I've used these mods (Pelador's originals and now Mlie's updates after the originals were abandoned) for several years now but never really dug too much into things. I tended to play on a 'favorite' biome and rarely strayed, so had little use for the idea of "what if I want to use something other than this pattern camo?"

(updated mod)
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2196949737

(original version, outdated but deserving of credit)
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2019776293

Recently I started playing 'full random' type plays where I randomly generate colonists & starting locations for the surprise, variation, and increased challenge (some do well, some fail spectacularly). This led to me needing to understand how the mechanics of it all work to make sure my colony/colonists last instead of depending on my old mentality "I'm in the jungle, so I wear jungle camo". I mean, if I'm on a desert oasis that's heavily overgrown with thick vegetation but also has lots of stone ground/hills, what works best? Can I wear my standard camo pattern on a raid where things might change? Will it work at all, or in some fractional amount if I'm in the 'wrong' camo type for a given encounter?

I asked in the comments of Mlie's updated release and was provided some basic insight: The biome seems to be the most important part, but it does factor in things like sand, etc.

But to what extent?

I wanted to know more, so I did a bunch of digging and some hours of testing.

Mlie was right, the most important question is 'what biome is it?'. That will answer about 75% of the question right there. All biomes, even modded biomes (which have GREAT support already patched in Pelador's original versions and continued in Mlie's updates) have 'standard' camo uses that tend to make sense. Yes, desert camo works well in desert biomes... but also tends to work well anywhere that is generally sandy or arid: shrublands, oases, savannas, and so on. Jungle and Woodland are pretty interchangeable, with each having some slight benefit over the other in areas that also tend to make a lot of sense - If it's what you'd tend to think of as thicker and more oppressive vegetation, jungle wins out slightly; while if it's more 'typical' woodland area with good vegetation but nothing crazy, woodland wins out. Arctic is pretty self-explanatory, in that if it's cold and snowy, it's going to work well while others don't do so great.

There is also a significant overlap between Woodland, Jungle, and Desert, and if in doubt in most typical biomes just go with your gut or decide which you like the best, the results may vary but it won't be game-breaking.


Soils and water go with the biome's preference in general, i.e. If the biome is woodland then a muddy patch doesn't matter. This includes rocky soils, muds, shallow water, deep water, marsh, and all the other variations of soil and water. Stone floors of any type favor Stone pattern camo, worked-tile floorings tend to go with Urban, sand goes to Desert pattern, and so on.


Woodland: Any stereotypical 'wooded' biome, unless standing on a non-wood crafted floor of any type. Forests, wetlands, swamps, grasslands, steppes, etc. Wooden flooring of virtually any kind will override a contradictory biome and use Woodland pattern for its effectiveness. Arguably the most broadly 'effective' type because it still works reasonably well in many biomes and over common floors.

Jungle: Anything thick and heavily overgrown. Rainforest, tropical settings, poison forests, and the surprise of 'Volcanic Flow' biome (which I was sure would use stone). I did not find any constructed floor types that default to Jungle other than some random floor from the Smokeleaf Industry mod, so all you potheads out there can have your hemp floors and jungle pattern camo to match. Compliments Woodland pattern, works reasonably well anywhere Woodland pattern works.

Desert: Any 'desert' (duh), oasis, savannah, arid shrubland, that sort of thing. Also stuff like sandbar, coastal dune, places that are obviously going to be sandy-theme. And straw floor, I guess because of the color. Or maybe someone really liked desert pattern camo but also loved to cover the entire map with straw floor. I dunno. Sandy ground type will override a biome in favor of Desert pattern, but I didn't find any others that favor Desert camo when reading through the def patches or in testing.

Stone: The only biome I found that seems to default to this camo type preference is the "Volcano" biome. However it's also useful anywhere there's rough (not smoothed) stone floors, stone tiles of virtually any type, concrete or pavement, that sort of thing. Pretty broadly effective, unless you are getting maps with very limited areas of stone ground or you never use decorative stone tiling. Can be reasonably effective on most Urban ground too.

Urban: One I never thought was really any good but I found out it's a surprising contender especially mid to late game where you're running around mostly on improved ground. Any sort of tile or flooring that is metallic in nature (steel, plasteel, silver, gold, jade, copper, uranium, insert random Mod-specific metals here), sterile tiles (metallic origin), any form of cloth or leather based carpet, that sort of thing. Can be effective during raids on enemy facilities when you depend heavily on pre-raid barrages because any rubble, burned floor such as wood or carpet, things like that will also override the biome specifics in favor of Urban pattern. It also works closely behind Stone pattern in any stone-specific areas but not well with snowy conditions.

Arctic: Far less situational than you would think, surprisingly. Obviously any ice or snow-bound biome is going to lean heavily here; Ice, tundra, sea ice, etc. Snow on the ground of any biome, even if it is only "dusting" will put this one in the lead. It can do okay on stone and even most urban ground as well giving it a pretty broad area of use. A lot less limited than I originally expected.

Specific caveats and other miscellaneous info:

There is a checkbox in the mod setting to put an overlay to show any colonist's camo effectiveness. I'd tried it before but could never find it, assuming the overlay would be over the pawn's portrait at the top of the screen, so I never used it. It's there, but not where you think and not easy to find. It's a TEENY, TINY LITTLE 'C' ON THE BOTTOM HALF OF THE PAWN'S BODY THAT YOU WON'T SEE UNLESS YOU ZOOM IN SO FAR THAT YOU CAN'T EFFECTIVELY CONTROL ANY COMBAT WHERE YOU'D BE WORRYING ABOUT CAMO. So yeah, it's there but it's almost impossible to see. Pause, zoom WAY in, check your pawns and maneuver if needed. Then zoom back out to see combat and unpause. Red is low camo effect, then increasing to orange, yellow, green, and blue for most effective level.

No amount of plant growth, no plant type, and no foliage is ever used for any camo effectiveness. So it doesn't matter that you're standing behind a row of trees surrounded by shrubs and grasses if the map is a different biome, your Woodland pattern camo isn't helping you there at all (well it is, but in a very minimal way).

Wood floors use Woodland pattern for their effectiveness, but wood bridges use Urban. So if your pawns are moving across a wooden bridge area, which looks like wood and your brain will think it's wood flooring, just know that you're losing effectiveness.

Frost does not work like snow, and does not provide any benefit for arctic camo. So if the ground is soil, even though it's frosted, your camo may or may not be working depending on biome or what ground is beneath that frost.

Smoothed stone (as in stone ground that is 'smoothed' not a type constructed from stone blocks or whatever) seems to default to biome standard instead of acting like other stone and providing bonuses to Stone, Urban and Arctic.

Wet sand defaults to the biome standard instead of using Desert preference like other sand ground.


Despite the mods' descriptions saying that colors can provide camo, I found no evidence of that (at least that was visible while testing in-game, or written into any defs that I read through with my very basic understanding of how this stuff's code works). I did my general testing with Marine Helmet, Marine Armor (the power armor stuff, not sure if one of my mods changed the name of it), Tactical Gloves and Tactical Boots all patterned in one of the 6 camo types and assigned to a pawn. I did some testing, then painted all the items bright blue using a paint objects mod. I saw no change in the effectiveness of the camo patterns in any biome or floor type after the dye was applied.

The layer that is using camo does seem to have some effectiveness. I did some limited testing with Flak Helmet, Vest, Pants, Tactical Boots and Gloves all in pattern specific camo but then covered it all up with a bright red Devilstrand Duster. The Duster covers everything but the head, hands, and feet, and I saw that the effectiveness of the camo seemed significantly reduced compared to all outer-facing garments being camo.

The mod descriptions state that the game checks for things like muzzle flash from firing guns, but I honestly can't think of a way to test that without pouring hours and hours and hours into triggered raids to record results and sift data, and I'm just not that patient. I will assume for my own games that in darkness firing a gun basically negates any camo because it tells the bad guys "HERE I AM" and they know roughly where to shoot. Daytime I don't know how much it affects it, I assume it does at least to a small degree.

Recon Armor does have a *slight* advantage over other 'passive' armor camos. Decide for yourself if the slightly higher chance of not getting shot at a few times is worth the slightly reduced protection compared to that provided by other armors.

I did not test active camo, this was only for passive camo effects.

you can see a percentage indication of the pawn's camo effectiveness and the type of camo being checked against in the pawn info card on the bottom left (highlighted in this screenshot in the red box).

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2632164491

The 'Woodland' is the game comparing the pawn's current camo to woodland because it is standing on a wooden floor, where the indicated 12% means the pawn's current camo (a tiny bit of desert camo) is only 12% effective at hiding him.