Badlands

 are areas of the Zone that are normally inaccessible to the player due to fences, cliffs etc. They are also known as Twilight Zones.

Overview and Discussion

 * Categorized as cheats but really just exploits.
 * Despite the fact that the Zones are a tour de force in their own right, there exist various loopholes that permit the player to get "out of bounds" and exploit levelchangers to progress to possibly inaccessible levels at a given stage of the game.
 * Q:But that's cheating... isn't it?
 * A: How is using the board, as presented, 'cheating'? If you stumble across a useful artifact, suit or gun, -or anything else for that matter- you either make use of it or not. Cheating is giving yourself anything that is outside of the game's framework (an invulnerability hack, a kill-all weapon hack, using the Cheating Stalker's Guide For Jumping The Levels, mysteriously 'discovering' the tech to 'upgrade' your suspiciously obtained Exoskeleton that inexplicably has a carry capacity of 1000kg so that it can "sprint".
 * A: I also noticed that you magically acquired a pair of complimentary toolkits and 1,000,000,Ru that you didn't have a moment ago...

Occurrence

 * These areas of interest were first noticed in Shadow of Chernobyl in the Rostok / Wild Territory and could be used to exploit level changers (and the overlapping maps there) to run to the end of the game.
 * Similar, but very different exploits exist in the Lost Alpha.
 * The areas in question are frequently low on vegetation and devoid of artifacts, with no further barriers existing until the limits of the maps - at which point the player will fall off the Lost Alpha world and a reload will be necessary.

Great Metal Factory

 * Three opportunities have been discovered:
 * The insane driving exploit.


 * Driving from the Bar towards Military Warehouses there is a fairly nasty gravitational anomaly near the Blind Dogs.
 * This may be 'used' to launch the player and vehicle into the air, with the possibility of landing on the other side of the boundary fence.
 * Whether the player lands right-side up is a variable. As is the survivability of the vehicle. Driving back into the level proper is not too difficult.
 * (In v1.4007 this is very likely to destroy any vehicle)
 * The secret platform exploit.


 * The Yantar gate remains closed in the early game from the GMF direction, but two exploits exist to bypass this.
 * The platform slightly south of the tracks and carriages allows for side approaches to the levelchanger at which point it will bring up the dialogue box.
 * (While this is not actually a Badlands exploit, it is noted here to clarify the next exploit - hattip to Tejas Stalker)
 * Over the platform rooves, and very far away.


 * A slightly less harrowing but more convoluted exploit involves the tower by the snork lair.
 * Climb the tower, jump onto the railing and then over to the platform roof.
 * From there, use one of the overhead gantries to get to the roof of the train shed (or just take a flying jump there)
 * Negotiate around the western end of the hangar to the other side and jump down to the ground on the other side of the boundary fence.
 * The whole level map outside of the normal confines is now explorable:
 * 1) The Yantar LC may now be approached from a direction diametrically opposite the previous exploit's approach (but from within the Badlands, so a gamesave is advised nearby)
 * 2) A long, dull walk allows unmolested entry to Forgotten. In some versions, the rear of that LC is also approachable.
 * 3) A much shorter walk leads to the rear of the Military Warehouses LC. This LC is also closed in the early part of the game but triggers if approached from the rear. (Return is "one-way")
 * While MW does not have any (discovered) Badlands of its own, it will allow the player to exploit other LCs, opening Dead City, Swamps (and Yantar by back routes) for early exploration by the player.

Yantar

 * At least two opportunities have been discovered:


 * From the Rostok entrance, climb to the top of the building in the first compound and use the height to jump the fence.
 * Behind the Bunker, to the east of the gully it is possible to zig-zag up the adjacent bank into the Badlands.
 * The various cliffs around Yantar have several opportunities to be "zig-zagged" up. These technically allow exit from the normal confines of the map. Unfortunately, the outer parts of this level are often small leading to higher risks of "falling off" the map. Also, the LCS are inconveniently close to all boundaries and will easily trigger and default the player back into the map proper.

Radar

 * Three opportunities have been discovered:


 * On the right side of the Monolith compound there is a hill with Generators, following the main fence around the generators and with the help of some jumping techniques it is easy to jump into the Badlands. It is even possible to attempt this crossing and even reach the rear of the NPP transition without a Psi helmet. Just drive to the steepest part of the hill, after the snorks, park / bail out and run back up the hill to reach the down sloping fence, jump it and proceed to the transition mentioned previously.
 * Just inside the Monolith compound is an old ventilator housing. Without falling (irreversibly) inside it, the nearby wall may be jumped and the nearby bank climbed to gain access to the rear of the NPP transition or the Damned portal.
 * The checkpoint that leads to Military Warehouses nearest to Nomad has some leaning concrete blocks before the transition. It is easy to squeze between these and ascend the nearby bank into the Badlands.

Countryside

 * The southern waterdam can be explored behind the rocks, but this just results in the likelihood of the player falling off the map since pretty much all of Countryside is explorable and no parts are really fenced off.

Lost Factory

 * As in the Base Game, it is pretty straightforward to enter the Badlands by running up the hill west of the Underground exit from X-16. There is a fair amount of radioactivity in the area although the mutant hazards are quite different.
 * Rear access to the production complex provides several opportunities to fall through the map irreversibly. In general these Badlands are rather uninteresting.