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ATOM RPG

SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
edited January 2019 in Off-Topic
Anyone tried/playing ATOM RPG? Bought it and installed it late yesterday and the first impressions are good. I had watched a little LPs of the beta so I knew approx what I was getting. It's very, very FO-esque, almost too much since it has kept many of the things that wasn't that great in FO1 and 2. I only played like 2 hours yesterday, and half was just making the character, so I am very interested in playing further. A few minor spelling errors etc, but the overall feeling of the game is magnificent so far (I've only seen the first little town). Some of the rumours are hilarious since they reference Mad Max, Fallout, etc in a very humorous way, as if those things would have happened in the ATOM world.

The character creation is complex and comes with really tough choices. The stat points are few and you can't be good at anything without also being bad at something else. I've tried a build with is stat heavy with penalties to skills, very similar to my fallout builds, which in FO lead to being very good at fewer things rather then decent at many things. I hope ATOM is similar in that regard, but I of course have already realized I will have to restart sooner or later and remake a new, proper char based on those experiences. Because I have most likely picked a few bad choices, but it doesn't matter, I only look forward to that.

The only downside, which I've only read about and not yet experienced, is that the perk tree is expensive and you can't be expected to reach many higher-level perks. This, I guess, further emphasize the dev's ambition to make you choose carefully and that every choice come with a cost to lock you out from being good at everything.

The combat, the little I've experienced so far, is good and almost identical to FO1&2. It's both good and bad ofc. I like turnbased with action points, so it works for me but it is a bit clunky with today's standards. Dunno how it will play out once I have followers and there's many enemies, but so far so good. I've only fought ants and dire rats still, but the old FO way for early game of "stick and move" has worked so far. That doesn't work vs guns though. I've thought up a char which focus on small firearms, pistols and SMGs, with max AP, high dodge but with high stats in INT, "perception" (called attention in ATOM) and decent personality. I assume ATOM will have a follower limit based on personality, just as FO had on charisma, so with 6 there I hope the game allows me to add many followers. Maybe 3 if they went with 1 per 2 in personality, but let's see. I haven't read much about the game, I want to experience most if myself first and make my own mistakes. It seems the game have shields, so I really hope I can wear a riot shield and use pistols and perhaps SMGs. That would be interesting.

Anways, if anyone else is playing the game it would be great to share experiences, so feel free to write your own impressions about the game.

Comments

  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    It caught my eye on Steam but didn't try it yet. Do you recommend it?
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    So far yes, but let it be clear, I am a huge FO1&2 fan and hold them to higher regards than I do BG. :)

    I hope I have time to play some more tonight and during the weekend, so take it with a grain of salt. Even at full price, it was dirt cheap. Only 150 SEK which is like 15 Euros, so even if I don't play it over and over, I think it will still be worth it. I bought it on GOG, but I assume Steam have a similar price tag.
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    Saw it on Steam, but despite having been an avid Fallout 2 fan felt no inclination to try. Seemed more like a clone to me.
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    I've played three times now, approx 8 hours or so in game-time, I reckon. Some more impressions;

    Items are scarce and weapons even more so. After 8 hours I have a pistol with  ~20 ammo and a few rudimentary melee weapons, that's it. Personally I like the wasteland feel of that, but I'm not a fan of pellet guns and other weird contraptions since they don't add to my personal immersion. But bashing ppl with a shovel when you have nothing better to use, or a brick, is really cool (though challenging). I like the tinkering part, though it could perhaps be expanded a bit since it takes time to acquire recipes and I have to force myself from not just googling all recipes.

    I've only been in the first ~5-6 maps after the first, a couple of which were random encounters. One of these was really, really cool. You encounter three people, all of which tell a slightly different story and blaming the others of not being trustworthy. They are at a stand-of and ask you to try and resolve it, which you with force or by just siding with one of them. The story they tell was really intriguing and I thoroughly enjoyed that little encounter.

    There are some combat mechanics that are a bit weird. The first one being the potential to be knocked down, which can happen suddenly even on non-crit hits and without being targeted on the head or legs. I did what I often do in RPGs, which was to skim a little on END and went with a 4. Apparently END is what is (at least partially) used to calc if a hit may knock you down. I've read on the steam forums that this particular mechanic cause a lot of frustration for many players, but others don't seem to encounter it as much even with the same, lower END. It has happened in just one or two fights for me so far and in a random cave I found with three baddies inside had me forced to rest in between fighting them to recover HP because I was knocked down and killed a few times. Took several reloads but it all went well in the end. Resting inside a cave where baddies were just around the corner is perhaps not very immersive, but I don't mind some 'meta' mechanics in a game like this.

    The characters you encounter are absolutely amazing. Even random peeps have well-written dialogues. Since you have the same phrases to pretty much everyone (who are you, how's life, heard any rumours etc), you get very different replies that creates a great world-building.

    I'm moving towards the next big town, along the main quest line. I've read I can get my first NPC there and I would like to get him ASAP. I always enjoy RPGs more if I have some NPCs with me, so looking forward to that. I also look forward to some more bartering. So far I like the way the bartering is made, but I gotta admit I wouldn't object to getting one proper weapon. The makeshift ones break all the time, like shivs having a 10% chance to break on attacking making them never last through even one fight. Same with guns who have a high chance of jamming.

    Haven't restarted yet, but I think I will sooner or later when I've learned a few more mistakes. Apparently I chose the wrong "outfit" on character creation since the military outfit is said to provide a hat that gives +skills.

    Having both this and PKM installed and for my last three gaming sessions I've chosen to play this. Thinking of tonight when I can game some more, I think I will play ATOM again. I can't put my finger on why but there's something very intriguing about ATOM that make me want to experience more of it and so far I have really only scratched the surface.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Damn, sold. Looks like it runs on Linux as well :)
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    After a few hours more..

    Went to the first big city, but only the outskirts. Got my first NPC joining my very small gang, so now we are at least two. They've kept pretty much the entire FO1&2 NPC ("henchmen") handling mechanic, to the letter. It works, though some tweaks woulnd't have been bad. The good is that it truly make you feel like they are their own persons since you actually have to talk to them to ask them to do things, but of course the negative aspect is the quality of life-things, meaning actions take longer to execute. So far my new guy has proven worthless in battle, hah.. though that can also be said about my charname, who still dies to rats. Though I managed to quite easily take out a big bear in a random encounter, though it took half of my precious ammonition. It seems rifles is the best choice, with melee as a secondary backup. I tinkered a nailed club which is pretty good in melee.

    I went to a cool place just now, a circus with mutants and freaks. Very, very enjoynig. The dialogues were great and it had a short side-quest involving a feud between "freaks". Also, scary clowns. In the circus tent my guy was chosen to be brough up on stage and performed a "modernistic decadent western style break-dance" to the applauds of the crowd. I LOVE all these little additions of communistic propaganda, ie "decadent western influences" etc. It's very well made and add tons of immersion. Next up was a farm where a gruesome thing had happened. Thanks to personality and speechchecks I could find out the entire backstory ( I think). Great little sidequest there as well, well written and emotional. In the end I chose to take a side, conflicting with what I had intended first, because info I got made me (and my character) change his mind. Next up was a moonshine farm, but that didn't have so much info. I did however treat a "sick" guy from a desease using a rain dance (my DEX10 is paying off!), the gullible sod and heard another sad life-story from a pretty bitter guy peeling potatoes.

    The amount of stories they've written for practically every single person you meet is overwhelming! Almost every single one has something interesting to say. The game gives some minor exp for unlocking their dialogue trees, but it doesn't matter since the stories themselves are most often reward enough.

    Looking forward to my next session where I have to report in the outcome of a certain quest for a crime lord now that I've change my mind on that.
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    @FinneousPJ I'd love to hear your impressions if you do buy and play it. The forums aren't that great yet (official/steam) and same as with PKM, I'd rather talk to peeps in here than the random ramblings from whiners on those forums (buuhuu, I died, 'tis game is too hard, why don't I get a minigun and 300% accuracy as my starting kit, buuhuu.. ).
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Hopefully I can try the game over the weekend. I will let you know for sure.
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    Took a day of work, partially..

    Got a dog companion now after a 'random' encounter. Very happy with that! There's nothing like traversing the wastelands with a faithful mut by your side. Found and got into an argument with a tin-foil hat man and now I am randomly attacked by this destructive cult. Very intriguing. Managed to save scum a bit to handle the fight (I am still quite weak) but with the help of their drops and a lucky caravan trader, I am now weilding a Tokarev pistol, my henchman have a hunting rifle and we are both wearing rudimentary armors. Ammo is still scarce, but I also have a sharpened knife in my other hand for melee.

    I've had some amusing encounters with a new religious cult in the wastelands as well. The dialogues are very funny, the choices of what you can say are great.

    I'm now ready to bribe my way into a city core where I've heard there are many great vendors, though with steep prices. I really need a better armor 'cause it doesn't take many hits to fall in battle.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    A very modest download of 2.8 GB.
  • DrHappyAngryDrHappyAngry Member Posts: 1,577
    How's the interface in the game?  I tried to get into the original fallouts a few times, but found I was fighting the interface more than the enemies, so just gave up.  I dug Wasteland 2 and backed Wasteland 3, so I think this could be up my alley, just hoping they didn't try to replicate it's wonky UI from the old Fallout games.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @DrHappyAngry After 5 mins I can say it's pretty awkward all right.
  • DorcusDorcus Member Posts: 270
    I bought it. I'll give the devs this, they got incredible amounts of moxie. Booted it up. Very impressive opening cutscene. Get to character creation. Try to make an imbecile. "ATOM wouldn't send somebody that dumb on an elite mission!" OK, so I rearrange the stats, hit go, and the game locks and crashes. Then I leave to do errands. What transpired stuck in my mind all day. I can't stop thinking about it!
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    I made my first character with pretty low physical stats, 3 STR and 2 END. Turns out even a pistol recommends 4 STR, although I don't know what that means. I guess I should restart given I'm only in the tutorial. I think the sniper rifle had 7 STR...
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Interestingly the game runs better on my Linux install. On Windows the videos do not work at all, I just get a black screen with the mouse pointer visible. According Steam this is not uncommon.
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    How's the interface in the game?  I tried to get into the original fallouts a few times, but found I was fighting the interface more than the enemies, so just gave up.  I dug Wasteland 2 and backed Wasteland 3, so I think this could be up my alley, just hoping they didn't try to replicate it's wonky UI from the old Fallout games.
    The interface is indeed old school. Clunky, but smoother than FO at least (if they'd kept the slow-moving animations whenever you open dialogue, I'd uninstall and reclaim it, hehe). It's "Ok-ish", but I admit I think they took the easy road when copy/pasting almost the entire FO GUI without modifications and modernizations. Same with henchmen/NPC controls. That's on the Con side of things.
    Dorcus said:
    I bought it. I'll give the devs this, they got incredible amounts of moxie. Booted it up. Very impressive opening cutscene. Get to character creation. Try to make an imbecile. "ATOM wouldn't send somebody that dumb on an elite mission!" OK, so I rearrange the stats, hit go, and the game locks and crashes. Then I leave to do errands. What transpired stuck in my mind all day. I can't stop thinking about it!
    I've not encountered a single crash yet after ~20 hours of game-time. I guess you were unlucky. Have you tried again by now?

    Interesting that you weren't allowed to create an "imbecile" since that was a pretty interesting feature in FO and the rest of the game is very, very heavily influenced by FO. There's some items that only benefit those with less than 4 INT, IIRC, so I figured it was possible to have at least a 3 in INT.



  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    I made my first character with pretty low physical stats, 3 STR and 2 END. Turns out even a pistol recommends 4 STR, although I don't know what that means. I guess I should restart given I'm only in the tutorial. I think the sniper rifle had 7 STR...

    It means you'll get a negative factor when calculating to hit chance with guns. Each weapon have "minimum" reqs to use and if you do not have them, you get a reduced chance to score a hit. And yeah, the best rifles do indeed need high strenght, same as in FO. Though in ATOM it seems the STR req is even more punishing than FO since even simple rifles need like a 5 STR and automatics and snipers do indeed seem to req a 7. I'm currently at STR6 with a pistol/SMG build, only using melee and pistols so far since I haven't found any SMGs yet. So I don't know the req's for those yet. I assume they are at 5 for a weaker one and 6 for a higher one. The pistols are 3 and 4 IIRC, for the makarov and the tokarev. Also, pistols take as much AP to fire as rifles making the one-handed gunslinger build (which was ridiculously good in FO1&2 with 2Ap per shot and Sniper/reduced 1 AP per shot perks with 12 AP, IIRC) less appealing. The Tokarev I just acquired takes 4 AP to shot un-aimed, so 2 shots per round. The Makarov I think takes 3, but I have yet to find a non-rusty one so haven't tried it extensively.

    Btw, just for you info; burst is harder in ATOM. Each shot in a burst get worse and worse debuffs so that they are very likely to miss more and more for every shot. There are perks to reduce that (2 different ones from what I've seen), but perks are expensive so if you want them you kinda have to go for them and not go for other things, like the +skill points per levels etc.

    Another thing I've noticed, it seems all skills can be leveled above 100. Dunno what level to aim for since I am at around 90 in speechcraft and had planned to leave it there and use like drugs to get the last 10 for the very hard skill checks, but now I am confused, hehe..

    I'm thinking of what to level after weapon skill of choice and speechcraft. I'm actually leaning towards lockpicking and/or pickpocket. It seems you can steal from merchants with pickpocket, but I read somewhere that you need to have stealth as well to make it work. Or I just go for bartering to get better prices since I am dirt poor and good items cost a fortune. Sold most of my stuff to buy a leather armor and a tokarev pistol, but I haven't got 'nuf ammo to really use it. I did sharpen a knife into a qualitative knife so I use melee more than pistols so far.
  • DrHappyAngryDrHappyAngry Member Posts: 1,577
    That's a little silly, a person of average strength can handle most firearms just fine.  Larger guns like most rifles compensate for most of their kick with their own weight.  An AK-47 actually has very little kick, most handguns have more due to their light weight.  I could see needing a bit of strength to use a .44 magnum or a huge sniper rifle or full auto, but not something an AK in single shot or bursts, or a 9mm handgun.

    What bothered me most about the old fallout games was that you had to right click on objects, then hit the interact option, which was the only option.  Just a maddening amount of unnecessary clicks.  I also don't think I ever figured out how to reload a gun outside of combat.  Please say Atom's at least better in that regard.

    So are there any interesting recruitable companions in the game?  The hobo Scotchmo in Wasteland2 earned a special place in my heart.
  • DorcusDorcus Member Posts: 270
    edited February 2019
    @Skatan I think I was just lucky, bc I'm a very clicky player with games with cursors. (Also, my monitor system is weird atm bc I Kool Aid Man'd through my regular monitor while sweeping lmao) I haven't tried it again since, bc it was apparent to me that going in blind with intention of beating the game on my first try combined with the character creation system isn't for me. It looks to me like you'd need to plan out your build somewhat for early, mid, and late game, and I've done zero research into the game's subsystems. Soon I'll do a intentionally gonna fail run to get more of a feel for things.
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    edited February 2019
    That's a little silly, a person of average strength can handle most firearms just fine.  Larger guns like most rifles compensate for most of their kick with their own weight.  An AK-47 actually has very little kick, most handguns have more due to their light weight.  I could see needing a bit of strength to use a .44 magnum or a huge sniper rifle or full auto, but not something an AK in single shot or bursts, or a 9mm handgun.

    What bothered me most about the old fallout games was that you had to right click on objects, then hit the interact option, which was the only option.  Just a maddening amount of unnecessary clicks.  I also don't think I ever figured out how to reload a gun outside of combat.  Please say Atom's at least better in that regard.

    So are there any interesting recruitable companions in the game?  The hobo Scotchmo in Wasteland2 earned a special place in my heart.
    I agree.  I was incorrect above, writing from memory is not advisable when you have poor memory ;), so for my two guns, the ligher Makarov and the heavier Tokarev, I need 4 and 5 STR respectively. They also take 4 and 5 AP respectively to fire.

    I think the dev's have painted the players into a corner since you can't tweak the stats below certain threasholds. When pistols have the same STR req and AP to shoot as rifles, it makes them unnecessary. I'm level 6 or so now and have just found a vendor who sells ammo and SMGs, but those also take 5 per single shot and 6 for a burst so why would I bother? It seems the most reliable route in character creation, and to be frank the only one that seem reasonable, is to go for rifles/shotguns or for automatic rifles and set STR to 7 at char creation. Use melee up until you get hold of your first rusty AK, hunting rifle. FO's rifles was also superior but they took 1 AP more to fire on average so pistols were still viable by shooting more but doing less damage per shot. You could very well play a gunslinger using deagles/magnums and later on gauss pistols and some other more unique pistols. Here, I have to admit I'm not sure. It's probably viable, but it seems more "realistic" in that you shouldn't really enter a gunfight versus assualt rifles with a pistol, and I can't really argue with that.

    In ATOM, you often click and hold left mouse button to open the radial meny to choose actions, like Look, Use, Lockpick etc. It's working ok I think. So no right button/left click tango.

    I've only found two companions so far, one cuban and one dog. The cuban adds some banter when charname talks to others and that's pretty well made. His spanish "Mios dio" comments are kinda funny, but some (I've read) think he's to stereotypical and prejudice portraited. I don't mind it myself though. I do think it's the other characters you meet who make impressions though! I've probably met at least 20 people in the game with amazing stories to tell and quests so far and I'm still very early in the game. They even added a homage to the "zombie" in Fallout 2 with Lenin in a coffin, haha.. that was hilarious.

    EDIT: Btw, @drhappyangry, you can reload by drag/dropping ammo in the inventory over to the weapon and release the button, which is exactly like old FO. Or you can, as you already know, also right click the weapon bar in the down-middle of the screen until you get the reload action and click there to reload, this can be done outside of combat as well. Never go into battle with a half-empty clip :)

    If you ever go into the inventory during a battle, make sure you also reload the weapons while you are in there since it always cost the same AP (4) no matter what actions you do. So if you go there for a stimpak or whatever, also reload at the same time.

    To heal members during battle, the only way I know of is to equip a stimulant (stimpak) into on of your two action slots and the use that on an NPC. I've used it on the dog in a tense battle twice and since companions cannot get addicted (from what I've read), it's safe to use them. NPCs can also have stimpaks in their inventory and use them themselves, but considering my only NPC seem a but stupid, I haven't let him do that yet. The moron waste precious ammo on lying enemies even when he stands next to them and should switch to melee to save ammo (and avoid the debuff to accuracy from standing to close) so I don't hold him responsible for expensive meds, hehe..
    Post edited by Skatan on
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    Dorcus said:
    @Skatan I think I was just lucky, bc I'm a very clicky player with games with cursors. (Also, my monitor system is weird atm bc I Kool Aid Man'd through my regular monitor while sweeping lmao) I haven't tried it again since, bc it was apparent to me that going in blind with intention of beating the game on my first try combined with the character creation system isn't for me. It looks to me like you'd need to plan out your build somewhat for early, mid, and late game, and I've done zero research into the game's subsystems. Soon I'll do a intentionally gonna fail run to get more of a feel for things.
    Yeah that's what I am doing, but I've managed to scrape by so far anyways even though I kinda planned to fail. The game is hard and some battles take a few retries, but as soon as I got leatherarmor (2 damage reduction and some resist) suddenly I can actually stand up in a fight and sweat it out against 4-5 baddies. Dog is also a life saver this early due to his massive HP pool, so my advice is to get 40 in Survival skill ASAP to trigger that "random" encounter. I hope that isn't a spoiler for you.

    Don't bother so much with supporting skills in the beginning other than speechcraft, just focus on your fighting abilitities and use both melee and a weapon of choice. you MUST have Dex 10, which I think is a major flaw in their design. I actually went with 8 INT to compensate, because I valued AP higher, and it was in hindsight the correct choice. If you can't attack at least 2-3 times per round, your toast. Again, I think the dev's painted us players into a corner because without 10 AP you are kinda screwed. 9 could work but since some armor and shields reduce AP by 1, you lock yourself out from using them. If I would start over I would try to make the char with 11 DEX from traits so I could use a heavy armor and/or shield and still have 10 AP, if that is possible.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Here's my new character. I still decided to go with lower physical stats, but not as gimped as last time :D

  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    Cool @FinneousPJ. Have you done some research before choosing or did you just go on instinct? I'm curious on you choice of 8 in personality, in particular. Your choice of low Luck I think is good since from I've read, Luck is not a big deal in ATOM. The crit chance is low anyways and it seems luck is not used for weapon jamming etc, at least not what I've seen. If I had started over now I would probably have set Luck to 1 and skipped the Trait I took (lucky one) since the huge debuff of skills doesn't seem to be worth it, from what I see.

    With 5 STR you can use SMGs. I've found some now, though not used them since I can't afford them. I've seen two at a vendor, both were 5 STR req. Your attention is on the lower scale, so will be interesting to see how that affects your aim.

    I've seen a couple of dialogue options that rely on PER and with my 6 I have to smoke two joints or drink portwein to reach the threshold to pass those checks. With your 8 I think you will pass most checks and can instead use ie Vodka etc to pass STR checks.

    With 9 AP you can probably fire twice with smaller weapons, one regular and one aimed (4 and 5 AP respectively). Rifles will probably be harder for your char since they take 5 AP, from what I've seen. Perhaps there's a rifle in the game with less, but I don't think there's a feat/perk that reduce AP per shot for rifles as there is for pistols. The biggest gun I've seen (in a youtube clip) had 6 AP per shot, looked like a deagle, so it's very high.

    Regarding weapon mechanics I think the dev's have made it so more damage = more AP. I find that choice to be weird and don't like it. Firing a pistol shouldn't take more just because it's more damaging. The smallest gun takes only 3 AP and the biggest one takes at least 6. If a gun is heavier it can be argued it could take some more time to line up the shot, but 3 AP difference? That's actually kinda ridiculous. It's gotta be for balancing reasons and not for realism, methinks. You can see it on all weapons I've found so far, more damage means more AP per shot.

    Regarding defense mechanics I think everyone have too high chance to hit. Dodging is rare even with max DEX as I have. The only one who manage to dodge for me is Dog. And even with ~50 in melee I still have 99% to hit on most enemies in melee range. I wouldn't mind some tweaks there to give the player some options, to choose a more agile approach with lighter armor and more dodge, or less dodge and heavier armor (and DT/DR). Everytime I dodge I jump out of the chair a little becuase it's so rare it feels like winning the lottery, hehe..

    Yesterday I spent a few hours walking and talking in Kraznommmeonney. Wanted to talk to everyone and that took time! Several great encounters and funny dialogues. My guy is about level 7 or 8 IIRC nad hav reached a point where I can now fairly reliably rely on using guns because I can buy ammonition. The ammo vendor in K-city (I really can't remember its name) only takes rubles, so make sure you unload and convert all crap to rubles before you get there if you want to buy something.

    A very minor spoiler alert, but a heads up if you want to make some decent cash for a small effort:

    There's a guy in K-town who buys wastepaper for 12 rubles each. So hold on to them until then and you can make a pretty penny.


  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @Skatan I haven't done any specific research on this game, but I of course I have extensive RPG playing history. Other than that I wanted to play a character that focused on DEX, INT and "CHA".
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