Wearing shirts under armour worth it?

[Antarct1c]

I have tried researching the topic of armour system in Kenshi but I still don't get how some things work. As I understood it, if your armor actually takes the hit on it(applies its coverage and then applies its resistances) then it doesn't count if you wear a chainmail under your armour or a shirt.
Does it at all matter if I wear a specialist-class chainmail under armour that covers 100% of chest, stomach and hands? Or it just applies its buffs and debuffs and doesn't actually protect?

[Shidan]

It is 100% worth it to stack armour. To get to your body, a hit has to pass through all layers of armour to hit you. It's not just checking against one of them.

First it rolls coverage for the first armour in line (technically it does this even for armour with no coverage of the part, but they just always roll a 0 and fail). If the armour wins the coverage roll, it then reduces the damage based on its resistance values, and then passes the remaining damage onto the next armour in line.

Stacking armour forces the hit to go through more layers of armour, further reducing damage. Though it is important to remember, that further layers down matter less than the main one. Many people opt for leather shirts because of this. Less penalties, for only slightly less overall protection.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Shidan:

... Many people opt for leather shirts because of this. Less penalties, for only slightly less overall protection.

I almost exclusively equip Leather Turtlenecks for this reason.

No, I have no idea how in the world they thought such a thing as a "leather turtleneck" can exist outside of some weird BDSM scenario... But, yeah, it's my go-to-choice for armor underlayer.

[Antarct1c]

Originally posted by Shidan:

It is 100% worth it to stack armour. To get to your body, a hit has to pass through all layers of armour to hit you. It's not just checking against one of them.

First it rolls coverage for the first armour in line (technically it does this even for armour with no coverage of the part, but they just always roll a 0 and fail). If the armour wins the coverage roll, it then reduces the damage based on its resistance values, and then passes the remaining damage onto the next armour in line.

Stacking armour forces the hit to go through more layers of armour, further reducing damage. Though it is important to remember, that further layers down matter less than the main one. Many people opt for leather shirts because of this. Less penalties, for only slightly less overall protection.

Ah, so it actually works like I thought it does. Thanks, just needed some clarification because somehow searching for answer on that topic left me with an impression that it's working illogically.

[Shidan]

I don't believe you do have it right, based on how you worded it int he OP. Damage WILL hit all layers. It does not ignore the lower layer just because it was resisted by the outer one. The damage that didn't get nullified will be passed onto the next layer, which will then reduce it further.

[Shenji]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by Shidan:

... Many people opt for leather shirts because of this. Less penalties, for only slightly less overall protection.

I almost exclusively equip Leather Turtlenecks for this reason.

No, I have no idea how in the world they thought such a thing as a "leather turtleneck" can exist outside of some weird BDSM scenario... But, yeah, it's my go-to-choice for armor underlayer.

Never thought this before you mentioned it. Now ordered all of my cutie pie characters wearing leather turtlenecks as uniforms.

[bunny de fluff]

The best thing to do when you are in doubt, is to experiment. After some experiments I found out it is indeed always worth it to wear chainmail and any/all heavy armor of the highest quality, for the most serious damage dealers. Those guys fooling around in my squad with funny weapons are not getting that equipment.

[Radd]

And once you master this, you can spend a few hours researching cut efficiency. Enjoy lmao.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by bunny de fluff:

The best thing to do when you are in doubt, is to experiment. After some experiments I found out it is indeed always worth it to wear chainmail and any/all heavy armor of the highest quality, for the most serious damage dealers. Those guys fooling around in my squad with funny weapons are not getting that equipment.

Basically, I only use something heavier than a Leather Turtleneck for my top "Damage Takers." They're the ones that are basically "Taunt Tanks." Some of those will be armed specifically to be big "Damage Makers" (DPS Melee) too.

Chain is basically "end-game" sorts of defense for characters that either don't need to worry or can otherwise afford the stat hits. Kenshi is one of those RPG games where the "Best Gear" is not always the "Best Gear" for every character. It's like a game where you have a Rogue or Caster sort of character that can't use their best abilities due to being encased in Plate Armor. An end-game melee dps sort of character won't be too troubled by a few points, here and there, lost in order to gain appreciable defense. A mid-to-eary game character may be seriously hampered by the demands of wearing Chain, depending on what you expect of them.

[bunny de fluff]

The thing is, heavy armor , including chainmail,usually doesn't reduce the chance of blocking for weapon users, only thing bad is maybe some dex reduction and that's it. A slightly lowered dex in exchange for harder skin is almost always a good bargain, for any kind of melee weapon users. Only those MA guys should think twice about wearing heavy armors, cause the dodge and ma reduction is serious.

[Kameraden]

Originally posted by bunny de fluff:

The thing is, heavy armor , including chainmail,usually doesn't reduce the chance of blocking for weapon users, only thing bad is maybe some dex reduction and that's it. A slightly lowered dex in exchange for harder skin is almost always a good bargain, for any kind of melee weapon users. Only those MA guys should think twice about wearing heavy armors, cause the dodge and ma reduction is serious.

Blackened Chainmail Shirt and Chainmail Shirt of the Mastercraft quality are very good to be honest. They have quite a bit superior cutting resistance/efficiency and double the projectile protection over leather armor of any type.

Also read somewhere whether it's classified as Leather/Plate/Chain also have some passive effects vs some damage types though, I might of misread that somewhere.

Though I honestly think it really matters what your over armor is. If you're say using Mercenary Rag Armor which has poor stomach protection, and you take a harpoon to the stomach, chainmail definitely would of been the better bet in that RNG scenario. But Mercenary Rag armor already has a Dex negative effect.

Though I would say it really counts on the character. If you're going for a cutting character using say Sabers and Katana class weapons in which you will eventually get Skeleton Arms with 20-25% dex boost per arm, losing 15-10% Dex isn't that serious when you're getting a 35-40% boost even after that penalty. Watch your Meitou Nodachi still do 240-280 damage vs a Hungary Bandit per swing.

But if you want that character to use say a Fragment Axe or Fallen Sun, and can not afford to lose any Dex, and would require Industrial Lifting Arms to gain the STR to use Type 3 or better versions of said weapons because of strength penalties and such. Chainmail is likely not a good idea. But honestly once you get high enough Dex it doesn't really matter that much anyways. Definitely if say the Fragment Ace relies almost entirely on Blunt Damage, if you can still maintain say 70-80 dex even with the penalty from chainmail it isn't likely going to effect your performance with that Fragment Axe. So to be honest, the penalties are not that dramatic.

It really only gets bad if you stack penalties. Lke I already mentioned Mercenary Rag Armor already has a Dex Penalty combine that with Chainmail and you can hit a 20-25% penalty to Dex. Counting if you're using a Chainmail shirt vs just Chainmail. I think normal Chainmail has a 15% penalty while the shirt 10%.

[bunny de fluff]

Chainmail and all heavy armors have whopping negative effect on crossbow, which means ranged and MA guys should think twice about wearing them, and that's basically it.

[Antarct1c]

Originally posted by Kameraden:

Originally posted by bunny de fluff:

The thing is, heavy armor , including chainmail,usually doesn't reduce the chance of blocking for weapon users, only thing bad is maybe some dex reduction and that's it. A slightly lowered dex in exchange for harder skin is almost always a good bargain, for any kind of melee weapon users. Only those MA guys should think twice about wearing heavy armors, cause the dodge and ma reduction is serious.

Blackened Chainmail Shirt and Chainmail Shirt of the Mastercraft quality are very good to be honest. They have quite a bit superior cutting resistance/efficiency and double the projectile protection over leather armor of any type.

Also read somewhere whether it's classified as Leather/Plate/Chain also have some passive effects vs some damage types though, I might of misread that somewhere.

Though I honestly think it really matters what your over armor is. If you're say using Mercenary Rag Armor which has poor stomach protection, and you take a harpoon to the stomach, chainmail definitely would of been the better bet in that RNG scenario. But Mercenary Rag armor already has a Dex negative effect.

Though I would say it really counts on the character. If you're going for a cutting character using say Sabers and Katana class weapons in which you will eventually get Skeleton Arms with 20-25% dex boost per arm, losing 15-10% Dex isn't that serious when you're getting a 35-40% boost even after that penalty. Watch your Meitou Nodachi still do 240-280 damage vs a Hungary Bandit per swing.

But if you want that character to use say a Fragment Axe or Fallen Sun, and can not afford to lose any Dex, and would require Industrial Lifting Arms to gain the STR to use Type 3 or better versions of said weapons because of strength penalties and such. Chainmail is likely not a good idea. But honestly once you get high enough Dex it doesn't really matter that much anyways. Definitely if say the Fragment Ace relies almost entirely on Blunt Damage, if you can still maintain say 70-80 dex even with the penalty from chainmail it isn't likely going to effect your performance with that Fragment Axe. So to be honest, the penalties are not that dramatic.

It really only gets bad if you stack penalties. Lke I already mentioned Mercenary Rag Armor already has a Dex Penalty combine that with Chainmail and you can hit a 20-25% penalty to Dex. Counting if you're using a Chainmail shirt vs just Chainmail. I think normal Chainmail has a 15% penalty while the shirt 10%.

I think that if the weapon does both blunt and cutting damage like plank, fragment axe, or cleavers, then it's a good idea to use two different prosthetic arms, with one boosting dexterity and other one boosting strength. It will probably make your dex around your usual amount.

[Kameraden]

Originally posted by Antarct1c:

I think that if the weapon does both blunt and cutting damage like plank, fragment axe, or cleavers, then it's a good idea to use two different prosthetic arms, with one boosting dexterity and other one boosting strength. It will probably make your dex around your usual amount.

Dangerous combination only in the context that high tier versions of Heavy weapons weigh a ton. Noticed when using the Meitou Fallen Sun that I pretty much had to use two industrial lifting arms with 81 base strength not because I couldn't use it without them but after a fight drags on and you take damage, you quickly fall below the strength requirement to use a weapon that has a weight of 40 efficiently. Once I hit that tipping point the character basically became increasingly gimped in a fight. It's ironically why I enjoy using a Nodachi or Longsword more than something like the Fallen Sun despite how powerful it can be, and man once you get a Meitou Fallen Sun everything in the game feels weak when compared.

Not sure what the Meitou Plank weighs though.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by Shidan:

... Many people opt for leather shirts because of this. Less penalties, for only slightly less overall protection.

I almost exclusively equip Leather Turtlenecks for this reason.

No, I have no idea how in the world they thought such a thing as a "leather turtleneck" can exist outside of some weird BDSM scenario... But, yeah, it's my go-to-choice for armor underlayer.

Isn't that pretty fitting for, erm, training people?

It is also the shirt i use most often.

[Antarct1c]

Originally posted by Kameraden:

Originally posted by Antarct1c:

I think that if the weapon does both blunt and cutting damage like plank, fragment axe, or cleavers, then it's a good idea to use two different prosthetic arms, with one boosting dexterity and other one boosting strength. It will probably make your dex around your usual amount.

Dangerous combination only in the context that high tier versions of Heavy weapons weigh a ton. Noticed when using the Meitou Fallen Sun that I pretty much had to use two industrial lifting arms with 81 base strength not because I couldn't use it without them but after a fight drags on and you take damage, you quickly fall below the strength requirement to use a weapon that has a weight of 40 efficiently. Once I hit that tipping point the character basically became increasingly gimped in a fight. It's ironically why I enjoy using a Nodachi or Longsword more than something like the Fallen Sun despite how powerful it can be, and man once you get a Meitou Fallen Sun everything in the game feels weak when compared.

Not sure what the Meitou Plank weighs though.

I remember reading that strength requirement is based on weight only if there is no blunt damage at all, otherwise it's 40x the blunt damage.

While I myself tried falling sun and it's indeed a powerful weapon, I'm not really sure it's undoubtedly best weapon in the game, especially if we talk about solo playthroughs. I think that it's important to pick weapons for exact situations, and Falling Sun, despite it's good damage, doesn't really give any useful bonuses. +50% against couple of monster types is good, but Naginata has same bonus against all animals, but it's much faster and even has a little bit better reach and +6 to attack skill.

Nodachi is great and it would be stupid of me to argue, but -20% to armour penetration and bad damage against robots can sometimes give you a headache. As much as I like the idea of a long beatiful sword, I personally prefer to take something that will give me bonus armor penetration and damage, and there are lots of other weapons with bonuses much better than Nodachi.

This is why I tend to look at "Heavy Polearm" and "Polearm", they have bonus to attack and +30% armour penetration. And different kinds of hackers.
Also I'm not really sure it's wise to count as Meitou always being available. I use edge type 3 which I buy from skeleton smiths, because Meitou is painful to lose, and if you don't load the game, don't abuse mechanics etc. you will lose it at one moment. And in case of Falling sun, Edge type 3 requirements are much lower than Meitou. But if we take Meitou into account - Moon Cleaver is much easier to get than Falling sun because it's used by relatively weak Preacher hive guy. Basically free meitou weapon, but it has bonus damage against robots and bonus armour penetration.

From my experience, the best weapon class is probably polearms. You can use "Polearm" against everyone with armor and animals, naginata katana against humans w/o armour and staff to knock out people you want to keep raiding.

tl;dr my personal opinion is that polearms and hackers are underrated compared to katanas and falling sun