Are multi attribute outfits garbage and only useful for recycling?
(This question is regarding survival mode.)
As we know most of the outfits we find are multi attribute outfits, e.g. the legendary Minuteman Uniform that has S+2, P+2, I+2, A+2.
I have always considered them, no matter if normal, rare or legendary, to be pretty garbage only good for recycling to get junk. Most of the time you want one attribute to be as high as possible for e.g. production rooms, workshops or E for leveling. As far as I know for finding items on expeditions P is most important, so I would still prefer a P+5 Sturdy Vault Suit or a legendary P+7 if I have it.
The only scenario I can think of is for finding junk where survival is the only concern and the total amount of SPECIAL increases the survivability against during events and their SPECIAL attribute checks. But I am not sure if this is how it works.
So is there any reason to keep and use multi attribute outfits or should I throw them in the grinder as soon as I get them?
Solution 1:
To answer this question, we first need to answer "What are attributes used for?"
AFAIK, this is basically all that are affected by your attributes:
- Running Rooms
- Fighting Threats (combat or hazard)
- Miscellaneous bonuses
1) Easy, you want highest, multi-stats are useless here.
2) Irrelevant, since it is majority your weapon. No real consideration. Putting out fires apparently is INT based, but I can't find any real differences. Once you have properly leveled dwellers (level 1, 17 END), it becomes irrelevant.
3) This part is interesting. I can think of two sub-categories here:
- Max HP increase when leveling up
- Radiation damage resistance
END bonuses to your hit points are not retroactive, so when you level up a dweller from 1, you want to start with 10 END, and wear a +7 END armor. No multi-stat here.
Radiation resist tops out at 11 END. If you have a max HP dweller (level 50, END 17 since level 1), you will want to hit 11 END just so you don't need to deal with radiation damage. You think rad-aways will handle that, but the radiation damage lowers your stim-pak efficiency. Might as well make him immune. This is the primary use I have found of multi-stat armor.
I also use them for cosmetic reasons. In the first 3 levels, I leave two slots opened in all the rooms and have the two guys in the vault door dressed differently. Then I give them the strongest weapons I have. I then drag these two guys along with invaders and it kills the invaders MUCH faster.
Solution 2:
For the time inside Vault keep max mono stat outfit. However, it makes sense in early game, when not all your dwellers are with all 10 stats, to keep some multi stat outfits.
For Wasteland:
You need >=11 Endurance, check this answer (https://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/318416/171544) for reasons.
Each stat is important for something
As a result you are interested in Outfits with maximum sum of stats, favoring Endurance over others. However, during exploration of Wasteland you may get random encounters and they work same way as Quest fights.
For Quests/Random Encounters:
- You need to maximize Perception (if I'm not mistaken) for better shooting
- Then you would like to have Luck for better critical shots landing
- If during this combat you will get LvlUp! you'd better to have maximum Endurance
So here similar to Wastes, if you have +P+L or similar outfit you may benefit more from wearing it that from outfit with single stat.
I played this game some time ago, so any corrections are welcome.