarding == 
This game is infamous for having hoarding quests in which you have to obtain and turn in ludicrous amount of stuff. In practice, all this is optional and only required for:
* The Secret Weapon of the Monolith storyline (one of a three dozen major ones)
* Chain quests, intended for achievement completionists and those who want to obtain some rewards earlier than they become available in the story.
No other storylines other than the Secret Weapon of the Monolith require massive hoarding. There are also repeatable quests, which you can complete for some rewards if you like this type of stuff.
=== Stuff you need to keep ===
If you don't like hoarding, you can simply sell most stuff to traders or give it in for cyclics. You will only lose the achievements and the Secret Weapon of the Monolith storyline. Don't sell obvious story-related items like PDAs or notes; giving them in for cyclics is fine.
The only non-obvious story related thing you must keep is the Cloaking exoskeleton and the High capacity battery for it. You'll need it in the late Solyanka story during the Ambush. There are two ways to obtain it:
* as a reward for the Controller's brains quest
* in a cabin of the huge excavator in the Pripyat Dungeons' main dome.
There are also some non-unique story related items that you can sell. It's not recommended, as obtaining the second copy is possible but can be super hard or just tedious.
* Sledgehammer you get in Wolf's razor. You'll need it in working condition in Between a rock and a hard place as soon as you unlock Radar and switch off the Brain Scorcher. After the quest, you won't need it.
* Ghost's suit found on Ghost's body in X-16 needs to be given to Sakharov for his one-time cyclic quest in exchange for the recipe. This recipe is needed to finish Wulf's embryo and Assassination of the Shadow of the Monolith much later.
* Anomaly capsules and mutant embryos, 3 of each type. You need them in the late game to complete Sakharov's chain quest in order to finish Wulf's embryo and the Sniper storyline with it. You won't need more than 3 of each, and the game will reward you with those in excessive quantities.
** Alternatively, you can obtain the Jumping pseudogiant's embryo itself without the recipe in Winsor's chain quest.
* Golden chunk quest spawns 16 artifacts but you only need to find 10 to finish it. It's recommended to find the extra ones and keep them, because you will need them in the late Sniper storyline for the Components search: Part 2.
Other than that, you can sell unique guns, armors, artifacts etc, as you please.
=== Hoarding run ===
If you're still going to do the chains and the Secret Weapon of the Monolith, make sure to check the chain quests requirements in advance and never sell anything you don't know how to get in large quantities.
There's no need to rush every single chain immediately. All these hoarding quests are intended as low-intensity tasks running along the main ones, not instead of them. The game is truly gigantic and provides you with more than enough runway to collect all this ridiculous amount of stuff without rushing.
This is probably the only game known to humanity that requires a personal secretary to keep track of everything it has. Combine and stack high-intensity quests with low-intensity ones when possible. Collect items and make photos along with fighting, instead of making dedicated runs.
Category:Core mechanics
Category:Guides