Subscribe to download
Sensible Balance: Clothing Protection Values Overhaul

December 2024 Note: This is created and tested for Build 41 only, the Build 42 update will come in the future! The mod may still work fine with Build 42 - but use at your own risk!

Rebalances all vanilla (and some modded) clothing in-game for protection values, weights, and adds missing insulation, wind resistance, and water resistance where they are appropriate. Makes changes without incompatibilities with other mods. Contains two optional small sub-mods. See changelog for mod support information.

Detailed Description:

In the vanilla game the utility of clothing as a means of defence is rather marginal as a great fraction of items do not offer even scratch protection. A lot of clothing also carries penalties to combat speed and movement speed, however due to one reason or another, Build 41 does not apply the movement speed penalty. You have to ask, is it worth using heavy clothing which is prone to overheating the player and affects combat speed in order to get the desired percentages of protection - bearing in mind that most clothing receives holes upon damage (and all layers of clothing on that body part receive holes if a zombie successfully injures the player) which renders that area of the body unprotected from scratches, bites, and thermal insulation of the clothing items.
If you are curious, here is someone on reddit explaining how the injury system works.

All clothing has been rebalanced by hand. A lot of encumbrance values have been modified in the process (e.g. a t-shirt is certainly lighter than a pair of jeans, surely), missing insulation values (and wind and water resistances) have been corrected, and so on. Even the very basics will offer some sort of scratch and bite protection, and it now makes sense to layer up.

This does mean it is possible to achieve protection for 100% on a part of a body with several basic thick layers. What does this mean for tailoring? In the default game, the patches offer little protection until one can get higher levels of tailoring. Does this make the skill useless? Does it make clothing in general overpowered?

No. I would like to change the % offered by patches, however I found no easy way to do so. In the vanilla game tailoring fixes a hole on an item if your skill is at 8 or above if you are using the right material (e.g. leather strips for leather jacket). This way it is possible to mend your favourite outfit to keep your character in top condition through the later game. Also consider that you may be wearing a highly protective item on the outer layer which can only withstand one scratch or bite, dropping your resistance from 80% to e.g. 30%. Don’t forget that zombies will drag you down as a group regardless of what you are wearing.

A very small selection of items can no longer receive holes (e.g. bulletproof vests and firefighter jackets) and therefore act as ‘passive’ protection for the relevant parts of the body as long as they are worn, until their condition bar is depleted down to zero. It may not be 100% true to life that a bulletproof vest is resistant to this type of damage, however it does mean that it can now block more than 1 scratch, or 1 bite, or 1 bullet, before your entire upper torso is somehow exposed due to a ‘hole’.

Two additional sub-mods:

Lowers the chance of glasses falling in an attack (to 20% of the vanilla) and removes the probability of goggles falling during a zombie attack completely.
Makes changes without incompatibilities with other mods.

Rebalances the bags, a major change is to offer a combat speed penalty, as Build 41 does not have code to apply clothing or bag run speed penalty EDIT: Bags run speed is the only run penalty the game currently applies! No other clothes apply the run/movement penalty.

The combat speed penalty ranges from 1% to 4% (0.99 to 0.96 combat speed modifier) which is subtle, though may affect the speed more significantly when paired with heavy clothing. E.g., the schoolbag, small hiking bag, and satchel have a 1% combat speed penalty, whereas larger bags 2% and the military/largest backpacks a 4% penalty. The run speed modifier now matches the combat speed penalty, e.g. 4% for the run penalty on the large backpack.

The weight reduction percentage follows 50% for satchels and duffel bags (one strap), 60% for school bag, and 70% for all intentionally comfortable bags e.g. hiking bag, large hiking bag, large backpack, military backpack. Fanny Packs have an 80% reduction (and no movement/combat penalty). This means that the player's strength plays a greater role to their encumbrance than just their bag, and reaching for a larger backpack may not always be the best idea given the slight combat/run speed penalty (up to 4% for large/military backpack), so the 'linear upgrade of bags' part of gameplay is no longer necessary.

When in doubt, pick up a small hiking bag (1% penalty). Larger bags do just that - allow for greater capacity, as in, physical volume of things, not for greater weight reduction.

A few handheld bags/containers now have higher reduction, e.g. at least 20% to make them at least a little useful compared to holding items in your main inventory.

The bags have also been slightly reweighed to account for their bulk, e.g. storing a bag within your inventory or another bag will be more cumbersome.
Makes changes without incompatibilities with other mods.

Update the mod for Build 42 when the time comes.

Of course, if there are any issues or imbalances I will try and correct them. I use all my mods myself.

Please do not mod-pack or reupload this mod anywhere else –just share the link to this page.
I hope you enjoy this mod.

Workshop ID: 3287628235
Mod ID: sensiblebalanceclothingbags
Mod ID: sensiblebalanceclothingprotection
Mod ID: sensiblebalanceclothingglassesfall