User blog comment:Skaraks/Lost Alpha Directors Cut/@comment-32623441-20170725034345/@comment-10507735-20170725044021

TBAH if you're going to cheat your way through the game you will gain little satisfaction from it.

With that said, there is a method to use what you have as explained partially in Main Mission Strategy. In DC the Warrant Officer in Garbage will let you pass to the Bar if you clean out a few mutants. In this way you can perhaps get a used Obokan and a scope that does a pretty good job for the early game. (The LR300 is nice too, but getting a scope early is not practical)

Suitably prepared, you might go for the Hunter PSZ-9d to help get you to Yantar via Forgotten. End result:- SSP-99M suit by day 2.5, rifle and suit fully upgraded by Fox by day 3, and THEN it's off to the Agroprom for a bit of whatever you fancy.

Despite being a FPS kill-em-all, it's also a ''strategy' game. With plenty of options for non-linear play.''

Personally, I would stretch it by another day and rescue that twit on Forest(Lost Alpha) just for the Fungus payoff (you retire the various Boar and Flesh ordinarily BEFORE the rescue to avoid 'mishaps'. The Zombified Stalkers you have to shoot. But the Zombies in Music Village you play differently as explained in Artifact Spawns.

My last game saw me trotting around with 3 Springs, 3 Cakes (one is enough) and a pair of Battery arts before hitting Dark Valley ...

The 'problem' that you are having with stashes is not a problem. It's a function of the Xray PDA Skills module. If you're desperate to see Stashes tweak it accordingly. But it's a sucker bet - almost all are full of crap. A much better strategy is to boost your Barter skill and play a boring game of "pass the parcel" with Siddie (ideally with several Poltergeist's brains) to build up your financial base. You don't sell them and walk off.

Is this 'cheating'? I would assert that it is making the best with what is provided in the environment of the game.