Hey, I'm just starting the series and during my play of SoC, I'm starting to realize that I don't seem to be spending any money. The guns I am introduced to are all unavailable to me prior to the point that enemies have access to them. And even if I do find an advanced gun at a store (Sidorovich was selling a Tunder S14 at the beginning which I of course couldn't afford), they don't have any ammo for sale for it so there's no point in buying it. And when I encounter enemies using these better guns, I can just kill them and take theirs. Armor I either find or am rewarded, and I always find artifacts. I get plenty of money from completing side missions.
I played a tiny bit of Clear Sky and was able to at least upgrade and repair weapons and ammo, thereby somewhat justifying looting tons of guns and selling them.
What can you tell me about the purpose of money in the games? Is there anything I need to save up for or should I just pass by all the loot that's dropped by enemies? Looting and running to the next salesman who's often very far away is pretty tedious, time-consuming, and distracting from actual game play, so it would be a real relief if there is no real purpose for saving lots of money. Are Clear Sky and CoP also like this?
Thanks!

SoC doesnt have an active repair system (only with mods) so in vanilla, the (eventually obscene) amount of cash you'll get is really to replace worn out weapons and suits and purchase BP ammo.

The repair and upgrade systems were added to CS and CoP.

As a side note, I suggest playing in the following order:

SoC
CoP
CS

- and preferably vanilla, or with only graphics tweaks.

Once you've done that, you may also want to try out Lost Alpha.

Hope that helps! :)


Edit: a slight spoiler, but money can also affect one of the endings.

Thanks, that's the order I was thinking of too, since I actually was going to start with CS, then SoC, then CoP (follow the timeline) but I'm going to wait for v1.0.4 of the SRP so CS is at the end as you suggest. ;-)

From your response I surmise that the other two games are similar in needs of amassing huge sums of money. It doesn't sound like the good guns/equipment are found in stores, but rather on corpses or from quests, so salvaging gear for cash is a waste of time (except to have enough money for ammo, upgrades and repairs).
I really like that about these games.

Don't forget - CS is a prequel, but it DOES NEED to be played after SoC as its really a spoiler to SoC (and to some degree CoP) as well as being something of a flashback in a way.

(thats general info for anyone finding this thread too who hasnt played yet).

* * * * *

As to money, CoP certainly will have you spending a lot more of what you gain - and you'll find plenty of ways to spend it (aside from repairs / upgrades to your equipment). Various choices can also affect your income somewhat.

I've seen this comment about CoP before CS on this forum somewhere else (maybe you there aswell?). Every other beginners guide I've read says to play them in order of release, which sort of makes sense. It seems odd that a game released first could be a spoiler for the next game. Is there anything I'll miss in CS that I'll be confused about if I skip straight to CoP?

CS was released second (its a prequel).


The order of release was:

SoC
CS
CoP

and

Lost Alpha (almost an official release)

best order to play them in is

SoC
CoP
CS

LA

the point in leaving CS until last out of the official three games is that it contains some plot spoilers for both SoC and CoP. By leaving it until last you get the full benefit of both those games and also. It also happens to be the weakest game of the series, so best left for when you just need some more Stalker.

Lost Alpha on the other hand is a total rebuild and best for veterans of all three games (due to some spoilers, difficulty and the fact its a different version of the zone in many ways).