Contents
Guide to Basics
Intro
Since atomicrops is a really nice game and i see that still 75% of the players owning the game have yet to beat year 1 i decided to make a small guide.
This guide has some general information and just reflects what i know from playing the game, i did not look at data or talked with other players about this mechanics, so there might be some oversight or misinterpretations.
Abreviations:
- tundra = area north of our field
- plains = area east of our field
- jungle = area south of our field
- dessert = area west of our field
cc = cashews (the currency for guns etc.)
Seeds
I don´t want to go into much detail for this so just the main things you need to know:
Seeds have 4 rarity tiers: bronze, silver, gold and special indicated by their background. The higher the tier the more cc you get for the plant (and the more damage it deals to the final boss). Excpetion are the special seeds, more on that below.
Big crops: Planting seeds in a 2×2 pattern and giving these 4 plants fertilizer causes them to merge into a big crop. Big crop give more cc then the individual crops, so its always wise to merge. You can merge them while they are still seeds or even when they are already ready to harvest. You can further fertilize big crops to increase the amount of cc gained.
Generally all seeds can be categorized as dry or wet seeds.
- Dry Seeds: these are the seeds you get in the dessert and in the tundra biome. They require no water but take a little while to grow. Its great to plant them when you are away and don´t have much cows.
- Wet Seeds: These are the seeds found in the plains and in the jungle biome. They require a substantial amount of water to fully grow. When planting many of these make sure to have a options to water them. (Cloud scrolls, water tractor, cows or items that help you water things)
Special seeds
- Roses: These give you a special currency called roses that are used to purchase specific things in town. They are very important and should always have a high priority. They also merge into a big crop without the need of fertilizer. A big rose gives you 5 roses. So its always adviced to save up till you have 4 to get the most out of your seeds. Roses require water to fully grow.
- Health Beet: these replenish your health; They require a substantial amount of fertilizer to merge into a big crop. Harversting them replenishes your life. Harvesting them when at full life will increase your max health. (3 beats = 1 new max health, i think)
- Pumpkins: as far as i can tell they are worth as much as gold seeds, their special thing is they destroy bullets when harvested.
- Sunflowers: Now these are very important. They will immediately sprout once planted. You then have like ~20 seconds time to feed them fertilizer up to a maximum of 50. Each fertilizer gives you 6cc for a small and 30cc for big flowers.
Planting the wrong seeds at the wrong time can really screw your income so always plant with care.
Trees
Trees are planted in your field similar to seeds.
Trees take up a space of 2×2 fields, they need water to grow and once matured continue to produce fruit until destroyed. Trees can not be removed by the player.
Trees can be obtained from:
- Enemy seed camps.
- Tree monster bulbs.
- Random drop from biome monsters.
- End of season reward.
- Watering a tree with sprinkler tractor.
- Items (i.e. orchard).
The tree you find depends on the biome you are in:
- Dessert – Date tree
- Plains – Peach tree
- Tundra – Apple tree
- Jungle – Banana tree
Placing 4 trees in a 2×2 pattern and then fertilizing them makes them merge into a mega tree.
Note: be careful when placing apple and peach trees as they look very similar
Weapons
I don´t want to explain the weapons here, you can figure that out very quickly yourself. Whats more important is what you do with the weapon you pick.
Before choosing a weapon you should think about what you want to do with it. Its easy to just make a tier list and go top down but its not as simple as that. The following example should nudge you in the right direction:
The sniper rifle excels at single target damage. The tundra is perfect for this weapon as it has almost only medium hp enemys and you can take out the snowman before they cast their aoe. You will be able to make much and safe progress in the tundra when choosing this weapon. But if you go into the jungle or plains biome with the rifle, the masses of low hp enemies will tear you apart leading to little progress most likely a net loss.
Heres a rough roundabout what to bring where:
- Tundra: Weapons with high range.
- Jungle: Weapon with high firerate; alternative aoe.
- Plains: Weapons with aoe; alternative high fire rate.
- Dessert: Pretty much anything but single target has a slight advantage.
All weapons are rather balanced, some exceptions are:
Avoid
- Squirrel: Tricky to use and usually not worth the hassle
- Butchers knife: Gains you some extra fertilizer but tricky to aim
- Siracha cannon: Flamethrower; not that bad when upgraded, but unupgraded its terrible
Get
Minigun can pretty much handle any biome; also usually takes out bosses with one mag without upgrades; if this is offered to you its always a good choice.
Upgrading
When and what to upgrade is open to you, from summer onward it makes sense to always take at least the first upgrade. Upgrades are always selected from a random pool. This can lead to some weapons becoming very strong with just one upgrade.
Tip
- Getting certain upgrades early on allows you to take on tier 2 bases very early.
- For example either the poison cloud shotgun or the triple grenade launcher allows you to clear big parts of plains2 early, netting you some big advantage in terms of items and seeds. (i.e. early big tree)
Misc. Mechanics
Here some generall mechanics i mention in the following walkthrough:
Region tiers
Regions have 4 tiers seprated by the cost to acces them. To access higher tier regions you need to spend bridge parts sold at the market or given to you by the mayor when reaching certain harvest goals. If you can fly you can just pass over the caps without repairing the bridges.
- T1 Free – dessert 1 plains 1
- T2 1 Bridge part – tundra 1 jungle 1
- T3 2 Bridge part – dessert 2 plains 2
- T4 3 Bridge part – tundra 2 jungle 2
Berry Bushes
Every area has a landmark that has berry bushes growing around it. These continue to grow and can be harvested for free. On day 1 there are usually 3-4 bushes, the amount increases by +1/2 per day. The higher tier the region is the more cc you get for these berry.
Tree monster
Every area has a tree monster; when you clear a random camp within the zone a golden cornucopia will drop, when you pick it up a golden fly will guide you to the location of the tree monster. (You also get directions shown on the side of your screen) Once you arrive the tree monster and its bulb will emerge. If you kill it you can open the bulb to gain a item from a special pool, fertilizer and very often a tree.
Pidgeon Scrolls
- Scrolls are one time use items found in certain camps. These have 1 of 4 effects.
- Earth scroll: Clears out all weed from your fields, expands your field and tills all field tiles.
- Seed scroll: Plants seeds in every available spot.
- Fertilizer scroll: fertilizes all your current crops to max.
- Water scroll: Waters crops for a certain time, also douses fires.
Earth scroll is usually always worth taking as more space = more crops; the other scrolls are fairly balances and can be priorised to whatever you need mpst currently, usualy early you are low on water, then you get low on fertilizer and lategame you might get low on seeds; note earth scroll->seed scroll->fertilizer scroll is a very nice combo that nets you a full field very quickly
In a vacuum i choose like this:
- earht>fertilizer=seed>water
Weed
Weed grows around your farm and weed that is not removed sprouts further weed. Once weed is dense enough it starts spreading weed monsters that shoot at you. Thats why its unwise to neglect weed around your farm. Every dawn there are some weed sprouts spawning, in this phase you can easily remove them by right clicking. You will also find items that help you deal with weed. Chickens also remove weed automatically.
Farm animals
- Farm animals help you with certain farming tasks.
- Cows water plants.
- Chickens remove weed and lay eggs (Eggs give cc when picked up).
- Pigs till the ground and sometimes even expand your farm.
- Bees increase the speed crops grow.
- Turrets shoot enemies in range automatically, can not be destroyed, can be removed and placed elsewhere.
- Scarecrows: Block bullets
Certain items further augment what animals are capable to do, so always remember your items when picking animals. Yous usually want to have a good mix of everything. In i vacuum i go like this: pig>cow>chicken>turret>bee>scarecrow
General Gameplan
In this game timing is everything and i think it is very hard for new players to know if what they are doing is right.
The game is very front heavy, the most difficult part is the beginning as you do not have any fall back ressources when things go wrong. Once you are hitting the end of spring you should be in a comfortabel position and dictate how fast the game is going but until then it is really rough.
I will now just explain my general gameplan and what my goals are, maybe this helps you to structure you gameplay similarly.
Day 1 spring
I start by removing as many small weeds as possible as long as they don´t require a bar to remove. Then i plant the 4 potatoes in a 2×2 grid and head for the dessert.
- Our goal is to get as much done as possible with getting hit as little as possible. We should go either clockwise or counter clockwise around the area so we only have to worry about attacks on two sides. We do not skip any camps as we need almost anything.
- What we really want to find is berry bushes and the tree monster.
- When its dark we had back. With the pickaxes we try to create as many 2×2 patchse as possible.
- Fertilize the 4 potatoes to a big potato. Plant 4 roses if we have that much, else fill out the rest of the board with seeds we have <2 of.
Day 2 spring
Shopping
With the potato and berri money we should be able to purchase a gun. If we have left over money And we have 2+ of some dessert seeds we buy a package of bronze dessert seeds.
If we killed the tree monster on day1 we aim to go to plains1 now, else we finish dessert.
Field
If you received any trees directly plant them. In general you always want to plant your trees BUT you should always have at least one 2×2 area to place roses. Then go out and clear as much as possible. Expand your field, place trees and sow seeds. On day 2 latest you should have grown your first big rose. Always try to find the berrys in the region you are in.
Day 3 sping
Shopping
Depening on your skill buy a normal gun or an upgraded one. Remember you need to fight a boss. If everything went well and you get a sniper rifle you can think of going to the tundra. Else just clear out anythign remaining in dessert1 and plains1.
Field
Goal is that dessert1 and plains1 tree monsters are down. You should have 2+ trees that will continually produce fruit.
Rest of the game
From here on out everything depends on the weapons / upgrades you have and how fast you want to play. You have 9 days and 6 areas left to loot. When having the right gun it should be possible to get the tree monster of an area within one day but don´t force yourself into it, if it takes two day so be it. Only go if you feel confortable, you do not need to visit all areas before the final boss, if some areas annoy you just skip them. There is nothing wrong with staying on the farm for a day if you get only ♥♥♥ weapons offered. Use the time to plant seed and to weed out the farm.
General tips
Field
I usually plan my field always around getting giant trees as they generate consistent wealth without much rng (outside of obtaining the trees); when expanding my fields with pickaxes i always expand in a ways that allows me to create mega trees; currently unused 2×2 spaces can always be used to make big crops. I also like to use turrets as they allow me to manualy weed at night without the need to defend my base. I prioritize earth scrolls and pigs to have enough space for this strategy.
Sunflowers
Save them till you have a set of 4 and 50 fertilizer to gain 1500cc.
Final Boss
So the final boss comes after the winter boss is defeated.
Make sure to buy a gun; take your season rewards; use up all your left over ressources and then go to the chopper.
The gimmick with this boss is that you can´t shoot him; he only takes damage from crops you harvest. So absically you just plant things and try to stay alive.
Some of his attacks:
- Fire: He snaps his inger and ignites your crops. This sucks cause in the best case it delays your harvest , in the worst case you loose your plants. I recommend saving up rainscrolls as they can douse the fire within seconds.
- AOE: A big pruple circle highlights on the ground. Just don´t be in it.
- Turrets: He spawns some roots that sit and shoot at you, just shoot back.
- Floating Crops: He lets some big crops float around, just shoot them down and don´t touch them.
Thats it, plant and dodge until he is defeated, note that he attacks more fiercly the less health he has.
Trees are a good source of damage, also remember that big crops deal more damage than small crops and higher tier crops also deal more damage (I would imagine that the damage is proportional to their cc sell cost).
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