I enjoyed the kharod in Stalker 2
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The Kharod has been my go-to for most of my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 playthrough up until recently. Made a special trek out West past the irradiated vehicle graveyard to get it, then trekked back after update 1.6 to get the white phosphor Gen 3 NODs that are now in the same place. Ran it with a suppressor, extended mag, ACOG, and either the M203 or the Hole Punch under barrel shotgun (mostly for aesthetics) and had it rechambered for 5.45x39mm for ammo availability. My secondary was the Saiga 12 you can get on the South West side of the vehicle graveyard.
However, now I'm running the Dnipro rechambered for 7.62x54mmR (I think that's an oversight by the devs and it is supposed to be 7.62x39mm), coupled mags, ACOG, and suppressor. I've started playing with mods now that they're available on console, and one mod is "Barkeep sells everything" where literally every item in the game, including uniques and all artifacts, including the one of a kinds, is sold by the barkeep at each base. They also sell all the blueprints "for free", but you can't just take the blueprints for nothing. You have to add them to your buy screen, then buy at least one thing that has a price attached to it. So I bought all the Dnipro blueprints (well, I bought ALL the blueprints) including the caliber swap well before I'm anywhere near going to Prypriat.
The mod also has items that I do not think are in the game yet, like the sniper rifle suppressors, the extended mag for the SVU, and the drum for the Saiga 12. Of course, I bought all that shit too.
So right now my load out is Diamond Exo (which I've had for a long time since back when you could do the box jump thing to get on top of the mobile lab by Yaniv, which I believe you can no longer do as the devs moved that armor inside the bunker), 7.62mm Dnipro as my primary, the special Magrach version of the Saiga 12 or the Texan version of the Ram-2/DP-12 as my shotgun secondary depending on my mood, APSB/Stetchkin as my pistol, and in my pack I keep an SVU/Mk-3 whatever they call it, and a Gauss Rifle for long range work. However, I am considering running the SVU as my primary as kind of a battle rifle since I've got it suppressed and the 20rnd stendo on it. Actually, I just remembered that I recently bought the Whip version of the SVU and fully upgraded it and am running that in my pack now. The nice thing about the Whip is when it's upgraded, it has really good handling stats. Its actually better than my Dnipro, and it's better than the normal SVUs that you can buy or find in the world.
As for artifacts, I believe I'm running a Hypercube, a Liquid Rock, a Glare, and a Nightstar, but I also have a Compass and Devil's Mushroom. Used to run the Compass, but ever since I found out that it wasn't doing anything for me since my armor's protection stats are pretty much maxed out, I swapped it out for the Glare for the anomaly protection. Oh, I've also got a Thunder Berry I used to run, but one of my mods greatly increases my stamina, so it's of no help anymore. I've got the Compass and Thunder Berry in my stash for sentimental reasons since they were part of my load out for so long, like the Kharod.
I do still have my fully decked out Kharod tucked away in my stash since I've got some sentimental feelings attached to it. I've literally had it since first leaving the Lesser Zone, and only just switched for something else just recently. I've also got about 1800rnds of 5.45mm ammo in the stash with it, just in case I run out of 7.62x54mmR and need to switch back to it while building up a new stockpile of 7.62mm.
I'm at the point in the game where I just got back from the old Clear Sky base with the MacGuffin and the leaders of Spark and Noontide want to have a little palaver with me before I head up to SIRCAA. I've been playing the game ever since it released, but this is still my first playthrough. I've been taking my time, doing a lot of exploring, artifact hunting, weapon/armor hunting, farming bandits for stuff to sell. I've got several rare and legendary artifacts.