Guide to Equipment

Wearing Armour and having a Weapon is essential in order to win fights early on.
==Weapons==
Characters have two weapon slots named "Weapon 1" and "Weapon 2". The top slot can contain two small weapons. The topmost weapon will be used, unless the character is experiencing debuffs. Personal debuffs would be using a Heavy Weapon while in a building, or losing an arm. Because every weapon requires the right arm-there are no "One-handed weapons". In a similar manner, martial arts is disabled if the limbs required for certain attacks are below 0 health. Heavy weapons, crossbows and polearms require both arms to be healthy, or splinted above 0 HP. 
===Weapon Selection===
Certain weapons are better (or worse) depending on who you are fighting, what they are wearing, and where the battle is happening.
*Will be swung very slowly, if the person lacks the strength to use them. (Blunt damage x 40 is req strength)
*More damage when you have levels in a specific weapons category. 
*Consider armor penetration against armored enemies or cutting weapons against unarmored fighters.
*Some weapons have specific race-based damage (i.e. Polearms doing more to animals, Falling Sun doing more to Gorillos, Flesh Cleaver does more damage to all humanoid non-robots).
*Some have a indoors penalty which reduces both their Melee Attack and Defense when used in a building.
*Some have +Melee Attack, which can allow characters with lower stats to hit more skilled fighters.
*Some weapons more reach than others which when swung can whack multiple enemies at once.
*Weapon damage when hitting is based on your statistics for Dexterity, Strength, and your skill for the weapon class.Shidan (July 31, 2020). Kenshi Damage Calculator (Reddit). Retrieved October 6, 2022. This is multiplied by the weapon quality. So, you can expect a new recruit with high strength, but low dexterity to be better with any kind of blunt weapons. Dexterity and strength will also drop when your person takes moderate chest and stomach damage. 
*Katanas have a double strike animation, this is a twentyish percent chance to strike twice with a katana. This special animation comes at the cost at having less AOE than other weapons.
===Combat Styles===
One approach is to ensure your squad has a diverse array of wielded weapons to counter enemy defenses and find ways to syncronize attacks. A staggering blow from a heavy weapon provides openings for fast attackers to hit several in a row.
Additionally, it is wise to include a backup weapon that trains a supplementary skill (i.e. blunt armor penetration from a Spiked Club while you use a Katana as your main). Generally, having an armor-penetrating weapon (either primary or secondary) is advantageous for a few lategame enemies which have decent quality armor.
=== Weapon Weight ===
In order to swing the weapon at normal speed it is recommended that characters have a Strength greater than forty times the blunt damage of the weapon in the case of injuries.
=== Weapon Reach ===
Weapons like the Wakizashi require the person to stand closer to the target before swinging. Polearms and Heavy Weapons, have a much longer reach. 
== Armour ==
Light Armour, Medium Armour, and Heavy Armour can be mixed based on need. Lighter armors like Assassin's Rags are selected for the buff to Statistics. Heavier armors won't have these buffs. The heaviest armor can be worn without training, but the weight (or Encumbrance) of your armor and equipment will cause a penalty to run speed and your dodge statistic. If you Encumbrance is over 0% then your combat speed is also reduced. 
=== Basic Details ===
* Weight: The weight of the armour.
* Coverage: Percentages of armour coverage on Armour display how likely they are to mitigate damage taken on that part of the blocking character's body.
* Skills: Multiplier applied to the skill of the wearer
* Armor Layer have an order on which gets calculated first starting from: Head, Armour, Pants, Shirt, and then Boots. If there is a multiple different armour that covers the same spot, the damage reduction will be continued to the next layer if its coverage applies. 
** Damage converted by cut resistance efficiency ignores the layers.
* Quality ordered from [Prototype], [Shoddy], [Standard], [High], [Specialist], and [Masterwork], corresponding to Gear_Prototype, Gear_Cheap, Gear_Standard, Gear_Good, Great_Quality and Gear_Master in the FCS.
=== Damage Resistances ===
A more detailed explanation about the way which Damage resistance is calculated can be found on the page Resistances.
* Blunt Resistance: Reduce the blunt damage received by flat percentage.
* Cut Resistance: Reduces the cut damage received by the flat percentage.
* Cut Resistance Efficiency: The percentage of "resisted" cut damage that gets completely negated. The rest of the "resisted" cut damage is transformed into stun damage.
* Harpoon Resistance: The amount of harpoon damage which will go through the cut resistance/effiency of the armour. Note that unlike cut resist the harpoon damage that is not mitigated doesn't actually damage you. Once you get through the Harpoon resistance though you take unmitigated cut damage.
=== Weather Coverage ===
More information about equipment with weather protection can be found on the Weather Effects page.
* Duststorm: Reduces the stat penalty effect of the dust storm.
* Acid: Reduces the damage received from acid rain.
* Burning: Reduces damage received from beams in Venge.
* Gas: Reduces damage received from clouds of poison gas in the Black Desert and Ashlands.
=== Racial Armour Restrictions ===
Humans and Shek characters have armour slots for Headgear, Shirts, Body Armour, Legwear, and Footwear. Skeletons and Hive Soldiers only have general slots for Body Armour and Legwear. There are Hive shirts which are both only wearable by hivers and the only shirts which hivers can wear. Hive Workers and Hive Princes can wear Headgear as well as Body Armour and Legwear. However there are a few helmets which Hiver Workers, Princes and Sheks are unable to wear.
 	Human 	Shek 	Skeleton 	Hive 	Hive 	Hive
 	Human 	Shek 	Skeleton 	Worker Drone 	Soldier Drone 	Prince
Headgear 	- 	Few restrictionsCannot wear: Wool Hat, Cap, Hachigane, Side-Angle Hachigane	Slot disabled	Many restrictionsCannot wear: Flared Helmet, Masked Helmet, Visored Helmet, Spiked Helmet, Karuta Zukin, Kusari Zukin, Crab Helmet	Slot disabled 	Few restrictions
Body Armour	- 	- 	- 	- 	- 	-
Shirts 	Restricted to normal shirts	Restricted to normal shirts 	Slot disabled	Restricted to Hiver shirts 	Restricted to Hiver shirts	Restricted to Hiver shirts
Legwear 	- 	- 	- 	- 	- 	-
Footwear 	- 	- 	Slot disabled	Slot disabled 	Slot disabled 	Slot disabled
===Example=== 
*Assume a character wears a [Masterwork] Samurai Armour. With 81.25% cut resistance and 90% cut resistance efficiency.
*When you receive 100 cut damage, the armour will resist the cut damage by 81.25%, meaning you will only take 18.75 cut damage, because 18.75% of the damage isn't resisted.
*The blocked 81.25 damage will then be converted by the cut resistance efficiency and you will receive 8.125 blunt damage additionally because 10% of resisted damage isn't nullified completely due the the efficiency.
*Assume the next layer hit is your [Masterwork] Leather Turtleneck with 33.44% cut resistance and 50% cut resistance efficiency.
**The next layer will reduce the remaining 18.75 cut damage from the previous resistance. It turns the 18.75 cut damage into 12.48 cut (18.75 x 0.6656) and the 6.27 resisted damage becomes 3.135 (6.27 x 0.5).
*The final damage received totals 12.48 Cut damage and 11.26 (8.125 + 3.135) blunt damage.
== Backpacks ==
See Backpacks. The reader should note which stats are debuffed when wearing the pack. 
* "Combat Skills' - A direct subtraction to your success chance: Melee Attack and Melee Defence.
* Combat speed - You're slower at attacking and blocking in combat.
* Stealth and dodge - See Stealth and Dodge.
Newer players might bring up the statistics page for their character, as a guide for whom to fight. This is a mistake. Instead look at the Melee attack in the sidebar. This shows your current statistics, not the raw ones. Encumbrance is yet another stat and you should be careful not to fight if it's too high as it gives you a penalty to combat speed, dodge and movement speed. Also be warned that if you drop your stolen backpack while you are inside a store, then it may be a crime to pick it up again.
== Crossbows ==
See Crossbows.
* Tier 1: Junkbow and Tooth Pick.
* Tier 2: Crossbows using Regular bolts (Ranger, Oldworld Bow MkI, Oldworld Bow MkII), Heavy bolts (Spring Bat), or Long bolts (Eagle's Cross). 
According to the weapon statskalimarah (June 5, 2019) Crossbow Analysis (Reddit). Retrieved October 19, 2022., any crossbow in the second tier does about the same amount of damage per second. However, the quality modifiers- Shoddy to Masterwork, have a major effect. But you don't need damage output to use crossbows. Every crossbow staggers an enemy, every time. It also causes bleed damage. And raw DPS doesn't make much difference when the enemy has armours that block a set amount of damage from each bolt. That is, if your bow does 60 damage, and the enemy has 32 harpoon resistance armour, then every shot will do about 28 cut damage along with the stun damage taken from the armour reducing damage taken. You have a crossbow stat, and this applies to the 'skill required' listed on the crossbow itself. 
==References==
Category:Guides