S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl: Artifact Guide and Respawning Artifact Farming Locations

This current map comprises artifact hunting with trader stops just after leaving lesser zone.
Difficulty and survival not assured.

Most side missions that occur along the routes have a negligible impact on the main story.
Artifacts that have not spawned again are skipped. Might be my save file but certain artifacts have not respawned for me no matter how many times I have checked.
I’ll update this as I proceed through the game.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 5

1. Magnetic Cave
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Fleshes, Bandits, Rats

2. Ribs
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any yet.

3. Old Mill
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Fleshes, Bandits, dogs, Boars, bloodsuckers
You can take a long way down, and fight a pair of bloodsuckers, or you can just fall straight down through a hole in one of the houses.

4. Deaf Meadow
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Bandits, Boars

There will be a short sidequest here. If you want to loot the body without consequences, throw the body slightly upwards and towards the quest giving NPC, while rapidly tapping F on your keyboard. That will allow you to loot the guy whilst in a conversation cutscene.

5. Pol Depot
Electrical Anomalies
Known Threats: Bandits. Always.
Jump up on the ladder up from the pipe. Put your detector and bolt away before the jump.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 7

1. Depot Tunnel
Electrical Anomalies
Known Threats: None, usually, unless the bandit king hates you.

2. Vehicle Graveyard
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any yet.

3. Detention Center
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any yet.


The key is on the front reception desk of the right entrance

4. Electric Field
Electrical Anomalies
Known Threats: Rats, rarely.

5. The Brood
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: None, usually, unless the Shah hates you.

6. Explosion Funnel
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any yet.

7. Poisonous Hole
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Bandits

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 2

1. Nuclear Waste Burial
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any

2?. Death Cave
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Encounters with a Controller Doesn’t appear to respawn.
This artifact has spawned only twice, and the second was bugged under the game world. Testing further to confirm.

3. Truck North of Abandoned Farmstead
Gravitational Anomalies, And Glass Shard Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any yet.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 4

1. West Cherevach
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Most enemies end up entering the anomaly field to get burned up.

2. Conflagration
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Bandits

3. Burning Rift
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Bandits

There’s a Scanner here too.

4. Helicopter Base
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats:Mutant Elk or Moose,The artifact is further away, near the fuel or gas tanks, so it’s not necessary to engage.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 4

1. Flood Plain
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Boars, Bandits

2. Hell
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Snorks have recently spawned

3. Reloading Point
Electrical Anomalies
Known Threats: Bloodsuckers, bandits, Mercenaries

4. Daredevil Path
Gravitational Anomalies, and Glass Shard Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 1

1. Burning Fire Depot
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Irony, and Mikeburnfire’s wet dream.

2?. Northwest Red Fortress
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Sometimes bandits, Zombies. There’s a Ward Sniper atop the fortress.
Testing for the artifact in the area to be recurring. Area looks like the sort of place an artifact would respawn, but hasn’t as of yet.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 5

1. Gas Station outside Chemical Plant
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Ward, if you’re hostile, but usually bandits, rats and dogs some times.

2. Ahroprom Factory
Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Poltergeists

3. Promin CMD Factory
Gravitational Anomalies, and Glass Shard Anomalies
Known Threats: rats

4. Island in the middle of a lake South of Storage on a Hill
Psi Anomaly
Known Threats: I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Multiple copies of artifacts will spawn until you can pick up the right one. Trying to get in and out fast is the challenge. The cost and rarity of psi-block on Veteran difficulty makes this not worthwhile unless you already have the necessary psi-protection to be unaffected entirely.

5. Toxic Bog
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Boars, Fleshes, random patrols by different factions

6?. Chemical Tanks
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Unknown.
As it ties to being allied to ward, to access a side mission here, I have avoided this area. I’ve read reports of a regularly spawning anomaly as well as an anomaly tied to a sidequest.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 1

1. Scientist Helicopter
Electrical Anomalies
Known Threats: rats emerging from the tunnel, bloodsuckers and mercenaries

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 1

1. Yantar Production Complex
Gravitational and Fire Anomalies
Known Threats: Bloodsuckers and Mercenaries

2?. Chasm
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: I ain’t going down there. Again.
Been scanning from the cliffs, no artifacts have re-appeared.

3?. Helicopters Field
Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Haven’t encountered any.
Haven’t scanned any new artifacts either.

Confirmed Respawning Artifacts: 3

1. Symbiont
Psi and Gravitational Anomalies
Known Threats: Mostly imagined.

2. Witch’s Circle
Electrical Anomalies, Psi Anomaly IS the water.
Known Threats: Loners, demonstrating how to become Zombies

Don’t get your feet wet.

3. Tunnels in between Parking lot and Containers
Chemical Anomalies
Known Threats: Bandits, mainly bandits. And a Pseudogiant on first sidequest dependent encounter.



The side quest from Rostok will unlock route to tunnels

1?. Stone Village
Psi Anomalies
Known Threats: Loners, who become Zombies

2?. The Scar
Psi Anomalies
Known Threats: Zombies

None respawn to my knowledge

Inaccessible. Future DLC?

Inaccessible. Future DLC?

Inaccessible. Future DLC please, was a fun place to fight.

This guy did it first, so I’ll link to his guide in the meantime while I get my screenshots out.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3378657467&searchtext=artifact

For artifacts that don’t respawn. Low priority, because not the purpose of this guide.

Some artifacts just spawn underground or fall through the world, and are impossible to get to.
Not condoning cheating or the like, but we’ll assume that we’re manually debugging an issue.
For that we’ll need unreal engine tools.
https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/64

The most useful console commands will be these:
XCreateItemInInventoryByID Gilka 0 1 1

UETools_Ghost
UETools_Walk

XTeleportTo 401851.93 549233.31 573.41(Zalyssya)

Now, assuming you don’t wish to fiddle with more complex commands.
0. Save your game.
1. Equip Hilka Detector. If you don’t have one, the console command is above.
2. Use UETools_Ghost, to go through either cave wall or nearby building basement’s wall to have no floor under you.
3. Use UETools_Walk to fall slightly, press the escape key to quickly pause and use UETools_Ghost again to stop your falling.
4. Move to artifact, fall and pause repeatedly until the numerical proximity of the Hilka Detector hits 002. You should be able to collect the artifact in this range.
5. Use (XTeleportTo 401851.93 549233.31 573.41) to teleport yourself back to Zalyssya, and (UETools_Walk) to return to playing as per normal.

What other complex commands are there?
Well, key binding flying up and down on ghost mode would make things even easier.
This guide will help with that and there are more detailed options regarding the utility here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3375681819

Why the Hilka detector?
The Hilka detector will let you know of your proximity to the artifact on a numerical basis, but what sets it apart from the other detectors, is that it also includes your proximity to the artifact on a vertical axis, which will help you find out how low, or how high it is, relative to you.