Armor - Maximum Protection

[Rhaikh]

From the wiki on Clothing, there's a comment from an old forum post along the lines of

With heavy clothes, you can push 150 [lbs] but the additional protection is barely noticeable at this point.

Does this mean there's diminishing returns on protection?  Or is there a hard maximum cap?

Second question, I read somewhere that armor quality doesn't change protection value, is that definitively correct?

[Rhaikh]

Next question:

If you're only wearing a Woollen Veil, is it the same as only wearing a Woollen Cowl? (or Linen Tunic / Linen Undergarments?)  These items have the same material thus same protection, and same coverage, but different weights

[Ametsala]

Diminishing returns in the way of more armor adding more encumbrance penalty. Sure, you can wear all the armor you can and barely be able to move, but the penalty will make most of your skills - including combat skills - useless.

Generally you'll want to keep your penalties to a minimum, because they directly affect most skills. So only wear heavy armor when you're heading for combat.

As far as I know, each body part's protection is calculated by the items covering it. Wearing a woollen veil or cowl will give the same amount of protection for skull and neck (double if both are worn).

(Linen undergarment actually protects the elbows, forearms, knees and calves in addition to those protected by a linen tunic. The wiki should be correct about this. It's not too long since I checked these.)

Not sure about the quality thing though. It might be that it only affects how durable the armor is, i.e. how many hits it can take before breaking.

[Brygun]

IIRC a poor quality reduces the affect value by -1. So a 5 point protection would be just 4. IIRC the Wiki explains this. There is something like:

fine +1 affect, + XX price
fine  + X price
normal
weak - X price
poor -1 affect, - XX price

[Saiko Kila]

Second question, I read somewhere that armor quality doesn't change protection value, is that definitively correct?

I haven't found a single instance of difference of armour between poor and masterwork quality items. Assuming they have the same condition, they will set the total protection for a given body part to the same value. Whether their quality will play role in the combat - I don't know.

[Rhaikh]

I did some data analysis based on this discussion... Spoiler for min/maxing:

Spoiler: show

If I did my calculations correctly, this set of clothing gives excellent protection at only 59.29 weight:

Birch-bark shoes
Fur (bear) footwear
Fur (bear) mittens
Fur (stag/reindeer) hood
Fur (stag/reindeer) leggings
Fur (stag/reindeer) shirt
Iron Kneecops
Iron coudes
Iron spectacle helm
Leather leggings
Linen footrags
Linen tunic
Linen undergarment
Linen undershirt
Mail Cowl
Mail mittens
Nettle trousers
Nettle tunic
Woollen footrags
Woollen mittens
Woollen socks
Woollen tunic
Woollen undershirt
Woollen veil

value=3064

Protection value per slot:

blunt=15, 9, 11, 8, 8, 8, 13, 10, 8, 8, 8, 13, 13, 9, 12, 9
edge=23, 13, 13, 13, 15, 15, 19, 12, 13, 15, 15, 23, 23, 20, 20, 13
point=16, 8, 10, 8, 8, 8, 13, 8, 9, 8, 8, 14, 14, 12, 15, 10
tear=22, 14, 13, 13, 16, 16, 19, 14, 13, 16, 16, 25, 25, 21, 20, 15
squeeze=12, 6, 9, 6, 5, 5, 10, 7, 6, 5, 5, 9, 9, 6, 10, 7
warmth=13, 19, 7, 11, 25, 25, 17, 19, 10, 25, 25, 35, 35, 30, 15, 17

Squeeze protection is for some reason the hardest to find.  I calculated this by writing a program that ranked all armor by its relative protection value vs its weight, and then went through the list adding items to the outfit if we had less than 8 protection in any given slot covered by the item.  It went through the entire list without satisfying this requirement for Squeeze.  Then I took a pass at removing extraneous items if it would result in no blunt/edge/point protection going below 8.


In trying to assemble this outfit in game, I'm finding it especially difficult to source the more rare woollen items.  Right now my character has everything except:

Iron Kneecops
Iron coudes
Linen undergarment
Woollen footrags
Woollen mittens
Woollen socks
Woollen tunic
Woollen veil

I've so far managed to resist the urge to murder innocents for their woollen footrags.

[davidor]

I did some data analysis based on this discussion... Spoiler for min/maxing:
......

Just want to give a warning to any people trying to use that: encumbrance will kill you, not even a kaumo character can wear that and fight well

The protection it provides is far from invincible, from some old test results you will need like 20+ to ignore all attacks, 16-18ish might also work, but you just don't usually get that number unless you literally wear every armor you can find AND coverage is not perfect

Best way to stay alive:
Avoid fight>meat shields>dodge>block with shield

[Rhaikh]

60 weight is a lot, I guess, but for strong characters it's not very much.

I took down a Njerp village hunting for woollen socks last night, the protection did pretty good.  I guess the only critique I have is that maybe the durability loss is worse with this set than with metal armor?  I really don't know.  It's a shame that you can't make or repair linen/nettle/woollen stuff.

[Labtop 215]

I think durability loss may cause items to protect you less.  I remember comparing the amount of protection that my armor provided before and after I took cord from it, and found the protection being weaker afterwards in some areas.  I'll have to double-check and get back to you on that though to be sure I'm not imagining it though, or accidentally comparing the wrong armor.

[Rhaikh]

Durability loss definitely worsens protection; what I was getting at is I can see it being possible (not saying I have measured this) that certain items take more damage than others, and if that's true then I'd guess it applies to weaker materials.  For sure though, if you need 20 pieces of armor to equal the same protection as 5 or 6, it's going to be more difficult to replace it after a battle if you can't simply repair them.

[shorun]

I did some data analysis based on this discussion... Spoiler for min/maxing:

Spoiler: show

If I did my calculations correctly, this set of clothing gives excellent protection at only 59.29 weight:

Birch-bark shoes
Fur (bear) footwear
Fur (bear) mittens
Fur (stag/reindeer) hood
Fur (stag/reindeer) leggings
Fur (stag/reindeer) shirt
Iron Kneecops
Iron coudes
Iron spectacle helm
Leather leggings
Linen footrags
Linen tunic
Linen undergarment
Linen undershirt
Mail Cowl
Mail mittens
Nettle trousers
Nettle tunic
Woollen footrags
Woollen mittens
Woollen socks
Woollen tunic
Woollen undershirt
Woollen veil

value=3064

Protection value per slot:

blunt=15, 9, 11, 8, 8, 8, 13, 10, 8, 8, 8, 13, 13, 9, 12, 9
edge=23, 13, 13, 13, 15, 15, 19, 12, 13, 15, 15, 23, 23, 20, 20, 13
point=16, 8, 10, 8, 8, 8, 13, 8, 9, 8, 8, 14, 14, 12, 15, 10
tear=22, 14, 13, 13, 16, 16, 19, 14, 13, 16, 16, 25, 25, 21, 20, 15
squeeze=12, 6, 9, 6, 5, 5, 10, 7, 6, 5, 5, 9, 9, 6, 10, 7
warmth=13, 19, 7, 11, 25, 25, 17, 19, 10, 25, 25, 35, 35, 30, 15, 17

Squeeze protection is for some reason the hardest to find.  I calculated this by writing a program that ranked all armor by its relative protection value vs its weight, and then went through the list adding items to the outfit if we had less than 8 protection in any given slot covered by the item.  It went through the entire list without satisfying this requirement for Squeeze.  Then I took a pass at removing extraneous items if it would result in no blunt/edge/point protection going below 8.


In trying to assemble this outfit in game, I'm finding it especially difficult to source the more rare woollen items.  Right now my character has everything except:

Iron Kneecops
Iron coudes
Linen undergarment
Woollen footrags
Woollen mittens
Woollen socks
Woollen tunic
Woollen veil

I've so far managed to resist the urge to murder innocents for their woollen footrags.

why not use self sufficiency mod and make them?

i've got a full bear fur, full leather coverage (i'm not sure if it's all needed tough) and wool mittens+shoes (cuz cold). it gives full green protection on just about everything and you can make/repair most of it yourself. it has a bit of weight but i can sleep outside in all but the coldest nights without the need for fire. add ski's to it and you can actually outrun/ski most humans, great for wearing down a njerp.
in summer i'll go for full metal + linen, it weighs less but gives hardly any cold protection.
the state of your outfit matters a great deal tough, keep your outfit repaired at all times!

[Saiko Kila]

60 weight is a lot, I guess, but for strong characters it's not very much.

I took down a Njerp village hunting for woollen socks last night, the protection did pretty good.  I guess the only critique I have is that maybe the durability loss is worse with this set than with metal armor?  I really don't know.  It's a shame that you can't make or repair linen/nettle/woollen stuff.

60 lbs is pretty decent. Armour of my Kaumo guy weighs 129 lbs. He's almost invincible, and routinely takes on four robber groups, but I also like to carry many weapons, so total weight is around 200 lbs. Before tougher battles I drop some items, to 170-180 lbs total. This makes them easier, because they do no require so much tactics then. If my armour weighed 60 lbs, I would be like iron man, swift, deadly and mostly safe from retaliation.

However, problem with some of the items is that they wear pretty fast in a battle. Even if you mod them to be repairable, their HP can go below repair level (which is around 35% or so). Still, would try with my new character.