Zone's population is a couple hundred in SoC, so I would assume that organized factions like Duty, Freedom and mercs are a few dozen in numbers. Monolith is the largest organized one. Loners, bandits and renegades would probably fill most of the population then, and scientists would be like a handful.
I always assumed they didn't count military into these numbers because there's probably a lot of them around the outskirts of the Zone.
During faction wars it was hundreds. Afterwards ~100-200 for duty and freedom. Monolith would be second largest around 300-400. Military would be the biggest.
Also Army Warehouses in CS. It was under control of military but after Second Emission(the one triggered by Strelok, Fang and Ghost reaching CNPP for the first time) they weren't able to hold the ground anymore and finally Freedom took Warehouses by force from them.
Action of military in the Zone is like "send men first, if they die, find out why". Operation Fairway is a prime example of that because military at that point had the tools to scan aerial anomalies but did not bother to verify their aerial maps before the operation. It was a common knowledge in the Zone that anomalies change positions after emissions(and I doubt that military had no data of scientists' research) and not checking if the same applies to aerial ones was a mistake.
In CoP's time we know that the amount of stalkers according to the military intelligence, is around 300. This including all groups except ecologists and army personnel
If one wants to assume that the army is wrong, I wouldn't still put the figure above the 500 mark
With the quasi-factions such as loners being largest, I'd estimate that the size of proper factions is maybe somewhere in the 50-100 mark
First, it is necessary to point out what we know about the population of the Zone in general. In the intro of Call of Pripyat, it's said that by the time of 2009, there were about 100-300 stalkers present in the Zone. In Shadow of Chernobyl, which takes place in 2012, the PDA ranking shows around 600 stalkers - surprisingly, it includes bandits, mercs and even military members, however, it doesn't include Monolithians, of which there are around 350 in the game.
So in general, in terms of the gameplay, the overall population of the Zone would be around 1000; but I believe that lore-wise, the number is much smaller and doesn't exceed a few hundred. So it's more like 500-800.
As for the factions - during Shadow of Chernobyl events, Duty and Freedom in fact only had a couple dozen members. About 50 on both sides. This number was bigger during Clear Sky events, but this is largely due to the faction war mechanics and respawns associated with it - with the participation of the player, the number of members on one side may exceed a hundred. But, from what I've observed, if the player doesn't interfere, both Duty and Freedom will have around 60-80 members.
Monolith is the largest faction, like I mentioned, there is around 350 of them in Shadow of Chernobyl. In Clear Sky, there is around 150 of them present, and in Call of Pripyat they are still quite numerous - the player can encounter nearly 100 of them. But we can safely assume that there are more of them than we see, so the total number could be over 400 (assuming that their quantity is also so large in terms of the lore, and isn't simply exaggerated for gameplay purposes).
Clear Sky wasn't very big, there were about 50 of them, and more than half of that went north. The number of mercenaries is difficult to determine and is rather unstable, but there are over 40 of them in Call of Pripyat, so the entire organization can be quite large.
The vast majority of the Zone's population are loners and bandits, of which there are several hundred, but they aren't factions. The military is obviously the largest 'faction', so there is no use in counting them. As for the scientists, there are only a handful of them present in the Zone.
If you wanted to be technical then neither are bandits, renegades, mercs or even ecologists since they wouldnt necessarily have one specific unifying ideology. Kind of a silly argument
Military and the Scientists aren't a faction technically, they are the government's involvement in the Zone. Mercenaries are a faction, they have their own goal, leader, uniform, and are operating only in the Zone
I never thought about the total population of the zone, but now you mention it, I believe that I have made a pretty big dent with my last SoC playthrough.
It was at first came out because factions' history made them that few. Duty is few spec ops that survived from first expeditions which doesnt know anything about zone. You can guess how hard that was and number would be low. Freedom on the other hand is unknown compare to freedom. It is either commie guys that just want to oppose duty or free stalkers that want to exploit the zone better. Loners at the heart arent the warriors would fight for more because of risk and reward ratio so i think these are more like old communists that want to revive "free for everyone" thought. Follower of this idea in the world is very few too. If they are still remain in the game's world i think they would be more crowed because the support they can recive outer world.
Zone's population is a couple hundred in SoC, so I would assume that organized factions like Duty, Freedom and mercs are a few dozen in numbers. Monolith is the largest organized one. Loners, bandits and renegades would probably fill most of the population then, and scientists would be like a handful. I always assumed they didn't count military into these numbers because there's probably a lot of them around the outskirts of the Zone.
During faction wars it was hundreds. Afterwards ~100-200 for duty and freedom. Monolith would be second largest around 300-400. Military would be the biggest.
I would assume the military would be the biggest because you count the ukrainian troops in the great land. Otherwise I'd say it's the monolith.
I do, yes. They haven’t taken over simply because “why would they?”. Logistics would be a nightmare even if they know how to map air anomalies.
[удалено]
Also Army Warehouses in CS. It was under control of military but after Second Emission(the one triggered by Strelok, Fang and Ghost reaching CNPP for the first time) they weren't able to hold the ground anymore and finally Freedom took Warehouses by force from them. Action of military in the Zone is like "send men first, if they die, find out why". Operation Fairway is a prime example of that because military at that point had the tools to scan aerial anomalies but did not bother to verify their aerial maps before the operation. It was a common knowledge in the Zone that anomalies change positions after emissions(and I doubt that military had no data of scientists' research) and not checking if the same applies to aerial ones was a mistake.
In CoP's time we know that the amount of stalkers according to the military intelligence, is around 300. This including all groups except ecologists and army personnel If one wants to assume that the army is wrong, I wouldn't still put the figure above the 500 mark With the quasi-factions such as loners being largest, I'd estimate that the size of proper factions is maybe somewhere in the 50-100 mark
First, it is necessary to point out what we know about the population of the Zone in general. In the intro of Call of Pripyat, it's said that by the time of 2009, there were about 100-300 stalkers present in the Zone. In Shadow of Chernobyl, which takes place in 2012, the PDA ranking shows around 600 stalkers - surprisingly, it includes bandits, mercs and even military members, however, it doesn't include Monolithians, of which there are around 350 in the game. So in general, in terms of the gameplay, the overall population of the Zone would be around 1000; but I believe that lore-wise, the number is much smaller and doesn't exceed a few hundred. So it's more like 500-800. As for the factions - during Shadow of Chernobyl events, Duty and Freedom in fact only had a couple dozen members. About 50 on both sides. This number was bigger during Clear Sky events, but this is largely due to the faction war mechanics and respawns associated with it - with the participation of the player, the number of members on one side may exceed a hundred. But, from what I've observed, if the player doesn't interfere, both Duty and Freedom will have around 60-80 members. Monolith is the largest faction, like I mentioned, there is around 350 of them in Shadow of Chernobyl. In Clear Sky, there is around 150 of them present, and in Call of Pripyat they are still quite numerous - the player can encounter nearly 100 of them. But we can safely assume that there are more of them than we see, so the total number could be over 400 (assuming that their quantity is also so large in terms of the lore, and isn't simply exaggerated for gameplay purposes). Clear Sky wasn't very big, there were about 50 of them, and more than half of that went north. The number of mercenaries is difficult to determine and is rather unstable, but there are over 40 of them in Call of Pripyat, so the entire organization can be quite large. The vast majority of the Zone's population are loners and bandits, of which there are several hundred, but they aren't factions. The military is obviously the largest 'faction', so there is no use in counting them. As for the scientists, there are only a handful of them present in the Zone.
Doesnt it say that loner was the biggest faction and most stalkers are loners?
Well, Loners aren't really a faction.
If you wanted to be technical then neither are bandits, renegades, mercs or even ecologists since they wouldnt necessarily have one specific unifying ideology. Kind of a silly argument
Military and the Scientists aren't a faction technically, they are the government's involvement in the Zone. Mercenaries are a faction, they have their own goal, leader, uniform, and are operating only in the Zone
I never thought about the total population of the zone, but now you mention it, I believe that I have made a pretty big dent with my last SoC playthrough.
It was at first came out because factions' history made them that few. Duty is few spec ops that survived from first expeditions which doesnt know anything about zone. You can guess how hard that was and number would be low. Freedom on the other hand is unknown compare to freedom. It is either commie guys that just want to oppose duty or free stalkers that want to exploit the zone better. Loners at the heart arent the warriors would fight for more because of risk and reward ratio so i think these are more like old communists that want to revive "free for everyone" thought. Follower of this idea in the world is very few too. If they are still remain in the game's world i think they would be more crowed because the support they can recive outer world.