Gear

As Flexible Survival has progressed, the number of choices available for people keeps increasing, and many people are worried about making the right choices when it comes to gear - what to use, how to get it, how to use it, and so on. Since these questions come up frequently, here are some collected answers!

Equipping Gear

When you first start the game, you can talk to the Requisition Clerk in Triage to receive a gear starter kit. Depending on which kit you choose, you are given a chainsword or a laser pistol, a combat helmet, and either a medkit or an armored vest.

To see your inventory, you type 'i', 'inv', or 'inventory'. This gives you a numbered list of all the items you are carrying. For example, it may say:

• 1 Chain sword
• 2 Combat Helmet
• 3 Armored Vest

And so on. In order to equip an item, you type '+equip 1' or '+equip 2', or whatever the inventory number is of the item you are trying to equip. To see your currently equipped items, type '+equip' without any numbers. Here is an example of the +equip screen:

• 1 Charlotte Load: 21 Upkp: 5 Lvl: 0 Exp:100% Distill: 441/441
• 2 Armored Vest Load: 30 Upkp: 1 Lvl: 5 Exp:100% Distill: 1680/1680
• 3 Combat Helmet Load: 15 Upkp: 1 Lvl: 5 Exp:100% Distill: 1680/1680
• 4 Laser pistol Load: 15 Upkp: 3 Lvl: 9 Exp: 85% Distill: 2645/3110

Remaining Loadout: 18.8 - Total Upkeep: 10

Here, the number is the equipment slot each item is in. Load is how much loadout each equipped item uses, Upkp is the Upkeep cost of each item (in Resources). Lvl is the Craft Level, and EXP and Distill are used in crafting distillations, and so they are UTTERLY IRRELEVANT at the moment. For now, the three important things are Load, Upkeep, and Level.

Every character starts the game with a maximum of 100 Loadout. This can be increased through merits (Always Be Prepared, All Natural) and Roles (the Readiness role). Every character also starts with 10 Resources, and Resources can be increased to a maximum of (Player Level x2) by spending XP. If you want to equip a piece of gear, you need to have enough available loadout and resources; if you are out of loadout you just can't equip it, and if you are over budget on resources all of your gear stops working.

Level Scaling

When a player levels up, they gain more hit points and their mutant powers hit harder or heal more damage. Gear functions in a similar manner - as it gets leveled up, any effects that cause damage (like on weapons), provide healing (like the medkit), or increase damage resistance (like armor) becomes more powerful. However, gear is also capped by the level of the character it is equipped on; a level 1 character can equip level 50 armor, but the armor will only give the character the same bonus it would if it were level 1. On the other hand, since the armor is already level 50, its effectiveness will automatically increase as the character gains levels and it won't have to be upgraded.

Damage, Healing, Regen, Heal Gain, HP Buffer, Penetration, and Damage Resist are all scaled up by level. If your gear does any of these, you will want to have it upgraded to your level at least. Summoned minions, such as Mutant Companions and Drones, are also summoned at a level equal to their item level.

Gear that gives a buff, such as Accuracy, Haste, Recharge, or DamageBuff, does -not- scale with level; you can safely leave gear with these bonuses at a low level, and still receive the full effect. Further, Children and Kangaroo Pets automatically summon at a level equal to the player's, and so they do not need to be upgraded either.

The process of actually upgrading an item is covered in the Crafting Guide (put link here)

Stacking Bonuses

Bluntly, there are a lot of options available for gear. To see a list of all gear items in game, you can check the wiki [here, and gear modifiers can be found here. Essentially, a piece of gear is like a new power for your character, while the gear modifiers provide various bonuses, either directly to the item in question or to whoever it is used on. For example, the 'Physical Armor' item is 'Target: Self' and 'Auto: Self', which means the bonuses it gives (+1 Physical Damage Resist and +3 Max HP) are passive bonuses just for having it equipped. Any modifiers that are added to this item will apply their Ally benefit as a passive bonus. The Liquid Bandage is an active item; when used, it targets an ally and heals them, as well as applying a Regen and Healgain buff. Any modifiers added to this item apply their Ally benefit as an active bonus. Weapons deal damage and sometimes apply negative status effects to enemies; some modifiers have enemy effects, and will apply those to targets hit by a weapon.

Although it is possible to stack bonuses from several pieces of gear, bonuses will only apply once per named source. It is possible to own and equip four different Generic Armors, but you will only receive the bonus from whichever one is the strongest. Gear modifiers act the same way; it is possible to have a Fast Physical Armor, a Fast Module, and a Fast Shield, but you can only get the passive bonus from Fast once. However, the passive bonus and the active bonus of a mod will stack - someone with Fast armor can still get the full effect of a Fast Banner, for example. If you want to stack Haste, you will need to use different items that provide a Haste bonus (such as the Overclocker and the Cybernetic Reflex Enhancer) and utilize different modifiers (like one item with Fast and one item with Cool).

Cost Effectiveness

One thing that can often surprise people is that the top of the line gear is expensive. Many modifiers apply a percentage based increase to the cost of an item, which means it adds up quickly when you start adding three or four modifiers to what you are building. A Nanite Buffer without any modifiers costs 80,000 credits, five common mechanical salvage, and one uncommon electric salvage. A Heavy, Improved, Miniaturized Nanite Buffer costs 924,000 credits, and requires 62 common salvage and 5 uncommon (and one uncommon salvage costs 100 common salvage). When it comes to actual performance, even though the three-mod buffer is over ten times as expensive as the unmodded one, it only provides 36 HP Buffer (before level scaling), while the unmodified buffer provides an HP Buffer of 25 (before level scaling). Unmodified Phyiscal Armor provides 1.0 Physical Damage Resist and 3.0 Max HP for 200 creds and 10 common salvage, while a maxed out Heavy, Overwhelming, Improved, Miniaturized Physical Armor costs close to 6,000 credits and 400 salvage, for 2.0 Physical Damage Resist and 6.0 Max HP.

Essentially, the cost of improving an item increases far, far faster than the increase in a gear's bonuses. There are many people who have complained that, if they can't get the best gear, they may as well use nothing until they can afford the top gear. This is silly. Most basic gear is relatively cheap, and it can be exchanged later when you can afford it. Even items with only two modifiers are around half as expensive as a three-mod item, and can still be very useful.

So, what are some key modifiers to know when you start putting together gear?

• Generic Status Modifiers: Heavy and Overwhelming are frequently used on almost everything, sometimes just one or the other, sometimes both. Heavy increases all status effects from an item by 30%, while Overwhelming is more expensive but increases all status effects by 40%. Improved will also increase all stats by 10%, and is fairly cheap. I typically recommend at least one on an item if it has any effect on stats.
• Loadout Modifiers: Miniaturized, Ruggedized, Ergonomic, and Modular all reduce the loadout and/or upkeep of an item. While this has no direct impact on the item's stats, it does mean you can get more total gear.
• New Status Bonuses: These are modifiers that add fully new stats to an item. For some items (modules, banners, amplifiers) you need at least one of these, as the base item has no effect without one. For other items, it lets you customize what benefits the item gives or what penalties it inflicts.

Distillations

Once your gear is built and ready, it can have distillations added to it afterwards. Every gear item has five available points; a level 1 distillation takes 1 points, a level 2 distillation takes 2 points, a level 3 distillation takes 4 points, and a level 4 distillation takes all 5. So, your gear can have:

• A single level 4 distillation, OR
• One level 3 distillation and one level 1, OR
• Two level 2 distillations and one level 1, OR
• One level 2 distillation and three level 1, OR
• Five level 1 distillations

Any character can put a level 1 distillation on an item. In order to put larger distillations on, a character must have the Installation skill. However, that is only to put the distills on the item; no skill is required to use one that has already been added to an item.

In addition, all distillations have a loadout requirement for them to be able to fit on an item.