Encumbrance, layering, and damage blocking questions

Game Talk The Garage
1

Can anyone explain the rules for when an item that says zero actually increases your encumbrance?

Sometimes when you equip two or more items that say zero, you actually end up with +1 when you were expecting to remain at zero or plus zero. I think fitted items, and skintight items might partially ignore this penalty… but im not sure when/why they seem to sometimes and not other times.

The item layering screen also does not help in tracking down which piece of equipment is causing the encumbrance if its base stat is zero, so when you are equipping things, almost every piece of equipment you put on becomes a trial and error, leaving you to check the character screen after every item you put on to find out whether that item applies a hidden stat penalty. Is this a bug with the items, or an intended encumbrance formula? If its the latter, would it make any more sense to assign a non-hidden numerical value to the items in the first place, assuming that the formula is not some sort of exponentially cumulative thing.

Now some layering, armor, and damage blocking questions:

If im wearing 3 pieces of armor on my chest with roughly these stats:

Tshirt (2 protection 100% coverage) (innermost)
Jacket (5 protection, 75% coverage)
Kevlar 15 protection, 50% coverage) (outermost)

Say that an attacker is going to do 25 damage with its strike: Am i correct in assuming that there is a 50% chance for damage to pass through the kevlar without being reduced? IE: it misses the kevlar. If it misses, does it then make a check against the jacket with a 75% chance of reduction by 5 points and then a 100% reduction by 2 points from the tshirt? So no matter what atleast 2 damage is being blocked because the shirt has 100% coverage?

What if the t-shirt is on the outside instead and has 100% coverage. Does the damage that it does not block then pass through to the item underneath it to possibly be further reduced/absorbed, or does damage only check against one piece of gear before it applies to your health? IE: Is there any advantage in stacking many zero encumbrance items in an attempt to reduce incoming damage?

Thanks for any help/insight you guys can give.

2

All great questions, I look forward to seeing some answers. As it stand I’ve pretty much just worn whatever had the best stats and usually don’t bother layering because I have no idea how the system works.

3

If you layer correctly, the outermost item will take the brunt of the damage.

4

I know when you equip 2 things that are, for example covers the torso (like a shirt and a trench coat etc.) when you wear 2 articles of clothing that cover the same thing it will add +1 encumbrance, this mechanic has been in the game for a long time. It will do it no matter how much in encumbers. Things that cover no specific part like a belt or watches will never add encumbrance to anything though.

5

It’s shows how much penalty you got ater + sign. For example my current “ant’s killer” char has the folowing on his torso:
tool belt = 0
MBR vest without plates = 1
chest rig = 0
rain coat = 1
MOLLE pack = 1

0+1+0+1+1, 3+2=5. 2 is penalty, and 3 is just from items with encumbrance > 0.

6

The close to skin items reduce the 2 items +1 enc thing. Not sure by how much.

7

Current layering ENC rules are:

  1. Each item gives +1 layer
  2. If an item was already 0 enc and is fitted (not 1->0(FIT) but 0->0(FIT)) then -.5 layers
  3. If an item is SKINTIGHT and you don’t have more then 2 skintight clothes on that part -.5 layers
  4. Layering ENC = (floor(layers) - 1) [*.75 if on the torso, rounded down]

That SKINTIGHT clothes rule should probably be changed to only work if SKINTIGHT clothes only have other SKINTIGHT clothes beneath them instead of just being a 2 clothes limit.

8

This goes into wiki as soon as I have a spot of free time.