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Suits and armour: forged for the depths.
Suits keep you alive against heat, pressure, drowning, radiation and acid. Armour cuts the damage from blows and blasts. Both are forged at a Forge Bench from a shell, a liner and fittings.
Making a suit or armour piece
Open a Forge Bench and pick the piece. Each piece has three parts:
- Shell: any solid with hardness 1 or more (fibre and hide shells are allowed too). The shell sets how good the piece is.
- Liner: fibre, hide or an insulator (wool, rubber, plastic, aerogel).
- Fittings: a metal or alloy.
| Piece | Shell | Liner | Fittings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooling Suit, Pressure Suit, Dive Tank, Radiation Cape, Acid Suit | 8 | 4 | 2 |
| Helmet | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| Cuirass | 10 | 4 | 2 |
| Greaves | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| Boots | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Shield | 6 | 3 | 2 |
Units of material. The crafting screen picks the most heat- and pressure-resistant shell you can afford. A piece takes 4 seconds. Its quality can come out Fine, Superb or Flawless, and it has a durability of 300 plus 500 times the shell's toughness plus 100 times the fittings' toughness. See Tools and tiers for how quality works.
Wear suits in the Gear slots. Your body without a suit stands up to 30 degrees and 30 atmospheres.
What each suit does
| Suit | Rating comes from the shell | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Cooling Suit | Heat it holds off, in degrees | melting point x (0.55 + 0.45 / (1 + conductivity / 40)), plus the liner bonus |
| Pressure Suit | Atmospheres it holds | (hardness x 90 + density x 12) x (0.5 + toughness) |
| Dive Tank | Extra seconds of air | 40 + 60 x elasticity + up to 60 more for a light shell |
| Radiation Cape | Share of radiation blocked | 1 - e^(-density / 6) |
| Acid Suit | Share of acid kept off | acid-proof shells: 70 + 4 x hardness, at most 97. Others: 3 x hardness, at most 25. |
The liner adds to a Cooling Suit: 30 degrees for plain fibre or hide, 60 for an insulator such as wool, and a further 20 if it is very springy.
A Pressure Suit also holds your air in where there is none to breathe, such as in space: the better the suit, the slower your air runs out. A suit worn down below a third of its life starts to leak.
Ratings by shell material
Cooling is the shell alone (add the liner bonus). Radiation and acid are percentages.
| Shell | Cooling | Pressure | Dive (s) | Radiation | Acid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copper | 641 | 510 | 97 | 78% | 9% |
| Bronze | 694 | 537 | 92 | 77% | 11% |
| Iron | 1077 | 609 | 97 | 73% | 14% |
| Steel | 1088 | 790 | 106 | 73% | 17% |
| Ceramic | 1771 | 159 | 100 | 33% | 7% |
| Titanium Alloy | 1539 | 819 | 123 | 52% | 19% |
| Tungsten | 2171 | 961 | 70 | 96% | 23% |
| Tungsten Carbide | 1923 | 1017 | 64 | 93% | 25% |
| Graphene | 2001 | 562 | 119 | 31% | 15% |
| Star-Iron | 2253 | 969 | 117 | 41% | 25% |
| Pyrrhonite | 2685 | 1138 | 76 | 85% | 25% |
| Hexaferrum | 3650 | 1200 | 76 | 89% | 25% |
| Stellarite | 3841 | 1294 | 70 | 92% | 25% |
| Nova Alloy | 4221 | 1395 | 76 | 86% | 25% |
| Stone | 1168 | 178 | 93 | 35% | 7% |
| Glass | 1385 | 101 | 100 | 34% | 5% |
| Lead | 258 | 312 | 55 | 85% | 5% |
| Oak | 250 | 197 | 126 | 12% | 5% |
| Leather | 250 | 112 | 138 | 14% | 2% |
Acid-proof shells such as Vitriolite (the acid world's crystal) and Waxbark do far better for the Acid Suit, as the formula says. Light, flexible shells make the best Dive Tanks.
Which suit for which depth?
On Home the rock temperature and pressure rise with depth like this:
| Depth (m) | Layer | Temperature (degrees) | Pressure (atm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 300 | Base of the Crust | 129 | 26 |
| 600 | Upper Mantle | 298 | 77 |
| 1200 | Base of the Upper Mantle | 713 | 232 |
| 1700 | Lower Mantle | 1113 | 404 |
| 2200 | Base of the Lower Mantle | 1551 | 610 |
| 2500 | Outer Core | 1829 | 748 |
| 2800 | Base of the Outer Core | 2117 | 896 |
| 3000 | The core | 2314 | 1001 |
As a rough guide for cooling suits: copper holds to about 1100 m, iron to about 1700 m, ceramic to about 2500 m, tungsten to about 2900 m and Hexaferrum all the way to the core. For pressure suits: copper to about 2000 m, iron about 2200 m, steel about 2550 m, tungsten about 2850 m, and Coreforged alloys or Hexaferrum to the core. See Going deep.
Armour
Armour protects against damage from creature blows, blasts, falls, lightning, rubble, fire and lava. It never affects hunger, cold, pressure or air.
- Points for a whole set are 6 + 14 times the shell's tool score, shared out: Cuirass 40%, Greaves 25%, Helmet 20%, Boots 15%.
- A blow is cut by
points / (points + 120), never more than 70%. - Matching pieces: two pieces of one material are worth 10% more, three 15% more and a full set of four 25% more.
- A full set also gets a bonus from its material.
- A fall is only half as softened by plating as other harm.
- Every blow that lands costs each piece a point of wear.
| Shell | Whole set | Helmet | Cuirass | Greaves | Boots | Shield turns |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raw Hide | 12 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 10% |
| Leather | 16 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 12% |
| Stone | 28 | 6 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 16% |
| Bone | 30 | 6 | 12 | 8 | 5 | 17% |
| Copper | 45 | 9 | 18 | 11 | 7 | 22% |
| Bronze | 51 | 10 | 20 | 13 | 8 | 24% |
| Iron | 61 | 12 | 24 | 15 | 9 | 28% |
| Steel | 77 | 15 | 31 | 19 | 12 | 34% |
| Titanium Alloy | 87 | 17 | 35 | 22 | 13 | 37% |
| Tungsten | 90 | 18 | 36 | 23 | 14 | 38% |
| Tungsten Carbide | 105 | 21 | 42 | 26 | 16 | 43% |
| Star-Iron | 108 | 22 | 43 | 27 | 16 | 44% |
| Pyrrhonite | 115 | 23 | 46 | 29 | 17 | 45% |
| Hexaferrum | 119 | 24 | 47 | 30 | 18 | 45% |
| Stellarite | 130 | 26 | 52 | 32 | 19 | 45% |
| Nova Alloy | 140 | 28 | 56 | 35 | 21 | 45% |
These are the numbers before any set bonus. Armour climbs the same ladder as tools.
Set perks
Wear four pieces of the same shell material and you also get a perk:
| Shell is | Perk |
|---|---|
| Hide, fibre, wood or bone | Half the harm from a fall |
| Rock, ceramic, glass or crystal | Half the harm from fire and lava |
| A metal of tool tier 4 or higher (Iron, Steel and up) | Two fifths less from explosions |
| Anything else (Copper, Bronze...) | A tenth less from creatures |
| A Coreforged alloy (tool tier 7 or more) | A tenth less from everything |
Shields
A shield turns a share of a blow or blast: 8% plus 5% of the shell's tool score, at most 45%. Crouch behind it and it works twice as well (never more than 80%). It turns creature blows and blasts, but not falls or fire.
Tips
- Make a new Cooling Suit before each new layer. A suit that is not good enough shows red on the Strata Gauge.
- Wool is the best liner for a Cooling Suit.
- Dense metals such as Lead and Tungsten block the most radiation.
- Keep spare armour on a long trip: every blow wears every piece.
← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.