homepage Forums Land & Armor Combat Tactical Simulations - General S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl

I got all the arch artifacts. Last two were weird bolt and weird pot

Weird bolt is in a tornado anomaly. This may have been the most frustrating thing I've done in Stalker 2. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to know much ahead of time, just work it out as I go. But this one kicked my ass, until it didn't

I quickly found out that allowing the spinning part to touch you is instant death, or will sweep you up, cyclone you about for bit then instant death. Need a new plan. Does the bolt come flying out? Do I need to get inside of it? Can I shoot it? Who the hell knows?

After reloading a bunch due to my rapid deaths, I looked up a guide. You'd think that using them so little would accrue some good karma, but no. First one I looked at showed a path, a bit of parkour, and where I needed to go to grab the bolt. But this one was outdated. A cargo container he jumps on has been removed. That guide is useless.

But at least I knew where I needed to be, at the tip of crane. Died some more. Missed jumps, reloads. Cursing myself. There's something about this game that makes me a split second late on jumping. I struggle like no other game, where the timing eventually becomes second nature. But not here. Cursing my gracelessness.

Looked up another guide. This showed a different route, more parkour, and it worked perfectly. In the guide, the player gets in to the eye, grabs the bolt and then tanks a hit from the tornado as it passes over. Fook me if I can tank that hit. Full Diamond exo, elite artifacts, dead every time. He says you got to hit syringe just before it hits you, take a shot of health and he gets knocked down, barely any health, but dammit if he didn't survive. He does this twice, once to enter the tornado and once to exit. Fook that sh!t. I died over and over trying this. Only twice did I manage to survive the first hit. First one I ran up the crane but the bolt must have already flown past. Grrrr

Second time I grabbed it then was killed by the tornado a second later. I'm thinking I must really want this bolt at this point. More deaths. Some by the funnel, some by falling. I'm thinking at this point that this is not how this was designed. It just can't be. What am I missing?

Looked up a third guide and this one was smart. Instead of trying to tank your way in to the tornado, there's a building, and the storm passes over it. If you exit the door at the right time you walk out in to the eye. Easy. He takes the parkour route and stays in the eye the whole time. This is how this was designed. Now I see. He grabs the bolt and then tanks the hit to let the storm pass over. Barely survives, and then leaps off the crane in to one of those cushiony grav anomalies that we are always jumping in to. So I try it too. Grab the bolt, tank the hit, die. Over and over. Stop for a second and think it through.

What if I don't try to tank the hit, and leap off on to that grav and hope I stay in the eye, Just walk in the eye until we get back to the door. Did that, worked first time and the bolt was mine. I mean, this is clearly the way the devs intended and none of the guides I looked at did it this way.

To get weird pot I just said screw it, watched a video and copied it. Done.


The tornado of death (until you work it out then not so bad....)

Having finished the arch artifacts, or altered items, achievement I switched over to finishing the one for the rest of the artifacts, which is more difficult indeed. Not only are there far more of them, they are randomized. Each anomaly type can spit out any of the artifacts in that category, so the chances of getting another example of one you've already found is high. In order to set my focus I searched 'Stalker 2 artifact checklist' and found one. Went through my stash and checked them off to see which ones remained.

(Chemical)
Ciliate
Horn
Devil's Mushroom
Pellicle

(Electrical)
Snowflake
Soul

(Thermal)
Flaw
Fireball
Droplets
Dead Sponge
Torch

(Gravitational)
Broken Rock
Magic Cube
Jellyfish
Night Star

That was more than I expected, but now I have my targets, and wrote them down.

On my first three dives I found three new ones. After that it was mostly repeats. Crossed off Ciliate, Soul, Flaw, Dead Sponge. Eleven to go now. Suit repairs are costing a fortune!

This is too much, I think. With 69 artifacts the random chance can drag things out forever. I need ten more, having added Pellicle. And I found that by gaming the game. Turns out the artifact isn't seeded until the player gets within 100m or so of the anomaly. So if you save 150 meters out you can grab the artifact, and if it is not the one you need, you can reload and have a chance to get a different one. I hit Chemical tanks like twenty times before I got the Pellicle. Did this at a number of anomalies and got no new ones. And playing like this isn't fun. But finding these specific ten artifacts through normal gameplay would take an age, if ever. Might have to write this one off as too time consuming and random.

And here lies the problem with achievements, one gets stuck in this "must get that thing" mind frame and instead of having fun playing the game you start doing this kind of thing. And if you're obsessive compulsive... forget about it.

I found another nice artifact just randomly, it's smth like +3 weight, +3 chemical res, -3 rad. Cool thing and 35000 credits value (maybe) but did I need it? No... I put it in the stash and I'm happy not to have wasted time hunting for it.

Which artifact was it? I can see none with those particular effects.

Yeah, it's not a good way to play, but when you get so close, it feels within reach, but the way artifacts work nothing's guaranteed and it's like a lottery. I really like the artifact system, how they work, the various benefits and drawbacks, how we equip them, the opportunity costs decisions on which to use. Stalker 2 improved anomalies, and the way we hunt them. Although the latest update made them jump around too much. But finding a copy of every one is hard to do.

The save I'm running is at the point of no return and I want to finish the main story, but I don't think there's free roam after finishing? So I have to hold off until I decide to ditch the artifacts achievement. Last night I actually fired up my second run instead, which is around the game's mid-point and it was strange that I was actually bleeding! Usually this instantly stops because of the Hypercube.

Sorry i misremembered. it's called Torch, +3 weight +3 thermal (not chemical) and -3 rad. I avoid (for protection) artifacts with rad penalties, since I'm keeping the more powerful more universally needed artifacts 99% of the time the rad protected slots.

With the Diamond I have four shielded containers, so rads don't matter. And the unshielded container carries a -5 radiation remover (Liquid Rock) so that it is constantly being removed and radiation is never a problem. The suit already has high rad resist and then this on top makes it trivial.

In my second run that I reverted to a couple days ago it's a Falcon with one shielded container so artifact choices are a little different, can't get away with so much

The big -5 Rad penalties from powerful artifacts don't get resolved (I think... but I'm pretty sure) no matter what you're carrying. I think you'll get slowly irradiated even if you carry way in excess of +5 rad protection, you can see the indicator pulsing. That's what I remember from early days, you have to put those heavy hitters in shielded containers no matter what. I could be wrong (always a possibility) or maybe they changed it at some point.