Atomfall - Gear and Items#

Atomfall’s gear system is built on the premise that supplies are scarce and every single item must earn its place. This page offers no precise stat tables — the developers have never published per-weapon numbers for base damage, range, weight, and so on, so any hard-coded figures would be unreliable, and game balance shifts with patches. What this page gives is qualitative judgments and practical criteria; for actual numbers, trust what your game displays.

How This Page Is Written#

Before getting into it, let’s align on the approach this page takes:

Matter	How this page handles it	Why
Weapon damage values	No specific numbers, only strong/weak tiers	Per-weapon values are unpublished; inventing precise figures would mislead your build
Attack speed and range	Only relative terms like “fast/slow” and “long/short”	Same as above, and both are affected by your condition and enemy type
Durability and wear	Only whether wear pressure exists, no numbers	In-game values are the authority
Version differences	Balance-related content is tagged as “subject to change”	Patches can adjust weapon performance and drop rates

If you see a “weapon table” with precise numbers elsewhere, first check whether it comes from official data — most community-circulated number tables cannot be traced to any source.

Weapon System Overview#

Melee Weapons: Heavy, Medium, and Light#

Melee weapons fall into three categories by handling, and this is the key to understanding the melee system:

Category	Representative Weapons	Swing Rhythm	Per-Hit Power	Stamina Cost	Role
Heavy	Axes, big hammers	Slow	Strong	High	One hit decides it — low margin for error
Medium	Iron pipe, bat	Medium	Medium	Medium	The balanced transitional workhorse
Light	Scythe, knife	Fast	Weak	Low	High-frequency finishing blows and stealth executions

The trade-off logic for the three categories:

Heavy weapons: slow but strong. Ideal for ambushing isolated armored targets, or gambling on a first strike in tight spaces. When several enemies surround you, the long wind-up will get you beaten down by the whole pack — always open distance before swinging.
Medium weapons: iron pipes and bats are everywhere, and they are the mid-game workhorse. Damage, swing speed, and stamina cost have no glaring weaknesses and no standout strengths — break one, swap in another, no regrets.
Light weapons: scythes and knives swing fast and save stamina, with low per-hit damage. They suit point-blank flurries, finishing off nearly dead targets, and “one cut and done” moments like stealth executions — execution windows are whatever the game’s actual judgment delivers.

The universal advantage of melee is that it is silent: it never reveals your position and never spends ammo, which in an ammo-starved game is the greatest value of all.

Firearms: Period-Accurate Guns#

Firearms follow a “period-authentic” route — everything you find is a real gun model matching the setting’s era (1960s British countryside), not sci-fi fictional weapons:

Firearm	Type	Handling Traits	Best Used For
Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifle	Bolt-action rifle	Slow fire rate, high per-shot power, long effective range	Precise single shots at medium-to-long range
Sten submachine gun	SMG	Fully automatic, close-range spray, mediocre accuracy	Suppressing multiple enemies in cramped spaces
Mk VI revolver	Revolver	Small cylinder, slow reload, reliable per shot	Steady, methodical fighting at mid-range
Other period firearms	Assorted civilian and surplus military guns	Performance varies, depends on where you find them	Use whatever you can get

A few general criteria:

Gun performance (recoil, loading method, effective range) follows the rough logic of the real weapon: bolt-action rifles reach far but fire slowly, SMGs are vicious up close but eat ammo.
Which guns spawn where, and at what quality, can change with versions and story progress — in-game drops are the authority.
There is no “one god gun” in this game; firearm choice depends more on what ammo you happen to be holding.

Ammo Management#

Ammo scarcity is the foundation of this game’s combat design, and it directly shapes how the whole weapon system is used:

If you can sneak, don’t shoot. Gunfire draws patrols and escalates a single encounter into a war of attrition.
Plan your exit before you pull the trigger. Before a firefight, confirm there is cover and an exit you can use to break away.
One caliber’s ammo is not guaranteed to work in every gun. After picking up a new gun, confirm whether its ammo supply is stable — don’t carry the burden of “a gun with no bullets.”
Ammo drop amounts and respawn rules are whatever the game delivers; no precise estimates here.

Throwables and Traps#

Throwables and traps are a third combat route that depends on neither marksmanship nor gun ammo:

Item	Form	Main Use
Molotov cocktail	Thrown explosive	Sustained fire at the impact point — blocks paths and flushes enemies out of cover
Bottle trap	Placed explosive	Set along a route enemies must take; explodes when triggered
Proximity mine	Placed explosive	Guard stairwells and doorways — short trigger distance, ideal for ambushes
Throwable melee weapon	Your held melee weapon	Hurl it directly for damage; silently drops an isolated target

Usage tips:

Placed items reward foresight. Bottle traps and proximity mines belong on routes enemies “will walk,” not merely “can walk” — study the patrol route before placing anything.
The Molotov is a group-clearing monster, and also the final ultimatum before abandoning stealth — the flames and screaming will alert the entire camp.
Throwable melee weapons give melee gear a second use: hurl a short weapon at a sentry facing away from you, then walk up and retrieve it. Consumption and recovery rules after a throw are whatever the game’s actual judgment delivers.
Crafting material recipes for each throwable are covered in the Crafting System — not repeated here.

Key Utility Items#

A few utility items run through the entire exploration loop, and they outrank any weapon:

Item	Use	Advice
Metal detector	Detects buried caches underground	Sweep slowly over open ground; dig wherever you hear a response
Signal redirector	Redirects signal sources to find hidden targets	Use it with the signal clues found in-game to unlock new search directions
Atomic battery	Powers key devices inside facilities	Limited in number — spend them only on devices that demand one, never on spots you can bypass
Toolkit	Handles locked doors, hatches, and other scene interactions	A consumable — bring enough before entering facilities and prioritize doors you “cannot go around”

Item-by-item notes:

The metal detector turns “walking the map” into “reading the map”: village squares, crossroads, and the edges of collapsed buildings are all high-yield spots. Build the habit of sweeping as you go, and most gaps in consumables and crafting materials can be filled on the spot.
The signal redirector is a puzzle-solving tool, deeply tied to this game’s Leads (clue-driven exploration) system. Whenever you hit “there’s a signal but I can’t reach it,” first consider whether a redirect is needed.
The atomic battery ties into the power puzzles inside facilities, and each one spent is gone for good. When unsure about a device, finish sweeping the area for supplies before committing.
The toolkit decides whether you get the shortcut. Anyone who pries at every door burns through them fastest; learn to judge which doors actually hide something worth opening.

Weapon-Linked Achievements#

Several achievements hang directly on weapon and throwable play, so players chasing 100% completion can plan along the lines below. Achievement names and unlock conditions follow whatever the platform achievement pages display in real time.

Target Practice#

Requires killing six people in a row with the revolver without reloading. The revolver’s cylinder capacity maps exactly onto this requirement, with zero margin for error:

Pick an isolated patrol route, not the inside of a camp, so none of your six shots summons reinforcements.
Every shot must be a sure thing — rather than spending the cylinder on a hopeful long-range shot at a half-health target, break off and re-sneak.
The most reliable pattern in practice: fire, then immediately change position so the enemy can never find you.
If you get exposed with one or two rounds left, pull your melee weapon and clean up the rest — don’t gamble on the shot.

Fast Bowl#

Requires ten kills with thrown weapons. This is the dedicated achievement for “throwable melee weapons”:

Throw short, light weapons — their flight path is more controllable; heavy weapons (axes, hammers) are very hard to land.
Only throw at targets who are facing away and isolated. Throws have travel time, and a frontal throw is easily dodged.
After each kill, pick the weapon back up — thrown weapons deplete far faster than you can craft replacements from gathered materials.
The ten kills don’t have to happen in one sitting; spreading them across a whole playthrough is actually steadier.

Hit for Six#

Requires batting an enemy’s grenade back at them with a cricket bat. A spectacle-heavy technique with real risk attached:

The cricket bat is an ordinary melee weapon day to day, but this achievement demands swinging at the right moment to strike the grenade in mid-air.
Trigger scenario: while fighting enemies who throw grenades, watch the throwable’s arc and swing just as it closes in on you.
Failure means getting caught in your own explosion — don’t attempt it below full health.
Practice by deliberately seeking out grenade-throwing enemies in open ground; in tight spaces you won’t even have room to dodge.

Grand Slam#

Requires killing five enemies with a single explosion. The test is not firepower but clustering:

Placed items are the first choice: set a proximity mine or bottle trap at the camp gate, then lure the patrol toward it.
In field encounters, the best window is a column of enemies walking single-file through a narrow passage.
Use throwables or your footsteps to steer enemy positioning while baiting, and detonate only when five of them crowd into the same blast radius.
This achievement scales hard with crowd density — pick busy strongholds (outposts, checkpoints); lone-wolf patrol spots will never produce five targets.

Loadout Principles (Qualitative)#

Finally, a few loadout principles that don’t depend on any numbers:

Stealth first: melee weapons plus throwables solve most encounters; firearms are reserved for fights that cannot be avoided.
Pair heavy with light: keeping one medium weapon for emergencies and one light weapon for executions is far more practical than dual-wielding heavies.
Items are ammo too: throwables and traps create scenes guns never could (group stuns, blocked paths) — stockpile them when materials allow.
Keep utility items on you: there is no reason to ever be without the metal detector and toolkit; carry atomic batteries according to the puzzles ahead.

Wrapping Up#

The essence of this game’s gear system is scarce-resource management: ammo is scarce, so stealth comes first; melee splits into three tiers, so pick your tool by enemy type; and throwables plus utility items decide how much of the battlefield you actually control. For combat-side technique, see the Combat System; for crafting and the material loop, see the Crafting System; for full-completion planning, see the Achievement List.