Brainburner is one of the strangest and most mysterious places of the STALKER game: “Shadow of Chernobyl”. The gamer who first decided to explore the vastness of the Zone will invariably stumble upon this location. On the one hand, this promises to reveal the secret of the appearance of zombies in the Zone, on the other hand, it helps to determine some of the plot aspects of the game.
Game plot
The action takes place in an alternative universe, where on April 12, 2006, a second explosion occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which contributed to the emergence of the Zone - a huge location filled with all kinds of anomalous sites of a different nature.
Wanting to investigate the causes, the government sends troops to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but the operation ends in failure. A decision is made to enclose the Zone, and checkpoints are being erected at the approaches. Inside, mostly scientists, military and SBU employees get inside.
Over time, mutated animals began to appear in the Zone. Rumors spread about the appearance on its territory of objects with unique capabilities. Artifacts (that's what they were called) quickly gained demand in the black market, because some of them contributed to the rapid healing of wounds. This nuance contributed to the emergence of a medical interest in amazing finds.
This led to the appearance of artifact hunters, who were nicknamed stalkers, they illegally entered the Zone in order to search for artifacts in order to sell them to scientists in the future.
"Stalker. Shadow of Chernobyl"
Brainburner is not mentioned immediately in the prologue. At first, the player’s attention is presented with a video of the crash of a truck carrying a “cargo of 200” as a result of a lightning strike. The stalker, who examined the crash site, discovers the main character, who soon receives the nickname Marked with a light hand of a local merchant named Sidorovich.
During the game, it turns out that the main character has lost his memory. It is not clear how he ended up in the Death Truck (as local stalkers call vehicles with the dead, which periodically appear from the center of the Zone). Yes, and they have never been found before, because trucks always carry corpses.
In the process of exploring the Zone, the player opens up new locations in which various groups are engaged in quite ordinary life matters (search for artifacts, trade, sleep, search for prey, rest), in addition to war with each other and periodic looting.
Psi radar
The first hints of the existence of a certain installation that exercises control of the mind are the appearance of zombie stalkers in the game. They do not pose a special threat, because they are easy to deceive and kill. Difficulties cause only three factors:
- Armed with firearms.
- Often they wear bulletproof vests. To kill, you need to get into the head.
- A lone zombie is a rarity. They live mainly in numerous groups.
The second hint is local folklore, telling about the existence of the "Klondike Artifacts" - Pripyat. But the mentioned burner blocks the way there. If the usual mutants of the Zone represent a certain degree of danger, then they can be shot. Someone easily, someone - no. The Brainburner is neither touched nor shot, you cannot even see it. Just a stalker falls within the scope of the action and becomes zombie.
Location
Disabling the "brain burner" is not an easy task, but this is what the main character needs to do. It is a station with old radar antennas converted for psi installation. In the bunker on the minus ground floor there is a control center for the burner. Here, an improved model of the Caymanov emitter sends pulses to the antennas, covering a vast territory with a strong psi-field.
Everyone who finds himself within the field experiences clouding of consciousness or loses his mind. The territory is a fortified outpost of the Monolith group - fanatics protecting the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and a certain “wish-fulfiller”, which, according to local folklore, is located under the Chernobyl sarcophagus.
The territory of the Radar is full of snipers and patrols that attack any stalker except zombies.
Off
To turn off the installation, the Swordsman will need to get a device for protection against psi radiation, which is located at scientists near the Yantar plant. After completing the task, the hero is given a prototype of the device and documents indicating the location of the X10 laboratory - the bunker in which the "brain burner" control center is located.
The bartender (the owner of the "100 X-ray" establishment) studies the documents and issues the task to turn off the burner.
The path runs through the last habitable territory in the Zone - army depots. Here, the protagonist becomes a witness to the confrontation between the groups "Debt" and "Freedom", and will also help to resist the militants of the "Monolith" group.
The road to Radar is accompanied by constant skirmishes, zombie attacks and the emergence of strange phantom formations.
Upon entering the psi-radar control bunker, the player encounters a door with two combination locks to the right of the stairs leading to the dungeon, where the “brain burner” has yet to be disconnected. The first code is easy to find during a search of the corpses of Monolithians during the passage of the location, it is 342089. The second is hidden in the game’s resources and is not involved in any way. There are modpacks that fix this error. The code itself is 2011533.
When Marked turns off the "burner", a large detachment of Monolithians appears in the bunker.
Also, when the radar is turned off, the protagonist receives a message on the PDA about a large-scale breakthrough of troops in Pripyat. It is not surprising, because the rumor about the "Klondike Artifacts" has long excited the heads of local stalkers - everything that is available was stolen in the Go district.
Cheats for "Stalker" and other ways to improve
Turning off the "burner" is not necessary, you can turn off the road towards Pripyat. It will only be very flattened due to radiation and existing psi radiation, but it will all be over as soon as the player gets to the “Duty” assault squad in Pripyat.
After that, a mark will appear on the PDA that the psi emitter is turned off. Whether this is a bug or so was conceived is unknown.
The codes for "Stalker. Shadow of Chernobyl", which are console commands, are very few: they only allow you to constantly move around the Zone (g_always_run 1) and activate a couple of bonuses (pseudodog and snork). Console teams do not provide the most popular features, such as immortality or getting the coolest weapons from the first minutes of the game. Therefore, various trainers and cheat-mods quite successfully cope with the tasks set.