Leather Armor & Armor Statistics | Kenshi Armor Guide 

5:19 lol what an absolute unit of a shek

One thing to note is that cut efficiency in vanilla is bugged (or at least poorly designed) it doesn't just reduce the effectiveness of your armor vs cut damage, it causes a percent of cut damage to turn into blunt. The problem is that when it does this, it skips all of the rest of your armor which can be a big deal if you've got overlapping armor pieces for protection. This can mean in vanilla if you get hit somewhere with heavy protection but a single piece on that body part has low efficiency most of that damage just ignores your armor entirely and you get obliterated despite heavy protections. This is why the No Cut Efficiency mod is super popular. It just changes all armor to have the cut resistance modified by the efficiency and removes the efficiency stat itself.

This video was suggested to me by RU-vid. Goodjob youtube. Few lil corrections/comments. Just want to start by saying thank you for not suggesting any cheat mods which "fix" cut eff in a video which covers Dustcoat. So many people who don't understand how the armour mechanics of the game work bring that mod up and it's just refreshing to not hear it for once. 4:20 The chest/stomach have an equal chance to be hit for Soldierbots, Sheks, Greenlanders and Scorchlanders. Only Hivers and normal Skeletons have a higher chest hitchance. +8 attack over an enemy is a 1.4x chance to attack (Assuming fcs is telling the truth) over an opponent. It has the highest Attack, Dex and combat speed of any armour piece in the game. Pair it with 2x Skeleton Arms and you have 1.875x Dex. I use it on every character after I am done training ofc. As for coverage Dark Leather Shirt is all you need with decent Toughness. Attack is King :) 9:35 Traders Leather are... Eh for crafting. Heart Protectors are amazing instead. The materials used to craft an item is determined based off its coverage. And the amount of materials affects the time to craft. This makes Traders Leathers... Not that great. Not the worst but not great. They actually weigh 3.875kg each. 13:00 Dark Leather Shirt is the best shirt in late game imo. Highest blunt resist, no debuffs... Definitely worth it. 14:00 Armour King sells MW Hive vest on occasion :) And as for the pants the have the same cut resist. Just the leather pants have an insane blunt dmg resist boost.

I dont know why there has been a sudden resurgence for Kenshi but im here for it man!

One thing to note is that the cut resistance efficiency causes the (in the first example) 40% lost from the efficiency to be applied as blunt damage. It sounds like a cool idea until you realize that not only does it not take into account the blunt resistance of the armour piece that is doing the blocking (kenshi uses a procedural system where it checks your layers in order from the outside in to see if the attack bypasses them or not based on a roll against the coverage stat) but it applies the resulting blunt damage directly to you, bypassing all layers below. This has the paradoxical effect of making it so that rather often you take _less_ damage by removing certain layers of armour. A lot of people mod this out with good reason. TL;DR: Cut efficiency doesn't really work as described in the video, but the (completely fair) mods that remove it make both the player's and enemies' armour behave exactly as he describes.

Ngl kenshi is one of the few games I actually believe has well balanced armor system like it is the only game in which have geniuinely wanted to use every piece of armor (for stats not roleplay) Dust coat gang fo life

Literally was just looking for an armor guide, then one of the best kenshi guide RU-vidrs drops this! Nice!

When I played this game ages ago, I remember running into a discussion about how multiple pieces of armor who cover the same area work together to reduce damage. The entire thing was very confusing (people even said that the order in which you equip the pieces matters). If you could make an in-depth video about the calculations that happen in these scenarios, that would be great.

Cut efficiency works slightly differently. It is just damage that spills over, it is stun/blunt damage. Basically - let's say you have 75% cut resist, and 90% efficiency. And you take a 100damage hit. 75 damage will be resisted - but only 90% of that will be fully negated. 10% of this 75% will go through as blunt damage, ignoring all the armour. Think of it this way - you get hit by a sword, your armour prevents the cut, but you were still hit by what is basically a metal rod - you will still feel it. That is what cut efficiency simulates. Remaining 25% will pass through armour and can be stopped by other layers. As for the armours themselves. Drifter's Leather Jacket is basically the best armour for crossbow users if you do not want to sacrifice all the defence. There is one important element - and that is something the game normally doesn't show - crossbow bonuses and penalties apply to turrets as well - so you DO NOT want your turret guards wear anything with crossbow penalty, unless there is zero chance of friendly fire. Assassin't and Ninja rags, let's be honest, are not really combat outfits - you probably shouldn't wear them for any real combat whatsoever. For real armours - you generally want to aim for Samurai Cloth pants for that sweet 100% leg coverage, which allows you to use sandals without any real loss of protection. Stomach coverage of 50% is also pretty sweet. Leather Turtleneck is by far the best shirt you can get overall, because of lack of any debuffs - well worth the time it requires to craft. As for top - for pure combat - Mercenary leather is probably the best option, but one can't argue with sheer utility of the Dustcoat - it provides decent protection, amazing coverage AND comes with amazing bonuses - allowing you to gain full burn and acid resist easily - this is THE armour for harsh environments.

psyched for an eventual heavy armor stats video!

correct me if i am wrong but i always thought the cut resistance efficiency worked like this (drifters boot example) : incoming 100 cut damage - you resist 41 % - receive 59 cut damage - of the 41 % resisted 60 & is resisted outright (24,6) - the other 40% (16,4) is converted to blunt damage - 26% blunt resistance so 4,264 is resisted - that leaves you with 12,136 blunt damage that is applied directly and ignores al possible other armor layers. so a total of 59 cut damage that might still be resisted by a other piece of armor that covers the same area (restart the calculation) and 12,136 unlockable blunt damage

Great overview -- looking forward to more armor guides!

thank you for the solid videos man, the base location are among the most detailed and helpful guides anywhere

I have noticed watching these stat videos almost all your people use a polearm. They are my favorite weapon and my main character almost always has one, paired with a longsword as a back up, as it is my favorite one hand weapon.

These guides are great. They have helped me alot as a new player.

Really appreciate the work!

i was just wondering this, looking forward to it

Great vid man

Very nice video, you should do the heavy and light versions too

This helps a lot thanks. I'm kind anew to the game although I've had it for a long time I've been getting through the learning curves this game has to offer like willingly getting destroyed in a fight to get tougher and overloading yourself on weight to get tougher. I've even abused the beak thing bug to upgrade my martial arts and dexterity. I'm now on a mission to find the best armors for the soldiers in my base after getting my "main" character strong enough to solo fight off dust bandits on the area between shem and the swamp(for my hash farm) I've been assassinating genin ninjas to take their ninja rags but I've been looking for a place to get the blue prints for all stealth ninja armor as well as I was trying to find out what are the best armors for that and what armors are best for crafting and selling to make a little extra(although with my current set up it doesn't seem like anything beats hash production that's fairly close to flats lagoon. Still I found this information on armor to be extremely helpful.

It could be nice to see some gear combinations that work well together for specific tasks. Like how samurai pants can cover for the lack of stomach protection on chest armor and so on.

It's been a little while since I got the kenshi itch, time to binge your videos I guess 😂

Yeah ur videos are cool thanks oh you should do a video on settling a region that borders ashlands like The Pits or Sonorous dark, think like some hyper CBT zone

I like what @FrankieWuzHere said countering the assassin's rags point at 4:20, I am holding out to have my man a bit stronger before I switch to heavy armor, but I put all my characters in this stuff from the start of the game if I can, Assassin's Rags + Samurai Clothpants is my Go-To. Coolness factor, but also, two important things: Combat Speed Effect, and 20% to Dexterity. Included is a bonus explanation as to why Assassin's Rags are underrated amazing gear for Heavy Weapons users while looking cool as hell with them. (I also think Heavy Weapons users are WAY better fits for this armor piece, than "Katana Men or Bowmen") Often times, people let "Perfect be the enemy of Good." All you need is a guy who can heal in rotation and these are the best 1-40 training clothes you could ask for. Who cares that your attack is slightly higher and you're not getting the perfect -100 all stats debuff for max training speed early in the game. These clothes let you HIT FASTER. Landing shots is XP. The Defense malus is improving your ability to train defense faster. I know, I'm playing with MCA, a combat animation mod, and more attack slots, and that may affect my performance compared to a vanilla run, but I honestly might keep my current heavy weapons guy in this armor because attacking faster with a big weapon that can cleave multiple people in one big hit with enough defense to block quickly on his own is so much more valuable than him taking 2 damage a hit but being locked into ONLY blocking and taking hits, and never throwing them, or worse, starting to throw one but he's so slow he gets hit out of it, then proceeds to just get beat up without ever throwing a shot. This was a huge problem I experience with Samurai Armor. My only concession I'd be willing to make is Merc Plate with Clothpants, or Samurai Pants. But i remain adamant that -Combat Speed AND -Dex alone, but especially in conjunction is a devastating trade off that is often way overlooked, and that +Combat Speed and +Dex are absolute blessings on any piece of gear

Great guide! Will definitely look forward to more on the med and heavy armors. Any interest in a weapon guide series? I think another use case for assassin's rags is for characters with high toughness and dex. The poor defenses don't hurt as much at those higher levels, and the offensive bonuses get powerful at higher levels.

Ah, good ole dustcoats. I remember setting up a base in Venge. Skylasers were a nice first defense when they hit, they often hit the actual base itself more than the enemy tho but thanks to modding fu, nobody lost anything due to burns lol.

I wasn't planning on doing leather, but I need boots for my squad. Hope I get better than drifter's boots soon. I'm doing good in my base in Shem. No food production yet. I only do that when I get hydrophonics. But I hav 4 large hemp farms for weapon and armour production. I try to level my squad with katanas first to get dexterity. But I got destroyed trying to get into the Burning Forest lab. Those mech spiders needs heavier stuff.

As always great guide, but I think you should make videos about each armor slot instead of armor clases. Like instead of all leather armor you can review all headgear (if it's too much for one video you can make 3 for heavy, medium and light helmets)

I've spent many moons away from this moon. Thanks for the refresher. Now to go pick fights I know I can't win.

Subbing and liking a lot of your videos here. I last played Kenshi in 2020, and have been planning to get back into it. Naturally, your "Should you settle?" videos have been really helpful, both in allowing me to plan what I want to do, as well as refreshing me on what I need to do. Are there any starting off tips you can offer me? Also, what is the mod scene looking like these days? Any must have recommendations?

Hey sentient Hamster named Paul. Unrelated to the video but I would like to make a suggestion. You could make a review for cities to settle in. Just like the guides for Base Locations but just for buying a house in the city/waystation. You could compare them by available shops, buyable houses or things to do outside of the city (fighting local bandits or turning in bountys). They could be shorter than the base location videos and you could combine a few of them. Anyways, I just want to see more Kenshi content from you and this video again was entertaining and useful 👍 Edit: I just saw your Top 3 cities guide to settle and now I feel a bit dumb 🤷‍♂

Personally if I play Kenshi completely vanilla I feel naked. With the awesome and rather well balanced light and heavy armor sets you can get through mods there’s really no excuse not to use them imo

Oh cool!

armor is wierd in kenshi ,also as far i know cut efficency isnt actually what it seems on paper, in the fcs its listed as "cut into stun" "amount of cut damage that becomes stun damage instead, is a percentage of cut resistance" from my understanding it means ,that any cut damage done is then gonna have the % of cut resistance turned into blunt damage. still not quite sure about this though. also assassins rags only become pretty good when ur 90+ in stats and solo character since stray swings cant be blocked.

I feel your underestimating how powerfull assassin's rags dex and combat speed buffs are it allows your weaker caracter to punch above there weight as long as your stronger caracters can take most of the aggro wen you are outnumbered

I'm a honorary member of the conscript/mercenary leather armor fan club

I thought cut efficiency referred to how much was transferred to blunt damage which would then bypass cut resistance and transfer to blunt damage? I dunno, I was always murky on what exactly the calculations were

Thank you my fluffy kenshi companion😂

Leather or light armour can be very good for when you know you can tank and survive the the fights, you most well take less to hold more, but then again, kenshi is broken, you can setup a blacksmith that makes swords or heart protectors that the shops buy infinite amounts of without the price dropping, all while buying the mats in the town you craft it in. But coming back to my comment, play what can be imagined, I made it so I can only craft suits of armour (all pieces) and it has to be the correct faction armour to sell to that town, or a poor town like Brink would want affordable gear, something like mercenary armour, non faction armour, doubt you can code a mod for this, but you can do it regardless, no strict way to play kenshi, doing the best methods is boring once you done it all. I had over 10m cats on my last playthrough, because I was a vigorous trader and produced swords on day 1 with a little black fella and a hammer, not really much micro.

So i dont know if it is jsut me, but i thought i had my video speed down by like, 25%, but it was running at normal. Unsure if you edited it to go slower or if it is just the way you talk. Great video though

All hail the scarlet king

I always pick longcoat because the texture doesn't look like it was borrowed from Morrowind

Leather shirts take 24 hours to make. Very efficient item to level armor smiting with.

First!

FYI damage that isnt blocked by cutting efficiency is delivered to character as blunt damage which bypasses all armour layers (idk why)

Do you play with mods? If so, would you be willing to share your list?

I have too much fun swinging a falling sun around with sandals and assassin's rags once you get to 70+ dex for me to ever rate it poorly.

Where is the headgear video?

be nice if they had durability kidna like in kingdom come deliverance, wouldnt be oh so hard, would just add another layer to the game

big

second!

second

KENSHI. CONTENT. 🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍

Helmets are for the weak

It is very easy to get the blue print for the dustcoat. I bought one in Mongrel and forgot about it. Then I bought another one in Deadland again. LOL Dustcoat is the best all purpose lighter armor for both fighters and archers. I have a couple of guys who can fight and do crossbows, so it is obviously the best choice for them. AND I have two level 85 amor guys who kept turning skins into leather to level up their armor skill in Stack while my real base is in Squin. It is all about strategy. I had all specialist leather turtlenck shirts very early on in the game, like on Day 40 or 45.

Seems like a simple fix by kenshi dev. Why is there a mod for this again?