Stalker 2 Budmo mission guide: Should you steal from the stashes?

Should you steal from the stashes or deliver the vodka as asked in the Budmo mission in Stalker 2?

Stalker 2 / GSC Game World

Budmo! is one of the stranger missions in Stalker 2. You get it by talking to the drunks in the Slag Heap – the same place you can get the reliable Drowned weapon in Stalker 2 – and they’ll ask you to go around and drop vodka off for one of their friends who is in need. They’ve set up stashes around the area to supply it to him easily, but they don’t remember which one is the right one in this instance, so you’ll need to visit all three.

However, when you visit one of these stashes, you’ll find that they’re full of a bunch of good gear. Gear that you might want for yourself, but is it worth stealing the stuff and potentially missing out on other rewards? We’ll explain the consequences of each choice in this mission, as well as what your rewards are in each instance.

Budmo stash locations and what’s in them

Stalker 2 / GSC Game World

Here are the locations for each bag:

• The first stash is up a power pylon. You can climb up to the bag using the fallen tree nearby.
• The second is in a well in the center of the rubble. It’s covered by some planks that you need to smash.
• The third is in a cave near the poisonous hole.

Note that depending on what order you visit them in, you may have to fight a mutant at each of these locations.

Here’s what you can find in each of these stashes. Note that you can only get two of these stashes, as whichever one you reach last will have already been cleaned out by Panas, the aforementioned friend of the drunks.

• Pylon Stash – A detector and two artifacts
• Well Stash – Gun attachments, an SMG, and ammo
• Cave Stash – Helmet, an SMG, and ammo

Should you steal from the stashes?

Stalker 2 / GSC Game World

If you steal from these stashes then when you encounter Panas at the third location, he will be hostile and the mission will fail, meaning you don’t get any reward on top of whatever you stole from the stashes.

If you do what was asked of you and place vodka in each stash then Panas will talk to you instead and ask for anti-radiation medicine instead of the vodka. Give him the anti-rad meds and he’ll give you 1,300 coupons there and then, while giving him the vodka will see him travel back to his friends, who will give you the 1,300 coupons instead.

The gear you can get from any two of these stashes is worth a lot more than 1,300 coupons, so there’s no advantage to doing the morally correct thing here. It’s better to steal from the stashes as you’ll get gear that’s either useful to your loadout or worth selling at your next opportunity.