Interesting build?

[Kuga]

I played the game with the following build (from atom rpg)
-pistol tank
-rifleman
-martial art
-solo
-barter and speechcraft

any other interesting build?
game is still fun for me.

[ElPrezCBF]

Barter and speechcraft are important regardless of build, though you don't need to max them out. That aside, my favorite build is rifle and heavy crossbows and grenades (throwing skill) with 2 companions. Why? If you take a character with penalties to melee, shooting or strength/endurance (which many traits have), you are "forced" to specialize fully in melee or shooting to adequately offset those penalties. But most of these penalties do not apply to the throwing skill and the knockdown/area effect of grenades is also significant.

Grenades, Molotov cocktails and aspic attacks are common in Trudograd, which means you'll virtually never run out of them. In fact, I ended the game with more than 15 grenades and Molotov cocktails. Looting aspics will yield green jelly that can be used to modify Molotov cocktails for a much greater incendiary effect, which all but mechanical enemies are very vulnerable to. If you're lucky, you'll also run into a trader selling a unique crossbow (can't remember the name) that although is less powerful than the heavy crossbow per shot, has an ammo capacity of 5, which is huge for a crossbow and extremely powerful if modded.

Apart from this, I think there's some flexibility in choosing your secondary skill, be it rifles, automatic weapons or melee. However, the game is somewhat biased in favor of rifles because you need a high rifle skill to use the PTRM-ChK, which as far as I know, is the only weapon in the game that can potentially take out the enemy power armor in the last fight in just one shot using AP rounds (yes, I've tested it).

Hexogen would do well with automatic weapons as usual, while the other companion (be it the police lieutenant or Blaze) is a pistol/SMG build. Never tried solo, so can't comment on that.

[Kuga]

As for the throwing weapons, I had thought about that too, but I was thinking it would be difficult to get ammunition for them.
But I think it's worth trying.

[ElPrezCBF]

All ammo, not just crossbow bolts, are scarce in Trudograd, but traders often replenish them and if you have the war supply DLC, you'll also have your very own free ammo maker. Even if you don't own the DLC, you can still get the ammo maker in Second Tier, although you'll have to pay quite a bit for it.

The ingredients to make metal bolts are everywhere in Trudograd. Traders will often have wires, looting food from enemies will often yield cans, not to mention canned food in many locations. Metals are a bit harder to come by but traders often have them as well. I don't bother crafting other bolt types as metal bolts have the greatest armor penetrating power among them.

The trick in saving ammo is not to use heavy crossbows as your primary weapon. If you have rifles as a secondary skill, use rifle ammo at long range and only switch to crossbows at medium/short range. If you're facing weak enemies like rats, consider switching everyone to low-tier melee weapons to save ammo further. This ammo conservation method definitely works because I ended up with so much ammo as the game progressed that I sometimes had to force use weapons where the ammo weight was starting to get heavy just to lighten the load. The cumulative effect of looting enemies over multiple battles also yields lots of ammo.

Edit: One more thing. Try to avoid confrontations as you travel around the city unless there's no way you can pass the skill check to avoid them. This way, you reserve ammo only for fights that can yield substantial XPs as opposed to wasting them on many small XP fights.

And do not equip machine guns as your primary weapon. If you have an assault rifle that uses the same ammo type as an MG, use the assault rifle as your primary weapon instead and only switch to the MG for big fights. The short bursts from it consumes much less ammo than MG bursts. Better yet, use an MG that doesn't compete for the same ammo as your assault rifle.

[Kuga]

Thanks for the advice.
I'm playing Atom RPG right now with just a crossbow and explosives and I'm finding it very challenging. Especially in the early stages of the game, maybe the hardest I've ever played. However, once I got the heavy crossbow and gathered materials for explosives, the combat became smoother and more enjoyable.

[ElPrezCBF]

You can make modified Molotov cocktails very early in the game before you even have a heavy crossbow because their ingredients are abundant. They are so effective against all organic enemies that they belong to a class of their own. That will help you a lot in bigger fights until you get a heavy crossbow. Bear in mind that you might take a while to gather the ton of materials needed to make the heavy crossbow, so these are especially useful in the meantime.

The main requirement though is that you need a decent crafting skill level to make modified Molotov cocktails, but cigars and sunflower seeds (you should be able to purchase some from the bar owner in Second Tier) can help a lot with crafting.