There are a lot of main missions in "Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl". Taking over the mountain is one of the more unique missions. If you want to do this mission, you can go to the garbage dump. Diod, the mechanic, will give you this quest naturally.
How to conquer the mountain in the main mission of STALKER 2
As part of the main quest, Diod, the mechanic in the garbage dump, will naturally give you this quest. To get more clues about the missing leader of the dump, he points you to a rival local gang - Varan and his gang.
Go to factory
Varan and his gang can be found in the factory located south of the garbage dump.
Although they look like bandits, they are not hostile when you arrive and you can safely walk in and talk to their leader.
Talk to Varan
Varan will explain that he has imprisoned a member who has attacked you, and you can "interrogate" them, but only if you do him a favor. From here, you have four choices:
Pay 20,000 vouchers
Kill rival gang leader Shah
Kill rival gang leader Roosevelt
Attack Valan
There is a high probability that you will not have 20,000 vouchers at your disposal, and even if you do, we do not recommend choosing this option.
Should you kill Shah or Roosevelt?
From a plot perspective, this choice doesn't seem to make much difference. You can freely choose to kill Shah or Roosevelt without any consequences.
Between the two, choosing Shah would be the easier task. You can go directly to his hiding place, but to find Roosevelt you need to return to the garbage dump to get information, which takes more time, but the experience is similar.
How to kill Shah
Shah and his gang "The Hive" are located to the west of the garbage dump, marked as "The Hive" on the map. They are all hiding in the northwest corner of the area, either within the main building or in an area outside the building.
There is an observation tower on the north side of the area that overlooks their hideout. This place is a good fighting angle, and you can start the confrontation from here. Enemies will be immediately hostile upon first encounter, so you'll need to be prepared for a tougher shootout.
There are some anomalies that erupt magma to the east of the "Insect Nest" area. You can check if there are any special relics here.
The real answer: kill neither
Once you get the rival gang leader's personal assistant device, Varan will let you see their prisoners. Sadly, the prisoner, as well as Lieutenant Mestrenko, the leader of the dump you were originally sent to find, are already dead.
Be sure to take out the "abnormal PDA" from the corpse, which will promote the progress of the main task and play an important role in multiple subsequent interactions.
This actually marks the end of the mission of occupying the mountain as king, and also heralds the beginning of the next mission.
You will be challenged face to face by Varan, who will order his men to kill you. You can survive by hiding in the room and slowly defeating them.
Since you will eventually fight Varan, attacking him directly when you first meet him will prevent you from having to deal with Shah or Roosevelt. Doing this is the fastest way, with the only drawback being that you don't get the potential loot from the corpses of rival gangs.
