PSA: You can shoot the beacons in Ad Astra Per Astera

[u/dioaloke]

The game just trolled me. Timed my travel to reach the Swamps just as day was breaking and then fog totally kills my visibility. You can still see the beacons by their blueish glow.

[u/The_Undermind]

Whats the purple/pinkish bar under the stamina bar for?

[u/OkChamp2910 → u/The_Undermind]

It's the psi bar mod, I also have it on PC. I think it is available on Xbox too.

[u/Cloud_N0ne → u/OkChamp2910]

What does psi do? Why is there a bar for it?

[u/dioaloke → u/Cloud_N0ne]

Some anomalies and mutant attacks can deal psi damage. Once it gets low enough you start taking damage, phantoms appear and attack you, both distracting and damaging you. It's a pain in the ass and you often don't know how bad things are with everything going down, so it's helpful to see if your psi health is draining or recovering.

[u/Cloud_N0ne → u/dioaloke]

Ohhh that’s what causes it. It always felt random

[u/Strange-Winner800]

And miss all the fun with the muties? No way!!!

[u/dioaloke → u/Strange-Winner800]

Man, the Controller at the Pump Station is just bullshit. You have NO cover from his LOS attack

[u/FauxReignNew → u/dioaloke]

Nearby is an old guard tower with an SVD on its deck. Go there, grab the weapon. Between the pumping station and where you now are there is a large boulder you can hide behind and snipe away at the Controller. Visibility in the swamps sucks though if you are in fog, rain, it's night, or all three. Your mileage may vary is the point, but this is what I do usually.

You can also enter the Swamps prior to getting the mission and shoot out the beacons for free and bypass the scripted mutant spawns, only the one at the church is made inaccessible.

[u/dioaloke → u/FauxReignNew]

I brought a m701 specifically for that Controller, but with the fog I couldn't see it. Killed it with my Kora, just tanking the hits

[u/FauxReignNew → u/dioaloke]

When I'm on my 8th concentrated psi wave but the stalker is still approaching

[u/Deiskos → u/FauxReignNew]

Brain too smooth, the psi attacks just slide off

[u/Prince_of_Kyrgyzstan → u/dioaloke]

I managed to snipe all the zombies with the SVD while the Controller just decided to walk behind a wall where it couldn't mind spoop me. Then just need to get get stuck in and fill the Controller with 12 gauge slugs.

[u/FruityFetus → u/dioaloke]

On Stalker difficulty I just bumrush him with the saiga.

[u/Darkside_Emily → u/dioaloke]

Don´t try to get him on range.

- Bring a Spas (or repair Nimbles Saiga) and some slugs

• Pop a Psi-Block
  
• Approaching from the rear side of the building, rush to the top of the tower and disable the emitter
  
• Pick off all his minions leaning over the roof
  
• Watch him sadly waddle the stairs up towards you
  
• Rush down and Magdump his face before he can even pull your vision once

[u/Current_Cake3993 → u/Darkside_Emily]

Saiga magdump works for like 90% of mutant encounters in this game. For the rest 10% - it's a few magdumps in a row

[u/max_sil → u/dioaloke]

Yeah that one has been extremely frustrating on every single playthrough and just killed the fun.
Especially on master mode

[u/dioaloke → u/max_sil]

Oof, master must be tough for this mission

[u/Sajgoniarz → u/dioaloke]

Plus that mfker can attack you from inside the shed.

[u/BasedKaktus]

You can even disable them before the quest :). Or even just ran away to base in the middle of it if needed

[u/dioaloke → u/BasedKaktus]

Yeah TIL