Tainted armor

[Hanuman]

Does the debuff of wearing tainted armor always make it useless? I got my hands on some pretty decent armor, ahead of anything my colonists can make themselves, but its tainted.
Can I just make them wear it when a raid comes in and remove the gear after the battle or is the debuff severe enough to make it useless?

[Kokusei]

You can certainly have a use for it if you're not planning to use it at all times. There's also a trait that makes the person ignore the debuff I believe, but not sure.

[whatamidoing]

You can force-equip and unequip it during battles, yeah (although you won't have much warning for drop-pod raids). Pawns with bloodlust and cannibals (I think) don't mind wearing tainted apparel either.

[GoblinCookie]

Originally posted by Kokusei:

You can certainly have a use for it if you're not planning to use it at all times. There's also a trait that makes the person ignore the debuff I believe, but not sure.

It's the bloodlust trait. Cannibals unfortunately do care. Really psychopaths, cannibals and bloodlust should all not mind tainted clothing but that isn't how the game is.

[Astasia]

The debuff is pretty trivial, it is very much worth wearing any high quality tainted armor you find if you don't have anything better for them to wear. Usually for me this is flak vests before I can start producing them, but early power/recon armor drops are also useful. It's also usually better for a colonist to wear tainted clothes than be naked.