Whats the best material for armor and whats the best for melee weapons?

[Hottox]

I have a melee guy named big john and a crafter that can make legendary gear. I made him plasteel heavy plate armor (heavy is the best i can make) but is plasteel really the best option for material?

[eMYNOCK]

in your crafting bills you can preview the basic item your crafter should make... there you can view the various resources you can make it out of and compare how the material will affect the final piece.

[Grishnerf]

Plasteel has best sharp dmg modifier, so its best used for longswords.
uranium has best blunt dmg modifier, so it makes the best warhammers.

for armors, plasteel ,steel and uraium are all good to "waste", but i would use uranium and save plasteel for later stuff.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Hottox:

is plasteel really the best option for material?

Is armour always necessary?

[Hottox]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Originally posted by Hottox:

is plasteel really the best option for material?

Is armour always necessary?

considering that hes the person who stands in the doorway to block bugs during an infestation while everyone shoots over his shoulder, yes. He'd be dead without it.

[Astasia]

Uranium and plasteel plate armor have very similar stats, plasteel is like 4 percent better IIRC, and they are only like 10-15% better than steel. Usually it's not ideal to spend plasteel on plate armor because plate armor isn't very good and you need a lot of plasteel later making power armor and bionics and such (which do not have other material options). Steel plate armor is typically fine on your melee tanks until you can make better options, if you get a huge load of uranium from quests that is also a solid early game option.

[Husker_85]

There are huge threads and tons of videos on this topic. Which is better, armor suits or clothing layers? It's complicated, but the short answer is that suits are better at protecting limbs and clothing is better at protecting your chest. But by and large a Devilstrand duster is one of the most cost effective pieces of protection you can give your colonists. The prevailing meta states that mid-late game you should have duster+flak on your shooters and power armor on your melee troops.

[Red Bat]

Plasteel tends to be the best material or at least competitive with the best in most cases, but you don't usually get enough of it for a while to be casually using it.

It's a tossup if even using steel to make plate armor is worthwhile. If you have plenty of it, it's probably better to use steel for it and save the plasteel for later, as a lot of stuff eventually just outright requires plasteel. A lot of players feel plate armor isn't really worth the material cost or crafting time, but if you have a LOT of steel to spare then plate armor becomes a lot more worthwhile.

[POWER WITHIN USER]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Is armour always necessary?

Yes, someone will have to body block or even attract shots to protect more valuable individuals (the ones that have +12 shooting and can't afford losing fingers).

Originally posted by Hottox:

I have a melee guy named big john and a crafter that can make legendary gear. I made him plasteel heavy plate armor (heavy is the best i can make) but is plasteel really the best option for material?

Depends on the pawn's value.
If it's a guy you just recruited and nobody knows then steel is fine but if you have to use Big John, the guy with say, a wife, several children and friends you'd go with plasteel while giving him the best shield belt available; or maybe trade for cataphract/phoenix armor (given that more mechanoids use fire now).

If you're using a killbox then your grenadiers could benefit from such protection, maybe even have someone using a smoke launcher on them or even spare bodies to put out fires in case an inferno cannon centipede lasts enough to target them.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Hottox:

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Is armour always necessary?

considering that hes the person who stands in the doorway to block bugs during an infestation while everyone shoots over his shoulder, yes. He'd be dead without it.

In a doorway defensive situation, first you have to consider the number of bugs (or any type of manhunter event critters). If there are too many, then on no account should one attempt an open doorway/melee blocker tactic. He/she will simply be overrun if heavily outnumbered, since you're only relying on the shooters behind them to be able to keep the critters from advancing on the tank.
It doesn't matter what the armour is, if you're outnumbered it's not a viable strategy.
In a heavily out numbered situation, it's better to have a good constructor behind the door to keep repairing it faster than the critters can damage it. Meanwhile, everyone else fall back to a better defensible position where, for example you can use your shooters + tank in two or more groups to catch the critters in a crossfire.

It's situational and that's why I posed the question about it being "always" necessary.

Generally, I can survive just about any encounter without armour until the mid to late game. Once the mech raids or Empire elites start dropping, that's when I'll get my guys to suit up. Personally, I prefer mobility over 'toughest' armour and so recon armour is sufficient in most cases. Psycasting and gene/trait benefits factor heavily too if using DLC's.