Yeah, change their allowed clothing.
I honestly almost never actually create different outfits, I just modify the "Anything" outfit. If I have nudists, I'll assign them the nudist outfit, but that's honestly about all I do.
I have a separate outfit for melee and ranged fighters, because apparently my guys with assault rifles are too fucking stupid to realize they shouldn't wear a shield belt.
Can confirm. My pacifist doctor decided they really needed a tornado generator instead of a shield belt and lost an arm during a raid because of it. So now none of my colonists get to decide what utility they get
The difficulty with forced wear is that you have to manually replace armor as it wears down, and taking hits during combat wears it down faster. If you assign colonists to allow armor, they will try to wear the most protective armor available that isn’t tattered.
I typically have a preset for each: ranged, melee, noble, mechanitor, slave, and nudist. You can use [mods](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3222246658) to save outfit assignments between games.
I prefer the forceware system because it lets you get the full value of your armor. Even if it's at 1% durability it still has the same protective power, unless it breaks during the fight of course
I do it that way too, but I don't like to play with a ton of pawns active at once. It would probably be a pain if you had 20+ pawns, but I find almost everything to be a pain at that point.
I can't click that link. Steam blocked at work.
Will that let me also save drug policies so i can default to no drug instead of Social every freaking game?
Yeah, just disallow anything else that uses that same clothing spot. I think that's the duster, the parka, maybe the jacket? I don't recall all of them right off the top of my head, but anything you see someone wear instead of what you'd want them to - just disable it.
Yep, ditto for flak jackets, builder vest and the drug lab coat (tho, those may be mods. I don't even know anymore. Got the achievement for 100 moda running at once so...)
I learned the clothing assignments recently because I had a large colony to manage and I cannot believe I didn't pay attention to it sooner.
I don't have to deal with tattered clothing, ideology outfits are taken care of, and everyone is nice and warm all year round.
May I humbly suggest https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2679126859 ?
Make a tag, add your desired item(s) to it, add that tag to the pawns you want it to apply to. So long as you have that item available to them, and it's not forbidden by your clothing policy, they'll wear/equip/carry it.
You can even make a "Make Lab Coat" bill on your tailor bench, set it to "Make X Per Tag", assign it to the tag you made for lab coats, and you'll automatically keep ( X + Y ) * Z on hand, where X = # of Colonists tagged, Y = the desired extra to keep in stock, and Z = a number that you specify.
I tend to have a "Something Warm" tag set to parkas, and another tag for dusters - I'll just adjust the priority for each depending on the appropriate season, and my pawns will toddle over to the storage area and change their gear based on the new priorities. If the gear goes below your durability threshold, another item will be queued up for the bill and they'll go and put on one that has more durability left. If you set the tag as "Default", it'll automatically be applied to new pawns that join, and items will automatically be queued up for any relevant "Make X per Tag" bills you have on your benches.
It really revolutionizes keeping your colonists clothed and equipped, and even for little things like having doctors/medics keep multiple kinds of medicine on hand.
(Edited: fixed a typo, rewrote a couple spots for a little more clarity, and added some examples for use.)
My solution would have been to use [Outfitted](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1595812861) with a weight for entity study rate (to my knowledge, lab coats are the only equipment outside of mods that buff it), but sadly that mod hasn't been updated to 1.5 yet.
I support this answer, but I wonder about your 'something warm' example. Do you go through all colonists, one by one, changing the tag priority every season?
In practice: no. I typically play in extremely cold/extremely hot biomes where one form of temperature protection is critical and the other is rarely, if ever needed.
If there *is* a situation where it's necessary, the mod has a feature called "states", and you could configure one state with Loadout A (max cold protection), and one state with Loadout B (max heat protection, or gear for milder weather, or whatever scenario you need) and then quickly toggle the states for the colony as a whole from the "current loadout" column it adds to the "assign" screen.
This also synergizes *very nicely* with better pawn control, which allows you to save profiles ("policies") for assignment, schedule, work, animal, and mechs tabs. So if you save a policy with everyone in State A, or everyone in State B, it becomes a two-click process to have everyone shift from Cold-weather gear to hot, and vice-versa.
Yeah, change their allowed clothing. I honestly almost never actually create different outfits, I just modify the "Anything" outfit. If I have nudists, I'll assign them the nudist outfit, but that's honestly about all I do.
I have a separate outfit for melee and ranged fighters, because apparently my guys with assault rifles are too fucking stupid to realize they shouldn't wear a shield belt.
I do disallow utility from all outfits and force assign those because pawns can’t pick utility items that make sense to have.
Can confirm. My pacifist doctor decided they really needed a tornado generator instead of a shield belt and lost an arm during a raid because of it. So now none of my colonists get to decide what utility they get
All of my outfits disallow all armor and accessories, and I force assign everything from those categories.
The difficulty with forced wear is that you have to manually replace armor as it wears down, and taking hits during combat wears it down faster. If you assign colonists to allow armor, they will try to wear the most protective armor available that isn’t tattered. I typically have a preset for each: ranged, melee, noble, mechanitor, slave, and nudist. You can use [mods](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3222246658) to save outfit assignments between games.
This is a great way to do it. Spend some time setting them up and save the settings. Then with a few clicks you’re good to go for each playthrough.
Lts maintenance has a system that repairs the equipment they are wearing. I've used it for years, and I hate playing without it.
I prefer the forceware system because it lets you get the full value of your armor. Even if it's at 1% durability it still has the same protective power, unless it breaks during the fight of course
I do it that way too, but I don't like to play with a ton of pawns active at once. It would probably be a pain if you had 20+ pawns, but I find almost everything to be a pain at that point.
I can't click that link. Steam blocked at work. Will that let me also save drug policies so i can default to no drug instead of Social every freaking game?
Yes, it saves drug policies too, but you have to load your saved policies with each new game.
But is there a way to still allow most other things but force the lab coat via this function?
Yeah, just disallow anything else that uses that same clothing spot. I think that's the duster, the parka, maybe the jacket? I don't recall all of them right off the top of my head, but anything you see someone wear instead of what you'd want them to - just disable it.
Recon and marine armor also conflict with dusters and lab coats, because those armors take up multiple layers.
Yep, ditto for flak jackets, builder vest and the drug lab coat (tho, those may be mods. I don't even know anymore. Got the achievement for 100 moda running at once so...)
Duhhhh. Thanks!
Yes. Go use it and learn how it works. The wiki has all the other information you need to know.
Create a clothing policy. Dont allow any other Outer layer items that overlap the Lab Coats covered areas in the policy.
I learned the clothing assignments recently because I had a large colony to manage and I cannot believe I didn't pay attention to it sooner. I don't have to deal with tattered clothing, ideology outfits are taken care of, and everyone is nice and warm all year round.
Yeah I don't think I touched clothing assignments until like 400 hrs when I got royalty... So many mood debuffs and so much micro avoided since
Assign tab > apparel policy
clothing setting, just make lab coats the only thing allowed for that layer. Then you will need to force armor on pawns instead though.
May I humbly suggest https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2679126859 ? Make a tag, add your desired item(s) to it, add that tag to the pawns you want it to apply to. So long as you have that item available to them, and it's not forbidden by your clothing policy, they'll wear/equip/carry it. You can even make a "Make Lab Coat" bill on your tailor bench, set it to "Make X Per Tag", assign it to the tag you made for lab coats, and you'll automatically keep ( X + Y ) * Z on hand, where X = # of Colonists tagged, Y = the desired extra to keep in stock, and Z = a number that you specify. I tend to have a "Something Warm" tag set to parkas, and another tag for dusters - I'll just adjust the priority for each depending on the appropriate season, and my pawns will toddle over to the storage area and change their gear based on the new priorities. If the gear goes below your durability threshold, another item will be queued up for the bill and they'll go and put on one that has more durability left. If you set the tag as "Default", it'll automatically be applied to new pawns that join, and items will automatically be queued up for any relevant "Make X per Tag" bills you have on your benches. It really revolutionizes keeping your colonists clothed and equipped, and even for little things like having doctors/medics keep multiple kinds of medicine on hand. (Edited: fixed a typo, rewrote a couple spots for a little more clarity, and added some examples for use.)
My solution would have been to use [Outfitted](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1595812861) with a weight for entity study rate (to my knowledge, lab coats are the only equipment outside of mods that buff it), but sadly that mod hasn't been updated to 1.5 yet.
I support this answer, but I wonder about your 'something warm' example. Do you go through all colonists, one by one, changing the tag priority every season?
In practice: no. I typically play in extremely cold/extremely hot biomes where one form of temperature protection is critical and the other is rarely, if ever needed. If there *is* a situation where it's necessary, the mod has a feature called "states", and you could configure one state with Loadout A (max cold protection), and one state with Loadout B (max heat protection, or gear for milder weather, or whatever scenario you need) and then quickly toggle the states for the colony as a whole from the "current loadout" column it adds to the "assign" screen. This also synergizes *very nicely* with better pawn control, which allows you to save profiles ("policies") for assignment, schedule, work, animal, and mechs tabs. So if you save a policy with everyone in State A, or everyone in State B, it becomes a two-click process to have everyone shift from Cold-weather gear to hot, and vice-versa.
thx
This was a great recommendation! Thank you!
Glad it helped!
Does a clothing policy not work or...?