Clothing and item combos

[codfish107]

So i have a dilemma on my current Stalker game in regards to what coat and pant i should go with and if i should have hatchet+knife or hacksaw+knife. My plan is to get all of the craftables i need/want in PV (which i already have most of the furs and saplings i need) and then make my way to FM to make extra arrowheads and then live in HRV with a supply drop just inside MT that i will only go to in emergencies. This is one of the first long runs i have done/planning since bears and mooses have been added and i have recently been playing Stalker alot, i have almost exclusively played Voyager before.

For coats i honestly can't decide between the 3 craftables and the expedition parka. I know the parka has the best weight ratio and wind bonus and can be repair with cloth, but it only has an equal/worse warmth bonus, i will atleast be wearing a craftable on the outside for the protection bonus negating the parkas wind bonus, and there is the argument that i should save my limited cloth for headgear and underlayer clothing. I know the bearskin is arguably the best but it would be the second hardest to repair. The wolfskin is a bit warmer, lighter, and vastly easier to repair than the moose hide, but the moose hide greatly beats it in the categories. 

Also i do know that it's quicker and more efficient to harvest both moose items and just recraft them then to cure another hide and repair them, but that doesn't help me when i'm trying to stay in HRV. Would it be best to wear two of the craftables and just keep the parka on me as a spare?

For pants it's either snow pants and deerskin or double deerskin, much for the same reasons above.

For hatchet vs hacksaw when having a knife. The saw can do everything the hatch can except cut the larger limbs, but does all of it slower and loses condition quicker. When i'm ready to travel i should have at least 1 1/2 whetstones that i would want to save for my knife. I can of course repair the saw with quality tools, but the tools and several pieces of metal would add a significant amount of extra weight. Of course the hatch would be best if i can find plenty of whetstones on my way to HRV, but if i can't would the bringing the saw be best even with added weight in order to save  whetstones for my knife?

 

Sorry for the long questions and please try not to give advice/suggestions on other things. I do want to try and figure out everything on my own, but i simply can't decide on these three things. 

 

[stratvox]

My favourite coat combo has become moose cloak outside, bear coat inside. Yeah, it's heavy. Really good windchill and water protection, and really good armour, and lots of warmth.

One of the best things about a moose cloak is you can go hit a table, harvest it for the moose hide, and with four cured guts make a new cloak at 100%. The big drawback there is how long it takes compared to repairing, but otoh if you don't happen to have a moose hide around to repair it, you can get back to a 100% value in about twenty hours of labour... so two days.

Also with HRV, I've found it to be very windy, and the moose cloak's excellent wind chill protection is really nice to have there.

[stratvox]

Oh, another thing about having the bear skin coat on the inside slot. According to thelongdark.wikia.com/wiki/Decay the bearskin coat decays slowest when worn on the inside slot, at 0.033%/day. With a moose hide cloak, it will almost never take damage from animal attacks. At that rate of decay, it takes ten days to drop a single percent, and a thousand to drop to zero. It's durable and doesn't often need repair.

[JAFO]

10 minutes ago, stratvox said:

My favourite coat combo

2 minutes ago, stratvox said:

Oh, another thing

Thanks mate.. some good tips there!

 

[codfish107]

Okay cool never knew that about the bearskin and I guess that's kinda the whole point of the moosehide is to protect the inner coat. Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll go for that combo. 

[stratvox]

More fun facts: if you get mauled by a bear with full condition and a moose cloak on, you'll have 55 condition at the end of the mauling. The cloak will take twenty damage plus/minus five. Close encounters with hostile wildlife become significantly more survivable if you have it.

[stratvox]

10 minutes ago, codfish107 said:

Okay cool never knew that about the bearskin and I guess that's kinda the whole point of the moosehide is to protect the inner coat. Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll go for that combo. 

Yeah, if you look over the decay tables on that page, you'll find that's really really slow compared to almost everything else.

[JAFO]

2 minutes ago, stratvox said:

More fun facts: if you get mauled by a bear with full condition and a moose cloak on, you'll have 55 condition at the end of the mauling. The cloak will take twenty damage plus/minus five. Close encounters with hostile wildlife become significantly more survivable if you have it.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I'm armoured like a tank...

[codfish107]

41 minutes ago, stratvox said:

Yeah, if you look over the decay tables on that page, you'll find that's really really slow compared to almost everything else.

That is something I had not considered before for clothing.

[stratvox]

6 hours ago, stratvox said:

More fun facts: if you get mauled by a bear with full condition and a moose cloak on, you'll have 55 condition at the end of the mauling. The cloak will take twenty damage plus/minus five. Close encounters with hostile wildlife become significantly more survivable if you have it.

I should clarify this because it's not accurate, strictly speaking. The moose cloak can be part of a fashionable ensemble that will add up to 50% armour, fully half of which comes from the cloak. With 50% armour, you'll take 45 damage from a bear mauling, not 90, leaving you with 55% condition afterwards assuming full condition when the bear attacked. The cloak contributes a total savings of 22.5 damage to that total.

Look great! Save condition! Get your moose cloak today!

[JAFO]

30 minutes ago, stratvox said:

The moose cloak can be part of a fashionable ensemble that
...
Look great! Save condition! Get your moose cloak today!

I smell a promising career as a high-end clothing salesman...

[codfish107]

13 hours ago, stratvox said:

The moose cloak can be part of a fashionable ensemble that will add up to 50% armour, fully half of which comes from the cloak. With 50% armour, you'll take 45 damage from a bear mauling, not 90, leaving you with 55% condition afterwards

That got me thinking about what maximum possible protection you can have is. According to the stats on the wikia, 107% is the maximum possible protection. So would that make you immune to wildlife damage and only your clothing takes damage and maybe even deal extra damage to the animal?

[Spakerman]

how would you get 107%?

Only the items worn on outer layer contribute to your defense bonus. Wearing two combat pants for example does not give you benefit of the defense bonus from both pairs.

[codfish107]

1 hour ago, Spakerman said:

how would you get 107%?

Only the items worn on outer layer contribute to your defense bonus. Wearing two combat pants for example does not give you benefit of the defense bonus from both pairs.

Oh damn okay I didn't know that.  Wow the more time I spend on the forums, the more small things like that i find out that i didn't know. 

[Spakerman]

On 9/14/2018 at 5:36 PM, codfish107 said:

Oh damn okay I didn't know that.  Wow the more time I spend on the forums, the more small things like that i find out that i didn't know. 

It's the same deal for the wind protection bonus.

yeah, I learn new things every day around here.  It has elevated my game a lot. 

[codfish107]

3 hours ago, Spakerman said:

It's the same deal for the wind protection bonus.

yeah, I learn new things every day around here.  It has elevated my game a lot. 

That i did know.

Yeah i might have 200+ hours on the game but that's over the majority of the game's life and i generally only play for a month after major updates, so it's very easy for me to have missed something added or changed over 2 updates ago.

Though i have actually been playing Vigilant Flame for awhile now and have actually held enough interest to finally survive 50+ days. Between being active on the forums and playing the long game for the first time, i have learned a lot this past month or so.

I normally lose interest after 20 days in a game so this is actually quite significant for me.

 

[palbi]

Well, I have quite different experiences. Whatever clothing I had so far, I got freezing. So, as a tactic, I choose not to wear any animal-skin clothes. They are just slowing me down outside, whereas inside houses or caves (the smaller and bigger ones equally) a slightly better "set" will just do the job. This way, if I'm on the road and the wheather gets though I can sprint longer  to a safe place. This means more to me, than feeling "just" -30 Celsius instead of -45....

Yeah, one more thing: once, in Interloper, I luckily found good clothes in the first couple of days - and the constant-bad wheather came earlier. I would guess, the AI sets the wheather to our level of clothing.

[Tylor9261]

Started a new run on Stalker. Found 3 pairs of snowpants and workpants, balaclava, mariners pea coat, gauntlets and an expedition parka. Plus having the fishermens sweater and thin wool underneath with wool toque and ear wraps....this game has been very generous to me this run. Only 20+ days in and I'm in the same dilemma of what to roll with for equipment aswell. Started DP, got hacksaw and heavy hammer and pry bar. So looting was a breeze all through there and CH. Now in PV and attempting TWM soon. Never been there and never seen footage or pictures. I've been playing PS4 for only a few months. I could use tips as well

[codfish107]

You have two snow pants and gauntlets so you can hold off on getting the deerskin pants and rabbit mittens until you start running out of stuff to repair them. Since you have the mariner's pea coat and expedition parka, you could probably skip the wolf coat. Treat your wool toque well since that's the best hat and there's no animal skin hat yet to replace it.

[Tylor9261]

Awesome advice! I ended up hunting a couple of wolves for food variety and pelts in CH. But they're just waiting there. And I havent touched a single deer or rabbit yet. Still have over 20+ roubds too for the rifle. So I'll be ready to hunt waaay later. But still excellent advice! If I find a long wool scarf, would that be preferable to the wool toque with the balaclava? I've seen people talk about that on other threads. And I was curious about the mukluks vs. deerskin boots? As of right now, I'm alternating hiking boots and work boots. Haven't had the luck of footwear yet.

[Tylor9261]

*rounds. Sorry, I hate my phone haha

[JAFO]

3 hours ago, Tylor9261 said:

I was curious about the mukluks vs. deerskin boots?

Mukluks are better than deerskin boots.

Also, Wool Toques are a favourite chew toy of wolves.. well, it's probably your head they like actually, but same thing in the end..  so if at all possible, always have a spare.

[codfish107]

6 hours ago, Tylor9261 said:

If I find a long wool scarf, would that be preferable to the wool toque with the balaclava?

No it's not at all. That's the best combo you can have for head gear and have a spare wool toque like @JAFO said.

Rabbit mittens and Gauntlets are about tied for best. They only have minor differences in waterproof, protection, and mobility. Gauntlets repair twice as much but do require cured leather to where as rabbit pelts are a renewable resource.

Expedition parka is only beaten by the bearskin coat, which you do eventually want. I would personally wear the mariner pea coat instead of the wolfskin coat. 

Snow pants are easily the best pants. Maybe consider swapping out a pair for deerskin pants if cloth is getting low.

If you can't find Mukluks or Insulated boots, then make deerskin boots. I personally wouldn't wear ski boots over deerskin boots.

http://thelongdark.wikia.com/wiki/Clothing

Just remember that wind and protection bonuses only apply on the outermost layers and that mending can vary in materials required, time required, and amount of conditioned repaired per mend. Also it's not a bad idea to keep outer layer spares on you or at different base camps in case if the animals think you look tastier than normal.

I think that's all i got.