Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

What happens when Russians make a video game based on their version of "A boy and his dog" ("Roadside Picnic")

Something awesome called STALKER.

It's a game about a lone amnesiac wandering the wastes of an alternate timeline Chernobyl. There's fallout, mutants, raiders, lawmen, scavengers, artifacts of great power, and deadly phenomenon littering the surrounding wildlands and

It is fun as hell.

Skill-based combat (meaning no damage twinking by leveling/building your stats) so a shotgun is a shotgun

The AI has different levels of equipment and smarts, for example, a rookie is going to stand toe-toe with his sawn off shotgun and an NBC jacket/gasmask at an inappropriate and ineffective distance from you
a veteran is going to flank, call for help, take cover and return fire when you're reloading with a schlick repeating shotgun in a full environmental exoskeleton.

If you wander into a hotspot
you might just get dropped dead at that very location, either due to radiation poisoning and not wearing proper protection, or wandering into a vortex of energy and misery that crushes your body (there's an indicator to warn you but ... kinda hard to veer off of if you're sprinting or lazy)

And then there's the roaming packs of dogs, bandits, monsters, and psionic freaks.

Enjoy.

At present, I'd say I'm about 70-80% done with my first playthrough.
I'm well geared
I'm the #1 ranked Stalker in the arena, and in the surrounding area from killing boatloads of rivals (mostly in cold blood or at a great distance) and doing jobs for various factions and fixers.
I have a standing stockpile of ammunition, spare artifacts and weapons to trade for my necessities, and plenty of armor and lowlight optics (a must when 2/3rds of this game is played pitchblack and a headlamp just makes you a walking headshot)

I'm stuck.

I have to get accross a massive killpit dotted with teams of exoskeleton, military/experimental/prototype grade weapons, snipers, and psychic phenomenon while my health ticks down gradually due to exposure to a powerful psychic artifact in the vicinity. Attempting to circumvent the area lead to near instant radiation burns in a heavilly resistant suit.

I have a few options open to me.
Load up with tons of medpacs and rad shots, and take my highest grade, most expensive environmental suit (which isn't my best bulletproof/combat/carrying capacity suit) and sneak
sloooooowly taking a ton of environment damage over time, and get to the facility hopefully evading all firefights.
The problem is these guys are super alert, and their snipers spot me almost a kilometer away, I don't think its possible even on my best ninja day.

Option 2 is the inverse solution: Load up with my best ammo, my most dependable and familiar weapons, and progress gunfight by gunfight completing each squad along the way. God only knows if I can survive the radiation and phenomena around me, or in the facility later, but I'll increase my survivability significantly against the paramilitary fuckheads, but I'd probably take double damage from the environment, and ...
if I'm constantly half dead but mostly bulletproof- I'm still dead in one or two shots.

Option 3
Load up either type of suit
shoot wildly while sprinting
load up on extra stamina gear and energy drinks
spam healing items while getting shot in the back

Oddly enough option 3 has the most appeal.

Run like a chicken shit under a hail of crazy shit and bullets.
Hope for the best.

I already tried option 3 and didn't know how much distance there was to traverse. I got most of the way there before getting gunned down and saying "fuck it I've spent way too much getting here, gonna reload"
I'm worried that no matter what suit I wear and what guns I take that I'll burn through that suit (durability and effectiveness diminishes with damage taken) half of my medical supplies, and most of my ammo for my favorite gun-
and just barely get to the next area.

That's going to leave me naked, unarmed, and unable to recover or protect myself against the hoarde and vile, semi-radioactive surroundings.
Just like a Fraternity party.