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

[Okagron]

Well then I'm going to need some help, because I can't fucking find her anywhere. I've been over this place four times now.

She wasn't anywhere in Peregon for me either the first time and only showed up when i did the quest to settle the politics between the merchants and the guards. Maybe she shows up at a specific point of the day? I don't know. She showed up for me in the area with the tents.

 

[Luckmann]

Well then I'm going to need some help, because I can't fucking find her anywhere. I've been over this place four times now.

She wasn't anywhere in Peregon for me either the first time and only showed up when i did the quest to settle the politics between the merchants and the guards. Maybe she shows up at a specific point of the day? I don't know. She showed up for me in the area with the tents.

Well, turns out that she suddenly shows up all nonsensically as soon as you've settled the politics, without any explenantion as to why she'd show up due to that in particular. She's not selling weapons, though, she's selling assorted articles of clothing which are all useless to me, and had a grand total of zero (0) rubles.

 

[RK47]

She sold me the biggest bag in the game.
Also if you really need to pack more in companion's bag in a pinch, make them drink 2 bottles of vodka and 2 bottles of beer. The slave I rescued can carry 91 kgs after drinking those.

 

[krilcebre]

Holy shit, this game is addictive. Can't remember having this much fun in a game since forever.

And I agree with Luckmann, Peregon was a pretty big disappointment. I was expecting to refill my ammo and other stuff there, but when i arrived, there was just a bunch of tents, a cook and some pissed off merchants selling junk. Couldn't get a single bullet there, I always have to visit that bitch in the big city with ridiculous prices or hope i get some from a passing caravan. Add some merchants in Peregon since it's been advertised as the biggest commercial place, yet I can only buy some junk no one needs. Can't even sell anything as merchants there are piss poor anyway.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Yeah she sells the biggest backpack and only shows up after settling the politics

 

[Jenkem]

Anyone else bummed out after going to Peregon? It's hyped up as being this center of commerce, full of immoral anarcho-capitalists, and it doesn't even seem to have a run-of-the-mill gun store, and is altogether wildly inferior to Krasnoz. I'm not sure what I expected. The fact that it's much less of a city compared to Krasnoz doesn't bother me, nor does the fact that it feels like it has a lot less meaningful content. But that it doesn't even seem to have a good selection of merchants is incredibly annoying. It doesn't even have a fucking doctor or a general store. Just a bunch of tents that seem to be used by fucking no-one, some people that sell literal junk, and three food vendors.

What gives?

soviet pride, can't let a superior cultural system to be seen thriving in a video game...

Spoiler

this is a clear violation of the NAP

 

[Luckmann]

She sold me the biggest bag in the game.
Also if you really need to pack more in companion's bag in a pinch, make them drink 2 bottles of vodka and 2 bottles of beer. The slave I rescued can carry 91 kgs after drinking those.

Yeah she sells the biggest backpack and only shows up after settling the politics

By the time I got there, I'd already been to both the bunker and Krasnoz, meaning I've already got 2 backpacks.

Also, on the topic of the BBQ joint and settling politics:

Peregon

Is there no way to deal with the leader of the traders and the leader of the guards, after finding out that they were involved with the BBQ-slavers, after you've settled the politics, without aggroing fucking everyone? When resolving the politics, you have the opportunity of silently killing them, but after resolving it peacefully and then showing up with the evidence that they were involved with the BBQ-slavers, it seems you can't actually do anything at all other than having a huge shoot-out. I can't even tell the Harbormaster guy.

I must say, so far, Peregon is incredibly unsatisfying.

 

[RK47]

You can have more than 2 companions actually, so the additional bag was very helpful for me.

I want a stay here command outside combat. Getting tired of this repositioning while combat has started. The game combat would be less problematic if manual companion control is allowed.

 

[Rev]

Anyone knows how long is the game?

 

[RK47]

If you follow the main quest only it should be less than 20 hours, but combat content might leave you frustrated.
However, I find the side content more compelling compared to the main quest.
The main quest feels like a 'non-crisis', it's more like a mystery.
Imagine Arcanum sending you on a trip to find someone - without the assassins hounding you.

 

[HoboForEternity]

in death tunnel

Spoiler

you can launch a missile warhead with 3 coordinates. i googled them, the first coordinates is around los angeles, america. where the glow is in fallout 1 approximately. the second one is random place in malaysia, the 3rd one is a town called bethesda in UK

 

[RK47]

How the heck do you deal with the poison in D-Tunnels?
I just walk in and die in less than a minute while the rad-tunnels can be mitigated with Rad-X

 

[Ibbz]

How the heck do you deal with the poison in D-Tunnels?
I just walk in and die in less than a minute while the rad-tunnels can be mitigated with Rad-X

You can avoid the poison area by entering via the road entrance - but you'll have to kill a bunch of Morlocks to get to what you're after (where the road has caved in). Alternatively you have to hope to find a 100% Gas mask somewhere.

 

[HoboForEternity]

How the heck do you deal with the poison in D-Tunnels?
I just walk in and die in less than a minute while the rad-tunnels can be mitigated with Rad-X

Spoiler

in the death tunnel, east to the main entrance is a gian machinery you can interact with. with technology check, you can fix it (probs very very high. i have 105 technology still cannot fix it.) with intellect check, (pretty low. because you do the puzzle yourself, i think the INT check is for your character's literacy) you are given a puzzle, not that hard really and you can fix the ventilation turbine and clear the room of all poison.

 

[RK47]

Ah I will return there later.

 

[Vrab]

I bought a gas mask (proper one, not old) that I had the luck of finding on one of the randomly encountered caravans. You get 100% resist with it. For the machine fix, you'll also need lockpick, not sure of the number. It's a dialogue check so can't use a follower for that one, at least as far as I know.

 

[Jenkem]

any idea of upcoming content or potential DLC/expansions?

 

[Luckmann]

Holy shit, this game is addictive. Can't remember having this much fun in a game since forever.

And I agree with Luckmann, Peregon was a pretty big disappointment. I was expecting to refill my ammo and other stuff there, but when i arrived, there was just a bunch of tents, a cook and some pissed off merchants selling junk. Couldn't get a single bullet there, I always have to visit that bitch in the big city with ridiculous prices or hope i get some from a passing caravan. Add some merchants in Peregon since it's been advertised as the biggest commercial place, yet I can only buy some junk no one needs. Can't even sell anything as merchants there are piss poor anyway.

Peregon just feels slightly unfinished, like the copy-pasted rows of tents that seem to belong to no-one. What Peregon needs is to get rid of some of those tents, put some shipping containers along at least parts of the inner wall, and have merchants added to them, especially of the weapons, armor and general goods variety, but adding a few stalkers/scavengers and 1-3 randomly generated caravans would also be nice.

Ideally, there should also be more "normal" people outside of the wall, too, as there seems to be a complete absence of the "civilians" that the wall is supposed to keep the merchant station/camp free from.

But it doesn't really need the latter. It needs more merchants and goods.

However, I find the side content more compelling compared to the main quest.
The main quest feels like a 'non-crisis', it's more like a mystery.

It may not be what you're trying to say, but when you say it like that, it sounds like you're saying it's not compelling because there's a lack of urgency. Urgency-based CRPG storylines are cancerous, because they make it impossible to engage with game content in a reasonable way, and you have to adopt a meta mindset in order to excuse doing practically anything at all - it's practically a hallmark of shitty narrative design, used in order to substitute being interesting with being hurried along before you realize you don't care, as done in Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Pillars of Eternity, etc.

I find the main narrative in ATOM to be compelling because it is a mystery and it works in the overall world because it's not urgent.

 

[RK47]

Additional traders will be in the $5 Kapitalist DLC
My Peregon expectation was also misplaced. I actually thought those tickets would lead to something exciting. Like big time merchants plotting against each other, having their specialized goods.

But all I needed was a ticket to enter a tent city and a cargo container.
Maybe in the future they can add some kind of 'changes' to the city to show it improves itself and have more options from you helping to stabilize the city.

Right now there's very little reason for me to detour over there once the content is mostly done.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Anyone knows how long is the game?

I got 80 hours on Steam but I do play slowly, did (almost) all quests and read all the dialogues Comrade... Its around 20 hours for main quest.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

It may not be what you're trying to say, but when you say it like that, it sounds like you're saying it's not compelling because there's a lack of urgency. Urgency-based CRPG storylines are cancerous, because they make it impossible to engage with game content in a reasonable way, and you have to adopt a meta mindset in order to excuse doing practically anything at all - it's practically a hallmark of shitty narrative design, used in order to substitute being interesting with being hurried along before you realize you don't care, as done in Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Pillars of Eternity, etc.

Counterpoint: Kingmaker, Fallout 1/2.

There are two problems with CRPGs that rely on urgent main quests. There’s the one you pointed out—it can create serious cognitive dissonance when you do any side content. But you can solve this like Fallout 1/2 do: your urgent main quest requires solving a mystery, so you never really know what side quests will help you in your search..

The other problem is that the urgency you describe here is really the illusion of urgency. It’s not actually urgent because these games don’t punish you for dragging your feet. But real urgency can be pretty great—witness Kingmaker. “You need to do this super important thing and if you don’t get it done on time, it’s game over.” Much of the side content in Kingmaker also relates to the core plot of being Baron/King, so there’s not much dissonance either—it’s all part of the job description for a territorial ruler.

 

[Luckmann]

Observations: Merchants sometimes have weapons for sale, and often, these weapons have ammo inside of them. You can unload weapons in the merchant inventory, allowing you to either buy cheaper weapons or to just buy the ammo (which is what I do, because at this point, ammo is a more reliable currency).

Counterpoint: Kingmaker, Fallout 1/2.

Out of those, only Fallout 1 has an urgency-based main quest, and only for part of the game. There are other time factors involved, but only in a meta sense in that you - not necessarily your character - is aware of them, aside from (entirely warranted and 100% doubleplusgood) time- or urgency-based side-quests.

The best part of PF:K is that the urgency-based quests are all bursts, and if you do them in a timely fashion, you (usually) actually benefit from it, because it actually gives you more time to do other things.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I got the impression that they used photos instead of NPC portraits? If that is true, I hope it will become a hallmark of the genre. It frees the developers to create a more lively world and it’s more efficient and economic.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Observations: Merchants sometimes have weapons for sale, and often, these weapons have ammo inside of them. You can unload weapons in the merchant inventory, allowing you to either buy cheaper weapons or to just buy the ammo (which is what I do, because at this point, ammo is a more reliable currency).

You can always craft your own weapons and ammo. I'm still in the begining, but I'm already using a custom rifle with a sight that is really effective. The ammo (zip rounds, shot rounds) are easier to make.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Does anyone here knows more about the developers involved? I can't find any information about them.