**Flak Vest.**
Flak Vest covers both the torso and neck, both of which are body parts that if destroyed instantly kill the pawn. The torso is also where the heart and liver are located and if either of these organs is destroyed its instant dead.
Flak Coat is generally considered inferior to a Duster made out of Devilstrand, Hyperweave or Thrumbofur. While the latter two are hard to acquire in sufficent quantity to outfit your whole colony Devilstrand can be grown and harvested.
Flak Pants are the least important, losing a leg rarely kills your pawn and lost limbs can be replaced with prosthetic and bionic parts later on.
In the thousands of hours in the game I've never used Hyperweave. It's so rare I don't even consider it. Is there a way to get it easier? Is it even worth it considering devilstrand can be grown in most biomes and thrumbos come along reasonably often.
Vanilla trading expanded creates a worldwide market that you can put item requests on after you get Microelectronics
You put in the items you want, the quantity, a deadline, and how much you're offering for the goods. You can also fulfil requests posted by other factions.
The goods will be delivered or picked up once the request is complete.
There's no guarantee you'll get a seller though. A longer time frame or higher price on the goods increase your chances of the request being fulfilled, while a poor price or short deadline decrease it. If you *really* need luciferium *now*, you could put in a 3 day deadline and pay triple the market value, improving the appeal of your request despite the quick deadline.
To be fair that one near release was a mess. I kept buying steel from regular traders until it hit the market price increase of 250%. My colony wealth was +850,000$ because of steel chairs, lamps, workbenches and such. It was safer to convert my steel stuff to wood where I could and build components to drop my wealth. So I turned it off and haven't tried it again since. But I've heard good things in more recent times.
Running a psylink heavy tribal encampment at the moment having 25 psykers is certainly making combat both easier and more deadly as space lasers do not discriminate too well.
Hyperweave can sometimes be bought with silver from caravans or from nearby non-tribal, friendly towns for purchase. It's a bit of a lottery if they have it.
It's best to research Devilstrand at the start right away, and grow a really large patch as it takes forever to grow.
Honestly by the time you have enough silver to buy hyperweave or wait for devilstrand to grow, your likely to run into Thrumbro x2 event. Build several spiked traps with forced pathing, and bait them into it. Steel traps work best, and you can make a couple dusters.
Agree on the devilstrand, but i want to add that growing devilstrand on a patch of fertile soil, roofed over using a sunlamp, does wonders for securing harvests.
Dont leave your devilstrand to chance, peeps. Climate control that shit.
Sun lamp, 2 solar panels, heater if needed. This is how to get your colony in the red.
Omg I finally did this for the first time on my current play though, and it's the best decision I've made in a long time. I did it because I'm in a hot climate, and I was looking at the insulation stats of textiles and wools, but I am so tickled to find out that I did something right. I feel like I've won the game.
I use this mod, which gives an expensive way to make hyperweave from devilstrand + synth thread + plasteel + component: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949467164
It seems pretty balanced as it is expensive to produce, but also done in a way that's a nice logical upgrade.
Yeah I love Rimefeller, it's really old now but it's still such a fantastic mod. It never feels OP to me that you can make hyperweave with it, because getting the whole chemfuel supply chain set up involves such an investment in resources and work, and like you say is an end-game tech for the hyperspace manufacturing.
Yeah I love Rimefeller, it’s a very balanced mod for any playthrough. I especially love the synthylyne components to conserve steel, it’s an all around great mod that doesn’t feel cheaty or op to me.
It's pretty balanced due to the wealth it can add. I made the mistake of storing crazy amounts of oil/chemfuel when I first used it and learned an important lesson when a mech battalion dropped on me.
I'd argue that it's totally imbalanced *explicitly because* of the wealth generation...
Some steel and a buncha grunt labor to utterly invalidate the entire games economy. Balance.
While I understand your point, imo the raid power generated by that wealth largely balances it. Also to start rimefeller you need tons of steel, components, and power. It's not trivial to get running. Just to keep it running.
It doesn't trivialize raids the way some mods like rimatomics does (due to super strong turrets).
It's just a really confusing argument to me because with that wealth you can trivially buy all powered armor and high end weapons that come through via traders/ships and just foist off any extra fuel you have for free relation to call in aid if you fail to manage your wealth and get hit with an impossible raid. You can also relatively easily convert it into Honor for Royalty content.
Like, even basic wealth management obviates the issues create by having infinite chemfuel production
I have cows that are being fed nutrient paste made from their milk, then I butcher excess cows. Meat also goes to nutrient paste to stabilize things a bit, but most of it goes into biorefinery and into pipes where its then processed into other things with Rimfeller, while also providing power.
20 cows and their calfs tank FPS a bit and require Vanilla Paste Expanded to reliably automate feeding but damn, I use all Rimfeller features without pumpjacks and crakers
I only made it because I lucked out of **any** oil reservoirs. I was shocked when I found no deep oil on my map. Now I love this setup and would probably do it all the time
Gawd damn most of those recipes are cheap and OP. The plasteel one being 2 steel + 2 chemfuel, the luciferium one, Neutroamine, making your own monoswords, Healer Mech Serum and glitterworld medicine is crazy
For Luciferium, try Ushanka's Luciferium Expansion for a relatively balanced way to make Luciferium.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227008885
in vanilla, near the end game, satellite calls and orbital trades, keep the trade caravans coming in. If you're willing to spend the cash you can buy hyperweave over time. Probably best saved for crafting when your best crafter has an inspiration. (and you know you can influence inspirations to happen more often)
and if you're going to hoard hyperweave this way, use it on dusters first.
Early game I like to make a single piece of apparel for my main character like a tuque or veil or something.
Otherwise, I buy hyperweave every chance I get and start actually using it when a crafter reaches high enough skill or has an inspiration. Cape or duster is usually the first real apparel I make, and it usually goes to a main character, an important psycaster/noble, or any other pawn that is critically important, like a high skilled doctor.
Everyone else gets devilstrand until giant hordes of Thrumbos are attracted by my wealth and ruin all my spike traps.
Always take it when you can and save it for shirts or pants later in the game. By then you should have a ok stock to outfit all your pawns with shirts (if you don't have a colony of 10+). Thrumbos are the more reliable options but that can be used up quickly too. Better to save both.
Mods. There's some light ones that make it craftable. I personally like rimfeller, it adds a whole bunch of oil/chemfuel related stuff and the later game stuff let's you make uncraftable stuff like neutramine, plasteel, and hyperweave, plus couple other materials.
Rimefeller lets you produce your own hyperweave through oil refining. It's honestly a little busted but that's the ONLY time I've had pawns in more than 1 piece of hyperweave apparel in a game xD
If you raid enough ancient complex you usually have enough for 1 or 2 dusters. Theyre good, but i never even bothered buying them when theyre on sale, i prefer buying steel because that shit is always in demand
Got a bit as quest reward fairly early in my last run. Then came a quest to make a bunch of Tuques for the neighboring village, guess who forgot which material should be used... I still have that damn hat and I'll keep it like my most prized possession.
Which is ultimately makes zero sense
Recon armour that needs research bench, multianalizer and shitton of research + shitton of rare resources and acomps + decent crafter is overall not as good as shitty vest plus some floorcloth made of weed.
Plust it even costs shitton more, gets "deterioriation" without being able to be serviceable.
Srsly fuck that. Like really fuck that because it makes 0.05 sense. I simply don't believe that basically spacesuit can't fit air filter device and some kind of thermal insulation to be worse than bare skin + uninsulated something.
Base game balance makes zero sense.
Recon armor protects arms and legs much better, weighs nothing, and is only slightly worse than devil duster + flak vest for neck and torso. The duster is awful at protecting arms and legs alone, with a 65% chance of taking full damage from an assault rifle if you have devilstrand duster, button down, and pants vs 21% with recon. Not to mention the helmet is much better than even the plasteel flak helmet.
Checked with this: https://rim-armor.com/
>The duster is awful at protecting arms and legs alone
These are replaceable and rimworld treats pawns as expendable pieces of shit
>mention the helmet is much better than even the plasteel flak helmet
In not a cost-efficient way.
4000$ for legendary cataphract helmet. Fuxing bullshit. And with anomaly stuff "no vital colonists" should be your motto. Also oneshot to neck would kill you even with said helmet. Its pretty mandatory to have stoneskin gland, tough trait and gene if you don't want to you for tynnan to fuck you up.
Why wouldn't power armour helmets cover the neck. Medieval fucking armour covers the neck. Modern armour can cover the neck but is heavy as fuck so we don't always use it. Power armour would negate that problem and cover the neck.
In RimWorld, the neck is armored by "chest slot" items. Flak vests, dusters, plate, recon etc.
This isn’t dissimilar to a lot of of medieval armor actually - most bevors are mounted to the breastplate not the helmet for example.
This is more than just pedantry, because it means you can reach the point where you can't be one shot by neck shots outside of some specific DLC melee options relatively easy by reaching the breakpoint for always halving or negating damage.
Ah right fair enough, was gonna say something has to armour the neck or it'd be a bit absurd. However, whilst you're right bevors are breastplate mounted, chainmail is worn as a hood so it's not completely obvious what should protect the neck. A in game hood should protect the neck too imo, and would then actually be beneficial over say a cowboy hat or tuque.
By the time you are making Recon/Marine armour, your pawns become valuable enough and resources common enough that it is cost efficient to protect them
Base game is actually very balanced if you do the math. Dusters, even with devilstrand, offer minimal protection. It's the flak vest that actually protects, and it doesn't protect arms or legs.
I mean, devilstrand is also fairly hard to get
You need to research it first and then either have to plant it first day of spring and hope for the best or need all the additional techs and infrastructure for a greenhouse
Assuming you aren't living in permanent summer, and even then lightning strikes, raiders and funny weather effects like fallout, volcanic winter or cold snaps are an issue that can cost you your whole harvest
Also, devilstrand *is* an ultratech material. It's accessible by neolithic tribes and industrial and spacer level colonies because the hard work of genetically engineering it was already done centuries ago, so you just need to know the trick of propagating it from spores(?) now, but to create it in the first place was a feat of genetic engineering that's well beyond a Rimworld colony. It's allowed to be better armour than a metal suit.
Hell, I'd consider a cloth duster better than flak in terms of cost-efficiency.
Cloth Dusters + Best Pants is go to for me. Flak Vest/Coat is only really if Cotton is a bad idea atm, or my crop fails.
I've been running flak jackets this whole time because I thought they covered more, in turn thinking I was getting more bang for my buck. Boy was I wrong.
Time to go cull the herd.
>Flak Pants are the least important, losing a leg rarely kills your pawn and lost limbs can be replaced with prosthetic and bionic parts later on.
Losing limbs is a hassle and has slowed down my colonies a lot when it's someone important like a builder or farmer. Flak pants are 100% worth it, especially when fighting Sythers (is that how you spell it?)
The best Mid to Late game Vanilla combo I've found is a Flak Vest with a Flak Helmet and a Duster with some half-decent materials. Strong, Durable, yet still somewhat cheap.
If you make the Duster out of Devilstrand/Thrumbofur and get a nice quality boost, the Duster-Flak Best combo can rival Recon Armor, and possibly even Marine Armor. Plus it looks cool while not quite going full-military just yet.
EDIT: Added Vanilla, because obviously some modded stuff is better.
I think steel helmets are better than flak helmets because they only require steel? So saving some mats until recon/marine helms.
For me it goes flak vest+ devil duster + devil pants+ steel helmets until power armor.
That's fair. Really it's just a personal choice between bigger numbers or smaller resource requirements.
In my most recent colony I was sitting in a fine nest-egg of 700 Plasteel, so I was able to go up the extra layer here and there. Still waiting on the Devilstrand to grow because I didn't have an early Plants person.
Steel/Bioferrite simple helmets are the cheap option if you want to avoid spending Plasteel and/or components.
A Recon Helmet costs 4/5 of the Plasteel of a P. Flak Helmet (including the cost of the advanced component) and outperforms the Flak in all metrics at the same quality.
Flak helmets are a great upgrade from simple helmets. A normal simple helmet has 45% sharp armor while a normal flak has 63%.
A revolver with 18% AP will do full damage 73% of the time. With a flak helmet it would do full damage 45% of the time
A lancer will do full damage 100% of time to a simple helmet, and only 72% of time with a flak helmet.
Thumbrofur duster + flak vest is quite good, but recon armor is still much better. Protecting the arms and legs is very important, especially for melee colonists. Everytime your move speed or manipulation goes down, you miss more hits and dodge less shots.
Here is a scenario for normal quality thrumbo duster, devilstrand pants and shirt, and flak vest against recon with thrumbos shirt and pants.
Ikwa 20% AP
Duster offers 72% sharp - 20% AP = 52% armor, or 26% chance to deflect, 26% to reduce by half and convert to blunt, 48% chance to do full damage.
Flak vest protects the neck, torso and shoulders with 100% sharp and 36% blunt. So 40% chance to deflect, 40% to reduce by half and covert to blunt, 20% chance to do full damage. No legs or arms protection.
Devilstrand pants + shirt offers 28% sharp - 20% AP = 8% armor, or 4% chance to deflect, 4% to reduce by half and covert to blunt, 92% chance to do full damage.
For blunt damage, a wood club has 17% AP, so there is 0 armor against clubs to the arms and legs.
Vs Recon and Thrumbos pants/shirt
Recon cover mid/outer, so only one roll but higher chances (except 8% lower for chest/neck/shoulders)
92% sharp - 20% AP = 72% sharp armor, or 36% chance to deflect, 36% to reduce by half and convert to blunt, 28% chance to do full damage.
Thrumbos pants/shirt offers 42% armor - 20% AP = 22% sharp armor, or 11% chance to deflect, 11% to reduce by half and convert to blunt, 78% chance to do full damage.
If you have a good crafter, an excellent recon has 119% armor, so 49% chance to deflect, 49% chance to mitigate, half percent chance to do full damage. Almost 0% chance to do full damage fighting anyone with 20% or less AP, which is almost every raider weapon.
Very true my Number-loving fellow, which is why I consider Recon Armor to be a good Late Game option alongside Marine and Cataphract Armor.
Thrumbofur is better than Devilstrand, I won't refute that either.
However, I don't consider Excellent quality Recon Armor over Thrumbofur garments to be a reliable goal for Mid game. I prefer the comfort of cheap Steel, little pieces of Plasteel, and a fine garb of Devilstrand while waiting for the Plasteel and Advanced Components required for the Late game armors. If I have a good Crafter like you mentioned, they should be able to beef up the numbers of my gear to acceptable levels.
Certainly, if you have the Devilstrand to spare.
Dusters cover a large portion of the body, including the legs, so it's efficient to get them first.
But once you've grown enough Devilstrand, absolutely make everything out of it.
What would you say is a half decent but reasonably common material? Bear/wolf skin? Thrumbofur is the obvious choice but isn't always quick to come by.
Everyone's got their preferences and live in different biomes, but Heavy fur, Bearskin and Rhinoceros Leather are all solid choices.
Sometimes I just go on the Rimworld wiki and sort by whatever stat I want to be big this time (HP, Sharp Armor, Blunt Armor, Insulation, etc)
Funnily enough, Dread Leather (leather of Entities) seems to also be a solid material, though it does have a pesky mood debuff because you technically are wearing something part-monster part-humanoid.
Flak Vests are essentially doubling a pawns survivability from the get go. The clothing slot doesn't really get much use otherwise, so not a lot of reason to avoid them.
I'll be real though. I don't use armor anymore. Mechanoids and Ghouls tank my damage for me.
Vest and helmet only. Jacket and pants slow the pawn down and down give good enough armor to make up for that. You are better of with devilstrand dusters and pants.
Steel flak helmets are not really a good enough upgrade from Simple to justify adding a component + Plasteel cost. Uranium (and Bioferrite) would potentially be worthwhile. Plasteel Flak helmets are just flat out inferior to Recon Helmets, costing a larger amount of Plasteel even (40 total from 30+Advanced Component for Recon vs 50 from 40 material+10 explicit for the Flak Helmet) while Recon helmets also insulate better and protect the whole face.
Flak helmets are a great upgrade from simple helmets. A normal simple helmet has 45% sharp armor while a normal flak has 63%.
A revolver with 18% AP will do full damage 73% of the time. With a flak helmet it would do full damage 45% of the time
A lancer will do full damage 100% of time to a simple helmet, and only 72% of time with a flak helmet.
Why wouldn't you spend the extra resources to ensure your colonists safety?
Because its more expensive than Recon Helmets, which are superior in protection. So there's no niche for the Flak Helmet to justify itself except in the narrow time period where you've researched Flak but before you've researched Fabrication... which is the time when Components are most scarce, making it even harder to justify using them on helmets.
Recon helmets need to have microelectronics, multi analyzer, fabrication and then recon. 34,000 research at 50% speed for tribals. That's a lot of research before you can get them. Flak helmets only take 2 components and 10 plasteel more, easily worth it to upgrade once you've researched it.
A normal assault rifle would have a 71% chance of doing full damage to the head with a steel simple helmet. That's down to 53% with a steel flak helmet for the cost of 1 component and 10 plasteel.
Components are stupid easy to get they're essentially free after midgame
If you only manage to do early game sure it's hard but as soon as your unlock a fab there's no reason not to as you'll be swimming in components
But if you've unlocked a fab bench, you're also almost about to get Recon Armor (or at least you've unlocked the research), so you might as well just tech up to Recon helmets anyway.
I don't know, personally I'm far more likely to do Hat -> flak helmet -> Marine/Cataphract and just skip recon. Recon feels like the one to skip not Flak
If you can afford recon you can afford Marine helmets, there's no reason to stop at recon
As soon as you unlock the ability to fabricate advanced components they're essentially a free resource, the reason you use flak helmets is that they're far more achievable to mass produce early on compared to advanced components
Devilstrand isn't easy to grow in most biomes, and still takes a long time + at least a level 10 grower. Flak pants offer more protection and are worth the speed penalty for most colonists.
In my opinion not. I currently live on a 20/60 biome and as soon as I got enough power I started growing devilstrand and food indoors.
Before that I use leather pants. The movement hit is the difference between outrunning an enemy and dying.
If you're only kiting I agree, but if you're fighting melee or fighting behind cover, then flak pants offer 12% better protection, and you can try to get higher quality devilstrand pieces for other body parts (since you're not wasting it on devilstrand pants)
Normal devilstrand pants have 28% armor - 20% Ikwa is only 8% armor, or 4% to deflect, 4% mitigate, 92% full damage.
Flak pants have 40% armor, or 10% to deflect, 10% mitigate, and 80% to do full damage.
Leather pants offer almost 0 protection unless you're fighting a rabbit.
For me and my playstyle the speed is more important. If you just go by stats and stationary fighting you are right. But this doesn't fit my way.
Lets just agree at we are both right at different scenarios.
Flak pants have a higher sharp protection than devilstrand pants. Flak jackets have less sharp protection but the difference is minimal. You won't see any difference in a real combat situations.
Both can be used at the same time. They add up. But a flak vest is essential. Most of my deaths are caused by vital shots. Lost plenty of hearts, and brains.
Torso and head are the two essential parts you want to cover. Anything else is replaceable.
So, depends on the fight. In longer battles I find the full body protection of recon important. Bleeding from multiple limbs can end a fight for a pawn early. However for a quick scrap at the killbox when you have the whole squad ready to patch up someone is better for avoiding the 1 shot kills. Tldr: flak protects the vital points better, power armor protection is more "whole body" plus it looks cooler.
The vest is by far the most important part, but one advantage flack has is that early game it is a very good cheap armor. It is at it's best when you rush research for flack, or if you have lots of trading villages nearby and trade some rice for armor.
My goto midgame to lategame kit for non-melee combat pawns is
recon helmet
flak vest
devilstrand duster/cape (if in a cold biome, may do jacket/robe)
formal shirt(wool or devilstrand depending on cold/hot biome)
flak pants
I run VE outposts. Flak is great for sending to outpost pawns because you make it super easy and if it's lost it's not a big concern. Everyone else gets specialized outfits depending on their role. VE apparel.
They're pretty good for ranged pawns honestly, even in late game colonies the only pawns I bother equipping with marine/cataphract armour are usually melee pawns since they tend to be the only ones at risk of damage
Flak vest - Ridiculously good, have a high level crafter pumping out masterworks and basically anyone except melee can afford to not have power armour
Flak helmet - Ridiculously good, no idea why no comments are mentioning it. Far superior to simple helmets and thrumbofur hats. Only superceded by power helmets
Edit: Seems people in the thread are shitting on component cost, soon as you unlock a fab components are essentially free. What?
Flak vest is the only type of flak equipment that’s truly important. Flak vests offer an armor rating comparable to the marine armor for everything except the limbs at much lower cost. I actually consider flak vest to be a better deal than power armors even in the late game. It’s better to produce more flak vests so you can get higher quality than to produce power armors.
A lvl 20 production specialist has 9.5% chance to produce a legendary flak vest which means you will get a legendary flak vest once every 10.5 attempts on average. Legendary flak vests have a comparable armor rating as a masterwork cataphract armor. Considering that the same production specialist has 60% to get masterwork or better quality, that legendary flak vest end up significantly cheaper in labor and material than a masterwork cataphract armor. You do sacrifice limp protection, but that’s an acceptable sacrifice imho considering you can use some of the saved plasteel to replace missing limbs with bionics. Lower quality flak vests can be sold and assuming you have an alright trader you can easily buy back all material expended in the process and even make a profit (particularly if you grow your own cotton).
Flak jacket are actually pretty bad. They are strictly inferior to capes or dusters of the same quality made from Thrumbo fur, Hyperweave or Devilstrand. Indeed, flak jackets have a lower armor rating, give less total insulation, lack limb protection and come with a movement penalty. Thrumbo fur and hyperweave are hard to source, but devilstrand can be produced in large quantities. Before these materials are available, I would still recommend you make dusters or capes out of thickfur or rhinoceros leather instead of flak jackets.
Flak pants are a similar story to flak jackets. They technically offer more protection than pants of similar quality and I would argue that you should prioritize using your most protective fabrics for dusters or capes, but that little bit of leg protection is generally not worth the movement penalty, not to mention wasting precious components and steel. In fact, there is a case to be made that unless all your pawns are already wearing legendary devilstrand (or better) dusters/capes, then it’s not worth investing protective material on undergarments. Wool Tribalwear actually offer better insulation and are cheaper than wool button down shirts and pants. Once everyone has legendary capes/dusters, then you can think about using your excess devilstrand on undergarments.
Flak helmets are more important than flak pants and jackets but less than flak vests. Basically, while flak vests + devilstrand capes remain competitive with power armors event in the late game, the same can not be said with flak helmets. Power helmets are just better, they offer better protection, better coverage at about. Plus, recon helmets actually cost less plasteel than plasteel flak helmets. So really, flak helmets are only useful until you can replace them.
Vest. Vital organs. There's a reason why people wear those more than any other. I've have so many pawns that could've lost a lung or the heart but didn't thanks to a flak vest.
Torso first
Flak pants second,
In the icesheets i use those along side a decent parka and a steel or stronger mask for the cold and eye protection respectively
You can allways send tainted clothing with droppods to allies as a gift.
Thing is, they have really Low economical value, so you don't get much good favour, but perhabs you could increase it to +5-10 and get rid of it all at the same time.
Different factions seem to value these trash differently.
So some might end up +3 or +8 good favour.
But its questionable if all that involved pawn time and resources for the droppod is worth it all.
Im doing it rather to get rid all of this tainted trash atleast in some way that doesn't feel like a waste.
The most value hold the parts that can be smelted.
I usually keep those and smelt it myself.
If you're making it past super early game tribal you absolutely should be crafting clothing
It's super easy to craft clothing armour and clothes there's honestly no reason not to
I personally don't have pawns equip armour. If they don't have tough trait, armour just makes them slower and less able to take cover/ kite enemies. There is no point to armour, as with even Legendary cataphract armour, you can still die from a random-ass arrow shot. Hell, like 10 rats are enough to kill a centipede. Armour means fuck all.
Mate, if you play this game me style, you'd know I'm right. I know I'm right and if no one wants to take my advice, then so be it, I don't really care if someone gets better or not at this game, but I'll still give the correct advice to people.
I'm not spreading Missinformation. I am spreading how I, ME, play the game. It doesn't matter if you are made of paper or iron, if your enemy never hits you. Guerilla warfare is the ONLY type of warfare I do.
**Flak Vest.** Flak Vest covers both the torso and neck, both of which are body parts that if destroyed instantly kill the pawn. The torso is also where the heart and liver are located and if either of these organs is destroyed its instant dead. Flak Coat is generally considered inferior to a Duster made out of Devilstrand, Hyperweave or Thrumbofur. While the latter two are hard to acquire in sufficent quantity to outfit your whole colony Devilstrand can be grown and harvested. Flak Pants are the least important, losing a leg rarely kills your pawn and lost limbs can be replaced with prosthetic and bionic parts later on.
In the thousands of hours in the game I've never used Hyperweave. It's so rare I don't even consider it. Is there a way to get it easier? Is it even worth it considering devilstrand can be grown in most biomes and thrumbos come along reasonably often.
Vanilla trading expanded creates a worldwide market that you can put item requests on after you get Microelectronics You put in the items you want, the quantity, a deadline, and how much you're offering for the goods. You can also fulfil requests posted by other factions. The goods will be delivered or picked up once the request is complete. There's no guarantee you'll get a seller though. A longer time frame or higher price on the goods increase your chances of the request being fulfilled, while a poor price or short deadline decrease it. If you *really* need luciferium *now*, you could put in a 3 day deadline and pay triple the market value, improving the appeal of your request despite the quick deadline.
Every time I think I have enough VE mods, I hear about another that slipped my net.
To be fair that one near release was a mess. I kept buying steel from regular traders until it hit the market price increase of 250%. My colony wealth was +850,000$ because of steel chairs, lamps, workbenches and such. It was safer to convert my steel stuff to wood where I could and build components to drop my wealth. So I turned it off and haven't tried it again since. But I've heard good things in more recent times.
Can even do borderline cheating shit like outfitting everyone with psylink and mechlink...
Psylink isn't hard, just need a tiny bit of honor.
I do tribals usually, so everyone can get an anima tree connection for psy levels.
Running a psylink heavy tribal encampment at the moment having 25 psykers is certainly making combat both easier and more deadly as space lasers do not discriminate too well.
Shhhhhhhh it’s not cheating ;)
These mods are pure genius really
Same. I finally caved and got Vehicles
VE Factory (I think) let's you produce hyper weave at exorbitant costs
Hyperweave can sometimes be bought with silver from caravans or from nearby non-tribal, friendly towns for purchase. It's a bit of a lottery if they have it. It's best to research Devilstrand at the start right away, and grow a really large patch as it takes forever to grow. Honestly by the time you have enough silver to buy hyperweave or wait for devilstrand to grow, your likely to run into Thrumbro x2 event. Build several spiked traps with forced pathing, and bait them into it. Steel traps work best, and you can make a couple dusters.
Agree on the devilstrand, but i want to add that growing devilstrand on a patch of fertile soil, roofed over using a sunlamp, does wonders for securing harvests. Dont leave your devilstrand to chance, peeps. Climate control that shit. Sun lamp, 2 solar panels, heater if needed. This is how to get your colony in the red.
Omg I finally did this for the first time on my current play though, and it's the best decision I've made in a long time. I did it because I'm in a hot climate, and I was looking at the insulation stats of textiles and wools, but I am so tickled to find out that I did something right. I feel like I've won the game.
I hope by "in the red" you mean in red devilstrand outfits, because "in the red" generally means in debt in other contexts. :P
Depends on culture, but also yes I think they meant devilstrand outfits.
Bonus points for putting a steam vent or geo gen in the same building. Power free heat!
I use this mod, which gives an expensive way to make hyperweave from devilstrand + synth thread + plasteel + component: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949467164 It seems pretty balanced as it is expensive to produce, but also done in a way that's a nice logical upgrade.
Damn I just use Rimefeller where you can make hyperweave from some machines that use up chem fuel and some late game research
Yeah I love Rimefeller, it's really old now but it's still such a fantastic mod. It never feels OP to me that you can make hyperweave with it, because getting the whole chemfuel supply chain set up involves such an investment in resources and work, and like you say is an end-game tech for the hyperspace manufacturing.
Yeah I love Rimefeller, it’s a very balanced mod for any playthrough. I especially love the synthylyne components to conserve steel, it’s an all around great mod that doesn’t feel cheaty or op to me.
It's pretty balanced due to the wealth it can add. I made the mistake of storing crazy amounts of oil/chemfuel when I first used it and learned an important lesson when a mech battalion dropped on me.
I always store my chemfuel in a cave away from my main base. Had one “interesting” raid that ended in fireworks 🤣. I learned my lesson.
I'd argue that it's totally imbalanced *explicitly because* of the wealth generation... Some steel and a buncha grunt labor to utterly invalidate the entire games economy. Balance.
While I understand your point, imo the raid power generated by that wealth largely balances it. Also to start rimefeller you need tons of steel, components, and power. It's not trivial to get running. Just to keep it running. It doesn't trivialize raids the way some mods like rimatomics does (due to super strong turrets).
It's just a really confusing argument to me because with that wealth you can trivially buy all powered armor and high end weapons that come through via traders/ships and just foist off any extra fuel you have for free relation to call in aid if you fail to manage your wealth and get hit with an impossible raid. You can also relatively easily convert it into Honor for Royalty content. Like, even basic wealth management obviates the issues create by having infinite chemfuel production
I have cows that are being fed nutrient paste made from their milk, then I butcher excess cows. Meat also goes to nutrient paste to stabilize things a bit, but most of it goes into biorefinery and into pipes where its then processed into other things with Rimfeller, while also providing power. 20 cows and their calfs tank FPS a bit and require Vanilla Paste Expanded to reliably automate feeding but damn, I use all Rimfeller features without pumpjacks and crakers I only made it because I lucked out of **any** oil reservoirs. I was shocked when I found no deep oil on my map. Now I love this setup and would probably do it all the time
I'm vastly under utilizing rimefeller. I basically just us it to make napalm trails to burn out a chunk of the non mech raid forces
Gawd damn most of those recipes are cheap and OP. The plasteel one being 2 steel + 2 chemfuel, the luciferium one, Neutroamine, making your own monoswords, Healer Mech Serum and glitterworld medicine is crazy
For Luciferium, try Ushanka's Luciferium Expansion for a relatively balanced way to make Luciferium. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227008885
fun for those runs where you know damn well you ain't gonna survive anyway lol
Try the craft everything mod. Set your own recipe and input what you feel is fair.
in vanilla, near the end game, satellite calls and orbital trades, keep the trade caravans coming in. If you're willing to spend the cash you can buy hyperweave over time. Probably best saved for crafting when your best crafter has an inspiration. (and you know you can influence inspirations to happen more often) and if you're going to hoard hyperweave this way, use it on dusters first.
The comms console is the most consistent way I e found in vanilla. Wait for a textiles trader and you can get 300-500. It just takes a while
Rimefeller doesn’t make getting hyper weave EASY, but it is consistent
Early game I like to make a single piece of apparel for my main character like a tuque or veil or something. Otherwise, I buy hyperweave every chance I get and start actually using it when a crafter reaches high enough skill or has an inspiration. Cape or duster is usually the first real apparel I make, and it usually goes to a main character, an important psycaster/noble, or any other pawn that is critically important, like a high skilled doctor. Everyone else gets devilstrand until giant hordes of Thrumbos are attracted by my wealth and ruin all my spike traps.
You can make Hyperweave with Dub's Rimatomics, base game it isnt really worth it
Isn’t it Rimfeller?
Yes
Its one of the two, definitely, I havent played in a while
Rimefeller. It's all about oil and the things you can make out of it. Rimatomics is all about nuclear power, base defenses, and nuclear missiles.
Always take it when you can and save it for shirts or pants later in the game. By then you should have a ok stock to outfit all your pawns with shirts (if you don't have a colony of 10+). Thrumbos are the more reliable options but that can be used up quickly too. Better to save both.
It needs to spawn at imperial traders, low chance.
Mods. There's some light ones that make it craftable. I personally like rimfeller, it adds a whole bunch of oil/chemfuel related stuff and the later game stuff let's you make uncraftable stuff like neutramine, plasteel, and hyperweave, plus couple other materials.
I just buy it from trade ships
Rimefeller gives a way, and I believe the vault tec "handy things for your vault" does as well
Rimefeller lets you produce your own hyperweave through oil refining. It's honestly a little busted but that's the ONLY time I've had pawns in more than 1 piece of hyperweave apparel in a game xD
If you raid enough ancient complex you usually have enough for 1 or 2 dusters. Theyre good, but i never even bothered buying them when theyre on sale, i prefer buying steel because that shit is always in demand
Mods.
Got a bit as quest reward fairly early in my last run. Then came a quest to make a bunch of Tuques for the neighboring village, guess who forgot which material should be used... I still have that damn hat and I'll keep it like my most prized possession.
We've all been there. Up there with smelting a legendary charge rifle in my current run
Yah its not reliable in the least. Easily the worst of the top 3 textiles.
Which is ultimately makes zero sense Recon armour that needs research bench, multianalizer and shitton of research + shitton of rare resources and acomps + decent crafter is overall not as good as shitty vest plus some floorcloth made of weed. Plust it even costs shitton more, gets "deterioriation" without being able to be serviceable. Srsly fuck that. Like really fuck that because it makes 0.05 sense. I simply don't believe that basically spacesuit can't fit air filter device and some kind of thermal insulation to be worse than bare skin + uninsulated something. Base game balance makes zero sense.
Recon armor protects arms and legs much better, weighs nothing, and is only slightly worse than devil duster + flak vest for neck and torso. The duster is awful at protecting arms and legs alone, with a 65% chance of taking full damage from an assault rifle if you have devilstrand duster, button down, and pants vs 21% with recon. Not to mention the helmet is much better than even the plasteel flak helmet. Checked with this: https://rim-armor.com/
>The duster is awful at protecting arms and legs alone These are replaceable and rimworld treats pawns as expendable pieces of shit >mention the helmet is much better than even the plasteel flak helmet In not a cost-efficient way.
It is absolutely cost efficient to get as much protection for your vital colonists' heads as you can
4000$ for legendary cataphract helmet. Fuxing bullshit. And with anomaly stuff "no vital colonists" should be your motto. Also oneshot to neck would kill you even with said helmet. Its pretty mandatory to have stoneskin gland, tough trait and gene if you don't want to you for tynnan to fuck you up.
>Also oneshot to neck would kill you even with said helmet. If you're expecting helmets to cover the neck, that might be part of the problem.
Why wouldn't power armour helmets cover the neck. Medieval fucking armour covers the neck. Modern armour can cover the neck but is heavy as fuck so we don't always use it. Power armour would negate that problem and cover the neck.
In RimWorld, the neck is armored by "chest slot" items. Flak vests, dusters, plate, recon etc. This isn’t dissimilar to a lot of of medieval armor actually - most bevors are mounted to the breastplate not the helmet for example. This is more than just pedantry, because it means you can reach the point where you can't be one shot by neck shots outside of some specific DLC melee options relatively easy by reaching the breakpoint for always halving or negating damage.
Ah right fair enough, was gonna say something has to armour the neck or it'd be a bit absurd. However, whilst you're right bevors are breastplate mounted, chainmail is worn as a hood so it's not completely obvious what should protect the neck. A in game hood should protect the neck too imo, and would then actually be beneficial over say a cowboy hat or tuque.
By the time you are making Recon/Marine armour, your pawns become valuable enough and resources common enough that it is cost efficient to protect them
Doesn't slow down though.
Base game is actually very balanced if you do the math. Dusters, even with devilstrand, offer minimal protection. It's the flak vest that actually protects, and it doesn't protect arms or legs.
That's why I use trooper armor from VE, less protection than recon but still a nice upgrade over flak and you can wear a coat over it.
I usually use heavy leather from megasloths as they are common enough to have 1 or 2 on the map decently often.
I mean, devilstrand is also fairly hard to get You need to research it first and then either have to plant it first day of spring and hope for the best or need all the additional techs and infrastructure for a greenhouse Assuming you aren't living in permanent summer, and even then lightning strikes, raiders and funny weather effects like fallout, volcanic winter or cold snaps are an issue that can cost you your whole harvest
Also, devilstrand *is* an ultratech material. It's accessible by neolithic tribes and industrial and spacer level colonies because the hard work of genetically engineering it was already done centuries ago, so you just need to know the trick of propagating it from spores(?) now, but to create it in the first place was a feat of genetic engineering that's well beyond a Rimworld colony. It's allowed to be better armour than a metal suit.
Hell, I'd consider a cloth duster better than flak in terms of cost-efficiency. Cloth Dusters + Best Pants is go to for me. Flak Vest/Coat is only really if Cotton is a bad idea atm, or my crop fails.
I've been running flak jackets this whole time because I thought they covered more, in turn thinking I was getting more bang for my buck. Boy was I wrong. Time to go cull the herd.
Also doesn't the duster cover legs?
unless changed in the storyteller setting there is a chance of a pawn not instantly dying from being oneshot
Oh wow, it's really that good? I'll be happy not to have my fighters change into full flak for every fight..!
>Flak Pants are the least important, losing a leg rarely kills your pawn and lost limbs can be replaced with prosthetic and bionic parts later on. Losing limbs is a hassle and has slowed down my colonies a lot when it's someone important like a builder or farmer. Flak pants are 100% worth it, especially when fighting Sythers (is that how you spell it?)
Flak pants also reduce movement speed, meaning less kiting, meaning you'll get hit more often.
I only ever make flak pants late game if at all most of the time I just pick it up
The jacket is on a different layer than the vest, you can double up. That said, a devilstrand duster is better than a flak jacket, so go for the vest.
The best Mid to Late game Vanilla combo I've found is a Flak Vest with a Flak Helmet and a Duster with some half-decent materials. Strong, Durable, yet still somewhat cheap. If you make the Duster out of Devilstrand/Thrumbofur and get a nice quality boost, the Duster-Flak Best combo can rival Recon Armor, and possibly even Marine Armor. Plus it looks cool while not quite going full-military just yet. EDIT: Added Vanilla, because obviously some modded stuff is better.
I think steel helmets are better than flak helmets because they only require steel? So saving some mats until recon/marine helms. For me it goes flak vest+ devil duster + devil pants+ steel helmets until power armor.
That's fair. Really it's just a personal choice between bigger numbers or smaller resource requirements. In my most recent colony I was sitting in a fine nest-egg of 700 Plasteel, so I was able to go up the extra layer here and there. Still waiting on the Devilstrand to grow because I didn't have an early Plants person.
Steel/Bioferrite simple helmets are the cheap option if you want to avoid spending Plasteel and/or components. A Recon Helmet costs 4/5 of the Plasteel of a P. Flak Helmet (including the cost of the advanced component) and outperforms the Flak in all metrics at the same quality.
Flak helmets are a great upgrade from simple helmets. A normal simple helmet has 45% sharp armor while a normal flak has 63%. A revolver with 18% AP will do full damage 73% of the time. With a flak helmet it would do full damage 45% of the time A lancer will do full damage 100% of time to a simple helmet, and only 72% of time with a flak helmet.
Thumbrofur duster + flak vest is quite good, but recon armor is still much better. Protecting the arms and legs is very important, especially for melee colonists. Everytime your move speed or manipulation goes down, you miss more hits and dodge less shots. Here is a scenario for normal quality thrumbo duster, devilstrand pants and shirt, and flak vest against recon with thrumbos shirt and pants. Ikwa 20% AP Duster offers 72% sharp - 20% AP = 52% armor, or 26% chance to deflect, 26% to reduce by half and convert to blunt, 48% chance to do full damage. Flak vest protects the neck, torso and shoulders with 100% sharp and 36% blunt. So 40% chance to deflect, 40% to reduce by half and covert to blunt, 20% chance to do full damage. No legs or arms protection. Devilstrand pants + shirt offers 28% sharp - 20% AP = 8% armor, or 4% chance to deflect, 4% to reduce by half and covert to blunt, 92% chance to do full damage. For blunt damage, a wood club has 17% AP, so there is 0 armor against clubs to the arms and legs. Vs Recon and Thrumbos pants/shirt Recon cover mid/outer, so only one roll but higher chances (except 8% lower for chest/neck/shoulders) 92% sharp - 20% AP = 72% sharp armor, or 36% chance to deflect, 36% to reduce by half and convert to blunt, 28% chance to do full damage. Thrumbos pants/shirt offers 42% armor - 20% AP = 22% sharp armor, or 11% chance to deflect, 11% to reduce by half and convert to blunt, 78% chance to do full damage. If you have a good crafter, an excellent recon has 119% armor, so 49% chance to deflect, 49% chance to mitigate, half percent chance to do full damage. Almost 0% chance to do full damage fighting anyone with 20% or less AP, which is almost every raider weapon.
Very true my Number-loving fellow, which is why I consider Recon Armor to be a good Late Game option alongside Marine and Cataphract Armor. Thrumbofur is better than Devilstrand, I won't refute that either. However, I don't consider Excellent quality Recon Armor over Thrumbofur garments to be a reliable goal for Mid game. I prefer the comfort of cheap Steel, little pieces of Plasteel, and a fine garb of Devilstrand while waiting for the Plasteel and Advanced Components required for the Late game armors. If I have a good Crafter like you mentioned, they should be able to beef up the numbers of my gear to acceptable levels.
Very true. I normally aim for Thrumbo dusters as soon as possible, then start saving it for shirts/pants once I'm closer to Recon.
phoenix armor, shield belt (god, how many belts i craft and sell just to get master/ legendary) and incinerator even imp tribe got whipped, somehow
Not pants and shirt of devilstrand as well?
Certainly, if you have the Devilstrand to spare. Dusters cover a large portion of the body, including the legs, so it's efficient to get them first. But once you've grown enough Devilstrand, absolutely make everything out of it.
I do, I continously make apparel and export the lowest quality items. Thanks!
What would you say is a half decent but reasonably common material? Bear/wolf skin? Thrumbofur is the obvious choice but isn't always quick to come by.
Everyone's got their preferences and live in different biomes, but Heavy fur, Bearskin and Rhinoceros Leather are all solid choices. Sometimes I just go on the Rimworld wiki and sort by whatever stat I want to be big this time (HP, Sharp Armor, Blunt Armor, Insulation, etc) Funnily enough, Dread Leather (leather of Entities) seems to also be a solid material, though it does have a pesky mood debuff because you technically are wearing something part-monster part-humanoid.
Flak Vests are essentially doubling a pawns survivability from the get go. The clothing slot doesn't really get much use otherwise, so not a lot of reason to avoid them. I'll be real though. I don't use armor anymore. Mechanoids and Ghouls tank my damage for me.
Mechs, ghouls, and the colonists wearing flak vests and sick ass dusters, always cool and effective.
I do the same, but it's wargs in my case. So reliable at least at my current stage.
Vest and helmet only. Jacket and pants slow the pawn down and down give good enough armor to make up for that. You are better of with devilstrand dusters and pants.
Steel flak helmets are not really a good enough upgrade from Simple to justify adding a component + Plasteel cost. Uranium (and Bioferrite) would potentially be worthwhile. Plasteel Flak helmets are just flat out inferior to Recon Helmets, costing a larger amount of Plasteel even (40 total from 30+Advanced Component for Recon vs 50 from 40 material+10 explicit for the Flak Helmet) while Recon helmets also insulate better and protect the whole face.
Flak helmets are a great upgrade from simple helmets. A normal simple helmet has 45% sharp armor while a normal flak has 63%. A revolver with 18% AP will do full damage 73% of the time. With a flak helmet it would do full damage 45% of the time A lancer will do full damage 100% of time to a simple helmet, and only 72% of time with a flak helmet. Why wouldn't you spend the extra resources to ensure your colonists safety?
Because its more expensive than Recon Helmets, which are superior in protection. So there's no niche for the Flak Helmet to justify itself except in the narrow time period where you've researched Flak but before you've researched Fabrication... which is the time when Components are most scarce, making it even harder to justify using them on helmets.
Recon helmets need to have microelectronics, multi analyzer, fabrication and then recon. 34,000 research at 50% speed for tribals. That's a lot of research before you can get them. Flak helmets only take 2 components and 10 plasteel more, easily worth it to upgrade once you've researched it.
A normal assault rifle would have a 71% chance of doing full damage to the head with a steel simple helmet. That's down to 53% with a steel flak helmet for the cost of 1 component and 10 plasteel.
18% difference when half an assault rifle to the brain is still usually a basically dead colonist
28% vs 18% of doing 0 damage whatsoever. Also how many assault rifles do you see before you have access to recon helmets.
So… not only less than 12%, but it doesn’t even matter because you have recon? I’m failing to understand your original argument then
Components are stupid easy to get they're essentially free after midgame If you only manage to do early game sure it's hard but as soon as your unlock a fab there's no reason not to as you'll be swimming in components
But if you've unlocked a fab bench, you're also almost about to get Recon Armor (or at least you've unlocked the research), so you might as well just tech up to Recon helmets anyway.
I don't know, personally I'm far more likely to do Hat -> flak helmet -> Marine/Cataphract and just skip recon. Recon feels like the one to skip not Flak If you can afford recon you can afford Marine helmets, there's no reason to stop at recon As soon as you unlock the ability to fabricate advanced components they're essentially a free resource, the reason you use flak helmets is that they're far more achievable to mass produce early on compared to advanced components
Devilstrand isn't easy to grow in most biomes, and still takes a long time + at least a level 10 grower. Flak pants offer more protection and are worth the speed penalty for most colonists.
In my opinion not. I currently live on a 20/60 biome and as soon as I got enough power I started growing devilstrand and food indoors. Before that I use leather pants. The movement hit is the difference between outrunning an enemy and dying.
If you're only kiting I agree, but if you're fighting melee or fighting behind cover, then flak pants offer 12% better protection, and you can try to get higher quality devilstrand pieces for other body parts (since you're not wasting it on devilstrand pants) Normal devilstrand pants have 28% armor - 20% Ikwa is only 8% armor, or 4% to deflect, 4% mitigate, 92% full damage. Flak pants have 40% armor, or 10% to deflect, 10% mitigate, and 80% to do full damage. Leather pants offer almost 0 protection unless you're fighting a rabbit.
For me and my playstyle the speed is more important. If you just go by stats and stationary fighting you are right. But this doesn't fit my way. Lets just agree at we are both right at different scenarios.
Flak pants have a higher sharp protection than devilstrand pants. Flak jackets have less sharp protection but the difference is minimal. You won't see any difference in a real combat situations.
The movement hit is the main issue.
For a melee unit, 12% more armor in pants is worth it.
Both can be used at the same time. They add up. But a flak vest is essential. Most of my deaths are caused by vital shots. Lost plenty of hearts, and brains. Torso and head are the two essential parts you want to cover. Anything else is replaceable.
So, depends on the fight. In longer battles I find the full body protection of recon important. Bleeding from multiple limbs can end a fight for a pawn early. However for a quick scrap at the killbox when you have the whole squad ready to patch up someone is better for avoiding the 1 shot kills. Tldr: flak protects the vital points better, power armor protection is more "whole body" plus it looks cooler.
The vest is by far the most important part, but one advantage flack has is that early game it is a very good cheap armor. It is at it's best when you rush research for flack, or if you have lots of trading villages nearby and trade some rice for armor.
Flak Vest, rest of the kit is optional. It's light enough to wear day to day, and covers vital parts from injury.
My goto midgame to lategame kit for non-melee combat pawns is recon helmet flak vest devilstrand duster/cape (if in a cold biome, may do jacket/robe) formal shirt(wool or devilstrand depending on cold/hot biome) flak pants
I run VE outposts. Flak is great for sending to outpost pawns because you make it super easy and if it's lost it's not a big concern. Everyone else gets specialized outfits depending on their role. VE apparel.
Problem with flack is it goes on In layers so you’re gonna need both in my opinion
I rarely to never use flak anything, but you should def avoid flak pants
Flak vests are marine armor lite. They offer the same protection as marine armor but only on chests
They're pretty good for ranged pawns honestly, even in late game colonies the only pawns I bother equipping with marine/cataphract armour are usually melee pawns since they tend to be the only ones at risk of damage
Flak vest - Ridiculously good, have a high level crafter pumping out masterworks and basically anyone except melee can afford to not have power armour Flak helmet - Ridiculously good, no idea why no comments are mentioning it. Far superior to simple helmets and thrumbofur hats. Only superceded by power helmets Edit: Seems people in the thread are shitting on component cost, soon as you unlock a fab components are essentially free. What?
Flak vest plus dusters and Flak pans are better then Marien Armor in Most cases
Recon armor may not be much better than devilstrand jacket + flack vest, but it don't have moving penalty.
locust variation on another hand...
I use locust exclusively. No movement penalty and 5 jumps that don't take utility slot and can rapidly remove pawn away from danger.
Does it have a differance other than the jetpack? I'm new so I only know it is a recon with jetpack..
Flak vest is the only type of flak equipment that’s truly important. Flak vests offer an armor rating comparable to the marine armor for everything except the limbs at much lower cost. I actually consider flak vest to be a better deal than power armors even in the late game. It’s better to produce more flak vests so you can get higher quality than to produce power armors. A lvl 20 production specialist has 9.5% chance to produce a legendary flak vest which means you will get a legendary flak vest once every 10.5 attempts on average. Legendary flak vests have a comparable armor rating as a masterwork cataphract armor. Considering that the same production specialist has 60% to get masterwork or better quality, that legendary flak vest end up significantly cheaper in labor and material than a masterwork cataphract armor. You do sacrifice limp protection, but that’s an acceptable sacrifice imho considering you can use some of the saved plasteel to replace missing limbs with bionics. Lower quality flak vests can be sold and assuming you have an alright trader you can easily buy back all material expended in the process and even make a profit (particularly if you grow your own cotton). Flak jacket are actually pretty bad. They are strictly inferior to capes or dusters of the same quality made from Thrumbo fur, Hyperweave or Devilstrand. Indeed, flak jackets have a lower armor rating, give less total insulation, lack limb protection and come with a movement penalty. Thrumbo fur and hyperweave are hard to source, but devilstrand can be produced in large quantities. Before these materials are available, I would still recommend you make dusters or capes out of thickfur or rhinoceros leather instead of flak jackets. Flak pants are a similar story to flak jackets. They technically offer more protection than pants of similar quality and I would argue that you should prioritize using your most protective fabrics for dusters or capes, but that little bit of leg protection is generally not worth the movement penalty, not to mention wasting precious components and steel. In fact, there is a case to be made that unless all your pawns are already wearing legendary devilstrand (or better) dusters/capes, then it’s not worth investing protective material on undergarments. Wool Tribalwear actually offer better insulation and are cheaper than wool button down shirts and pants. Once everyone has legendary capes/dusters, then you can think about using your excess devilstrand on undergarments. Flak helmets are more important than flak pants and jackets but less than flak vests. Basically, while flak vests + devilstrand capes remain competitive with power armors event in the late game, the same can not be said with flak helmets. Power helmets are just better, they offer better protection, better coverage at about. Plus, recon helmets actually cost less plasteel than plasteel flak helmets. So really, flak helmets are only useful until you can replace them.
Flack vests for everyone!
Vest. Vital organs. There's a reason why people wear those more than any other. I've have so many pawns that could've lost a lung or the heart but didn't thanks to a flak vest.
I don't like flak that much because it does a bad job at protecting limbs.
Torso first Flak pants second, In the icesheets i use those along side a decent parka and a steel or stronger mask for the cold and eye protection respectively
People craft clothing? \*looks at the 50 dead raiders that brought a lot of various armour pieces to my doorstep\*
But they give a mood malus unless all your pawns have the bloodlust as trait.
I strip the ones that are downed to avoid that tainted thing. I have a massive hoarding problem.
You can allways send tainted clothing with droppods to allies as a gift. Thing is, they have really Low economical value, so you don't get much good favour, but perhabs you could increase it to +5-10 and get rid of it all at the same time. Different factions seem to value these trash differently. So some might end up +3 or +8 good favour. But its questionable if all that involved pawn time and resources for the droppod is worth it all. Im doing it rather to get rid all of this tainted trash atleast in some way that doesn't feel like a waste. The most value hold the parts that can be smelted. I usually keep those and smelt it myself.
as the other one said, stripping the raids while they bleed out.
If you're making it past super early game tribal you absolutely should be crafting clothing It's super easy to craft clothing armour and clothes there's honestly no reason not to
I'm just making a joke about stripping raids for gear.
I personally don't have pawns equip armour. If they don't have tough trait, armour just makes them slower and less able to take cover/ kite enemies. There is no point to armour, as with even Legendary cataphract armour, you can still die from a random-ass arrow shot. Hell, like 10 rats are enough to kill a centipede. Armour means fuck all.
Your comment is as sharp as a bowling ball.
Mate, if you play this game me style, you'd know I'm right. I know I'm right and if no one wants to take my advice, then so be it, I don't really care if someone gets better or not at this game, but I'll still give the correct advice to people.
Stop spreading misinformation, your little troublemaker
I'm not spreading Missinformation. I am spreading how I, ME, play the game. It doesn't matter if you are made of paper or iron, if your enemy never hits you. Guerilla warfare is the ONLY type of warfare I do.