Artifact decay

OP-2 has several mechanics related to the artifact decay, or degradation, usually into Cobblestones, triggered by various events in the game. 
This is often considered one of the most annoying features in OP 2.2, alongside the Plague mechanic.
== Radioactivity-induced ==
Each time your radiation poisoning reaches the maximum, there's a 0.4% to 3.2% chance to turn up to 2 artifacts in your inventory into inert Cobblestones, i.e. to decay. The chance depends on artifact quality; lesser artifacts are more likely to decay.
Only artifacts that can be cooked and have a recipe are susceptible to this decay; unique artifacts are safe from this. There are three exceptions to this rule:
* Artifacts that never spawn after blowout will not decay, including stamina regen modificates like Snowball, Bur, Ear, Moss.
* The most basic artifacts like Droplets or Jellyfish that are cooked from raw materials will not decay.
* Emerald artifacts will decay, despite not having a recipe. They are also quest-only, so there's only a fixed amount of those in the entire game. The only way to obtain them outside of quests is to farm burers and save-scum their drops, which is tedious.
This mechanic is mostly annoying in early to mid game, as it mostly affects modificates of various tiers, but towards to the late game, players tend to use unique artifacts more.
== Blowout ==
At the start of every blowout a decay check will happen for every artifact on every location, except those stored in Rucksacks. Artifacts in your inventory, inside any NPC or mutant bodies, in any standard containers, or simply dropped on the ground on ANY location have a 5% chance to turn into a Cobblestone. This check even happens to containers or bodies that are disabled until the corresponding quest, such as the dead monolithian in "Monolith" fighter's map.
Here's the list of susceptible artifacts. Any other artifacts are safe from this.
* Tier 3 and 4 modificates: Shell, Controller's Scalp, Burer's Grandma's Beads, Burer's Great Grandma's Beads, Tears of Fire, Tears of the Chimera, Snotty Porcupine, Stone Porcupine, Giant's Younger Brother, Moon Dummy, Pudding, Crystal Soul, Crystal Soul of Bengal
* Symbion and Plasma Caterpillar
* Artifacts of the Ruby group: Ruby Spring, Ruby Pellicle, Ruby Battery
Notably, Electric Porcupine is not on the list, and this is the most efficient rad removal modificate in terms of efficiency/weight (much better than the Stone Porcupine), so you can feel safe about it. The list is short enough to not be a bother, and the only two artifacts from it which you're going to normally have outside of rucksacks are probably Burer's Grandma's Beads and Burer's Great Grandma's Beads, maybe also Tears of the Chimera,Symbion, and Plasma Caterpillar on rare occasions.
== Deferred decay ==
Certain locations have some invisible areas called decay restrictors. Each time you step onto such a restrictor, there's 0.15% to 1.2% chance that up to 2 artifacts in your inventory will decay into Cobblestones, with the rules and exceptions similar to radioactivity-induced decay. The actual decay will happen 40-100 minutes (random) after the fact. If it decides to decay something but you have no susceptible artifacts, it will try again in 20-40 minutes (random), again and again until it finds something to decay. In that case, the only solution is to reload the game ~5 minutes back in time, and sacrifice a lesser artifact.
=== Sacrificing specific artifacts ===
While you could reload the game until it picks a lower tier artifact, this can take dozens of reloads since you will likely be carrying significantly more good artifacts than bad ones. The reliable solution is to drop all non-unique artifacts besides the sacrifice into a rucksack, guaranteeing its selection. Meat Chunk and Fireball are light, non-radioactive, and relatively common artifacts that are easy to carry around for this purpose.
=== Restrictors ===
Triggering a decay restrictor once is not especially risky since the chance is really small, but these restrictors are large (~80m across) and spherical in shape, so if you're particularly unlucky to do something on its edge, you could cross it dozens of times in a short time unknowingly by walking back and forth.
Annoyingly, each time you travel to Doctor's hideout in Central Pripyat through the bubble teleport, you trigger this restrictor once.
The following locations have one decay restrictor each:
Location 	Screenshot	 		 		 		 		 		 		 		 		 	
Swamps, near the [ water tower] in the village ruins.	 	Radar, Pripyat intersection. Covers the hole in the fence leading to Rusty Forest and Warlab. Blocks the way to the radar and back completely. Doesn't block the route to Pripyat.		Central Pripyat. There are two zones here:1. The bubble teleport to the Doctor's hideout, each time you walk into it (but not back).2. SE corner of the center. Most of it is OOB, but it covers some part of the road (still leaving some space to pass).		Sarcophagus, passage at the bottom of the staircase is covered by the restrictor.		Undiscovered Land, road near the stalker camp. Covers neither hunting hut nor infirmary entrance.		Red Forest, near the gate in the wall leading to the mineshaft area on the north. Covers the gate completely, but not the old mine entrance.		Eastern Pripyat, intersection at the north. A part of the KBO Service Center is affected.		Generators		Jupiter, in the middle of Kopachi village		Zaton, south of the Boiler anomaly	
== X-18 security system ==
After approaching the X-18 entrance, you'll be warned by the lab's autonomous defense system that some of your artifacts are not allowed inside, and will be degraded into Cobblestones. This is check happens in three spots throughout the lab: immediately at the entrance, on the staircase down the lab, and on the staircase down the pseudogiant room. It's only active until you leave the Dark Valley; in any subsequent visits throughout the game, you could carry all artifacts you want without them being destroyed.
You can leave unwanted artifacts at the door outside, in a rucksack; bandits won't steal it. There are three checks inside the laboratory: immediately at the entrance, on a staircase during the descent from level 1 to level 2, and on the stairs to the pseudogiant room. After triggering once, they will be disabled forever. 
Here's the exact list of artifacts that will be destroyed in your first visit. All others are safe to carry. In particular, Stone Blood is not on the list, so you can carry a bunch to remove the radiation while you're there. Sparkler is also not on the list.
* Hide, Scale, Shell, Controller's Scalp
* Mama's Beads, Grandma's Beads, Great Grandma's Beads, Burer's Grandma's Beads
* Tears Of the Electra, Tears of Fire, Tears of the Chimera
* Porcupine, Electric Porcupine, Snotty Porcupine, Stone Porcupine
* Sea Urchin, Kolobok, Steel Kolobok, Titanium Kolobok, Diamond Kolobok, Giant's Younger Brother
* Fiery Dummy, Bright Dummy, Moon Dummy, Pudding
* Symbion
* Drops of the Soul, Fiery Soul, Crystal Soul, Crystal Soul of Bengal
* Plasma Caterpillar
* Emerald wrenched, Emerald Stone's Blood, Emerald Jellyfish
* Night Star, Goldfish, Stone Flower, Crystal, Soul, Moonlight, Mica
* Spring, Ruby Spring, Pellicle, Ruby Pellicle, Battery, Ruby Battery
* Meat Chunk, Golden chunk
* Gravi, Fireball, Flash, Crystal Thorn, Electric Microbe, Teleport
* Needle, Knot, Thistle, Fire Cotton
* Snowball, Bur
== Isomorphs ==
There are two one-time events in the Narodnaya Solyanka story (Isomorphs questline) that are scripted to "degrade" (or rather transmute) various items in your inventory.
=== Ambush ===
After completing Ambush and waiting 40 seconds, the following artifacts in your inventory will transmute into the Spiral isomorph:
* Hide
* Tears Of the Electra
* Porcupine
* Steel Kolobok
* Fiery Dummy
* Drops of the Soul
* Plasma Caterpillar
So if you want to obtain more of them for Components search: 1st part, bring more artifacts from the list to the Ambush mission.
=== Sniper's duel ===
After picking the Isomorph crystal up after Sniper's duel, all 12x76 Slug rounds in your inventory will transmute into 12x76 Isomorphs. Isomorph ammo hits harder, costs several times more, but is much less accurate and blocks your view with the fire effect where it hits. If you like it, bring more slugs to that mission.
Category:Core mechanics