ATOM RPG – Builds Guide

How to make an absolute beast of a character.

Other ATOM RPG Guides:

• All Cheat Codes.
• 100% Achievement Guide.
• Starting Guide for Snipers.
• Fidel (Companion Guide).

Full Combat Build

All credit goes to InEffect!

Stats:

• Strength = 6. No more, no less. More on that later.
• Endurance = 8. You can get away with 6 of even 4 with drug use for hard fights, but I wouldn’t advise it as it will make your early-game needlessly hard and random encounters more dangerous.
• Dexterity = Always 10.
• Intellect = Preferably 10 for faster power gain. In the long run 8 will be enough if you want more Attention and Luck or would prefer Morphine Doctor.
• Attention = 6. Will get you most checks you would care about. 7 will get most everything.
• Personality = 1.
• Luck = Spare.

Distinctions:

• Glutton. 2 Stats for free. Food is plentiful at every stage of the game, so it has no drawbacks.
• Technophobe. For Int 10 characters. All tinkering you really have to do can be done with 2 Ciggys and a Magnifying Glass. Max technology you will need is 80 + a toolbox for a combined 100. Effectively you pay a level for 2 Stats. Not too bad.
• Lone Wolf. If you plan not using companions, it’s free. Not using companions will make your game a lot harder, though. Would not recommend for new players.
• Morphine Doctor. 1 Stat for free more or less. You will have to be careful early-game cause food will be your sole source of healing as you can’t risk getting addicted at the time. Late-game addiction doesn’t matter as 1k for Apomorphine is nothing by then and you will get addicted no matter what with the amount of stims you’ll use for hard fights.

My picks are Glutton and Technophobe.

The rest have more drawbacks, than benefits, imo.

Skills go into Automatic Firearms if you kill bandits in the 1st encounter(hard to do, but doable) or Speech to 50, Barter to 50(Will bleed into lvl2)

Don’t “need” anything else. See “Skills” section for tips.

Female Charismatic Build

Stats:

• Strength = 5. Will be enough for automatic firearms to get you started.
• Endurance = 8. You can get away with 6 or 4 to other stats and rely on drugs for hard fights, but survival is better, imo.
• Dexterity = Always 10. 
• Intellect = 8. We had to cut corners somewhere – you will have enough for everything you need as we didn’t pick any -skill Distinctions.
• Attention = 6. no spare points for more.
• Personality = 2. +2 from sex appeal. +2 from joints +4 from perfumes(2 types for females).
• Luck = 3.

Distinctions:

• Glutton. 2 Stats for free. Food is plentiful at every stage of the game, so it has no drawbacks.
• Sex Appeal. not many females you need to charm in the game. You won’t miss much. On the upside you get 2 stats and 15 skills for free. Worth it.

Starting Skills:

• Speech to 50, Barter to 35.

Happy middle-ground between Personality and Combat. Balanced stats (eventually).

Male / Universal Charismatic Build

Stats:

• Strength = 5. Will be enough for automatic firearms to get you started.
• Endurance = 6. We will get around to fixing it later.
• Dexterity = Always 10. 
• Intellect = 10. 
• Attention = 6. no spare points for more.
• Personality = 6. Max we’d need. With Joints and Perfumes we get it to 10 when needed.
• Luck = 1.

Distinctions:

• Glutton. 2 Stats for free. Food is plentiful at every stage of the game, so it has no drawbacks.
• Unlucky Optimist. Won’t have points to invest into luck anyway. We will be using heavy Machine guns late – crits won’t matter as such.

Starting Skills:

• Speech to 50, Barter to 50(asap will bleed into lvl2).

Permanent Stat Increases

Golden Fish

+1 any. Can be found with high luck in any pond. Use spider brains or Weird Doll(corn+mushroom+nails). Luck can be ramped from 1 to 11 with booze. Save-scum till you get it would be the easiest thing to do. It will save your sanity. even with luck 11 can take in the ballpark of 30m to get. Can be real pita on Survival. if you invested into luck a bit at the beginning can be fished at level 1, pretty much.

Serum

+1 any. Can be found in Roaring Forest. take 2 ropes with you. Is guarded by a strong enemy. come with some decent weapon.

Roaring Forest Idol

+1 Luck. Place 3 meat in the circle.

Serum 2

+1 any. Can be found inside a cube. Will need 6 Personality to talk the guy into showing the cube to you. So you need 2+2 Joints+2 Perfumes if male or 1+2 Joints+4 perfumes if female. You need 5000R to get there(with speech check passed) and 1500 to get back.
Instead of investing 100-ish points into pickpocketing that is useless literally everywhere else, I say do all quests there and just murder everyone for the key. Bring 30 Diesel with you so you can get back.

Training

+1 Str or Dex. In your personal bunker after repairs are done. Not permanent per se, but lasts forever, so might as well be counted as such. Train for 4 consecutive days on 80kg for a 40 day buff. Bump your str with booze if needed.

Full Combat Build

All into Luck if Female. 1 into Per if male.

Female Charismatic Build

Golden Fish into Str. Serums into Luck.

Male/Universal Charismatic Build

1 into Str, 2 into Endurance.

Permanent Skill Increases

• +20 Automatic Firearms. When you first visit weapon trader in KRZ. Need 6 Att.
• +10 Melee Weapons. from a guy in white in the 1st part of KRZ if your melee is low. helpful early.
• +5 Automatic Firearms. From Weapon trader in KRZ. Need 8 Per.
• +5 Barter from a guy in peregon. There are other options, but they are worse, imo.
• +4 First Aid +4 Survival from books in KRZ. There are 2 more books for speech(I guess) but I always have more when I get there.

Mandatory Skills

In order of importance:

• Speechcraft to 115.
• Barter to 50.
• Automatic Firearms to 199 (counting free points).
• Technology to 80.

Skills

Martial Arts

Useless. never spend anything there.

Melee Weapons

Base values are enough. You can drop some points here, but your efforts will be invalidated soon enough.

Pistols and SMG

Same as above. Only decent weapon in this category is Percussion Revolver+ and that uses low penetration bullets and forces you to spend at least 3 Abilities on it. Not worth it.

Rifles and Shotguns

Good Stuff. For companions. Free 20 points on automatic firearms push us there hard. Not a bad Idea to level it after you are done with everything else.

Automatic Firearms

Real Good stuff. Has a tool for every occasion.

Throwing Weapons

Rare and hard to use. also they do nothing that heavy machine gun does not.

Speechcraft

Most used skill in the game. Everyone should have around 115 of it before gear/consumables.

Barter

Nice to have, but is not mandatory. a minimum of 50 is advised. 100 if you have nothing to spend on. In reality money are not a problem once you get your weapons covered, and that happens soon enough. Reportedly affects Caravan contents.

Gambling

Idk what it’s for. There are no gambling-exclusive content afaik and I didn’t find direct effect from leveling it. At best it’s some money you don’t really need.

Survival

Increases healing from food and opens some encounters. Reportedly affects Caravan frequency somehow. Good to have, but is not a priority by any means.

First Aid

Another good to have skill that you CBA to level. Your companions will cover you in rare skill checks, if you have em. If not – no crucial content is hidden behind the skill.

Stealth

Must have for solo. Level it to 160+ fast. with companions they must have the same level of stealth you have for it to be useful. Around 80 will let you steal most everything. That might help early.

Lock Picking

If you follow Factory quest line you will get +30 to lockpicking item. +20 lockpicks or a crowbar before that. No investments needed everything you need to be opened. Theoretically can be used to rob caravans blind with no consequences, but why bother if money is the least of your problems rather fast?

Pickpocket

Another skill with no critical application. Only quest you would need it for can be solved by force.

Gear and Consumables

Gear

Face Of Death Helmet

+1 Str and good armor values. Will bump your Str to 8 allowing to use all weapons in the game. Also carry weight. Quest is taken from an old man in KRZ to hunt some bad people(not to spoil too much).

+Speechraft hats

Nice to have one just to save on perfumes. can go up to +15 for army hats. Easy +10 hat along with good backpacks can be gained from murdering scavengers near bunker 317.

Toolbox

+20 Tech. Easiest bought from a guy you save from Factory.

Clown nose

+1 Luck -1 Per. Pretty much +1 Luck as long as you don’t forget to take it off for Per checks. I usually balance the Skills with it in mind so I don’t have to take it off for trades. Given for Perfomance at the circus location(crashed plane)

Gas Mask

+100% toxic resistance -1 attention. Rarely sold by caravans. Keep an eye out.

Magnifying Glass

+3 Tinkering. Not much of a bonus, but it sure doesn’t hurt to keep around.

Consumables

General notice

All consumables stack up to 2 times with themselves. consumables with different names stack indefinitely.

Condensed milk

+1 End for 12h. Frequent drop by teen levels. Use extensively.

Meldonium

+2 End for 12h. Could allow us to go with 4/6 End, but is not common enough for that and is kinda costly. Unless you are willing to time-skip to stock up on those I would not recommend. Also withdrawal effects can and will catch you in bad position. Gener

Onion

+1End -1Per for 30m. Sort duration makes it hard to use. Still useful to bump your End to 11 for hard fights if you have time to prepare.

Perfumes

+1Per, +10 Speech. 1 type for males(but really common drop). 2 types for females(but harder to find – always buy them from caravans)

Joint

+1 Per With harsh penalties. Your go-to for passing Per checks as they are easy to come by. Weed+Toilet paper to craft.

Rad-0

+50% Radiation Resistance for 24. Take 2 of those in irradiated areas.

Aprophenum

For when you just found out the area is irradiated.

Ciggy

Use when tinkering. Allows you to never invest into that skill. Especially with save-loads. Common drop so I never had the need to craft those.

BSF-12

+1 AP, +2 Str. Can be hard to come by. Rare. Use for real hard encounters.

Painkillers

+HP, +Damage Resistance, +Damage Threshold. Uncommon, but are not too hard to find come late teens.

Antidote

Keep some on you in case you get poisoned badly.

Apomorphine

If you start using stims and other drugs you will inevitably get addicted. It will help you with that. Use it when you get “withdrawal” debuff.

Cucumber Brine

Same as above, but for alcoholism. Really heavy so don’t keep it on yourself.

Booze

For passing Str checks and fishing for golden fish.

Healing Items

Medkits for large chunk healing keep 3-4 on you. Kesparamid for healing scratches on your companions keep stock of 30. Stimpacks for healing in fights once Super stims are abundant enough switch to those. Heal yourself with food mostly.

Armor

Chest

6B2 Armored Vest

For everyone. No competition there.

Helmet

STSH-81

For companions.

Altyn

For companions with Preatorian Ability. Rare like a unicorn. Armor vendor in KRZ might sell it. if you are either lucky or are willing to save-scum him for hours.

Face of Death Helm

For yourself.

Melee Weapons

Frying Pan

Free Damage Resistance for companions.

Soviet Army Knife

Good for killing rats early. Also good for encounter farming due to +5 Sequence that will allow you to always go 2nd.

Taiga Machete

Same as above, more or less, but is harder to find.

Lenin’s Wrath

Quest reward from a guy with a chainsaw in KRZ square. Good damage, but it suffers from all the same Melee uselessness. 6AP per hit are a nail in the coffin.

Automatic Weapons

Automatic Rifles

HK-33

Best early-to-mid-game weapon imo. Good damage, common ammo. 4AP per shot 6AP per burst.

AKS74U

Lower damage, than HK-33 but longer bursts. Same AP.

AKMS

Beastly damage. 5AP single shots, 7AP for a burst. Mix and match as you please. If you must have one weapon this is a good pick. Common ammo.

Vintorez

4AP bursts. Rare and expensive ammo. Best pick to accompany a heavy machine gun. You can get it early if you kill a guy in Roaring Forest.

Heavy Machine Guns

RPK-74

Best mid-game machine gun. 6AP short bursts and good damage. Common ammo type.

Fn Minimi

Straight upgrade to RPK. Holds more ammo, less damage spread

PK Machine Gun

Insane damage. Rare ammo and it uses it fast. Pretty much an endgame cleaner.

Rifles

Rifles with no Optics

SKS

6AP aimed shot. bad past early-game. only mentioned cause one of your companions comes with it.

AVS-36

Actually a good pick for you and companions that don’t invest into rifle Ability tree. Rare ammo kinda hurts.

IZ 58

Decent early pick. Just don’t give your companions buckshot.

KS-23

Actually good shotgun. Low armor penetration limits usability late.

Optical Rifles

SKS with optics

Good for MC as you can make 2 aimed shots from it.

R700-M

Best companion sniper rifle. Beastly damage with Eagle Eye taken.

Dragunov sniper rifle

Not bad should you have trouble finding R700-M. Less crit chance an more balanced damage. Bigger Magazine.

VER

Best rifle in the game. Period. This is why MC might consider investing into rifles as a 2nd weapon group late-game. Ammo can only be made by your guy in the bunker.

Ability Tree

Might as well be non-existent. Everyone must have Think like The Enemy. and Praetorian while you are at it cause evasion helps against crits. The game is balanced around it. If you play on expert it’s pretty much all you get. Pick whatever you fancy after.