What does withstand a lot of abuse mean regarding clothing?

[Michi]

I created a survivor backpack, and I didn’t notice that it lasted any longer than a regular backpack.

I regularly find myself walking away from a battle with a bunch of zeds largley unsacthed, but with all my inventory on the ground, due to my backpack getting shredded in the fight.

[gakm4]

Any item with the sturdy flag should be able to handle more abuse.

http://cdda.chezzo.com/flags/STURDY

My other thought is layer the backpack under your other armor and see if that works

[Coolthulhu]

It doesn’t get damaged by weak scratches, only by hits that pierce all its armor and then some.

[Rose]

Ooh. Makes sense. What does ‘pierce armor’ exactly mean? How is it calculated?

[Coolthulhu]

For physical damage, calculated per damage type:

1. Reduce incoming damage as per resistances
2. If remaining damage is below armor value (ie. if initial damage was at most 200% of armor value), there is a 0.5% chance of damaging the item. Sturdy items and power armors are immune.
3. Otherwise (initial damage was more than 200% of armor value) there is one_in(damage) chance of avoiding damage. Then again one_in(2) chance of avoiding damage.

For non-physical damage (electric, acid), there is no armor damage. Fire is calculated differently - it burns and doesn’t “chip”.

tl;dr version: if attacks are above 200% of your item’s armor value, they will shred your armor very fast. If they’re below 200%, sturdy items will not take any damage, while other items will slowly get chipped down to nothing.