ARTIFACTS FOR IDIOTS (ME)

SoC's Artifact system isn't actually that hard to understand: each Artifact offers a trade-off between positive and negative effects.

Since you can have up to 5 Artifacts in your belt, you can cancel the negative effects of one Artifact with another.

For example, Artifacts that make you more resistant to bullets or mutant attacks usually give you radiation. If you equip an Artifact that removes radiation you basically remove the negative effects.

The real problem is that the language used is confusing or the properties of the Artifacts are poorly explained. It might also take you a long time to find Artifacts that complement each other.

The result: you keep the Artifacts gathering dust in your inventory/stash or sell them without even understanding what they actually do.

Most Artifacts come in different qualities, meaning you can have 2 Artifacts that increase your resistance to bullets, but one is better than the other or one of them has no negative effects. Usually the better the Artifact the rarer it is. This is especially true for Artifacts with no downsides.

You can check what each Artifact do and their stats in the STATS section.

In the WHICH ARTIFACTS TO USE section I'll give some thoughts on how *I* decide which Artifacts to use.

In the WHERE TO GET/FARMING section I'll show where to get the more useful Artifacts. Not all Artefacts are worth the trouble to search/farm for them, so I'll cover just a few.

(actually gives health regeneration - it DOESN'T increase your health total) ALL HEALTH Artifacts have the same negative effects:

• -10% Impact (you take more damage from thrown objects/falls)
  
• -10% Rupture (you take more damage from mutants/animals)
  
• -10% Bulletproof Cap (you take more damage from bullets)

So, to simplify:
SOUL > MEAT CHUNK > STONE BLOOD (decreases bleeding duration, so -400% means bleeding will stop 4x faster, dealing less damage overall) ALL BLEEDING Artifacts have the same negative effects:

• -10% Burn (you take more damage from fire)
  
• -10% Chemical Burn (you take more damage from toxic goo/clouds)

So, to simplify:
MICA > SLUG > SLIME (increases how fast stamina regenerates, so you have to wait less time for it to refill) ALL ENDURANCE Artifacts have the same negative effects:

• -10% Electric Shock (you take more damage from electrical anomalies)

So, to simplify:
MOONLIGHT > FLASH > SPARKLER (some say they decrease the damage you take from bullets, others say it only increases how much bullet damage reduction you can get from armor) MOST BULLETPROOF CAP Artifacts have the same negative effects:

• +5 Radiation (you continually take radiation damage, so use a RADIATION Artifact to counterbalance)

The ONLY Artifact that doesn't have a negative effect in this category is MAMA'S BEADS
So, to simplify:
MAMA'S BEADS* (no negative effects!) > NIGHT STAR > STONE FLOWER > JELLY FISH (increases your Radiation resistance and how fast you accumulate Rads) RADIATION Artifacts are divided in 2 subcategories that give DIFFERENT negative effects:

• -18 Endurance (you take longer to regenerate stamina)
  
• +100% Bleeding (increases bleeding duration and thus, bleeding damage)

So, to simplify:
[Endurance penalty] CRYSTAL > FIREBALL > DROPLETS
[Bleeding penalty] URCHIN > CRYSTAL THORN > THORN
[Both] CRYSTAL/URCHIN > FIREBALL/CRYSTAL THRON > DROPLETS/THORN (increases your resistance to Rupture damage, basically you take less damage from mutants) MOST RUPTURE Artifacts have the same negative effects:

• +5 Radiation (you continually take radiation damage, so use a RADIATION Artifact to counterbalance)

The ONLY Artifact that doesn't have a negative effect in this category is KOLOBOK
So, to simplify:
KOLOBOK* (no negative effects!) > GOLDFISH > GRAVI > WRENCHED (increases your resistance to the corresponding damage type)

There's only ONE Artifact in each category and it has NO NEGATIVE EFFECTS.

It's possible to stack 4 of each Artifact to actually regenerate health/repair your armor instead of taking the corresponding damage.

(you take 30% less fire damage)

(you take 30% less electric damage)

*YES, THERE ARE 2 ARTIFACTS CALLED 'BATTERY' WITH DIFFERENT EFFECTS/APPEARANCES (you take 30% less toxic damage from green goo/cloud)

(you take 30% less impact damage from thrown objects)

You'll naturally find Artifacts as you play, but they'll mostly be the weakest ones. If you want to get serious you'll need to do some researching in how to get the best Artifacts, but before that you need to know which ones to look for.

Morder07 in the forums suggested the following loadout:

• MOONLIGHT (stamina bonus)
  
• CRYSTAL (radiation protection)
  
• MICA (bleeding reduction)
  
• 2x MAMA'S BEADS (bullet protection)

It's a very balanced loadout that covers most important stuff like bullet resistance (the most common form of damage), decreased bleeding so you don't have to use bandages all the time, increased stamina for quality of life running around and radiation cancelling (Mama's Beads don't give radiation, but radiation is common enough in the Zone that it's useful - plus, if you don't have Mama's Beads yet you can use some of the worse version that DO give radiation)

Here are some considerations on the pros and cons of each type of Artifact, courtesy of Crypto Gamer in the forums:

BLEEDING Artifacts are very useful in combat, since you start bleeding almost every time you take damage. Bleeding less often means wasting less bandages and losing less health.

HEALTH Artifacts increase health regeneration speed. You have a default one, but it's very slow. Those Artifacts also make you more vulnerable to damage so it's a balancing act between regenerating faster and taking more damage. So if you stack multiple HEALTH Artifacts you can become Wolwerine, but easily die to burst damage (like a shotgun blast).

It's unclear if bleed cancels or just outpaces health regen. Some armors have health regen and/or bleeding reduction, so it's worth taking this into consideration.

Wearing armor with good bullet resistance coupled with BULLETPROOF CAP Artifacts can greatly reduce the most common damage type.

RUPTURE is primarily against mutant attacks which are usually easier to avoid than bullets.

ENDURANCE Artifacts are good quality of life since you have to run around a lot for quests or selling stuff. Wearing 2 Moonlight at 49.9 KG you can run almost forever.

Wearing at least 1 -20 or -30 RADIATION Artifact is useful in several areas, not only for neutralizing BULLETPROOF CAP/RUPTURE Artifacts to give radiation.

The RESISTANCE Artifacts all give 30% resistance to that type of damage and if you stack 4 or 5 of them you actually heal and repair your armor. They also have no negative effects, but they're rare.

If you separate Artifacts into tiers, you'd get something like this:

Good for selling/quests

Some might be useful

Most are useful, some are the best in their category

All are the best in their category

Most hub areas have a blue chest where you can store your stuff. So if you have an incomplete 'build' or an Artifact you don't know what to do with, keep them there until you decide.

*** UNDER CONSTRUCTION ***

Artifacts can usually be obtained from 3 sources:

• Anomalies
  
• Quest rewards
  
• Secret caches (you get these by looting corpses and getting a PDA map marker)

Artifacts respawn over time. It usually takes 24 hours in-game and you leaving and then re-entering the map for this to happen, so if there's an area you haven't been in a while, it might be worth going back to check for Artifacts.

For low tier Artifacts, you can explore the open areas of maps like Agropom and Garbage.

I got one in a secret stash in Yantar. I got one as a quest reward in Army Warehouses. The quest is to kill the bloodsuckers in the village NW of the Freedom base. Got one as a quest reward for 'Kill the master stalker' for Snitch at the Bar. The target is NW of the Freedom base in Army Warehouses.
The hardest part about finding this Artifact is that it only appears between 0:00 AM and 5:00 AM.

There's one in the electro tunnel in Agropom Underground, the area you go through on your way to get the documents and then come back again for Strelok's group's stash, but it's a dangerous area. It took me several tries and reloads to grab it and survive.

Found another in a little recess in the Wild Territory, beside the train tracks full of electro anomalies.

In a secret stash in the room with the controller in X-16 lab.

Found one in the Wild Territory, in the electro tunnel where you find the family rifle for the mission and the Half-Life easter egg.

Found one in a secret stash in Yantar.

I got one in a cluster of anomalies right by the bandit camp in the SW corner of Garbage. Found one in Army Warehouses. NW of the Freedom base, in a village where you need to kill a bloodsucker for a mission. It's inside the top of the Tower with the 2 corpses.

This guide wouldn't have been possible without the resources made by other people and the help from the STALKER community here on Steam.

The stats and images used in the STATS sections come from The Zone Survival Guide[zsg.dk]

The considerations on what Artifacts to use come from the great tips from (among others) Morder07 and Crypto Gamer in my discussion at the forums.