One of the most memorable points of medieval time is the combat. It feels like with every part of history battles are the most important events for keeping time. In Going Medieval, your settlement will also face it’s fair share of warfare. (Nice rhyme).
While settling up your colony your settlers will have to fight off cannibals and raiders. You can create a large array of weapons to help you beat them off and armor to help protect your settlers. This guide will show you how to can create your own armor from different materials in Going Medieval.
How to Craft Armor
There is a fairly long process into creating armor in Going Medieval. To make armor you will have to follow these steps:
- Unlock armor making through research
- Build an Armorer’s table
- Obtain armor crafting materials (Iron, Leather)
- Add an armor piece to the production queue
- Have a settler create the product
As you can see it is no simple task to start creating pieces of armor in Going Medieval. The process is a fairly long one that will entail creating enough research to unlock the armor first. The more time you spend researching and unlocking armor, the better the armor will get. For example, the first armor research item will unlock leather gambesons and armor and after that you will move on to mail and plate armors. Below, you can find a step-by-step guide on all of the 5 steps mentioned above.
Unlocking Armor Crafting Through Research
Before you are able to start crafting your own types of armor in Going Medieval, you will first have to unlock the ability to do so. This is done through research. In Going Medieval your settlers will write books and pages at the research tables. Every piece of research will require your colony to have a certain amount of these research items before you can unlock it. Check out this guide to getting started with research first.
Once you’ve unlocked the research tab you can find the armor research at the top of the menu. There are four different types of research related to clothing and armor. You will have to unlock the previous research before you can move on to the next. This goes in the following order:
- Tailoring: Basic Clothing
- Armourer: Leather Armor and Basic Shields
- Armourer II: Mail Armor and Helmet
- Armourer III: Plate Armor and Great Helm
Currently Armourer III is the best research available in Going Medieval in terms of armor creation. This is subject to change due to the fact Going Medieval is an early access game and still in development. You can see which items each research level unlocks by selecting the research topic. One the top left you will see the unlocks.
I’d recommend researching at least Armourer before going on a large production spree. As you only need 30 more chronicle after tailoring it is rather easy to obtain. This will save you wasting all of your hard-earned leather on basic clothing.
Building an Armourer’s Table
Once you’ve unlocked the research you are able to build an armourer’s table. This is where all of your armor pieces are created. To build an armourer’s table open up the production building menu by selecting the icon from the bottom left. You can also press F2 to open this menu up. There is only one variant of the Armourer’s table. This will cost 80 Wood and 5 Iron Ingots to build which means you will also need to create a Smelting Furnace and process some iron too.
Simply find the table and place it down somewhere. One of your settlers assigned to construction will build the table when it becomes a priority. One tip for building the table is to try to create a Workshop room. As you can see in the image above you can create specific rooms with an actual purpose. By placing specific items based on the certain criteria, you can boost the production of you working facilities. For the workshop, if you have a production facility like the armourer’s table and two Wall Tool Shelf in a room it will become a workshop and boost production speed considerably.
Obtaining Materials For Crating Armor
Obviously you will have to make the armor out of something! There are a few different materials that you can create armor with in. In the beginning you will mainly be using Iron and Leather. Some other resources that you can make armor out of include gold and steel (through research).
Both of the two main ingredients are fairly easy to come by. With leather, you will have to hunt the local fauna in your area. You can hunt deer, rabbits and wolves in order to get leather. These are then processed at the butchering table for raw meats and hides. Iron, is a little bit more difficult to obtain. You will have to mine and process the metal in a smelting furnace. You can read all about how to get iron in this guide.
Once you have a good amount of iron or leather you’ll be able to start producing your own armors. We will move on to production in the next section of this guide.
How to Craft Armor and Shields in Going Medieval
Now we’re finally getting to the exciting part! With the materials ready and a place to create armor, we are ready to get started producing! To add a piece of armor to the production queue, select the Armourer’s table. This will open a menu where you can see a few icons. At the top of the menu is the products. You will be able to select any piece you have unlocked here. Add whichever armor you’d like to the production menu by selecting it.
Now that we have an object in the production queue, we can change some settings about it. You can decide how many of the item you’d like to produce with the Amount drop-down menu. You can change this to a set amount, to keep a certain stockpile amount or simply produce the item forever. By selecting the Edit button you can decide which materials to use. As you can see in the image above, we can use Iron, Steel or Gold to create the Mail Armor item. Now, a colonist assigned to Smithing will create the item when it becomes a priority.
Having a Settler Produce Armor
Only settlers that are allowed to smith will create armor. In general, you should only try to have your best smith making the armor. Armor along with other weapons and clothing items have a quality rating. This rating goes in the following order: Flimsy<Sturdy<Good<Fine<Superior<Flawless. The quality of your produced armor will depend on the Smithing level of your settler who crafted the item. Better smiths will produce better quality gear. Obviously to avoid wasting resources you should always have the best worker for the job.
You can check the stats of a settler by selecting them and selecting the icon that looks like a star. Hear you can see all of their stat laid out. You can hover over each stat to get a quick description on what the skill actually does. You can see this information quickly for every settler by selecting the Jobs panel at the top of the UI. This will give a great overlook on every settler and their best skills.
So that was all about making armor in Going Medieval. You should have a good idea on how to protect your settlers from enemies. The armor should help you keep your melee settlers alive through just about anything! Remember if you’ve defeated some raiders you can even have your settlers take their armor and wear it as well!