Many in the community seem to believe the Custom Air Pistol is a “Joke Weapon” and a “Joke Weapon” alone; completely ignoring the true hidden power of this weapon and its secret superpower. That being that it is the best weapon in the game for doing encounters “Hitless” due to a few of its more unique traits.

The Custom Air Pistol

The Custom Air Pistol is a CRAFTED WEAPON that benefits from the Pistols & SMGs skill. It has a short range; a strength requirement of 2, and recommends a Pistols and SMGs skill of 25 with 5-8 base damage and an AP cost spread of 2/3/1 (Normal Shot, Aimed Shot, Reload).

It can be crafted by combining a Zip Gun (One of the default recipes in the game) with a Fire Extinguisher, one metal scrap, and an empty Plastic Bottle and its unique ammunition (pellets) can be crafted in bulk batches of 20 pellets per one scrap metal, wood, and waste paper.

I have only ever obtained or seen this weapon via crafting it myself.

Getting it to Work

A Custom Air Pistol Build is actually a build you will see getting online at the same time as any other Pistols and SMGs build; that being once your character has obtained the Fast Hands and Quick Reload Abilities from the Pistols and SMGs line of the Abilities/Perks menu.

See; unlike Trudograd where AP costs to fire and reload a weapon cannot be decreased below a specific AP cost, Atom RPG Base will actually see AP costs decreasing from the fast hands and quick reload abilities no matter what their original costs were; MEANING THAT THE AP COST SPREAD FOR THE CUSTOM AIR PISTOL GENUINELY BECOMES 1/2/0 (Normal Shot, Aimed Shot, Reload), MEANING IT CAN BE FIRED ONCE FOR EACH AND EVERY ACTION POINT YOUR CHARACTER HAS.

After you have obtained those two abilities (the third and fourth abilities in the pistol and smg line respectively) this build can be considered online.

Two more optional but beneficial perks for this build are Lubricator and Gun Jesus from the Crafting and Throwable ability tree; another 4 abilities total to achieve (Making this a build that requires 8 Abilities/Perks or 36 Ability/Perk Points total to achieve).

This allows you to always keep yourself out of enemy attack ranges while still being able to attack your opponents since it only takes one AP to fire once (two AP if you are aiming for the eyes so you can get that extra armor penetration in the late/endgame) and 0 AP to reload allowing you to always attack and move out of possible attack range within the same turn. Making it the Best Kiting Weapon in Atom RPG; even if encounters are going to take a while outside of Crit Aimed shots to the eyes (Basically; take the rifles and shotguns Manhunter before attempting the final fight in the game). Opponents such as Blind Death wont be able to land a single attack on you if you run a high dex build before you kill them; even if it takes you many turns to do so. It also allows you to always be able to sneak in an additional hit in combat, maybe even landing a crit to the eyes for potentially 15-40+ Damage (a Scary amount of Damage for a 1-2AP Ranged attack)

Feeling Good from the First Aid Tree and Quick Reaction from the melee tree will also see guaranteed use from the Custom Air Pistol; whereas other weapons may have too high an AP cost for either perk to allow an additional shot.

Air Pistol Challenge Run Criteria

Now for the real reason why I made this build; doing a Custom Air Pistol Challenge run where your only weapon is the Custom Air Pistol.

Since it is a Challenge run do not try this before having completed the game.

Step 1: Lone Wolf or Companions?

This is a decision you have to make for yourself; I consider it failing the challenge if your allies use weapons that are not the Air Pistol to do damage and Allies will never do aimed shots with any weapons meaning they will never do an eye shot when needed. They also do not know how to Kite unless you set them to defend meaning it is hard to get them to utilize the unique traits of the Custom Air Pistol in combat.

Though once again this game considers a Pacifist Run Valid if your allies do the killing for you so I will leave whether or not it is considered valid to have an ally deal damage up to you (Dzhulbars is the only Companion I personally consider for this challenge just due to how his only weapon option is biting, but I also personally just avoid using companions and just go it alone).

The decision is ultimately up to you; companions make it quicker but either risk dying too easily due to their AI or will outright just ignore the rules of the challenge by using rifles or whatnot.

Step 2: Start with Custom Air Pistol?

Since the only locations where a Fire Extinguisher can be consistently found (to my knowledge) are in the Bunkers and in Peregon; it is up to you to decide if you want to use Console Commands to add either the Fire Extinguisher (Item ID: Extinguisher) or add the Custom Air Pistol itself (Item ID: Air_Pistol) to your inventory after starting the game to save you the dangerous trip to Peregon/The Bunkers. Though since you can get experience from crafting and you can pretty easily get 30 Dosh in Atom RPG without committing any violence in Atom RPG; you can still solo Pacifist your way to any of the bunkers and/or Paragon to get your hands on an Extinguisher to make your weapon. I will just leave it up to you to decide what you want to do.

Step 3: Rules

1: Your decision between alone or with companions

2. Your decision between Starting with the Pistol or Fire Extinguisher or not

3. You can only damage Targets with the Custom Air Pistol

4. Everything else such as dialogue checks and avoiding encounters is allowed unless you decide otherwise

5. Difficulty is your choice; just remember that the higher difficulties require immense amounts of grinding to get the perks you need for this build (Getting all 8 Perks by level 12 on easy compared to on level 36 on extreme). Difficulty does not actually change the encounter difficulty though; just how grindy the game is, no fight or skill check is made harder by playing on a higher difficulty so unlike other titles fights will be just as hard on easy/casual as they would be on hard/extreme.

Step 4: Making your Character

Depending on how “optimal” you want your build to be and how much special dialogue you want access to; you may want to deviate from this starting build I have made.

This build a*sumes you are travelling alone and a*sumes you will be Crafting the Custom Air Pistol; which is why the starting skill points have been spread out between tinkering and pistols & SMGs; with the Lone Wolf Distinction active (and penalizing me for having a companion during the tutorial)

All of the Attributes/Distinctions are Ultimately your choice, but I went for the Distinctions Lone Wolf (cause no companions after the tutorial on this run) and Lucky One (cause Luck being the dump stat still does not change how good 3% crit chance is and how much we will not need strength this run outside of just a little extra to carry the meds we will not be using and the loot to sell for the easiest to bulk craft and cheapest ammo in the game; meaning we wont need much money outside of saving up 5000-7000 to go to the “endgame city” (in case anyone reading this has not made it to that city yet) so you can access the final dungeon of the game, which ultimately can be skipped by using timed explosives to bypa*s the two padlocked doors to the final “Dungeon” of the game whenever you are ready to be in immense amounts of pain, but you really only need to go to the Endgame City if you plan on Getting +1 Dex from the Angel Tattoo for winning the Tattoo Contest at the Looter Base and/or the second Strange Serum in the game from the Box Puzzle). But the starting spread of 2 Strength, 8 Endurance, 9 Dex, 8 Int, 8 Attention (When Alone; It reads 4 now cause I have a companion), 7 Personality, and 4 Luck will allow a huge spread of special dialogue checks with permanent attribute buffs (that I explain later) allowing you to hit quite a few 9s and/or a few 10s. Of course if you expect yourself to never mess up and never get hit while using the easiest weapon to not get hit with; you can easily dump Endurance to like 1 or 2 and have something more like this.

Or some other whack stat abomination that can be enabled by a build that does not actually need endurance or strength now that it only uses one weapon that needs not strength nor the user being open for taking damage, but really; do what you feel safe running.

I would still recommend having 9 or 10 Dex and 8-10 Intelligence to start. 9 Dex if you plan on going to the endgame city since the Angel Wing Tattoo will raise it to 10 (Needs 7 Dex, 7 Intelligence, 6 Attention, and not being silly to do so), and Dex only gives you 1 AP for every second point in it (getting your dex to 11 from the Angel Wing Tattoo will not give you another AP). High Int cause you will need all of the skill points you can get to bring any convenience you can find at the start of this run.

There are 5 Permanent Attribute Buffs that I know of in Atom RPG, 2 of them From Strange Serums that will increase any stat you want (1 from Endgame City Box Puzzle and the other in the Roaring Forest Caves), 1 is a Permanent Luck Increase From Dropping 3 meat in front of the Roaring Forest Idol, 1 is a Permanent +1 Dex from the Angel Wing Tattoo in the Endgame City, and the Last is from Fishing up the Magical Goldfish; which now has a 100% chance of being the first fish you fish up if you successfully catch a Fish with 11 Luck while Using the Weird Idol Bait (Nails, Corn, and Toadstool is the recipe I believe), and with 5 Items that Buff Luck in this game; each temp buff being able to stack twice, any character, even those who started with 1 Luck can get the Goldfish in one successful catch with their Luck Buffed to 11 and the Weird Idol. The Goldfish lets you raise any stat but Luck by 1, but do save first if you are on a difficulty that lets you since you can still fail to catch anything and fishing could take longer than your buffs end up lasting. All of these buffs also carry over to Trudograd… where the Custom Air Pistol’s Perks got nerfed (if it is even in Trudograd; have not played it much yet). This also means you can start with 6 Dex (if you really want to only have 8 Base AP at the start of the game) and still get it to 10 for 10 Base AP if you get the Angel Wings Tattoo and Spend Both Serums and the Goldfish on your Dex; I don’t know why you would do that outside of starting with higher strength or something, but you do you.

Conclusion

While not the best weapon by any means; it is by no stretch of the word “useless”, and funny enough can serve as much the opposite in many builds by turning that extra AP or two into extra Damage without leaving your character open for an attack; making it an ideal weapon to sneak into a Snipers and Shotguns Build if the Player has a few ability/perk points to spare. So they can always turn extra AP into damage over wasting an AP or two each turn.

Here we come to an end for the How To Make the Custom Air Pistol Awesome (Build) – ATOM RPG guide. I hope this guide has helped you with your gameplay. If you have something to add to this guide or believe we forgot some information to add, please let us know via comment! We check each comment manually by approving them!