S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost Alpha "Pro-tips" v2

Here are alot of protips on how to survive Lost Alpha, and hopefully get around some major game breaking glitches to a certain point.  In order in story progression.

BEFORE BEGINNING
1.  Probably the first and most important thing to know is that you have a "belt inventory".  In Lost Alpha, you have to double click ammo in your inventory to put on your belt, which then you can use to reload your gun.  You also must put artifacts on your belt for them to work as well.
2.  Always listen to what critical mission characters or what your PDA/character says, DO NOT do anything differently.  One wrong move and you could end up breaking your game, not every major/minor quest character has invulnerability flags.
3.  Just because that some characters are red "enemy" blips on the radar, doesn't always mean they're hostile right away.   Unless the task requires you to kill them, it's usually better to let enemies see you first and see how they react, if they start shooting, you shoot back.  If they don't do anything or if they want to talk to you, you do as they say.
4.  Always go artifact hunting whenever you get the chance, they'll likely be one of your main sources of income, as well as some may give benefits you need to survive.  Just remember, active artifacts take room on your belt.
5.  Make increment saves.  DO NOT save under one file, as there's always a chance the file will get corrupted.
***SPOILER WARNING***

THE CORDON
1.  Pretty straight forward, also don't be going crazy and kill everyone in the starter camp right away, if Wolf dies at this point you are stuck in The Cordon forever.
2.  The bandits at the warehouse are good practice.
3.  The military guys guarding the middle passage aren't hostile right away until you either tred too close or start picking them off.  They have a VERY deadly sniper in the tower at this point in the game.  Since the military are close to the farmhouse where the Sin guys and Fox are, I kinda recommend killing them still.
4.  The Sin guys that are holding Fox captive aren't hostile either.  I've heard rumors that these guys will be part of the main story later on, so I HIGHLY recommend not resorting to violence and killing these guys, and just do what you're told by them.
5.  The military at the garbage checkpoint aren't hostile (even if you killed the ones at the mid-point), as long as you just follow the road.  There's nothing interesting on the sides of the road and these guys aren't really that important.  So it's up to you to keep them alive or not.

THE GARBAGE
1.  Go with the surprise attack on the Warehouse against the bandits.
2.  Head straight to the Agraprom Research Institute when that objective comes, don't bother heading anywhere else, the game will almost always give an "excuse" on why you can't head to the other levels.

AGRAPROM RESEARCH INSTITUTE
1.  If you can, try to keep the Stalker at the beginning alive.  If he dies, the "Save the Stalkers" task will be uncompleteable and be forever on your list of tasks.  While this doesn't do much of anything, the game always automatically selects the top of the list on what to follow next.
2.  After you get the book, get Strelok's stash.  It is located in an open vent in a nearby room where the table doesn't move.
3.  Before going after the intel, make sure it's night before you head into the base, and go into the base via underground.  There's no Controller in the passage where the ladders are, instead it's a Burer.
4.  It'll be possibly impossible to ghost your way to the intel because of that Burer.  If you can't, I recommend hiding in the nearby barracks and pick off anyone who goes through the door, it's easier to this at night since almost everyone will be using their flashlight.  Watch for grenades, the military will be constantly throwing them like crazy.

THE BAR (GREAT METAL FACTORY)
1.  It shouldn't be hard to deal with the boars, usually a headshot is enough to kill them.
2.  Follow the long winding road to get to the Bar, you have to go all around the front until you get to an open intersection on the left side.  Get used to it, it's the only way into the Bar.
3.  The Blue Chest inside the bar is safe to put all the shit you don't need in it.  A good place to store valuable Artifacts that you can sell later on at Lake Yantar.
4.  BUY A BANDIT SUIT BEFORE LEAVING FOR DARK VALLEY!

DARK VALLEY
1.  Sleep til day.  Believe me, the following is super difficult to do at night.
2.  You can access the Forest level on this map, which is probably a glitch.  There's nothing really in the Forest worth noting other than maybe a bunch of electro artifacts near those Lightning Monoliths, alot of mutants, and tons of radiation.  I really don't recommend coming here as I'm unsure if it'll break the main quest or not.  *IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS LEVEL, GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THESE PROTIPS!*
3.  Don't expect your Bandit suit to fool anyone else besides the drunken bandit, and make sure you get the password from him.  If he dies prior, you cannot progress any further in the main quest.
4.  Again, don't expect your bandit suit to fool anyone else.  You'll get a quest to talk to the Monolithian informant after you get the password, but there's a chance that the task will immediately fail on it's own.  You can still get the documents in the Monolithian base, just expect some resistance.
5.  As soon as you get the Documents, immediately run down the nearby stairs and hide behind the wall next to them.  Wait for all the military guys to go up the stairs before you head outside.
6.  You WILL need to use the car, don't bother trying to get to where you need to go on foot, the chasing helicopter will fill you with lead.  The car is fast and protects you somewhat against its bullets.  Hopefully it's daytime when you do this, as at night it'll be difficult to see where you're going and for whatever reason the helicopter arrives sooner at night.

DARKSCAPE
1.  Yes, everytime you enter a map with a car, the car will need to be started up again.
2.  DO NOT FOLLOW THE ROAD ALL THE WAY TO THE CORDON EXIT!  Listen to your objectives and stop at the rail tunnel.
4.  After you enter the rail tunnel, if you can, quickly put all your weapons, ammo, and maybe even your armor in the car's trunk.  This is very important to do.
5.  If you die or if your car gets destroyed, before you get knocked out in the mines, load the autosave.  You have to do the car part, and get deep into the tunnel (until you get knocked out) all in one sitting, so no loading in between.  Otherwise, the game will crash when you get knocked out.
6.  The flash drive the Sin Leader gives you has been reported to not work correctly.  You may need to buy a X-Ray flash drive from the Barkeep.  I highly recommend to not use these flash drives until you get to the required computer since the game has trouble saving "upgrades" and you'll likely end up not having them on a reload.
7.  Near the end of the road, towards the Cordon exit is a perfectly working Sudan and Military Jeep on the sides of the road.  Do note that you can only exit from the Jeep through the passager side.
8.  There are plenty of random artifacts that litter the sides of the road, usually in anomaly clusters, don't forget to hunt for them

DARK VALLEY
1.  Once again, don't expect your bandit suit to fool anyone, if it doesn't you can just kill the bandit leader for the safe code.  Make sure you have the UI_safe fix patch or the game will crash.
2.  When you head back to the Monolith base, kill everyone there and look for a GP 37.  It is a powerful and accurate assault rifle, I recommend using this weapon during your course through the game, and giving it accuracy upgrades.
3.  There is a stash in the Monolith base under some stairs that contains a monolith suit.  This is really good armor until you get a SEVA suit way later on.   Search every corpse in Dark Valley for this important stash info.

LAB X-18
1.  The place is filled to the brim with anomalies.  Prepare for your detector to act crazy.
2.  The goal here is to look for four documents and to download information on a computer.
3.  The computer is located in a place that can only be accessed through the elevator shafts.
4.  When you get to the computer, use the flash drive, then download the mutant file onto your PDA.

ROSTOK FACTORY
1.  DO NOT use the Gas Mask immediately after you get it.  If you do and end up loading a save after, you won't have it on anymore and will take damage from the toxic gas.  And the only other gas mask available is the one on a shelf at the military checkpoint at southern Cordon.  Use the gas mask once it's needed, but save prior to it.
2.  To find the PDAs, just look for dead body indicators on your minimap.

LAB X-14
1.  I recommend turning off the character's legs for this part ("g_actor_body 0" in console), there's alot of rats in here, and they have the tendency to crash the game when they nibble at your feet.
2.  Don't let the Bloodsuckers group up on you.  You can still take damage from other sources when they try to "kiss" you, and you can't break free when this happens.

DARKSCAPE
1.  When you deliver all the info to the Sin Leader, do what the task tells you to do and exit to Dark Valley for w/e reason.

WESTERN METAL FACTORY
1.  If you haven't done it already, go and get the rifle for the hunter who lost it.  Watch for bandits.
2.  For whatever reason, the footbone crash happens alot here.  Again, type "g_actor_body 0" in console to hopefully make it stop.

LAKE YANTAR
1.  The military guarding Sakharov are not hostile, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND not killing these guys as if you do, the game will likely crash when you talk to Sakharov.
2.  Sakharov buys artifacts at a premium, so if you have hoarded any useless artifacts, now is the perfect time to sell them.  There's also some artifacts littered around Yantar.
3.  Sakharov only gives you three artifact transmutation recipes (compass, snowflake, and sauron's eye), anything else you buy won't show up on your PDA.  Also there's another glitch where you can reload a previous save from before you bought the recipes and they'll still be on your PDA.  You'll need an artifact merger to create these transmuted artifacts, which is extremely expensive.

DEAD CITY
1.  Do what you're told by the Mercs and don't attack them (yet).
2.  After you recover your stuff and the package, then deal with any remaining Mercs you come across.
3.  Be warned, if you decide to explore around this city there is a Controller lurking about.

LAKE YANTAR
1.  Do take the side-quest that involves recovering some dude's gun, as you have to go down that hole anyway, and make sure you take the vile of pheramones, DO NOT USE THEM YET.  The reward for this task is a SEVA Suit!!!
2.  You'll need to travel through bunch of narrow tunnels to get to where the bloodsucker nest is.  Oh and the wiring is located on a shelf in the room that's between a room filled with zombies and a room filled with bloodsuckers.
3.  Use the pheramone vile just before you enter the room, and quickly retrieve the gun, leave shutting the door behind you.  Going in there guns blazing will likely get you "kissed" to death.
4.  I believe the only "safe" way back is where you came from, but you'll have to do some tricky jumping to get out of that hole.

SWAMPS
1.  Before you head to the swamps, buy a bunch of ammo, preferably AP.
2.  IMMEDIATELY take cover behind a tree and shoot down the helicopter, those reeds aren't going to save you from it shooting at you.

DEAD CITY
1.  If you are going straight through the Dead City path to the Army Warehouses, beware of a possible Controller.

ARMY WAREHOUSES
1.  The village is full of mutants, but there are a few artifacts and other random goodies around here.
2.  Ghost is located in a bunker, there'll be an entrance on the side of the hill.
3.  Kill the mercs in the building Ghost tells you about.  You can sneak and listen to what they're talking about before hand, but I doubt it matters.
4.  Kill the sniper in the tower and anyone else that gets in your way to the base.
5.  The game will crash after the blow out, this is where I'm stuck on and haven't gotten any further than this.  Hopefully someone can fix this.

*FOREST*
1.  This level can only be accessed via Dark Valley at this point in the game, as the entrance as the bar is blocked off with the "Treefelling in progress" excuse.  Again, I kinda don't recommend coming here as the main quest MIGHT break, so do it at your own risk.
2.  Make sure you bring tons of anti-rads, there's a bunch of random strong radioactive pockets in the Forest.  Even with a SEVA suit, they can irradiate you quickly.
3.  It's a pretty quiet and uneventful huge level with a long straight road, you might need to bring a car, unless you don't mind the long walk.
4.  There's naked Burers running around, so watch out for them.  There might be one where his psy blasts go through solid objects, if you encounter one of such, just keep your distance and dodge his psy blasts.
5.  There's a factory that seems to house some bandits, while they react with hostility, one of the guys is standing behind a desk so I'm unsure if they are important or anything.
6.  In a ruined village, there's some zombified stalkers.
7.  There are a few of these "Lightning Monoliths" in this forest at least one of them contains a shitload of electro artifacts scattered around them, the monoliths themselves don't seem to hurt you, but the electro anomalies around them will.  You can even use them as a shelter during a Blowout.  There's also usually a few poltre/pyrogheists guarding them.