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

[Feyd Rautha]

I just bought a luck charm from a gypsy, "Amulet of the Bear". It's supposed to give me +1 in strength but my stats doesn't increase when I equip it. Never trust a gypsy?

e: should have made a low int char

 

[Nevill]

Check the INT requirements.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Fuck sake... That explains it.

Actually that is rather hilarious :D

 

[RK47]

For some reason this did not resolve the gypsy's request.

 

[Parabalus]

Question about the Death Tunnel:

I take 2 rad-x on my PC to immune the radiation, do I have to worry about companions as well?

Also, any way to tell them to aim for eyes/head so they don't do 0 damage?

 

[Reapa]

The mutants in this are genuinely freaky and disturbing (more Jeff Goldblum near the end of The Fly , if they're lucky, then big dumb green Incredible Hulks). The circus was one of the most atmospheric places I've been to in an RPG.

I do think I erred in making a Jack-of-All-Trades kinda guy in this. Seems better to minmax and have a few stats you can be confident on for checks than spread yourself too thin. I'm level 5 and also find myself failing a lot of speechchecks even with 85 speechcraft. Is this because I kept my charisma at only 6?

i believe the game relies too much on rng with skill checks. or at least we're not used to failing skill checks with high skills.
also you can go over 100 points in skills which suggests that 100 points doesn't mean you mastered it.
i don't know why cRPGs like to keep us in the dark about the mechanics but this shit has to stop. the rules should not be hidden.

 

[Ibbz]

Question about the Death Tunnel:

I take 2 rad-x on my PC to immune the radiation, do I have to worry about companions as well?

Also, any way to tell them to aim for eyes/head so they don't do 0 damage?

Companions aren't affected by radiation. Unfortunately they suffer from similar intelligence to Fallout 1's companions and will inadvertently kill you as well with shotguns / burst fire. (Also, is it a Russian thing to shoot someone once with an AK and then run up and punch them? Even though they have ammo? Or is that just Hexagon's unique personality / AI)

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

The mutants in this are genuinely freaky and disturbing (more Jeff Goldblum near the end of The Fly , if they're lucky, then big dumb green Incredible Hulks). The circus was one of the most atmospheric places I've been to in an RPG.

I do think I erred in making a Jack-of-All-Trades kinda guy in this. Seems better to minmax and have a few stats you can be confident on for checks than spread yourself too thin. I'm level 5 and also find myself failing a lot of speechchecks even with 85 speechcraft. Is this because I kept my charisma at only 6?

It might have something to do with charisma, but if you want to rely on diplomacy your speechcraft is definitely too low—mine was 105 at level 5 and even then I failed a speech check in the first mission for the Strategist. Other than that, I haven’t had any other failures, although I’ve yet to go inside the gates of Krasnonamenny.

 

[Commissar Draco]

The mutants in this are genuinely freaky and disturbing (more Jeff Goldblum near the end of The Fly , if they're lucky, then big dumb green Incredible Hulks). The circus was one of the most atmospheric places I've been to in an RPG.

I do think I erred in making a Jack-of-All-Trades kinda guy in this. Seems better to minmax and have a few stats you can be confident on for checks than spread yourself too thin. I'm level 5 and also find myself failing a lot of speechchecks even with 85 speechcraft. Is this because I kept my charisma at only 6?

It might have something to do with charisma, but if you want to rely on diplomacy your speechcraft is definitely too low—mine was 105 at level 5 and even then I failed a speech check in the first mission for the Strategist. Other than that, I haven’t had any other failures, although I’ve yet to go inside the gates of Krasnonamenny.

You need 120-130 to not fail the checks in Krasno Comrade... Still have 150 in barter and keep failing bottle seller check but if someone can talk people onto buying empty bottles for 100 Rubles he is real Master

 

[Commissar Draco]

How one is supposed to win fight with Leonid and his men? they have numerical superiority and better gear.

 

[Sloul]

Question about the Death Tunnel:

I take 2 rad-x on my PC to immune the radiation, do I have to worry about companions as well?

Also, any way to tell them to aim for eyes/head so they don't do 0 damage?

Companions are not affected by anything (poison, radiation, hunger, addiction, name it). They are just walking mule with pistol.
And no, you can't ask them to aim.
Actually, I thought they didn't aim at all: like in Fallout, only PC use aim, not AI. But here I read a mod or a dev mention that they do aim.

 

[Sloul]

How one is supposed to win fight with Leonid and his men? they have numerical superiority and better gear.

Grenade (and lucky stun).

 

[RK47]

At 100 pt Speech I'm still at 71% of success on persuasion check vs map bandit encounter.
So yeah this game, it's gonna be one of those pump main skill or die type of game.
I still won't complain about having 5000 rubles by lvl 3 tho with 100 Pickpocket. That was a worthwhile investment. Will want better store inventory else the money is not being used at all.

 

[RegionalHobo]

At 100 pt Speech I'm still at 71% of success on persuasion check vs map bandit encounter.
So yeah this game, it's gonna be one of those pump main skill or die type of game.
I still won't complain about having 5000 rubles by lvl 3 tho with 100 Pickpocket. That was a worthwhile investment. Will want better store inventory else the money is not being used at all.

'' end game '' sets of armor, helmet, weapond and ammo are about 20k. people say the inventory has no relation with levels of the mc, but that s not my experience at all. even caravans seem to check it for some things

 

[Parabalus]

Question about the Death Tunnel:

I take 2 rad-x on my PC to immune the radiation, do I have to worry about companions as well?

Also, any way to tell them to aim for eyes/head so they don't do 0 damage?

Companions are not affected by anything (poison, radiation, hunger, addiction, name it). They are just walking mule with pistol.
And no, you can't ask them to aim.
Actually, I thought they didn't aim at all: like in Fallout, only PC use aim, not AI. But here I read a mod or a dev mention that they do aim.

Any advice for clearing the Death tunnel?

I have Hexogen, Fidel and the dog, but they're all useless, since they don't aim. Only one who does damage is me with aimed:head/eyes.

I'm using a Vintorez and have 100ish ammo for it, lvl 10. I got through the tunnel solo, but the room nearby has a 4-pack which I can't kill fast enough alone.

edit: you can split them up. Too easy, just park your suicidal NPCs way back.

 

[Quillon]

Alright, the worst thing about this game for me is the template-info dialogue & every NPC having it. The streamlined structure of the info-dialogue makes me feel like checking boxes after 34 NPCs I talked to in a row. I hope in a future game they make dialogue done/structured more organically and that they should know it would be OK for some of the NPCs not having dialogue trees at all. I'm probably done with most of the main city content, now entered Perugun; I'm like... oh great, 50 new NPCs that I'll get to ask 4 to 5 questions to each, yay!

 

[Parabalus]

Death Tunnel easter egg, very minor non-plot spoiler:

Spoiler

You get to launch a nuke, and one of the targets is

"Bethesda" - A Town With A Suggestive Name Located In Northern Wales, UK

GoTY for sure.

 

[Sloul]

Parabalus only one advice in general, your companions are great at taking damage, just give them pistols & shields, they will do more than enough damage and give your PC time to take down the most important targets.
The other important thing is: You can maintain your left-click on companions to give them order, thus, at a certain point, they almost can't die, as soon as you feel that they are in danger, tell them to ''avoid'', and they will run out of combat.
Companions are really priceless, they can deal damage, take a ton and transport your stuff.

If you want to heal them, the best thing to do is to eat & rest.
If you feel that they are using too much ammo, just order them to not use firearms during a specific fight.
Red Fighter is really costly to upgrade, I am not very certain it is worth it, but the fact that you can craft 9mm ammo so easy thanks for the armory upgrade is certainly something you want to take into account for your companions.
Pistol, is the key: No burst: thus they don't kill your PC, 1 hand, thus they can pick shield, and low cost ammo.

 

[Parabalus]

Parabalus only one advice in general, your companions are great at taking damage, just give them pistols & shields, they will do more than enough damage and give your PC time to take down the most important targets.
The other important thing is: You can maintain your left-click on companions to give them order, thus, at a certain point, they almost can't die, as soon as you feel that they are in danger, tell them to ''avoid'', and they will run out of combat.
Companions are really priceless, they can deal damage, take a ton and transport your stuff.

If you want to heal them, the best thing to do is to eat & rest.
If you feel that they are using too much ammo, just order them to not use firearms during a specific fight.
Red Fighter is really costly to upgrade, I am not very certain it is worth it, but the fact that you can craft 9mm ammo so easy thanks for the armory upgrade is certainly something you want to take into account for your companions.
Pistol, is the key: No burst: thus they don't kill your PC, 1 hand, thus they can pick shield, and low cost ammo.

I agree generally, but here, (Morlocks) they were really useless. They'd get in the way and do no damage because they don't aim, they get closer to the enemies and pull adds, they die easily.

 

[Parabalus]

Oh, concerning the nibblers in the death tunnel:
Can you talk to them

Spoiler

if you use the "Zooman" stuff from the Kras bunker?

 

[Atomboy]

Hoooonk! Hooooonk! Woooo!
Here's Atomboy driving the Patch Train!

Wanted aimed shots to do something? You got it! Wanted to rebind those keys? You got it! Wanted minor bugs fixed? You got it!

Here's the full list:

• Reworked the aimed shot system;
• Reworked random encounter balance;
• You can now refuel at the caravaneers and in Red Fighter;
• Stalkers now visit Red Fighter on a certain stage of development;
• Battle speed can now be changed in the menu;
• Better optimization for ATI and GeForce cards;
• An ability to switch and rebind keys in any way you prefer;
• Better criticals!
• Typos our community found are now fixed;
• Reworked skill and attribute checks some NPCs have;
• Fixed Hexogen;
• Master of Unlocking now grants XP;
• Shadow errors in Dead City fixed;
• Livened up trade in Peregon;
• Lone Wolf perk does not punish you for having Dzhulbars in the party;
• Modified weight of some items, work is in progress;
• Characters no longer get stuck on the Factory level;
• Some car bugs fixed;
• A new map for random encounters added;
• Around ten lesser bugs fixed;

Haven't tested the new features myself yet, so here's hoping I didn't embarrass myself too much with that super sure attitude towards the fix, but it seems like it genuinely made things better. Try it out!

Next on the bucket list: Better tutorial, further tweaks to AI, perks and combat.

Also in the news, someone asked me long ago whether the Mountain Pass of Woes was based on Ronja robber's daughter. I said no, but it turned out that my better half actually based most of the stuff there on that book... And I knew it too poorly to recognize the allusions... So there goes my credibility, straight out the window! Now I have to do some testing and some writing, but I will return to answer the last 5 pages. Looks like some very juicy stuff after a glance!

Best wishes to everyone! See you later!

Oh, and P.S.: We are on stage 4 out of 5 with GOG. But we wanna do some more fixing and user suggestions adding before we seal the deal. Patching GOG every minute is not as easy as patching Steam, you know!

 

[Atomboy]

Oh, concerning the nibblers in the death tunnel:
Can you talk to them

Spoiler

if you use the "Zooman" stuff from the Kras bunker?

You will in a future update! Now you can read a diary one of them wrote, and talk to the one near the circus, only. We're planning the Talking Animals expansion free of charge in some time.

 

[Parabalus]

Oh, concerning the nibblers in the death tunnel:
Can you talk to them

Spoiler

if you use the "Zooman" stuff from the Kras bunker?

You will in an update! Now you can read a diary one of them wrote, and talk to the one near the circus, only. We're planning the Talking Animals expansion free of charge in some time.

Reading the diary (funny Fo2 reference) prompted me to ask that in the first place, but I didn't have the jar with me.

 

[udm]

Glad to hear about the upcoming patch! Just to throw in my 2c, I think cooked food should be shareable with companions too. Right now I'm mostly healing them by resting, which can get annoyingly tedious.

 

[Sloul]

Atomboy please, can you keep us updated on the Aiming reworks. I am lurking Steam forums, but didn't find out more info as of now.