What is your armor loadout?

Wondering if there is anything better than what I have been using for the most of the game.

I am currently using:

torso: duffel bag or military rucksack, trenhcoat, army jacket
head: beret, helmet liner, army helmet
eyes:
mouth:
arms: trenchcoat, neoprene arm sleeves, army jacket
hands: glove liner, tactical gloves
lets: army pants
feet: steeltoed boots

I use mostly bows and am looking for something with low encumbrance with lots of storage.

Was also wondering if there are any special items I should look out for. I see lots of people mentioning chest rigs and utility vests, since I am already wearing 3 things on my torso it seems to just add even more encumbrance. Also, does the toolbelt have any special use?

Get a Sewing Kit, or a bone needle, or a wooden needle, and attempt to make everything you can fitted.

Then wear more stuff.

My stuff is fitted, but for instance my torso encumbrance is already at 4. Head and Arms are at 1 with everything else at 0. Maybe I should just make some more sacrifices to encumbrance as maybe the penalties will not be too bad.

IMO having a carrying capacity over 60 is just simply plainly overdoing it unless you are doing a massive loot run for guns. I would reconsider the need of all the stuff you are carrying around. These are the only things that you really need:

-A backup handgun for when you get surrounded.( and 9mm or .45mm shots)
-A handcannon for hulks/Jabberwocks AKA the rivtech pistols/ruger redhawk/desert eagle (and 10 or so shots for it cause you shouldnt use it often.
-Your main weapon (mostly in your hands all the time)
-A backup melee weapon (a knife of some sort or a machete)
-An empty can to boil water (replaceable with a pan if you consider it to be worth the extra volume, its often worth the extra volume IMO)
-A skewer to cook meat
-2 plastic bottles (one for dirty water and one for clean water)
-A flashlight
-A needle
-A tent (perhaps)
-Binoculars
(List done purely out of memory, it doesn’t include useful volume less items like lighters and drugs)

All in all it fits completely in something like 40 or so volume. But I admit to an efficiency freak.

My loadout:
Torso: utility vest, runner pack, MOLLE pack, survivor suit. 4 Encumbrance/30 Warmth
Head: survivor helmet. 3/15
Eyes: bifocal glasses (for near-sighted and far-sighted), survivor mask. 2/0
Mouth: survivor mask. 1/15
Arms: hard arm guards, elbow pads, survivor suit. 3/35
Hands: tactical gloves. 0/20
Legs: survivor cargo pants, hard leg guards, knee pads, survivor suit. 4/45
Feet: socks, steeltoed boots. 0/35

This layout is for warm seasons.

I can advice you (as I’m bowman too) to find or craft quivers. They ain’t covers ANY part of the body and add a little storage. Unfortunately, you can only wear only two of them.
Also wear tactical dump pouch - no covering of any bodypart, 12 storage and some protection. I found only one of this pouch, so I can’t say how many of them you can wear.
I also read on the wiki about holster - no encumbrance, no coverage, a little storage - but haven’t found it myself.
As for encumbrance-storage ratio I personally prefer runner bag - 0 encumbrance and 20 storage.

Latest char goes around with:
Torso:atomic thermal electric suit, plate armour and a molle pack
Legs:Same as above(since they both cover the legs) sans molle
Arms: Same as torso sans molle
Hands:atomic thermal electric gloves, armored gauntlets.
Head: atomic thermal electric balaclava, barbute helm
Eyes: Don’t need any eye wear I’ve bionics for that
Feet:atomic thermal socks, armored boots.
Other:2 tactical dump pouches.

Overall encumberance:
Torso:3
Head:2
Eyes:0
Mouth:0
Arms:2
Hands:1
Legs:2
Feet:1

Storage capacity:84 units, a bit small.

He’s basically a cyborg knight (with a katana).

Most other chars end up wearing full survivor gear.

[quote=“John Candlebury, post:4, topic:5616”]IMO having a carrying capacity over 60 is just simply plainly overdoing it unless you are doing a massive loot run for guns. I would reconsider the need of all the stuff you are carrying around. These are the only things that you really need:

-A backup handgun for when you get surrounded.( and 9mm or .45mm shots)
-A handcannon for hulks/Jabberwocks AKA the rivtech pistols/ruger redhawk/desert eagle (and 10 or so shots for it cause you shouldnt use it often.
-Your main weapon (mostly in your hands all the time)
-A backup melee weapon (a knife of some sort or a machete)
-An empty can to boil water (replaceable with a pan if you consider it to be worth the extra volume, its often worth the extra volume IMO)
-A skewer to cook meat
-2 plastic bottles (one for dirty water and one for clean water)
-A flashlight
-A needle
-A tent (perhaps)
-Binoculars
(List done purely out of memory, it doesn’t include useful volume less items like lighters and drugs)

All in all it fits completely in something like 40 or so volume. But I admit to an efficiency freak.[/quote]

That’s not very much stuff. I get in a bad habit of carrying around a lot of my tools and it seems like if I’m not exploring, then I’m always on looting runs. Maybe it’s because I’m pretty new and have a bad habit of grabbing stuff because I know it will eventually be useful for something. I get addicted to grabbing boxes of dry food, too because sometimes my player just likes eating waffles and oatmeal. If you aren’t just exploring or just coming back with a car load of materials, what are you usually doing out there? (being serious)

Thanks for the other replies, there are some pieces I have not heard of that I will look into crafting now.

[quote=“kuliksco, post:7, topic:5616”]I get addicted to grabbing boxes of dry food, too because sometimes my player just likes eating waffles and oatmeal. If you aren’t just exploring or just coming back with a car load of materials, what are you usually doing out there? (being serious)

Thanks for the other replies, there are some pieces I have not heard of that I will look into crafting now.[/quote]

Well mostly reading, or working on a car somewhere or hunting and canning meat, or just killing zombies for fun without bothering to loot anything (once I have most of the things I need). My first two or three town runs are very loot heavy, i try to find a workable car or a shopping cart between the first and two runs and then proceed to fill it with non perishables and tools. After my emergency stash is done and safely stored in a buuilding somewhere, I just roam the wastes in an Luxury RV killing zombies for fun and living of house loot. And in never actually return to my emergency stash once I start traveling with the RV, just collect the stash for fun probably (
The RV is well stocked by that point too.

[quote=“John Candlebury, post:8, topic:5616”][quote=“kuliksco, post:7, topic:5616”]I get addicted to grabbing boxes of dry food, too because sometimes my player just likes eating waffles and oatmeal. If you aren’t just exploring or just coming back with a car load of materials, what are you usually doing out there? (being serious)

Thanks for the other replies, there are some pieces I have not heard of that I will look into crafting now.[/quote]

Well mostly reading, or working on a car somewhere or hunting and canning meat, or just killing zombies for fun without bothering to loot anything (once I have most of the things I need). My first two or three town runs are very loot heavy, i try to find a workable car or a shopping cart between the first and two runs and then proceed to fill it with non perishables and tools. After my emergency stash is done and safely stored in a buuilding somewhere, I just roam the wastes in an Luxury RV killing zombies for fun and living of house loot. And in never actually return to my emergency stash once I start traveling with the RV, just collect the stash for fun probably (
The RV is well stocked by that point too.[/quote]

Haha, that sounds great. I guess I am also in the process of building up a monster stash of stuff that I’m probably going to never go back to as well. Anything special about your RV?

Nah not really, I just try to find one of those luxury RVs, get it back in shape and add some more solar panels thats mostly the only things I do to it (as I dont plan on driving it through uncleared cities or anything, no need to reinforce it or cover it with menacing spikes or anything).

I ted to beeline for Survivor (normal, not heavy) and Winter Survivor sets. Normally carry tactical pouches (2), holsters (2, if I can find them), drop leg pouches (2) and a runner pack. That comes to around 140 volume capacity. If I need to haul gear I add a duffel bag to boot. Lately I’ve switched over to Power Armor with hauling frame. Internal Furnace CBM + wood axe = no problem restoring my 1500 power to full in no time.

My characters wear whatever I feel is appropriate, but if you want to know what the best setup is, it’s something like this: MOLLE pack, survivor trenchcoat, survivor harness, survivor cargo pants, survivor boots, survivor hood, elbow/knee pads, tactical dump pouches, fanny packs, etc. You end up with quite a bit of armour, torso encumbrance no higher than 1, and over 150 storage. I don’t use this setup because I don’t really like having to use the survivor equipment, but regardless, anything over 1 for torso encumbrance is too high if you intend to do any melee whatsoever. Torso encumbrance is somewhat broken in the game.

Since I’ve upgraded to the survivor gear, I’ve actually found myself running out of weight before volume, but I’m a total hoarder, basically the opposite of John Candleberry. Any suggestions on that don’t involve throwing out my precious, precious junk? I already use vehicles heavily.

I’ve also got a backup environmental suit (the one with the hazard suit, not the clean suit) and I’m working on a winter survivor gear set to run through a frigid lab. My implant just isn’t cutting it.

Survivor gear is a bit heavy. Most of the time, I run out of weight before volume.

I had 305 volume once.

And was carrying 85 pounds of stuff.

To increase vehicle capacity, you may consider using the cargo harness unit, that one which is crafted with 4 long ropes. To help with your personal carrying capacity, leave your heavier tools in the vehicle. You may like having integrated toolset, though I didn’t like it as it can only be used for crafting, not tool-specific tasks (clothing repair, cutting things up, heating stuff), and it doesn’t replace advanced stuff like food dehydrator (as far as I remember, anyway).

Can also try strength-enhancing bionics or mutation categories. Take strong back trait next time you roll a character, it’s awesome and much more useful than packmule since so many tools and weapons have low-volume advanced versions.

Usually:

survivor armor - the heaviest I can produce

Ideally:

Rivtech Black 13 Combat Armor

Pretty much this. Though I would throw on a survivor facemask if my per is >10, filter mask and ballistic glasses if its < or = 10. Also, a few leg pouches. By memory you can have surv. cargos, 1 leg pouch and 1 kneepads without having above 1 leg enc. Things have to be pretty bad for me to even consider going above 2 enc on anything but head and mouth that sits at 2 pretty much from the time I find my first filter mask.

Early game I run (starting with tailor prof.):
leather backpack,
trenchcoat
cargo pants
steelcaps
leather helm
leather gauntlets.
Safety glasses
Filter/dustmask
toolbelt/chestrig
Runs at about 90ish storage by memory. Its all fitted and reinforced as soon as possible, again, 1 torso enc is as high as im going to go. About 1/2 my space is taken up by my day to day crap (food, drinkies, sewkit/soldering iron, knife, book incase of acid rain, meds, spare weapons, handcannon), I get a trolley/cart as soon as is possible to haul loot back to my dump house. I upgrade my gear and ride (to a standard solar car upgraded to 5 cargo spaces, all solar panels and few extra batteries/fuel tank just incase, +fuel engine and alternator in a trunk) at about the same time.

i wear every thing what allow me carry more things and some simple armors what can be found in homes, firestations and pawn shops alslo i drag around a shoping cart but i am building a electric bike power is no problem to me because i raid towns in day

I am currently using this load out, but my guy is very very strong, and on a lot of drugs

2 Light survivor suits. ( 0 Torso 1 Arms/Legs) 100 storage 22.48 lbs (11.24 each) Protection of 25B 45 Cutting Each once reinforced, not sure on how stacking works with armor.
1 heavy Survivor Helmet (3 Head not like it matters) 3.77 lbs Protection: 80/112, simply the strongest defense for my skull
1 survivor mask (1 Eyes/Mouth) 1.5 lbs, protection: 30/50, 14 environmental protection as well as blocking colds/flues?
1 light survivor gloves (0 hands) .42 lbs Bash 20/Cut 36
1 light survivor boots (0 feet) 2.47 lbs Bash30/Cut 54

Total Weight is 30.64 lbs and gives me 100 storage,

Then I got 2 quivers, 2 leather belts, a fanny pack and a tactical pouch for 34 more total storage and like 2 lbs more weight.

so 134, but I have pack mule which bumps it to 185, more than enough for running around

if I need to do mega looting I have 2 survivor packs I made which bumps my torso encumbrance to 2 and adds 36 (50 with packmule) more each for another 72 (100) not sure if those are optimal yet but I think they outpace the other options.

Survivor packs always seemed a bit shit to me, they have less storage and lower protection than a leather backpack for the same enc. Never really seen the point.