What are the Differences between a duster and trenchcoat?

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Functionally, why do we have these two items?

And, the only difference I can see is that leather dusters are 2 encumbrance less than trenchcoats.

why? Does anybody even use the trenchcoat? Does it even make sense that a Trenchcoat, the thing that reaches to the tops of my ankles, doesnt cover the legs?

2

Leg coverage means leg encumbrance.
Leg encumbrance affects dodge.

3

A RL trenchcoat, in my understanding, reaches down to knees, whereas a duster goes down to ankles. In the game, the duster covers legs, while the trenchcoat doesn’t. Whether the trenchcoat should or should not cover the legs is debatable, but that’s the difference - leg coverage. So with duster you get better leg protection but also potential movement penalties and higher wear-and-tear rate as the duster covers more body parts.

I guess there are also trenchcoats that reach ankles by design? But I’m just saying, there are also those that reach only knees.

4

Any way to have it only cover 50% of legs but 100 % torso and arrms?

5

Nope. That would require changing the way part coverage and percentage coverage is coded.
That wouldn’t be hard, but it could result in a ton of extra detail to track for little benefit.

6

That wouldn’t be hard, but it could result in a ton of extra detail to track for little benefit.[/quote]

Wouldnt it be usefull in balancing the one-piece suits of armor?

AKA survivor stuff and medieval armors.

7

Exactly. Once you get to these suits that cover multiple body parts, the single coverage percentage of the suit kind of becomes inconsistent. The suits are problematic too if they start to take damage - you get hit in the legs or arms and the entire suit loses protection, making several body parts more vulnerable. But if the suits are made near-impervious to damage, that’s not good either. That’s why I don’t like Cata suits, and instead prefer individual pieces of clothing that preferrably cover only one body part. The encumbrance on suits is also inconsistent, forcing the same encumbrance on all body parts.

Ideally suits (or any multi-piece apparel) would impose varying encumbrances, protective values and coverage percentages on each body part that the apparel is supposed to reach.

I guess the alternative approach is to further divide body locations, but I think I’d rather have the above.

Maybe legs should be divided into shins and thighs?
Arms into upper arms and lower arms?
Add neck to the head region? (Would be a bitch to protect)
Split torso to torso and backside? (This has bugged me quite often)