How to alter ability points in the ability perk tree

[Ukkunz]

Atom RPG is a great game, but for a certain group of gamers the system of leveling up and growing stronger just isn't enough.

(Spoiler alert)
Look for example at the serial killer quest in Dead City. How can you survive fighting a group of 10 or more mercs and two ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s who all get to attack you first because of their high sequence? First round you lose the useless detective and catch a grenade in your face. No way to survive that on your first playthrough.
(/Spoiler alert)

In this guide I will explain a bit how you can influence your Characteristics (strength, endurance, etc.) and the Ability tree. You get skill points every time you level up, so no reason to "cheat" with these.

You only get two chances to improve your characteristics in the game when you get the "strange serum" (https://atom-rpg.fandom.com/wiki/Strange_Serum). You can however decide for yourself if you want to improve these more, for instance each time you level up or when you reach even levels 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. Just use the command console to add the strange serum, (type:"additem jetvirus") put it in the inventory of a specific character and "use" it. Voila, another point to distribute.
Guide on console commands: https://prodigygamers.com/2018/12/24/atom-rpg-list-of-all-the-cheat-codes-and-console-commands/

The ability tree takes a bit more work. For this you will need to download a small specialized program (109 kb) to unzip and zip so called AS Files. These are your saved games which you can find here:

C:\Users\[Your own username]\AppData\LocalLow\AtomTeam\Atom\

Here you can download the program called GZIP to unzip or "open" the save files:

https://atom-rpg.fandom.com/ru/wiki/AtomSL

1) Before you start Atom RPG open the above mentioned folder where you can find your save files and start the GZIPStream Zip/Unzip 1.0 program you needed to download.

2) Now start Atom RPG, and in the main menu press ALT + TAB and go to your saved games folder

3) I assume you already played the game and have (quick) saved game files. Check which file is the newest. In GZIP, press "Unzip" and open the saved file you want to alter the ability points for.

4) In your saved games folder you should notice a new folder appeared with the name of the AS save file you just unzipped. In this folder, open the file "player.dat" with Notepad (right mouse click on the file > open with > DESELECT "Always use this app to open .dat files" > select Notepad > open).

5) Now you will see many values you can alter, but press CTRL + F and search for "specLevel". The number behind this value is the amount of ability points you need to select a new ability skill. The value before "specLevel" is called "freeSpecPoints", which is the amount of ability points you currently can spend. The two values before "freeSpecPoints" are indeed for characteristics and skill (alter them if you like, but this method is a tedious way).

So for each character/companion either change "specLevel" to 1 or "freeSpecPoints" to 9 or higher, and close the file so it can ask to be saved and select "yes".

6) Now go back to GZIP and press "Zip" and select the folder you just made with "Unzipping" to store the files back into the AS file. (the folder will keep existing until you save again in Atom RPG)

7) Go back to Atom RPG with ALT + TAB and load your altered saved game, you should notice a change in the ability tree.

And that is how you can play around with the ability tree. There are some notes though to take into consideration:

- I just discovered this method yesterday and currently am playing my second play through with two mods that alter the ability tree. I do not know what results altering the player.dat will have for players without mods. So use this method at your own risk, make a normal save game first and only alter a quick save game file so you can always reload the normal save game if things go wrong.

- If you have multiple companions check the order in which their values appear in the player.dat file. Search for "character" in that file and their names should pass by. Hexogen is called Gexogen in the player.dat file, and my dog in the game is called Wolfhound, but "Wolfter" in the player.dat file. Companion order in the player.dat file should be the same in the inventory or the order they joined you.

- When you alter the player.dat file with notepad (or any other file) ALWAYS DEselect / UNselect the "Always use this app to open .dat files" option. You do NOT want windows to mess with the .dat extension by turning it into a text doc extension.

- If you load your saved game and are unhappy with the result, DO NOT quick save again (this will make your earlier unzipped folder disappear). Just go back to the main menu without saving and repeat step 2 to tweak the values.