Faction Wars

The Faction Wars are a major part of the gameplay in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. As the name implies, different Stalker factions are involved in bloody struggling for land and treasure. The player can opt to join some of the factions and assist them.

Factions and locations

• Clear Sky - Renegades, fighting for land in the Great Swamp.
• Loners - Bandits, fighting for control of the Garbage, as well as freeing or keeping prisoners.
• Duty - Freedom, engaged in fighting over principles and ideals, situated in Agroprom and the Dark Valley.

To a lesser extent, the army, the mercenaries and Monolith also get involved in the wars.

How it works

Faction wars are all about capturing and holding enemy strongpoints which are the entrances to their base's area while protecting your own and assaulting their main base. Capturing these offer you safe passage and increased manpower and resource; the more you control the more supplies your faction has.

Faction number

The first part will be how many stalkers you currently have in your faction, this increases as you control more territories. The more stalkers you have, the better you are at being reinforced and the more they can send out there.

Resources

The second part is resources, resources will gauge how well-equipped your stalkers are and this increases as you control more territories. If your resources are low, your stalkers won't be equipped with anything too heavy and will usually be confined to Tier 1 assault rifles and armor, if you have very high resources your faction will send better equipped stalkers out ranging from Tier 2 armored individuals to those wearing an Exoskeleton equipped with high-end weaponry.

Overview of each battle

Here are the things you should expect when taking sides in faction wars:

Clear Sky vs the Renegades

This is the only faction war you are forced to partake in, Clear Sky needs to drive the Renegades off the Swamps in order to continue their operations unhindered and you automatically take Clear Sky's side by default. The renegades aren't armed with anything heavier than an Heckler & Koch MP5 and most of them won't have any armor capable of stopping pistol rounds. By far this will be the easiest war you'll partake in. You will have to keep the renegades from capturing the Fishing Hamlet and capture their main base: the Machine Yard. All you have to do at first is secure the pump station and several other territories: The Burnt farmstead, Northern farmstead, Southern farmstead and the Old Church, all others will be secondary targets.

After securing the Machine Yard, you will then secure the southern farmstead to gain access to the Cordon. Once you exit the swamps, you are automatically a mercenary again and free to partake in the other faction's matters.

Rewards for capturing the main base: CS-3a Body Armor.

Loner's side

You will have the option of joining the Loner's faction immediately after helping Father Valerian with his problem with the kidnapping of Major Khaletskiy. Your only opposition will be the Bandit faction, which is fairly weak and mediocre in number. It is also very easy to take out the Bandit base, as you only have to secure a few positions in the Cordon and Garbage. This faction is often the best choice for the player if he wants to partake in the faction wars and still not create a difficult path for himself later on, since you will run into Freedom and Duty on several occasions later on.

Taking out the Bandit base can be fairly easy, the only problem you may encounter are the two small squads near the entrance to the base, which are under strong cover, you'll have little to no cover to take these two groups out. After taking care of these two squads, the actual base itself is fairly easy, you have some strong cover, and most Bandits will just pour out of the base in single file, ready for you to take them out. Since they are all very low in armor and firepower, low tier weaponry will make quick work of them. A few Bandits will be on the catwalks near the back of the base, requiring you to move in and take them out, but the majority of the Bandits will walk right into your crosshair.

Rewards for capturing the main base: Bubble, "Veles" Detector, SEVA suit.

Advantages to joining the Loners

• Quick and easy way to make early game money farming the bandits that constantly attack Cordon or Agroprom.
• You will not affect your relationships with Duty or Freedom.
• You can leave the Loners to join Duty or Freedom later on.
• When the faction war is finished, you will have nearly no enemies, except for scripted Renegades, Mutants, and Bandits, which, however, won't come out from their own base, being stopped not only by Loners, but also by Duty members.
• Can obtain a SEVA suit early in the game, which is extremely helpful at "Master" difficulty level.
• Loners across the zone can become more well equipped and experienced depending on how well you maintain your faction.

Disadvantages to joining the Loners

• Joining the faction too early will lose your earlier chances of fully upgrading the SEVA Suit – as the Bandit technician and Duty technician are the only ones who can do these upgrades.
• All Bandits will turn hostile.
• The Loner base is considerably far from the events later in the game, making backtracking for reward money a hastle.
• You can be called for help often, especially at Agroprom or early on in the Garbage.
• If the player would like to join Duty or Freedom after completing the Loners' war, he can face the Loners' squads holding the points needed to be taken in the faction war. This can be, however, avoided, if the player allows Bandits/mutants to kill Loners before joining Duty/Freedom, or if the player will destroy the Bandits base right after the control on the Garbage is obtained.
• The Loner's war is the second easiest behind Clear Sky vs Renegades. This in-turn doesn't make it profitable and challenging.

Bandit's side

You can join the bandits after assisting Yoga with his 3-part job and after you've flooded the Agroprom underground. By far the Bandits have the meatgrinder side of the faction war. They lack high-end weaponry, heavy armor, numbers and overall resources. In addition to the Loners hostile to you: Duty will also shoot you on sight and Freedom will treat your brethren with contempt. Your objective is to capture the entrances to the Cordon and defend your side and then eliminate the Loners in their main base.

Rewards for capturing the main base: GP 37 and an RG-6.

Advantages to joining the bandits

• The end rewards are the rarest weapons in the game.
• You have access to the Black Kite.
• Tooth will on occasions have high-end ammunition in stock and may sell a VSS Vintorez or AS VAL at the lowest prices available.
• You control the biggest buffer zone in the Zone.
• Bragging rights.
• Action at every turn.

Disadvantages to joining the bandits

• You will be able to join Bandits' side only after completing the Agroprom part of the main quest. It means Duty, Freedom, and Loner factions will already be fighting at the Garbage, making the war much more difficult.
• Your faction will normally be second to the last on the faction strength list, just above the Renegades. Even if you managed to win the war and secure total domination over the Loners, you'll rarely get close Duty and Freedom's numbers.
• The Loners and Duty are hostile to you.
• While you are neutral with Freedom, Freedom will attack other bandits on sight and normally you will be forced to attack them in defense, in turn making you hostile to nearly every faction in the game save for the Renegades and Clear Sky.
• Often you won't be able to rely on your allies, as they rarely have armor that can even stop pistol bullets.

Duty's side

You have the option of joining Duty once you've flooded the underground, where if you accept you will receive an OTs-14 Groza and a PSZ-9d Duty Suit. Duty by far has the easiest time with the faction war. Their boys will usually be equipped with upgraded high-end weaponry and there will usually be an Exoskeleton or PSZ-9d Duty Armor wearing stalker in the group. You won't have to assist Duty very often with territory defense since they can handle it without much trouble, seeing as Freedom won't have many powerful weapons at this stage.

At first your task is securing Agroprom and taking over the entrances to the dark valley from Freedom, it won't be that hard since Freedom won't give much resistance as by this time, Exoskeletons and Veterans will start converging to the Dark Valley. Taking the base is less simple: There are snipers on the ground, and if you aren't careful they can easily end you from a distance. After you've dealt with the outer perimeter guards: proceed to the hangar and you'll end the campaign after you've neutralized all resistance there.

Reward for taking the main base: PSZ-9d Duty Armor and a PKM.

Advantages to joining Duty

• They're the most well-supplied faction overall.
• They can hold the line without your asking for your assistance very often.
• Most troops will come out as veterans and experts.
• Ready access to some of the best Eastern Bloc weapons in the game.
• After joining the Duty, the faction's trader, Mitay, will be able to sell you Bulat, heavy Duty armour, and Exoskeleton with no markup.

Disadvantages to joining Duty

• If before joining Duty you passed Loners' faction war, you will have to kill some Loners, that could have taken some points needed to be taken in "Duty vs. Freedom" war.
• Their side of the conflict is easy (in comparison to others), removing challenge and it won't be very profitable.
• Freedom and the bandits hate you.
• Their armor is standard at best, and most of their weapons have sub-par accuracy.
• Will make continuing the main storyline more difficult, as you will run into Freedom on a few occasions.
• You cannot ask Hog for Freedom's help when attacking the base in the Army Warehouses, making this extremely difficult.

Freedom's side

You can join Freedom after assisting them defeating the Mercenaries in the Dark Valley and after you've assisted General Krylov. After you have joined you will receive a SIG SG-550 upgraded to mount a SUSAT-Scope and a Guardian of Freedom Suit. Freedom's side is the hardest in this conflict as Duty outguns them hands-down, your advantage is that they have a lot of stalkers to send into the fray. At first you have to secure all exits of the Dark Valley if they aren't secured yet. Then you begin to push into the Garbage, capturing the embankment to the north (which leads to the Army Warehouses in CS, and Rostok in SOC) and can optionally capture the Flea Market. You then push further towards the Agroprom Research Institute (Duty's base of operations) and are required to capture and hold all entrances to the Agroprom until reinforcements arrive. After all entrances are secured you can make your push into Duty territory. There are two camps at the entrance to capture and hold until you can make your final push towards the base of Duty. Note that once you DO secure the entrances in Agroprom, you will have a real hard time of ambushing the hoards of heavily armed Duty stalkers attempting to take their territories as Freedom squads have a low chance of repelling an attack against Duty.

Freedom squads are generally less well equipped compared to their Duty counterparts. They do not use their sniper rifles effectively, e.g. seek higher ground and snipe at a distance but instead engage in close combat with weapons not made for such short distances. Duty squads are sometimes lead by an exoskeleton wearing veterans with a PKM who is single handedly able to take on to Freedom squads alone, especially at higher difficulties. Once you have secured the Duty base, the Freedom squads are often unable to hold the Agroprom and most of the Garbage without your help due to the constant stream of Duty squads.

Reward for taking the main base: Freedom Exoskeleton (a lighter version of the Exoskeleton), a Walther P99, a Dragunov SVD, 15000 RU and lots of NATO ammunition.

Tips

• Duty squads are usually not equipped with sniper rifles or NATO weaponry, but with less accurate Warsaw Pact Weapons, so the safest bet to take them down is to secure a higher position and snipe the squads from afar.
• The Duty base can easily be bombarded with grenades from the hill the Agroprom Research Underground exit is, as charging head front is not recommended. This spot is also perfect for sniping the Duty base.
• Charging from the entrance that leads north to Yantar is also a good strategy as there are only a few guards stationed there. Then use the street to this entrance as a bottle neck.
• Bring lots of ammo with you for your rifle and bring some extra 5.45x39 rounds in the event you can't re-supply yourself.
• Bring lots of medical supplies; this will be bloody.
• NATO weapons converted to fire 5.45x39 will ensure that you can outrange your enemy and never run out of ammo.

Advantages to joining Freedom

• Ready access to the SVD and SVU sniper rifles, along with 7.62x54mm ammo for it, and 5.56x45mm NATO ammunition.
• Your armors are centered around maneuverability than strength.
• The Freedom Exoskeleton.
• Your only enemy by default is Duty.
• Your weaponry is typically superior.
• By default, you are the largest faction.
• You see plenty of action, thus a profitable and exciting war.
• As long as you see combat against Duty 5.45x39mm ammunition is extremely easy to find.

Disadvantages to joining Freedom

• If before joining Freedom you passed Loners' faction war, you will have to kill some Loners, that could have taken some points needed to be taken in Duty vs. Freedom war.
• Freedom will lose ground against Duty rather quickly unless assisted.
• Freedom stalkers aren't armed with upgraded weaponry unless they are experts.
• Lack of deployed Experts.
• Despite being neutral to bandits: Freedom stalkers will always attack bandits on sight.
• Will make continuing the main storyline slightly more difficult, as you will run into Duty on a few occasions. A detachment of veteran Duty stalkers are camped in the Red Forest by default, you will have to fight your way through the camp by Forester and Duty will constantly harass it.
• This can be the second hardest faction war in the game.