Provided you do not have access to power armor, what is good end-gaming armor? I have a deadmobile and can craft just about anything. In my experience, the torso is the most common body part to be the attacked the only one that has ever gotten me killed. Arms get attacked often, too. Legs are almost never attacked, except if you stand in acid. My head gets almost no damage.
I carry a survivor rucksack since it’s a lot of volume for one item. Everywhere else I focus on armor. So my layers are like this.
On the torso I have the aforementioned survivor rucksack. I also went short and simple with the armor: MBR vest (hard plates).
On my head I have a survivor helmet and a survivor mask. I’d get the greathelm, but I prefer the breathing mask vs more armor since I rarely get hit in the head.
Arms I have steel arm guards and survivor gloves.
Legs: survivor cargo pants and steel leg guards.
[quote=“vassock, post:1, topic:14206”]Provided you do not have access to power armor, what is good end-gaming armor? I have a deadmobile and can craft just about anything. In my experience, the torso is the most common body part to be the attacked the only one that has ever gotten me killed. Arms get attacked often, too. Legs are almost never attacked, except if you stand in acid. My head gets almost no damage.
I carry a survivor rucksack since it’s a lot of volume for one item. Everywhere else I focus on armor. So my layers are like this.
On the torso I have the aforementioned survivor rucksack. I also went short and simple with the armor: MBR vest (hard plates).
On my head I have a survivor helmet and a survivor mask. I’d get the greathelm, but I prefer the breathing mask vs more armor since I rarely get hit in the head.
Arms I have steel arm guards and survivor gloves.
Legs: survivor cargo pants and steel leg guards.
Any advice?[/quote]
Most people just go with a Heavy Survivor Suit (survivor gear is OP). Really the “best” armor depends on your playstyle. If you’re using any melee weapon that isn’t a spear then you want good coverage over your whole body. If you’re using an unarmed style then you want good arm and leg coverage with little torso encumbrance (you’ll be blocking with your arms and legs). If you use primarily ranged weapons then you basically want ONLY head and torso coverage. I would also recommend the various Alloy Plating Armor CBMS, they provide good protection for no encumbrance or power cost.
RM13 combat armor is great for any character. Just rob a few banks and you’ll find a set. It runs on plutonium cells which is a pain, but it will go for a very long time on just a few cells.
Head protection does not really matter beyond the one shot that kills you. At the least you can layer armor around the head with no penalty besides warmth. A tip is anything about 7 encumbrance or lower can be stacked twice and with numerous other headgear. This also means low encumbrance headgear can be tailored for armor and still be stacked. Current setup is two flame resistant hoods, two rain hoods, and two light survivor hoods. Some tailored, and maybe you can add some tin foil hats just in case of bullets. Face protection and its importance is something I am less familiar with.
Arm encumbrance adds to stamina and aiming issues so stack according to play style. Currently steel arm with survivor wetsuit. The paranoid can add chitin or hard guards on the strapped layer and neoprene on the close layer. The bash prevention is pretty high and arms are not life threatening except when hit while broken.
Movement is important and because of that legs don’t get penalized that terribly on encumbrance. So limit if you want to hit and run or stack until warmth limits if you want to be safe. Two drop pouches, two cargo shorts, and perhaps more if storage matters more than armor or movement. Just relayer them to be safe.
Torso is pretty much a trade off on encumbrance and coverage. Getting functionally immune to bash is easy enough, but against bullets it is a matter of risk and reward. Currently using the wetsuit with a kevlar vest and dragon skin vest. There is a small chance of a bullet going through both vests but it is decent while offering acid immunity. An empty MBR vest does almost the same thing as dragon, or a curaiss could be used. Consider clearing an area and looting with a backpack after or using a foldable shopping cart. The backpacks offer no combat advantages. Dumping items for caching before level transition or in front of houses could be useful as well. It is less time spent needing the extra volume.
I agree with spadedraco that survivor armour is op. I’m just using the light survivor suit and the survivor trenchcoat because the heavier ones have less storage and it’s summer. Why wear what’s basically an armoured winter coat in the summer if you’ll just melt?
Thirding survivor armor being OP for such a low cost, any set of survivor armor lets you take out droves of zombies without getting a scratch, heavy survivor armor lets you face-tank any monster in the game with the exception of some robots. Ranged attacks need to be more powerful than 9mm though to get through heavy survivor armor (Yeah those turrets in the labs? They can’t do anything to heavy survivor armor.) If you ever feel ashamed of using survivor armor, plate armor is second best crafted armor all around. I plan to make a mod that buffs up end-game monsters and other end-game equipment choices to be on par with survivor armor.
pair of flame resistant socks
gold watch
pair of steel leg guards
survivor trenchcoat
survivor rucksack
heavy survivor mask
pair of heavy survivor boots
pair of heavy survivor gloves
heavy survivor suit
heavy survivor helmet
pair of chitin arm guards
All items except for watch are reinforced to the max and modified with leather and kevlar.
I usually go for a lightweight melee character, my favorite setup is:
Army Helmet with a light
Gas Mask
T-shirt with a Kevlar Vest
Hand wraps or some gloves
Backpack if needed
Khakis or Cargo Pants
Sneakers or Combat Boots
I usually carry around a canteen and a combat knife, I never seem to bother crafting a sheath for my main weapon, which is anything swordlike.
Edit: Don’t forget the knee and elbow pads, safety first!
->I always go for the Nomad Gear as soon as I can. The storage is super helpful and I can usually make it before I can piece together a good loot mobile. since it takes up the normal slot, i’ll usually have a survivor trench coat on over it but will swap it with something more armoured if needed.
->Thermometric suit takes up my close to skin layer most of the year (I play longer seasons so its cold for long chunks of time)
->Survivor utility belt holds the majority of the useful tools
->Survivor backpack for even more storage
->sheath w/ hunting knife (best butcher tool)
->holster w/ heavy pistol/hand shotgun (emergency weapon)
After that things (helmet,face,boots,gloves) change depending on what i’m doing but their usually from one of the survivor sets.
Rollerblades/skates are my favorite but they don’t really scale into late game and the way they’re implemented makes it really hard to make a mod adition