KickStarter ATOM RPG - Wasteland Soviet style! - now with Dead City update

[StaticSpine]

One quick question: the game uses armor vs dodge system like in AoD?

 

[Okagron]

Haven't played in over a month because i have been distracted by other games. But it seems a lot of cool stuff is coming up, so i might come back in the next update.

 

[RK47]

Already replaying now with the intent to speedrun.

Spoiler

Character wise I find the start with Lone Wolf and Lucky One pretty unbeatable.

It gives you additional 5 points on attribute which you should use to bump DEX and INT to 10 for AP & quicker skill advancement.
While Lucky One does reduce all skills by 10 except for Speechcraft +15, it's not a big deal. I want to use Speechcraft anyway.

For Clothes kit, this run will go way smoother if you take Chosen One.

It's a backer-only set. The run is still do-able without it, but it's slightly riskier.

• If you want to meta the fight to keep your AK, you can. But it takes longer and doesn't really improve the run speed that much. And it's kinda risky too. Better to just take the Speechcraft EXP IMO.
• So put on your stuff, go to Otradnoye.
• Go left upon arrival, loot stash, grab antidote.
• Trade Antidote for stims and cash.
• Do the usual, help the tavern girl, help find the snitch, kill the snitch, kill the rat for gold nugget.
• Do not forget to fix the generator for easy EXP and cash as well.
• Upon hitting Level 2 - get lockpicking 40 to get all containers unlocked in Bunker 317.
• Otradnoye should net you a lot of cash. You should leave the village at Level 3.
• Also, I rested 12 hours just to let the Doctor replenish his cash. He has the best price in the entire game so clear all your unwanted loot since you need backspace space for the loot at Bunker 317.

• Bunker 317 is a location packed with freebies. Some are VERY valuable. I'll be going for those only.
• Get in with the help of the 3 Samaritans.
• Unlock the last 2 lockers for some medical supplies.
• Walk further in and grab 10 wires off the broken turret
• Head right, unlock door, grab knife, and read +5 Tech magazine.
• Head left, access terminal to open the elevator door.
• Loot the warehouse for canned food (you need to save at least 3 of them) and some dummy grenade and loot.
• Go below, head left to the room full of lockers. Go after the two lockers that has the following: a dynamite and two antidotes.
• Head to the cafeteria past the poison shroom and unlock the kitchen door.
• Talk to the Ant-Man and get the access code then kill him for his armor. The set is worth 1200 rubles and is your starter armor.
• Head deeper and pickup cult medallion, detector and other valuable chem loot.
• Stop by the sick bay and loot everything inside.
• You should level up. Put every point into speech. Stop at 120.
• Before heading outside stuff your pockets with whatever you can take but don't get encumbered.
• Outside, use speechcraft to convince the three to leave you alone then trade with one of them for 1x RAD0 and his 120 rubles before leaving for Peregon.

• Peregon is pretty simple. I think you only need 2 tickets for this run.
• Try to arrive during day. If you arrive at night, rest till 8 AM. You want to talk to two NPCs for free skill points. +5 Pistol and +5 Speech.
• Volunteer to fix the standoff between the merchant and guards for Fyodor
• There are a lot of traders with cash in Peregon, trade away everything you do not need.
• Talk to the Merchant leader first, accept his counter-offer to kill the guard captain AND Fyodor.
• Head to the guard captain, equip a knife and pass DEX check to knife him up.
• Loot everything in his room. Equip his hat for +10 Speech and wield his Makarov Pistol.
• Now consume the +2 END chem you bought from the tanker merchant and kill Fyodor with Endurance checks.
• Loot him and return to the Merchant leader. He tries to weasel away from paying you full, but 135 Speechcraft makes sure he coughs out 3000 rubles.
• Now you're ready for Death Tunnel.

 

[RK47]

Alright, finished it.

Spoiler

If you have the gas mask, the rat tunnels is the easiest way past Death Tunnels.



If you don't have the mask, you have to take the +AP Drugs and outrun the Morlochs, making a quick grab for the filter on the truck crate.
Once done, you can just walk back to Peregon and wait for a Caravan to take you to Krasno, skipping Dan's camp completely.



So much to do in Krasno, and they're usually small rewards. So I'm going to skip those small ones and focus on the big one.
The big one is 1000 ruble reward outside the city walls. Just get STR 7 with vodka. It's easy.
First thing to do buy a locksmith kit and all the tobacco you can find.
Smoke two sticks and craft cigarettes with toilet paper + tobacco. You need at least 50.
The major loot in Krasno is getting enough cigarette to smoke-kill the Chamber of Commerce guard.
You need access to the bunker due to main plot reason and 3,500 is a steep price to pay.
Killing him would net you AK74 and Body Armor.
Proceed with the mushroom cult job and smoke a pig and off I go to Dead City.



Now you know why I need the RAD0 doses. Don't even think of coming here without them. You'll die from rads.
The encounter rate is pretty high too. Just hope for the best and run straight to the Institute ruins.
Do what you need to do and score some good loot in there. There should be at least 5000 ruble worth of stuff for you to loot in there.
Then return to Krasno, report your progress to the Cult and proceed to Caravanserai.



This is the combat heavy section. You should be prepared with decent Automatic weapon skill and good ammo count.
Take a fast trip to the Old Castle.
Kill everyone there.
Return to Caravanserai and tell the guy to take you to the old bunker.
Be very careful in the bunker and you're clear to take this run to the end.
Get some alcohol ready to celebrate. (in game and outside game, that is)



Arrive at Krasno. Drink till your luck is maxed.
Proceed to the Cult for celebration.

And I'm done. Resuming wait for 20 March!

 

[StaticSpine]

I'm playing a high STR technophobe martial artist. Tried the cart near the bunker - couldn't start the mechanism without tech skill. Are there other ways to get inside? And do I need any mandatory skills for main missions?

 

[Mark Richard]

I'm playing a high STR technophobe martial artist. Tried the cart near the bunker - couldn't start the mechanism without tech skill. Are there other ways to get inside? And do I need any mandatory skills for main missions?

At least two others. Lockpick the door, or approach a small camp to the right of the entrance where a bunch of scavengers will offer to open the door for you. I wouldn't call any skill absolutely mandatory, but if you're going for a melee build it might be wise to load up on grenades and have the throwing skill in reserve.

 

[Atomboy]

Awesome, these guys are setting the gold standard for post release support. Constant communication, listening to feedback, frequent updates, free dlc... For that alone they deserve every sale they get.

Whoa seems unfair to get free dlc after paying so low price. :]

Whoa seems unfair to get free dlc after paying so low price. :]

Yeah, new characters, new locations, and a new questline alone are pretty much worth couple more bucks.

Whoa seems unfair to get free dlc after paying so low price. :]

yea this exactly. it's not like i'll complain or something but i'd gladly pay few bucks
make a horse armor so i can give you few rubbles coz you deserve it

Thanks guys! That really means a lot. But still, we would not feel honest if we'd put a price on the upcoming DLC. While not small, and definitely not horse armor, its still not big enough for a price. We'll charge some $$$ for the next DLC that will be released this year, but it will give you a whole new world-map-sized dystopian city of Trudograd to play with and will feel like a new game in itself. Anything smaller than that just doesn't seem right to sell to the people that gave us so much support and love when Atom was released. I'm totally sure that in the next decade we will devolve into a money-hungry lootbox selling corporation, but right now we're content with earning less if it means we're making players happy.

 

[Atomboy]

One quick question: the game uses armor vs dodge system like in AoD?

I don't know, since my AOD lore is pretty rusty, but it's like the more armor you got on, the lesser your dodge is.

Quality of Life improvements

This is nice, but what kind of QOL improvements are we talking about?

Better inventory management - like sorting stuff, dropping stuff, picking stuff up in a less convoluted manner. More info - like what's in the active slot and stuff like that. We really like how this is going!

Odd bug with Peregon Ending

Spoiler

Pretty sure I killed the Guard leader and Fyodor.
And got 3000 rubles from the Merchant leader.
Except this is how it ended.

That's really weird! I told the bug crew, gonna do something about it. Thanks for pointing out!

 

[Atomboy]

i wonder if melee will get buffed in 1.08.

Not too much in the way of balancing it out, but with new items and skill tweaks - yeah. We got a lot of fist weapons in the works, maybe even including that thing the eli bear jew roth used in the end of inglorious basterds. turned out this thing was actually real lol, it's like a glove with 22 LR rounds and a pressure plate that pops them when you hit someone.

 

[SniperHF]

I don't know, since my AOD lore is pretty rusty, but it's like the more armor you got on, the lesser your dodge is.

That's basically how it works in AoD but I don't think you could strategize around building a dodge character in ATOM like you can in AoD. I think in ATOM you'd just die playing that way. Where as in AoD it's very viable.

Maybe I'm wrong about how it works in ATOM since I haven't tried it, but you'd have very little DR and would just get murdered. Where as in AoD you can still manage decent armor throughout the game and maintain your high dodge I don't think this is the case in ATOM until you get the perk for it.

 

[RK47]

You need to add LUCK score to Dodge.
And revamp some distinctions that are under-performing.
Cause right now, if you force me to take LEADER, the best way to play the game is NOT to take any followers else you'll gimp yourself.

 

[Quillon]

I'm totally sure that in the next decade we will devolve into a money-hungry lootbox selling corporation

 

[Sloul]

Free DLC is a wise choice, I don't know why people would say otherwise here.
That's going to give your team +++++ rep. This rep. will fallow you on your next project and it will be a boon.

 

[razvedchiki]

the game needs tougher encounters also,once you figure out the system and have a decent weapon you can steamroll anything.

 

[StaticSpine]

Atomboy
I have 20 dodge, but I don't get if it's high or low. Is it viable for dodger or I better put on some armor?

 

[Sloul]

Armor is better.

 

[Mark Richard]

Atomboy
I have 20 dodge, but I don't get if it's high or low. Is it viable for dodger or I better put on some armor?

20 is a very high dodge level. Here's a dodge of 1:



Even with high dodge of 20 you'll still get hit all the time. Armor is essential. To get the best of both worlds there's a powerful ability called Praetorian which removes the dodge penalties from armor and headwear, but it's right on the end of an ability tree that's building you up to absorb damage rather than avoid it.

 

[RK47]

Every time you spend AP your Dodge drops by 1.

 

[Black Angel]

So one thing lead to the other and now I'm currently unable to play the PS4 for at least a month, which means no KCD for a month. I still have Mount&Blade for my current medieval addiction fix, but I reckon it won't be long until my post-apocalyptic withdrawal to kick in and I'll be back in the genre in full force. So I decided to just start a real playthrough for ATOM instead of trying to fuck around over and over again trying some 'unusual' builds. Some things I want to say:

• I really love the new tutorial section! Immediately reminded me of how Underrail handled its tutorial, you can go along with it or skip it entirely, very cool. But with that, I came to find some things that I realized I REALLY disliked
• Camera rotation. I guess this is just Unity problem because, dammit, it felt clunky and slow as hell, which is more or less the way it is in Wasteland 2 when I tried it during free weekend. Meanwhile, I don't remember having much problem with AoD, but I guess it's because that game runs relatively smoother on my laptop. Still annoying there, though, so I'm glad they get rid of it for Colony Ship RPG.
• Another camera related problem is how the camera always centers back at the character whenever I prompt a command, either to move or to interact with objects/NPCs. Or rather, I dislike how this game implements it. I didn't necessarily dread the feature, since Arcanum has it. But in Arcanum, the camera instantly move to our character, instead of wasting my time slowly panning from where I give the command to where my character's currently at. I guess I have more tolerance for Arcanum because it runs much smoother on my laptop. I know this means I should be getting a new rig to finally play all these cool games that's out in recent times, but still.... is there any way to get rid of the camera centering on our character?

Maybe I should just wait for those QoL improvements before actually continuing my playthrough.

 

[SniperHF]

Another camera related problem is how the camera always centers back at the character whenever I prompt a command, either to move or to interact with objects/NPCs. Or rather, I dislike how this game implements it. I didn't necessarily dread the feature, since Arcanum has it. But in Arcanum, the camera instantly move to our character, instead of wasting my time slowly panning from where I give the command to where my character's currently at. I guess I have more tolerance for Arcanum because it runs much smoother on my laptop. I know this means I should be getting a new rig to finally play all these cool games that's out in recent times, but still.... is there any way to get rid of the camera centering on our character?

Just unlock the camera by pressing home.

But the speed of the camera does indeed suck in the current version. I want it snappy like an RTS.

 

[RK47]

Overall the combat is very simple.
Depending on your build, you will approach the battle differently:
Currently, the meta favors automatic rifle too much because this weapon class is too versatile in all range. At point blank, it's capable of burst, and at a distance, it's capable of accurate damage at mid-range, assuming it's not a machine gun.

Semi-automatics Rifle does not have burst luxury. They tend to rely on critical damage and aimed shots take more AP to execute. They're efficient with ammunition but overall not as versatile as the automatics.

The pistol is at the lower end of the return - fast to raise the skill, cheap to acquire but somewhat weaker than both rifle on single shot and too small of a clip size compared to automatic burst. It's OK, just not amazing.

Melee is very one dimensional. You need a lot of points to unlock 'First Blood' to trigger automatic critical on the first melee hit and a high damage melee weapon to profit from this. From my experience, mid-game close combat weapons just don't cut it. You have to exploit the fact that a guaranteed critical to the head has a high chance to knock down a humanoid, this, in turn, will put their dodge chance at a negative. Switch to a burst pistol and unload. This will certainly do way more damage than any mid-game close combat weapon will.

 

[Black Angel]

Just unlock the camera by pressing home.

But the speed of the camera does indeed suck in the current version. I want it snappy like an RTS.

Thanks a lot, mate! But yeah, that speed can be annoying in the long run. Hopefully they'll add camera speed slider if they can.

 

[Stephane F.]

This is clearly Douglas Pearce from DEATH IN JUNE.

 

[Saduj]

Bought the game last night and played for an hour or so. Will be restarting later today because I wasted some skill points...

Am I right to think Lucky One and Technophobe are the best Distinctions?

The only reason I could see for not taking both is if both Technology and Tinkering are vital skills.

 

[Sloul]

Every time you spend AP your Dodge drops by 1.

Just as a note, but because there will be a successor to ATOM, or maybe something else.
The better system would be: the more movements you make, the more your dodge increase. Basically, if someone spend all its actions to run (sprint), he should be harder to hit than someone who stands still.
There is already a game doing this, but I forgot which one it is.
Maybe the Western/Horror/Demonic tactical game. Unsure. Or is it X-Com 2?? I think there is something like that in X-Com 2 for the swordman.