From basic tests a helmet and kevlar are a bonus even though the kevlar lowers dodge. Not sure if this is 100% at really high dodge, but I have tested it in games atleast early on.
Hard Arm Guards: Arm encumbrance really kills range. This seems to knock range down so much its not useful. I have not tested to see what happens if I put it on for melee. However, putting it on wastes a turn so I lose a range shot.
Leg Guards: This seems to slow you down and affect dodge. Not sure if the balance is worth it.
Has anyone tested out other armors like power armor, etc… to see what the balance is for dodge and range? been playing games with massively increased zombie spawns. You need a combo of range and melee for that. Too many zombies to just melee since you will get swarmed.
Hard arm and leg guards are actually surprisingly effective against crowds if you’re pure melee, however against handfuls taken one at a time it’s simply wiser to ditch them, relying on windows/shrubs/car chassis and dodge.
Also I wouldn’t use them until my melee and dodge skill is high enough to mitigate any penalties to either.
A full set of Power Armor of any kind will make you virtually invulnerable to just about anything that aren’t excessively strong (ie hulks) or have special attacks (shockers, spitters), and won’t severely hit your throwing and dodge bonuses too bad so long as it’s powered.
Aside from that, I really find that armors that don’t provide good storage and/or environmental protection aren’t worth the penalties they bestow, chitinous helmets and (occasionally) kevlar vests being the exceptions.
Leather vest is one of the first things I go for just for some light armor, It will very noticeably cut down the amount of damage your torso takes in the first few days. I wear Kevlar in the later stages once my dodge/melee is up high enough to compensate. Keeping arm encumbrance down is also a good idea though I tend to use guns at point blank alot so if I keep it at 1 or below im happy. That said I always go for some kind of protection for all parts, so its elbow pads or something in summer. I always wear at least fingerless gloves as well.
I try and never have leg/foot encumbrance above 0 though. Move speed is too important.
Yeah. I never wear kevlar (unless I anticipate turrety goodness) but the leather vest functions damn well as a poor man’s kevlar vest. Any time you see a leather jacket, crack open the crafting menu.
Hard Arm Guards and Leg Guards are primarily intended for martial arts characters; specifically martial art styles that have block and leg block in their style. Torso encumbrance severely neuters martial arts due to the melee attack cost penalty, so a way for martial arts to be viable when it’s impossible to exploit movement penalties is to use block and leg block to turn most torso and head shots into arm or leg shots. Having these pieces of armor equipped will then mitigate the damage to your limbs from these skills, effectively extending the life of your limbs and by extension yourself. Without the applicable martial arts styles, arm and leg guards are not very effective and do more harm than good.
These two items are most effective combined with a martial arts style with special x%/stat damage mitigation. The damage is mitigated by the style, then by the guards. When stacked it’s possible to block hulks and brutes and take almost no damage in the process. When this is possible, the loss in dodge is inconsequential. As a martial artist or even a melee character, it is far more appealing to take a minor +5/10 movement cost from legs than it is to eat a +20/40 melee attack cost from torso.
As for dealing with higher spawns as an unarmed character, the best strategy I’ve come up with is to kite the zombies. Get close enough that only a handful charge you, run away a bit to isolate the zombie dogs, kill the zombie dogs, isolate the shocker zombies, kill the shocker zombies, then clean up the rest with the closest set of bushes. Buildings haven’t been too good to me as they tend to swarm from all directions and you end up getting surrounded with no way out if you do that, and I don’t like to use fire as it destroys items.
[quote=“Raital, post:6, topic:2986”]Hard Arm Guards and Leg Guards are primarily intended for martial arts characters; specifically martial art styles that have block and leg block in their style. Torso encumbrance severely neuters martial arts due to the melee attack cost penalty, so a way for martial arts to be viable when it’s impossible to exploit movement penalties is to use block and leg block to turn most torso and head shots into arm or leg shots. Having these pieces of armor equipped will then mitigate the damage to your limbs from these skills, effectively extending the life of your limbs and by extension yourself. Without the applicable martial arts styles, arm and leg guards are not very effective and do more harm than good.
These two items are most effective combined with a martial arts style with special x%/stat damage mitigation. The damage is mitigated by the style, then by the guards. When stacked it’s possible to block hulks and brutes and take almost no damage in the process. When this is possible, the loss in dodge is inconsequential. As a martial artist or even a melee character, it is far more appealing to take a minor +5/10 movement cost from legs than it is to eat a +20/40 melee attack cost from torso.
As for dealing with higher spawns as an unarmed character, the best strategy I’ve come up with is to kite the zombies. Get close enough that only a handful charge you, run away a bit to isolate the zombie dogs, kill the zombie dogs, isolate the shocker zombies, kill the shocker zombies, then clean up the rest with the closest set of bushes. Buildings haven’t been too good to me as they tend to swarm from all directions and you end up getting surrounded with no way out if you do that, and I don’t like to use fire as it destroys items.[/quote]
Don’t mock Army Pants either, but yeah. I typically forgo the Leg Guards because there’s a Dodge penalty attached to leg encumbrance (or at least there was last version I played seriously), but Arm Guards are great.
This is also why I rated Taekwondo so highly in the MA guide. The same DR that makes meleeing Hulks viable lets you soak typical zeds altogether. (It’s how Old!Ka’lol built his power.)
pure melee doesn’t work at 50x zombies… try it. you can get uber strong first, then try it. you will get surrounded and won’t be able to move to get away so you can sleep.
towns spawn about 1500 zombies at 1x right?
1500*50x= 75,000 zombies per town plus other stuff.
Sure it can, you just have to be more methodical about it. Carefully approach a group until you can see them, throw a few rocks or something to pull the nearest ones (the noise the rock makes will pull nearby zombies) until they can see you, at which point they’ll break away from the rest of the group and come after you. Lead them away a bit, take care of the group, pulp and repeat. Will take some experimentation to figure out how to best pull just the groups you want to pull and not too many.
Alternately you can manage the same with just running, particularly if you’re fast and strong enough to spread out the pack to where they’re manageable. Basically you take a step at a time toward the horde until the nearest few notice you and start moving in your direction, then you can back away so you don’t pull any more, and you can either stand and fight, or lead them away a bit to seperate the fast ones from the slow ones. Deal with the fast ones, then the slow ones, then pulp and repeat.
In either case, you could prep a kill zone with pits and other quiet traps to help channel and pre-damage some of them, and possibly a secondary set of traps to help you escape if things go bad. Just be aware that pits fill up with corpses now
Of course, having said this, I’m planning on making this second strategy harder by making zombies moan occasionally when they’re coming after you, which will tend to pull the rest of the group. Screamers already do this, but this would be more pervasive, and only work across relatively short distances.
Right now there are custom armors made from kevlar and stuff, and you can always .json out the phreakin’ hell out of your game once there’s enough skill for you to do particular stuff. I love how you make 'em waterproof and (fitting) for low encumberance. Since I enjoy a more-less creative approach to the zombie shredding variety, and throwing/archery tends to slow you down a bit, besides encumberment up to 2 total there’s a need to suggest motocycles. An experienced driver can employ a full-on usage of start/stop while in lower speed and shoot/throw/pierce away in saddle as well as on feet. Solar bikes are really cool. If you’re down to your melee weapon you can always arrange for a stand off at a choke point, or else. The v-twin kind will only attract a bit more zombie power so you can try that, too.
A fine bow, a rapier, and an ironed suit. “Shake it, baby!”
Probably a good balance point would be a full-coverage leather bodysuit with lots of pockets, either that or abandon storage completely and rely on belts/backpacks/trenchcoat for that kind of thing.
effectively as tough as you can make it while still being 0 enc
