Best Loadout?

[Rambler]

After figuring out where the engineering blueprints were located my armorsmiths learned how to make plate armor. I've also found most of the weapon blueprints and since katanas got nerfed it's worth considering other weapons.

I picked the plated jacket as the chest piece. It transfers 40% cut damage but has 100% coverage for several body parts and it's relatively light. With a leather turtleneck or chainmail underneath it's much easier to beat the spiders. Full coverage seems very important for hivers, possibly skeletons as well because they don't have the second chest slot. Seems like leather should be required in addition to plates and fabric, although the armor smith only has two ingredient slots.

Chain mail seems better than the leather turtleneck but not completely sure about this with the plate jacket converting cut damage into blunt damage.

Samurai helmets seem like a good head piece, penalties don't seem that bad. Iron hats might be better in areas with acid rain though, and every squad member looks the same while wearing samurai helmets. Heard rumors that there's a head piece with much more acid protection but don't know if there's a blueprint for that.

Right now I'm just using drifter's pants for leg protection. Leg injuries aren't fatal and samurai legplates have a significant speed penalty. Haven't tried sneaky chain yet.

Plated boots seem better than the regular leather boots even though they reduce speed a bit. Samurai boots seem like too much of a tradeoff.

Desert sabres seem like a great weapon. Several major bonuses, especially against spiders, and no significant penalties. Not sure how well they work against opponents with heavy armor though. There's also the foreign sabre but haven't seen a blueprint for that.

[Hatsune_Neko]

depends on what you are going up against. so there really is no best. since each requires training to use.

[Tearlach]

I prefer Holy nation breastplate (samurai armour for where you can't wear HN gear), chainmail (blackened if available), police helmet, samurai clothpants and wooden sandals. My new recruits usually run with leather turtlenecks, karuta zukins and plate jackets till they got some skills under their belts.

I haven't really been testing weapons that much, just put a wide spread on my characters. It would help if you could compare attack speed of weapons somehow.

[Mattk50]

Still think heavy katanas like toppers or nodachis have the best potential due to the faster training speeds associated. I do like using a mix of all weapons though, just to make sure all the bases are covored and to better understand training speeds.

[Rambler]

It's hard to do a weapon comparison without knowing attack speed, all I see is the total damage and whether the weapon causes bleeding. Certain weapons, like polearms, seem very weak unless the attacks are very frequent. The combo attacks could also be important for weapon choice, especially the ones that hit multiple targets, and it doesn't seem like there's any information about them in game.