RimWorld Armor Explained

This video explains the basic armor mechanics of RimWorld and offers an analysis of many of the RimWorld armor options.

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00:12 Armor Mechanics
03:50 Helmets
04:41 Plate
06:08 Flak
08:11 Recon
09:35 Marine
11:26 Cataphract
13:05 Implants

[hideshisface]

Plate armour is fine if you are doing a tribal start and/or have very slow research speed research.
It also has an advantage of being one of very few armour pieces you can make without using components. It also offers good body coverage, which is helpful - especially in melee situations.
The high coverage is nice, because slashing damage has a random chance of hitting multple body parts with one hit - up to 4.

Flak armour - vest is amazing. Offers massive amount of protection. Helmet is also pretty solid. BUT Open helmets only protect the "upper head" body part group. They leave the hidden body group "fullhead" open to damage - this section contains: head, skull, brain, eyes, ears, nose, jaw.
Now:
Head alone has 25 hitpoints, brain has 10. Both are vital body parts, destruction of either = death. This means 2 things.
1. Open helmets still leave you vulnerable to damage because both of those body parts remain "open" as part of the "fullhead" group.
2. Most helmets provide weaker protection than it seems - brain has 10 hitpoints, and damage to main body part can "spill" into organs. This means even partially mitigated damage may cause brain damage. You need full damage mitigation, otherwise you are still vulnerable to one-shots, even on damage-reduced hits, as long as you get hit by a weapon with 20 damage. Since it is not possible in the base game to have more than 200% armour, you can never fully negate the chance of blunt damage spill.
3. So what weapons are we talking about? Headshot weapons in base game are:
>Charge lance with 30 damage. This one is especially deadly due to 45% penetration.
> Pila and Sniper Rifle - 25 each.

Flak Jacket and Pants - they are not "bad" exactly. The thing is - they are outclassed by Devilstrand pants and duster - they have almost identical protection, but without movement penalty. But if you had no luck growing Devilstrand for some reason, go ahead and use Flak.

Recon armour - it is a good enough armour. What discourages a lot of people is its lacking max protection in comparison to flak vest. BUT it provides vastly superior body part coverage - makes you less likely to get your arms and legs shot off. Hands and feet will remain vulnerable UNTIL you replace arms and legs with bionics.
BUT unless you are rushing straight to marine armour in research, you should at least get the helmets - these are your first solid helmets providing full protection to the head.
I personally prefer them to Marine armour for the most part - simply due to movement speed penalties.

Marine armour is great - simply put - if you have dedicated soldiers and don't have cataphract armour yet, you want them in this. Not much to add - it is basically a straight on upgrade over Recon with one caveat - movement speed penalty.

Cataphract - the Legendary helmet reliably protects against most sources of headshot one-shot kills. The armour itself however... While it is incredibly good, it is also double the speed penalty of Marine armour. A legendary version makes a pawn nearly impervious to damage, sure, but the real question is - will you get where you need WHEN you are needed? That is a bit of a problem. And there is also a price.

Now... For the most part, probably the best combo you can get, when you consider cost, replacements and such - that will be flak vest, devilstrand pants and duster and one of the closed helmets - recon/marine/cataphract. Especially if your colonists don bionic legs and arms. That setup is reasonably cheap, light, and keeps all your vitals well protected, on a budget.

Armour glands - Toughskin - don't bother with it, honestly - 35% sharp is pretty much meaningless. Armorskin is also pretty bad. Stoneskin is better but it is still of dubious utility. By the time you get access to those implants, you will likely have armour that already causes damage mitigation, and these are unlikely to reduce damage further by significant margin.

[oriorb]

It's really important to mention with Anomaly that Bioferrite is an exceptional material for armor- it has a bonus to psychic sensitivity and only falls a fraction of a percentage short of Plasteel in terms of Sharp (although Heat armor is significantly worse). Good to consider since Bioferrite is usually much cheaper than Plasteel, and makes plate armor much more viable. It's also the single best material in the game for crafted Sharp weapons, a bioferrite longsword often being almost analogous to a Monosword.

[FoundationAfro]

One side note about helmets: as important as the head is, it's also small. And even then, only 2/6 parts of the head are vital (skull & brain). If you only have enough money to buy one one helmet or one flak vest, the flak vest will probably do you better, at least in the early game. After that try to cover everything.

[aivideos]

Love that you are expanding, watched your streams for quite a while, Hopping these youtube vids help you grow. You deserve it with the work you have put in.

[davidmintz]

This explains more than I thought I needed to know.

[KageRyuu]

Given that hits to the torso have a 21% chance of death due to Torso, Heart, Liver, Neck, or 29.4% if adding both Kidneys and Lungs, compared to 2.604% chance with hits to the head via the Head and Brain, focusing torso armor before head armor is wiser statistically speaking.

[MichaelArlt]

Man, that is what I call in depth. Thank you so much for your effort!

[Shadowbathed]

Appreciate the guide! I am curious why you play in Kelvin but I respect it.

[viniciuspessoa]

Loved the video, as always! The flak vest + duster combo is always my main option, but i wasnt exactly sure what to do after that

[Tere]

Thank you for getting to the point quick.

[gamesatflames]

Great guide! Was wondering how the damage resistance was calculated for a while

[Telgrom]

the best part about rimworld is that all calculation are readable in the Game.
At the Plate Armour Part you forgot to mention the new Anomaly Material Type Bioferite. Its even better than Plahsteel but hard to come by early i know.
At the Recon Armor / Marine Armour i mention a Tipp from the wiki: Recon Armor equal Marine 1 Quality lower or Catapract 2 quality lower.
That right Locust Armour is very good. Give a Neandertale a strong meele weapon with strong skills and a shieldbelt and he will shred high priority targets.
Overall a nice Video :)

[RexEosss]

Great video as allways, very useful tips.

[haterhating]

I like to do devilstrand duster button up shirt pants & flak vest with recon / marine helmet ⛑️ because devilstrand is infinite recourse

[hagalathekido]

didnt know regular clothing did much or that devilstrand was that strong, neat

[colecook]

The miss chance is why i get dark vision and make a killbox totally dark

[knight_lautrec_of_carim]

nice. So I guess a wound/hp/health explanation is next?

[miguelrodriguezcimino]

I keep my colonies rather small between 8 to 10 pawns, so that means everybody fights. When riders come knocking on my door, I cannot afford to have idle hands. Even children and slaves fight, though I don't keep many slaves if any because it means arming them, even if I issue weapons only when I'm under attack, it's still a liability.
Children fight ranged and with a quick escape route unless I have enough turrets, I've lost kids because of this but hey, it's tough out there in the rim.
Because everybody fights, I preffer the flak vest/duster combo as any heavy armor with movement penalty is reduced workspeed. I try to provide additional defense by escorting my shooters with centurions and deploying shield packs.
Melee pawns are my heavy hitters, they get the best stuff. I keep at least 2 dedicated meleers with stoneskin glands and masterwork/legendary shield belts. My designated melee pawns are anbody with the tough trait and I complement them with the unstoppable gene. I like joggers too, but I usually favor locust armors so they can engage fast by jumping into the enemy lines, even if that means sacrificing the better defense of marine or cataphract armors. I also give them the fast-healing gene and healing enhancers, with those sometimes they fully heal injuries even while still in battle.
A well equiped team two meleers high on go-juice supported by a psycaster and under the cover of a mortar delivered smoke screen can safely and quickly get rid of large and otherwise dangerous mech clusters.

[MrMpakobec]

Interesting question: are we 100% sure that after one layer of armor halfs incoming damage it sustains the same armor penetrating value for the next layers?

[internallyscreaming]

Is this video compatible with combat extended