It can definitely feel overwhelming with all the features and items it adds on top of regular Stalker gameplay. When you’re just starting out it can be really unclear what you can or should do to progress and the whole amount of extra stuff is making things even worse.

For getting a hang if it, play vanilla (mods can make it even more convoluted) and go for the loner Cordon start. Set the progression difficulty to whatever the middle option was called, it’s a good middle ground. I like to start with some sort of shotgun as my weapon, even better if I can get the full barrel version. Shotguns are good against mutants and mutants are a good source of early income because the ones in your starter area can’t shoot back with superior firepower. I can’t remember if the hunting knife is an option in the vanilla starting gear selection, but get it if it is or prioritize purchasing one if it isn’t.

Do Fanatic’s tutorial for some freebies, and pick up all the tourist safari/mutant hunt/rescue tasks with the target in Cordon from Sid and Wolf for some pocket money which should go into a hunter’s backpack and hunter’s knife (if it wasn’t available at the start). Skin every mutant you come across in the process and keep everything + try to avoid combat with humans other than basic bandits. Once you’ve done all the easy tasks you can complete in Cordon, move on to the Garbage with all the mutant parts you’ve gathered and sell them to the butcher in the train depot. He’s a good source of cash in the early game, you can sell mutant parts at decent prices and buy cheap shells for your shotgun. He also offers hunting missions around the Garbage, and they shouldn’t usually make you go up against anything tougher than a bloodsucker. You can also pop into Rostok, do some easy arena fights and see if you can pick up any task that doesn’t put you in too much danger.

After some hunting trips and random missions you should have enough money saved up to upgrade your gear. My goal at this point is getting a Sunrise suit, a better shotgun and a long rifle of some sort with a scope, though I’ve had good results with a scoped SMG too. The scope makes a big difference when fighting against other stalkers, once you have one you can afford to be more aggressive. When you managed to put a kit together, you can start some storyline missions and also move your hunting grounds up to Wild Territory and Yantar. Wild Territory is great because you can keep to the rooftops, but watch out for mercs. If you can take down Bloodsuckers, Snorks or Controllers, the scientists in Yantar pay very well for their parts.

The rest of the game is just upgrading your gear and moving further North into progressively harder areas. It gets smoother once you’re past the early game and have put a solid kit together. If you finish a loner run and got a good idea of how the game works you can try other factions, or challenge runs, or warfare mode, or go down the modding rabbit hole.