STALCRAFT – Complete Guide to Artifacts

Artifact Effects and Stats

Artifacts in Stalcraft can be hard to understand, but they are very important. They work like in the STALKER games, giving you different boosts to your stats. But now there are some extra things about them that make artifacts a bit more complex than before.

First of all, let’s see what benefits artifacts can give us:

• +x% stamina – an increase of your maximum stamina.
• +x% stamina regeneration – an increase to your stamina regeneration speed.
• +x carry weight – an increase to your maximum carry weight.
• +x% movement speed – an increase to all your MS.
• +x% vitality – an increase to your HP (your HP bar will always show 100%).
• +x% healing effectiveness – increases your hp regen when using first aid kit.
• +x% health regeneration – increases your passive hp regen.
• +x bullet resistance – increases your BR stat by x points.
• +x laceration protection – increases your LP stat by x points.
• +x explosion protection – increases your EP stat by x points.
• +x% bleeding protection – reduces your chances of getting bleeding.
• -x bleeding – reduces bleeding damage.
• -x Radiation, Biological infection, Temperature, Psy-emissions – element withdrawal that allows you to counter artifacts that give +x of that stat and circumvent lack of specific protection in the Impact protections section of armor stats;
• +x Radiation and Psy-emission protection – flat increase by x points these to stats. Only Mirror has these.
• +x% radiation, bioinfection, thermal, psy-emission resistance – reduces damage from building up contamination if you go into an area with insufficient Impact protections;
• +x resistance to fire, chemicals, thermal, electricity – increases that stat by x points in the Defensive properties category of your armor.
• +x% reaction to laceration – gives you additional vitality (1% reac. = 1hp) for 15 seconds after you receive damage from mutants and wisps or get damaged by gravitational anomaly;
• +x% reaction to reaction to chemical burns, burns, electricity – gives you additional vitality (1% react. = 1hp) for 15 seconds after you get damaged by corresponding type of anomaly;

However artifacts have their negative effects that you need to account for when making a build:

• -x% stamina – a reduction to your maximum stamina.
• -x% stamina regeneration – a reduction to your stamina regeneration speed.
• -x% vitality – a reduction to you HP.
• -x% healing effectiveness – reduces regen speed when using first aid kit.
• -x% health regeneration – reduces your passive regeneration.
• -x% bleeding protection – increases your chances of getting bleeding.
• -x laceration protection – reduces you LP armor stat.
• -x resistance to fire, electricity – reduces these stats in Defencive properties category of armor stats.
• +x Radiation, Biological infection, Temperature, Psy-emissions – basically make you build up respective contamination unless countered by -x respective stat.

Secondly, similarly to gear tiers/rarities there is tier system for artifacts with minimal and maximal quality of an artifact tied to its tier:

• Common (0-100%)
• Uncommon (100.01-110%)
• Special (110.01-120%)
• Rare (120.01-130%)
• Exclusive (130.01-140%)
• Legendary (140.01-150%)
• Unique (170-180) – I believe these are no longer obtainable.

But what does quality do? As can be seen from screenshots below it affects what max stats and even more importantly minimal stats your artifact can have.

For a common Battery artifact, the ideal stat is a 4% increase to movement speed. However, obtaining that perfect 4% stat requires an extremely fortunate 100% research roll when using a scientist. Most research attempts will not yield the maximum 4% movement speed bonus. In contrast, uncommon Battery artifacts have a baseline 4% movement speed increase as their lowest possible stat. This makes uncommon Battery artifacts significantly more desirable than common ones, as their minimum stat is equal to the ideal stat for commons.

Artifacts also have 3 additional stats:

• Freshness – has levels 1-3 with 3 being the worst. Artifacts retain their freshness lvl 1 for about an hour after being found, slowly decreasing afterwards. Freshness affects two main things. First, how much money do you get from selling an artifact to a fence. Second, how much energy would they get from fissioning it at the scientist, but I don’t recommend that (more on that in Improving artifacts).
• Durability – shows you current durability of an artifact. Your artifacts slowly lose their charge over time with the speed dependent on the Effectiveness stat of your container. You can charge artifacts using energy or for a miniscule fee using money at the scientist at any base.
• Max durability – shows to what durability you can actually charge your artifact. It decreases with failed honing attempts and can be restored using protoartifacts.

How to Make Arti Build

Early in the game, artifacts provide minor beneficial effects. However, in the late game stages, your artifact build becomes the central focus of your equipment loadout. Depending on your needs, your build may simply increase your carrying capacity and movement speed. Alternatively, it could enhance your health and healing abilities, or if your armor has low Impact protection, help you survive in contaminated areas. Tailor your build to suit your requirements.

To create a build, you first need a container artifact. Based on the Inner Protection value of your main artifact, you may require a counter artifact to negate the negative effects of your other artifacts. However, if your container has 90%+ (possibly even 80-85%) Inner Protection, you can forgo using a counter artifact. When dealing with Radiation, Bio Infection, Temperature, and Psy Emissions hazards, you need to use this formula (using Radiation as an example):

• (+Rad-Rad) – (+Rad-Rad) x n% of inner prot = Y

That Y should not be higher than your body natural withdrawal and these are:

• Radiation +1
• Bio infection +1
• Temperature +1
• Psy-emission +3

As some of this might get a bit tricky players have made an online calculator for your build – STALCALC. Unfortunately for now it’s only available in Russian but you can try using it with a web translator.

Additionally, artifact builds can allow you to visit previously inaccessible areas due to low Impact protections of your armor if total withdrawal of required element reaches required amount. Required artifact withdrawal for each contamination level can be found in the table below:

How to Get Artifacts (Simple Tips)

Probably what I should have started with but oh well.

Artifacts randomly appear from anomalies around the world for approximately 45 minutes after an Emission event occurs. After that 45 minute window, there is still a small chance for artifacts to spawn, but the likelihood is greatly reduced.

You do not need a special artifact detector to find artifacts, but detectors act like a mini-map, showing nearby artifact locations at the cost of consuming battery charge.

There are four primary anomaly types in Stalcraft: Gravitational, Biochemical, Thermal, and Electrophysical. Each anomaly type has its own pool of possible artifacts that can spawn from it. So if you are looking for a specific artifact, you should search the corresponding anomaly type. You can check which artifacts originate from each anomaly type in the Guide section of your PDA device.

Useful Info & Tips

Protection Artifacts

Here is all artefacts that give protection, it gonna depend on how much you want spend:

• Psy-Protection = Mirror, Moonlight, Electro Crystal
• Radiation-Protection = Mirror, Kolobok, Droplet
• Thermal-Protection = Crystal, Shell
• Biological-Protection = Pellicle, Acid Crystal

All Meta Artifacts Builds for Every Full Armor

(I’m using +15 artis and armor because of future).

Combat:

• Cent/mule/vanguard – 2x firefly shard sun beads OR firefly prism shard sun beads (cringe)
• Faction heavy suits – 2x firefly shard spiral beads (be careful with rad)
• Beast slayer – atom 2x shards sun 2x prism (kinda cringe but yeah)

Combo:

Speed builds for all of combo armor:

• Cheap one – urchin 3x spiral 2x snowflake
• Middle one – polyhedron radiator bracelet 3x snowflakes
• Expensive one – transformer 3x bracelet helium snowflake

• AH-6: atom 2x shards 2x beads firefly OR 2x shards beads firefly prism OR shard 2x beads firefly prism(in 1st one you need atom -rad -bio, in second -bio -psy, in third one -rad -psy)
• Skat-10: atom 2x shards beads 2x firefly (or firefly prism)
• Hounds: any of the speed builds
• Punisher: atom 2x shards beads 2x prism

Atlas/saturn: any of the speed builds, that armor useless in PVP.

Some new random builds:

• Bear den4 MS- transformer 2x snowflake spiral
• Tri-zip MS – transformer 2x snowflake bengal
• Bear den4 HP – transformer firefly prism shard
• Forager HP – 3x beads and heel
• Coocon MS – 2x bracelet spiral

Hive builds:

• Veiner (legendary +15) 3x fireflies helium
• Polyhedron (-bio) 2x fireflies shard helium
• No one uses speed hive builds

Den6 builds:

• Transformer (rare +11 -psy) 3x fireflies polyhedron helium
• 3x bracelets for full speed version
• Atom (-psy/rad) 2x fireflies beads 2x spirals (ah6/zivcas only)

Newbie Builds

Trizip:

• Transformer 2x snowflakes bracelet
• Transformer (-psy) 2x bracelets snowflake (helium if you rich)
• 2x fireflies
• Radiator 2x flares bracelet
• Proto-jellyfish 3x spirals

Cocoon:

• Any artifact combination from hive builds

Some of builds:

• WatashiNoKage hive build – whirlwind amberite 2x spirals snowflake. MS and carry weight, normal but costy because of whirlwind open-world build
• Kzs-5 cross MS build – atom (any atom +5 or common +0 with 75%+) whirlwind bracelet gold gravi (or spiral) helium (or snowflake).

Useful Tips

Quick access. Press any number on supply in inventory and then hold quick access button (its C by default). Its usable for using multiple supplies at nearly same moment

Before crafting something, look wisely into barter tree. Some items may be good at newbies/stalker rank, but worse on veterans/masters, armor may stop using part of containers you use or backpacks.

Dont ruin your session battles KD. Its important for late-game clan activity, because mostly clans wont even count you as player if you will have low KD. You should start playing sessions ONLY after you get full master gear (end of barter line that costs 55 serum).

Dont rush. This is a big tip so ill shred it into a lil ones:

• Upgrade swamps and cordon until you wont in 2 kilometers away. Personal storage is very important.
• Fully farm barter you need and some money for future. Each gear step is further and further from previous one, so if you will rush this – you will face consequences nearly on north.
• Dont try to farm everything at same moment. Focus one gear item.
• Until you leave cordon/bar – dont forget to make all attachments you need.

Enjoy the game instead of nonstop grinding. Because of grinding you will burn out fast, so you need to keep that in control.

Gear – focus weapon at first. Weapon improves your character much better, than armor and costs less.

Dont forget about arti build. You MUST have a good arti build even in bar stage, because on the start of game (until aw and fp) mostly people dont have these, so good arti build may give you a huge advantage

Dont forget about upgrading your gear (and build). You can +6 any piece of gear by just spamming tools until you get it. Leveling up your gear follows thought the barter tree. Example: if you leveled up FN2K to +10 and you made FN2K Tactical, the +10 stays. (same applies to gear upgrading chance. If you had 15% chance of upgrading, it will stay 15% even after crafting next stage of item)

About barter: dont forget to accept your dailies and some packages. It brings you alot of additional barter resources and usually completes just in regular game.

Make a google spreedsheet with barter. Its a simple 5-10 minute deal, but helps to count and motivate yourself to progress.

Dont use purple barter. Its always an additional money.

How to Find the Best Artifacts

Everyone knows what artifacts are from the tutorial, but new players generally need help understanding their importance in the game’s later stages. Artifacts can be the defining factor of builds and certain play styles if utilized correctly. Artifacts can come in 6 different rarities; common, uncommon, special, rare, exclusive, and legendary. These rarities determine the effectiveness of each artifact with every tier of artifact becoming increasingly powerful. These artifacts can also become more powerful with upgrades, each artifact can be upgraded from +0 up to +15 where it is maxed out, these upgrades can be very costly if you are unlucky due to it being a random chance every time you overcharge if the artifact goes up a level or not. There are 60 different non-seasonal artifacts in total but only a handful are worthwhile to use. To acquire artifacts it’s best to go out to anomalies about 10 minutes after an emission to ensure you have given the artifacts enough time to spawn. Artifact spawn rates are drastically increased for approximately 45 minutes after emission. 

It is known that the density and rarity of artifacts will increase the farther you go north, but are you aware that player count and gear score also affect how many artifacts spawn? Thus, Backwater, Limansk, Yanov, and Red Forest are the best due to their high player count and higher gear score servers. Does this mean you should go directly to these areas as a beginner to acquire artifacts? No, while these locations have large amounts of artifacts they also have much higher requirements for environmental resistance. We shared the path on how to find artifacts quickly if you do have access to the best zones; after all, it is vital to get to the artifacts before others. To avoid going into areas that you cannot, the environmental protection requirements have been marked.

These maps show the most efficient route to check large sites of anomalies. Anywhere circled in red is an area with a considerable portion of anomalies and artifacts. The blue dots are stasis anomalies that should be searched if possible due to the price and usefulness of the artifacts that can spawn in them. By following the green line in Yanov you can amass a variety of artifacts of every type; The Red Forest is more focused on a large amount of electrophysical and thermal anomalies with gravitational and biochemical sprinkled throughout with a few exceptions such as the long line of kissels at the entrance to Red Forest.

Backwater and Limansk are the best places to get artifacts because of the high density of anomalies. These locations are also the most dangerous due to their favor for PvP and artifact hunting. Backwater has the highest environmental resistance requirements out of any location causing it to only be accessible with particular suits. 

As a beginner, it is unlikely that you will find anything of value below the Fool’s Path or Army Warehouses, so it can be beneficial to simply buy artifacts from the auction house rather than trying to find them yourself. Whether or not you plan to search for your artifacts or buy them, here are some useful builds for when you decide it’s time to invest. The first three builds are done inside of a Tri-Zip to ensure they are available from when you first hit the Bar. The fourth and fifth builds are done inside of a KZS-5 for the people who are reaching the veteran or pre-master tier of progress. The sixth, seventh, and eighth builds are done inside a Forager Container for some builds for people at the pre-master tier of progression. The last two builds are done in a Bear’s Den-6 for the people who have reached masters even though they probably don’t need much help picking their artifacts.

This first build can be accessed even in the early stages of the game due to its composition of low-cost artifacts that can be found quite easily. This build consists of three Spirals and a Proto-Jellyfish to counter due to the lack of internal protection that the Tri-Zip provides. Spirals provide a meager yet helpful boost to movement speed and carry weight. By upgrading the artifacts to +5 you can raise your movement speed and carry weight for a small cost.

Our second build is for people who want more movement speed and have a little bit of money to spend. Consisting of two Radiators, a Bracelet, and a Whirlwind this build can provide a large amount of movement speed at a fair cost. While this build does have 15.59% movement speed it does not provide any bonus to carry weight so take that as you will.

The third build gives a very high amount of carry weight, perfect for that long farming excursion while also providing a small bit of movement speed and bullet resistance. All of these boosts are provided by two Radiators and two Goldfishes. This build can be expensive for people who are just getting to the Bar so make sure you always check the auction house in case there is a good deal.

This fourth build may look very pricey at first but considering you get the carry weight of a Tri-Zip inside of a KZS-5 as well as almost 19% movement speed it is nothing to scoff att. This build utilizes an Atom, two Gold Gravis, and two Bracelets.

Our fifth build can utilize the Atom from the previous build if you choose to get them both and save some of your hard-earned rubles. In this build, you can expect a combination of healing effectiveness, vitality, and bullet resistance from the Mama’s Bead, Shard, and two Steel Koloboks.

The sixth build is unique because it is the first build meant specifically for one thing and that is healing effectiveness. With three Mama’s Beads and a Heel, this build focuses on an incredibly high amount of healing effectiveness. This build can be made much more affordable by getting the free uncommon Mama’s Bead from the questline in Limansk.

This seventh build is a very simple, yet effective one with four Spirals making up its composition. By taking advantage of the -2.5 radiation the Forager Container gives us we can save some money on counter artifacts. This build is also much more money-effective if you can manage to find your own Spirals. With this build you get a good balance of 48 carry weight and 17.5% movement speed.

Our eighth build has a different use than the rest of these speed builds because it incorporates a large amount of stamina regeneration that allows for shorter respites. This build has a Radiator, a Bracelet, a Snowflake, and a Spiral. This build is more expensive due to it using an uncommon Bracelet to make up for the lower amount of movement speed granted by the Snowflake.

The ninth build is only for those of you with a massive amount of cash to spend and want one of the fastest movement speed builds. Since this build utilizes a Radiator, a Bracelet, a Snowflake, a Spiral, and two Whirlwinds it can be hard to put together due to the rarity of special Whirlwinds. This build is hard to beat with a whopping 36.9% movement speed increase.

This final build is just one of many that are usable and the artifact choice is dependent on playstyle and personal preference; that being said, this build is quite nice because it incorporates the bullet resistance of two prisms, the healing effectiveness of a Shard, and a Mama’s Bead as well as the vitality of a Sun all being tied together with an Atom to counter.

All together artifacts are an integral part of the game and provide some spice to the regular grind. Artifacts are one of the key pillars to money making for people who play the game while also keeping them playing. These artifacts shape the way we play the game and can make the game play out in a completely different way.