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Carry Weight is the biggest problem in STALKER 2. No matter what you do, your carry weight is a huge problem for almost the entire game — if you need to carry heavy stuff for quests, the problem only gets worse. You can only carry 80 kilos of weight total, and if you go above 50 you’ll be trudging slowly and struggling to sprint, making travel a nightmare. If you go into the red then you’re in big trouble. Which you basically always will be. If you’re carrying a full loadout of two weapons, a sidearm, ammo, healing items and armor then you’re already barely skirting the 50 weight limit.
If you want to carry more stuff, there are a few options you can use to make life a little bit easier. Let’s go over all the ways to carry mor or increase your total weight limit.
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Using An Exoskeleton
The Exoskeleton is a powerful set of armor that also increases your total carry weight in STALKER 2 when worn. Using an Exoskeleton like the Cuirass Suit found in the SKD Assembly Unit building in the Cooling Towers region increases your carry weight maximum by +8 kg.
The Technician can apply further upgrades that increase carry weight and lower the total weight of the suit. Each suit is different, so check the Technician and see if you can purchase upgrades to make carrying more weight easier.
- Exoskeletons increase maximum carry weight by +8 kg.
- Technicians can further upgrade Exoskeletons to carry more or lower the weight of the Exoskeleton suit.
- Exoskeleton Suits disable sprinting.
You can find a free Exoskeleton Suit with our location guide here.
Using Hercules Consumables
Hercules is a rare consumable that appears more often once you reach the mid-point of the main game. This special consumable increases maximum carry weight for 10 minutes when used. It lowers your current carry weight by -20 kg for the duration of its effect, making sprinting back with a backpack full of junk to sell actually possible.
Hercules are very rare, so always be on the lookout for these injectables. Later bases also may sell these at Medics so check their inventory. Otherwise, you can find these everywhere — in stashes, laying around environments, or carried rarely by enemies. They’re very tough to find for most of the game, so I recommend stockpiling them and only using them when they’re really necessary.
Finding Rare Artifacts
Artifacts rarely can be used to increase your total carry weight — these artifacts usually impart radiation, so equipping artifacts that decrease the effects of radiation are very effective here.
- Look for the following artifacts. They will randomly spawn in anomalies. Check locations every two days — hopefully you’ll get one of the following artifacts.
- Flytrap
- Goldfish
- Sprint
- Stone Blood
Any of these artifacts will slightly increase your carry weight. The amount isn’t totally clear, so equip and check your total weight to see what’s been improved. This is also totally random, so keep searching anomalies. Hopefully you’ll eventually find one of these.
Using The Technician
Certain armor sets can increase your maximum carry weight with a Technician Upgrade. Every suit of armor is different, so you’ll need to check each one separately — but weight-related upgrades are very valuable.
- Check with the Technician and scroll through upgrades. Look for upgrades the decrease the total weight of your weapons and armor.
- Some armor sets also include upgrades to increase carry weight. This allows you to carry more before entering a yellow or red weight status.
These upgrades can be expensive, but some armor is heavy — and often the heaviest armor will have multiple upgrades to lower total weight. Even simple armor that’s 8 kg can often be upgraded to only be 6 kg — not ideal, but those couple of kilograms are valuable.
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Using Mods
While patches are coming out fast for STALKER 2, the weight limit issue is enough of a problem that there are already multiple mods designed specifically to let you carry more stuff. Whether they rebalance weight or just disable negative effects totally, here’s a few mods you might want to try.
- No (Or Reduced) Weight For Ammo, Grenades, Medical Items & Food
- Adjustable Carry Weight
- Increased Quest Pay, Carry Weight & Longer Days
- Maklane’s Better Weight Rebalance
- Lighter Items
These are just a handful of mods we were easily able to find. Carry weight is a big problem, and if you’re on PC, there’s every reason to give these mods a try. If you’re looking for a last ditch solution, you can also use console command cheats on PC. Learn how to use cheat codes like Ghost in STALKER 2 with our Console Commands guide.
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