Starter guide

== Settings ==
Refer to Installation and links on how to install the game, apply the latest patch (make sure you did that!), and switch it to English.
Before you start, bind a key for the "Save at level" function available at Options -> Control (scroll to the very bottom). This key will create a unique timestamped savefile each time, so you'll have a gameplay log, just in case you need to revert and replay something.
Be also sure to turn the Autosave option on, at Options -> Game. This will create named saves at accepting and completing the quests. Keep in mind you can't save more often than once in 10 seconds.
You might want to review your key bindings for quick slots (they function just like in Call of Pripyat), because you'll be using them quite often. Pay attention to the "Returner" keybinding, which will let you mark your position and teleport back to it across a short distance, as long as there's no enemies around. It's useful to get to certain hard to reach stashes without having to reload each time you fail a jump.
Difficulty levels in this game aren't that different at the start of the game; the most noticeable difference is the cap on the artifact protection amount you can stack for each resistance, and you won't be hitting that cap quickly. You can start on Nightmare and change the difficulty level any time in the settings. There are also two separate achievements for never playing on Too Young to Die and only playing on Nightmare.
This wiki is written with the Nightmare difficulty in mind.
== Game start ==
You appear next to the [ Death Truck] at Cordon, being wounded after the crash. You see Skygazer next to yourself. Speak to him and let him help you by giving you a First aid kit. You can either use it from your inventory, or drag it into the quick slot and use with a hotkey. Speaking to Skygazer starts Kill the Strelok.
You can search for any quest in your PDA in this wiki, or refer to this overview.
Some ammo for your PM can be found in the [ brick house] nearby, in the locked room on the second floor. Climb to the second floor, crawl to the roof through a hole, and jump down into the locked room through another hole in the roof.
Note: you don't have a dosimeter at the start of the game, so if you start losing health suddenly, you're irradiated. You'll get it later. Just don't pick radioactive artifacts on your route to the Rookie village, as they irradiate you even by just being in your inventory. Besides, all artifacts damage you on pickup, unless you're wearing some kind of protection like a scientific suit or specialized artifact handling gloves.
== Crossing the railway ==
Skygazer instructed you to see Doctor in Rookie village to treat your wounds, and you still need to cross the railway to the south somehow. The railway is being patrolled by soldiers. Never attack them or cross the patrol route, ever! If you found yourself being shot at by them and Kuznetsov, the better option is to reload a previous save, as making peace through Sidorovich is crazy expensive in early game. Refer to the Cordon article about it.
The easiest way to cross the railway is to bribe the soldiers [ under the bridge] with a bottle of Vodka. One bottle can be found nearby, inside the [ farm], in an inconspicuous breakable box.
Another way is to jump over the fence in [ this spot], under the big loud anomaly in the sky. Refer to the Cordon article for other ways.
Remember that in OP-2, Kuznetsov (the commander of the checkpoint under the bridge) is a vital character who participates in countless quests; if you kill him or any other essential NPCs, you will lock yourself out from a lot of the content. Essential NPCs won't die easily, but if they do you'll see a red beeping warning message. If that happens, it's easier to reload than to continue the game without them.
In case you approach the [ car park/ATP], you'll get teleported to the Rookie village right away. This is a safeguard against the bug from the vanilla SoC; you'll need to get into Rookie village anyway.
== Cave dream ==
After crossing the railway, go to the Rookie village. Don't bother with Sidorovich, he won't open yet. Inside one of the basements, you can find Doctor. Talk to him, and he will give you a vial with the medicine, starting the Cave dream quest. Drink the vial and see the dream about one of your previous visits to the Cave. Pick up the backpack and the artifact at your feet. Wear the exosuit and artifacts, reload your weapons, insert a battery into the exosuit.
Everything in the dream is temporary, and you can just run to Miner to speak to him. Refer to Cave dream for the shortest route through the cave and other tips.
Travel across the Cave to Miner, talk to him, and get another vial. Drink it, and wake up inside the Rookie village basement again.
Having drank Doctor's medicine, you are allowed into Sidorovich's bunker now. The stuff you had before the dream has been carried by Doctor into the bunker, you can grab it from the chest near Sidorovich. Talk to him, accepting his Shadow of Chernobyl quest to save Nimble from the bandits (Take the information from the scout).
== Saving Nimble ==
BUG WARNING: It's necessary to speak to Wolf in this quest, see Take the information from the scout#Bugs. Do not skip it.
Speak to Wolf in the village and head out to help Petrukha and other stalkers. While on your way, you will encounter wounded Tolik near the [ train car shack]. He's a quest giver and an essential NPC, don't ignore him. You can heal him by giving him a medkit, which can be found neaby, next to another stalker's body.
Continue your way to Petrukha. Under the bridge, there's a body of a military with a document on it. Don't pick it up yet - it starts the Serviceman's PDA quest, and spawns a hostile sniper on the nearby hill, which you aren't ready to deal with yet. You can do it after the quest
Speak to Petrukha. You can either agree to attack the [ ATP] together, or do it on your own.
=== Defeating the bandits ===
It's a good time to read about Combat tactics to be aware of some nuances of ranged combat in OP-2, and maybe about other Core mechanics. In particular, be aware that the bandits can sometimes see your legs under doors and trucks. Bandits at ATP are not tough and don't require aiming for the head, but in general OP-2 expects you to be able to make headshots, and is balanced with headshots in mind (unless you're using big guns).
While in combat, remember to always move, this confuses NPCs a lot and makes them miss if you sprint 90° to the line of fire. If you're not moving, make sure to lean and peek precisely from behind an obstacle, they will still aim at the obstacle. These two tricks alone will cut your death count at least in half.
As long as they don't hit your head (and they typically shouldn't if you move or peek around the obstacles correctly), even the basic armor is enough to survive one hit from a pistol or an SMG. Shotguns are always formidable, though.
=== Continuing the quest ===
Kill all bandits at the ATP, and talk to Nimble. Return to Wolf and Sidorovich with his flash drive. Accept Sidorovich's quest to Find documents of the military at Agroprom.
Keep in mind that Petrukha will travel to his [ campfire] through Kuznetsov's checkpoint, and will be inevitably killed by him. Just don't approach them and let Petrukha travel offline to avoid this. See A-Life for details.
Nimble also sometimes takes a weird detour to the south on his way back to the Rookie Village, and can fight the road patrol, inadvertently triggering the retaliation attack from the military consisting of dozens of soldiers.
== Cordon quests ==
To be able to cut mutant parts, you'll need a knife. The first knife can be obtained from Kuznetsov for free. Approach him (paying with Vodka is not necessary to talk), and accept the Kuznetsov's deck quest from him. Then you'll have a selection of various quests to do for him. Accept the Master class, which involves killing a bloodsucker with a knife. The knife is given to you at the start of the quest, you can keep it.
To get the dosimeter, complete the quest Night Star for Sidorovich.
Standard containers are limited to 50 items in OP-2.2. Read Hoarding as to why. The first Rucksack to keep your stuff in can be obtained for Kostya's stash, Cordon. Put it somewhere around the anomaly, as no stalkers ever go there, so it cannot be stolen. All weapons are unloaded after dropping them into the rucksack; ammo goes into your inventory, addons such as scopes and UBGLs go into the rucksack.
Inside the [ electra tunnel], you can find two Sparklers and a Flash, stamina regeneration artifacts that will let you sprint almost indefinitely in the early game. Keep in mind that they make you much more vulnerable to radiation, so you might want to take them off if you need to walk into a radiation spot.
After crossing the railway, you'll get a task to help Fox, just like in vanilla Shadow of Chernobyl (Ask Fox about Strelok). Head out and heal him. After that, Doctor will arrive into the building nearby. Speak to him and receive a Tears of Electra artifact as a gift; it has anti-radiation and stamina regen properties. Accept The rescue from Doctor, and read the page about that quest; you'll find it much easier to complete if you accept it now and not later.
You can keep doing quests in Cordon. At the second floor of Akim's building at the northern checkpoint, you can find a Walther P99 on a windowsill, and some ammo for it.
Some additional notes about Cordon quests:
* you'll need to save 4000RU to buy a Sleeping bag from Sidorovich to be able to sleep. Sleeping is only possible in designated places, check the Sleep page for the list of those.
* buying Fight gloves from Akim for 7500RU is a great way to conserve ammo in fights against mutants. Non-basic knives also work well on most mutants except those naturally resistant to slashing damage (fleshes, librarians, etc). Crowbar sold at Swamps one-shots everything in the game and has the longest reach (but also costs 60000RU).
* don't forget to avoid the military patrol at the railway.
* don't attack the military checkpoint at south just yet. Refer to Cordon#Military checkpoint as to why.
* accepting Wolf's razor spawns a massive (for the early game) wave of zombies and bloodsuckers. Do it when you have 4-5 grenades. Refer to that page for details on how do deal with them relatively easily.
* Nimble's mail jacket spawn spot is randomized. See Nimble: Find Mail jacket for the details.
* Kostya's stash, Cordon teleports you into the electra tunnel, so it nicely combines with Lost document. After accepting his quest, Kostya will move to the Dump.
* don't forget to start the Collector quest line, and follow it along with the story. It has great rewards as soon as you reach Dark Valley, for example the ability to sprint infinitely.
* don't forget to accept Old documents: part 1 from Akim, and follow it as soon as possible. This quest line will lead you to a great exosuit.
* there's a lot of medkits, food, and Vodka inside the basements and attics all over the Rookie village, and Cordon in general.
* any Gas canisters and Colloidal gas cylinders you find can be used to refuel the flamethrower later on, and to kill neutral stalkers for assassination tasks without wrecking your reputation. There's little point in dragging them to your stash as they're heavy. Just remember their location and take when needed.
== Dump ==
Things to note about Dump:
* There are two wounded stalkers for the purposes of The rescue.
* There's a lot of 9x19 and 5.45 ammo in the swamp and hangar, and also a lot of medkits all over the place. Refer to the interactive map in the Dump article.
* It's better to pay a visit to the bandit for Serviceman's PDA during your first time at the Dump, as he might get bored otherwise and go to Cordon. Not a huge issue.
* Don't forget to get the Sub-machine gun for Yurik; otherwise the stalker's body will rot and turn into a zombie after a few days, and you'll lose the gun, which can be annoying as the Transmutation recipe you get for it is a really basic one. There are only two such guns in the game, and the second one is needed for Grey's chain quest.
== Agroprom ==
Never come to the military base at night (10:00PM-6:00AM). Refer to Agroprom as to why. You can sleep at the [ factory complex] until morning, if you happen to come at night. (at the easternmost building where Mole was hiding, on the top floor near the couch)
Agroprom Underground will probably be your first encounter with plagued rats. See the Plague page on how to cure and avoid the infection.
Mole can get stuck inside the building during his rescue; that's a vanilla Shadow of Chernobyl bug. Each wiki page has the Bugs section, which also lists the ways to avoid them.
== Bar ==
Bar is a good place to drop your Rucksacks out of bounds of the map for them not to get stolen, and a good place to keep your main stash in, since it's a central hub for most locations. Place them with enough spacing for you to be able to hover the mouse over, and see the tooltip with all items on the map. [ Here's a good spot].
You can buy a blowout map from Informant. After that, you can double click the sleeping bag in your inventory and it will show you blowout shelters and sleeping spots on the current level.
Duty base access is closed until you bring the Unusual artifact to Plichko. Don't try to sneak inside - you will be shot or thrown into a cell with no exit. Same goes for trying to sneak into Barkeep's backroom without paying Garik.
Once you have enough reputation for the rank of Veteran, you can start earning money in the Arena. Try keeping it from switching to Tier 3 so you can continue to earn more money indefinitely. (read the article!)
Try not starting large fights (such as Mercenaries' suitcase) before disabling the brain in X-16, because after that point enemies will start dropping exosuits, and all exoskeletons except Monolith sell for a good price at Suslov in the Swamps. Bourbon buys Monolith exoskeletons after finishing the Shadow of Chernobyl storyline.
== Saving people ==
You can try to save all four Duty members being held in captivity by bandits, although it's not necessary. This can be a massive pain in the ass, as the mission is probably the glitchiest in the entire 500h+ game. Accessing Dark Valley through the Forgotten Forest the first time might make this easier. Read Rescue "Duty" member for details.
Similarly to Duty members, you can try saving four scientists along with Kruglov. Refer to Meet Kruglov and Escort Kruglov to Yantar for details. This mission is not that glitchy, but still has some randomness in it.
You can attempt to help the crazy stalker aka Psycho at Army Warehouses - try wounding him and giving him a medkit. You won't succeed, but this will earn you another achievement.
All these also grant you a Living Heart artifact each, long before you can cook it yourself. You can use one to resurrect Chemist in Inferno if you want.
== What's next? ==
You can read Noteworthy items and Game Economy for directions on how to obtain useful stuff faster, from money to weapons. If you need the info on any quest, search for its PDA name in the wiki. There's also a list of locations, you can take a look at the map of any newly unlocked location for possible loot and secrets.
This game is huge, overwhelming, and confusing, you've just barely scratched the surface. Generally it works like this: it never leaves you without a hint or an explanation, but it tells you something once and usually only once. It assumes you're reading (and understanding!) all dialogues and warnings. It's easy to get confused otherwise. The wiki is here to disentangle all this, though.
You might also want to read about the hoarding in this game and decide whether you want it or not. Cyclic quests can also be largely ignored if you don't like them, don't need the rewards or if you aren't a completionist.
Category:Guides