Obscure mechanics

== Mushroom spawns ==
You can stumble upon Fly amanitas on some maps. They can be used to trade with Kholod at the Swamps. You can also eat one.
About 80 mushrooms appear under trees each day at 10:00PM, randomly spread over 300+ fixed spawns in 11 maps. If you didn't pick up all 80, old ones disappear and the new crop respawns, distributed randomly. Respawning only triggers if you're awake at 10PM, it doesn't when you're skipping time by sleeping.
Each spawn is always under a tree, however mushrooms can roll down a slope in certain maps. The following maps have the most mushroom spawns:
* Swamps
* Cordon
* Forgotten Forest
* Agroprom
* Dark Valley
* Undiscovered Land
== Burers dropping artifacts ==
Each 50th burer you kill is hard scripted to drop a random artifact. The artifact pool is the same as the list of the artifacts to be decayed at your first visit to X-18. In particular, save-scumming burer drops is the only way to obtain Emerald-group artifacts outside of quests.
== Bezoars ==
All creatures that generate the psi aura around them (except for the biomasses) have a 5% chance to drop a Bezoar. In particular, this item is useful to cook the Plasma Caterpillar artifact, which sells for good money and can recharge one exosuit battery with the Portable battery charger.
Robust controllers have the additional 50% chance to drop a Bezoar (separately, so you can end up with two if you're lucky). They mostly spawn in quests, but also have the chance to spawn normally in the following locations:
Location	Total amount	Chance for each	Condition to start respawning	Army Warehouses	1	25%		Darkscape	3	9%		Forgotten Forest	2	11%	Controller hunt finished	Central Pripyat	4	25%	reach the [ Pripyat stadium] and watch the cutscene	CNPP-1	1	20%		Zaton	6	10%		Jupiter	8	10%		Pripyat-1 Underpass	1	30%	
Even if the controller is not Robust in any of the locations above, it still makes sense to kill it while passing by, because this will make it respawn in a few hours with a new chance for a Robust one.
Other than that, Bezoars can be obtained for several cyclic quests given by the following NPCs: Nimble, Dimak, Kolmogor, Miner, Sergey the Shaggy.
== Controller brains ==
Controller's brains only drop from the exceedingly rare type of controllers (the green Controllers), with 100% chance. There's only a few non-unique sources of these brains:
* Bourbon's Zakhar's, Prime's, Sergey the Shaggy's cyclic quests.
* Up to 3 controllers respawn naturally in Darkscape, 11% chance for each to be the proper type.
* One Controller's brain can be obtained in Yuri Semetsky's random stash, although the chance to get this stash is minuscule and shouldn't be relied upon.
Other than that, only a limited amount of brains can be obtained in the following quests:
* Controller's brains quest - 2 controllers with the brains spawn in ATP, and 11 in CNPP-2. You have to give 2 of those to Lukash to finish the quest.
* Bringing A Farewell Note to Ghost will result in C-Consciousness room door in Monolith Control Bunker opening and 3 controllers with the brains spawning behind it.
* Chess Player, a very late game quest - one of Fritz's stashes.
* Chain quests for Dan, Bullet, Fima the Charcoal (×1 brain each), and Fistful (×3).
Red Controller Brain is a unique quest-only item. There are only a few quests in which you can obtain one and keep for yourself:
* Huckster's loot
* Invisible stashes: Army Warehouses
* Sexual maniac
* Klyonov's cyclic for the flasks you obtain during the Sniper questline. Note: these flasks are very limited, you will likely need those for other purposes!
== Dragging physical items ==
All objects with the physics enabled can be dragged upon pressing Shift-F on them. The dragging mechanics is quirky in the SoC engine: if your inventory weight + the item weight exceeds your carrying capacity, you won't be able to hold it, making it fall back to the ground immediately. The problem is that the physical weight can be arbitrary and isn't tied to the object nature.
This can be a problem when dragging the wooden palette upon entering X-16 the first time during the Penetrate into the laboratory, as it often falls back to the ground upon being picked up. You can mitigate it by undressing and stashing your loot nearby, emptying your inventory before trying to drag it.
== Zombification ==
If your psi health drops to 10% or less, you become Zombified and actually change your faction. This effect lasts until your psi health restores to more than 10%, normally about a minute. During this most factions become hostile, and you can attack normally friendly/neutral stalkers without any repercussions, and they will forget everything once you return back to being a normal stalker. Zombified stalkers are neutral to Monolith, and you can freely talk to them as such. You can talk to other zombified stalkers as well, although you'll still receive the shock from that.
This effect can be induced intentionally by picking up any artifact that gives you a psi shock a few times, for example Sea Urchin. One use for it is killing assassination targets intentionally. Of course you should avoid Essential NPCs, because they will attack you and you don't want them dying.
WARNING: Freedom in Army Warehouses is especially sensitive to Marked One switching to hostile factions, and can become permanently hostile. Do not turn into a zombie anywhere near them.
== Object interaction shock ==
=== Artifact pickup ===
Artifacts cause shock on picking them up, each artifact type has its own damage type. The shock can be reduced by normal resistances, and completely eliminated if you're wearing a closed loop suit. There are also purpose-made artifact handling gloves of varying quality, that can reduce 25% to 100% of the artifact pickup damage. They are considered melee weapons, not armor, making repairs repairs really hard (you need a Cold steel repair kit, and there are limited amount of those in the entire game as they are rewarded for chain quests). Even if your armor or gloves 
If you pick any artifact while being naked (without armor), you will be hurt for 95% of your HP, and up to a dozen rats and insects will spawn around you. This mechanic was introduced to prevent players from cheesing the armor wearing down on artifact pickup, but can be used to cheese rare item drops instead (see Naked artifact picker trick) and for other creative purposes such as conjuring a huge crowds of enemies out of nowhere and directing them towards someone. This mechanic only becomes active after finishing Find documents of the military, it's not active at the start of the game.
=== Zombified stalkers ===
Looting zombified stalkers bodies can randomly shock you with psi energy and radiation. Normal resistances will reduce it, and the Serpantine artifact obtained in Golem's stash will eliminate it completely when worn on the belt.
If you're zombified (psi health <10%) or are member of Monolith during Combination lock, zombified stalkers will be friendly or neutral to you and you can talk to them, but will still receive the same shock.
=== Charged enemies ===
Charged mutants (such as electro-chimeras) will discharge on being hit, striking you back with the corresponding type of damage. Only normal resistances help against that. If you instakill the mutant in a single hit, you won't be hit back.
During the Recharging quest, you'll need to interact with an electro-chimera. Only electrical resistance will help, so stack as many Battery artifacts as you can.
=== Explosive zombies ===
Three zombie types will explode on death, likely killing you if you're nearby. Some have a randomized appearance, and the only way to tell them from others is to save and load the game, making them change the visual model. Others don't change their appearance at all, and it's impossible to tell them from others.
The explosion will always hurt only the player, even if the zombie is killed by anyone else. The damage is 1.0/dist explosive and 15.0/dist burning, where dist is range to the zombie in meters. Explosion is harmless past 20 meters. It's possible to survive it point blank with explosive and burning resistances maxed out, even with Nightmare limitations.
The explosion sound is always played at max volume, unless you're out of range.
Explosive zombies only naturally spawn in the following locations:
Location	Group size	Chance for each	Condition to start respawning	Wild Territory	2	20%		Forgotten Forest	up to 25	7%		Swamps	4-6	15%		Swamps	3	20%	Shut down the Brain Scorcher	Swamps	5	20%	Shut down the Brain Scorcher	Eastern Pripyat	4-5	60%	Dimak's notebook	Pripyat-1 Underpass	1-2	20%		Pripyat Dungeons	up to 20	4.8%		Central Pripyat	up to 25	7%	accept "Black Angel"	Central Pripyat	up to 14	4.8%	jump OOB in CNPP-1 and survive the scripted damage	Jupiter	up to 25	7%		Zaton	up to 20	9.6%		X-14	up to 20	7%		Valley of Whispers	up to 25	5.6%	
Category:Core mechanics