Grenadier armor

Grenadier armor is a set of power armor added by the Royalty DLC. It can effectively block gunshots, cuts, blunt trauma, or burns while allowing the user to launch frag grenades at the expense of inflicting a move speed penalty. It is a variant of Marine armor and forms a full set along with the Marine helmet

Acquisition

Grenadier armor can be crafted at a Fabrication bench once the Marine armor research project has been completed. Each set requires 100 Plasteel, 20 Uranium, 4 Advanced components, 75 Steel, 4 Components, 60,000 ticks (16.67 mins) of work, and a Crafting skill of 7.

Alternatively, the armor can be received as a quest reward, purchased from traders, or found on Raiders.

Summary

While less protective against all damage types compared to the base marine armor, the grenadier armor incorporates an integrated frag launcher.

When equipped, a grenadier armor reduces the pawn's base move speed by −0.40 c/s. As offsets such as these apply before multiplicative effects such as from Moving capacity, the actual impact on move speed can be larger or smaller than this value. For example, a pawn with 125% Moving would have their speed decreased by −0.5 c/s, while a pawn with only 50% Moving would only have their speed decreased by −0.2 c/s. See Move Speed for details.

When worn by a slave, grenadier armor increases the rate that suppression is lost by 30% per day. This stacks additively with all other forms of suppression loss rate offsets.

Frag launcher

Grenadier armor contains an integrated grenade launcher with similar stats to frag grenades but which does not prevent the wearer from using another weapon nor a utility item. Up to two grenades can be launched before the launcher must be reloaded at a cost of 25 steel per grenade. The process takes 60 ticks (1 sec). The grenades can be reloaded individually or all at once. The pawn will never automatically use the launcher - instead it must be manually activated by the player similar to Utility items. It is unclear if this restriction also applies to NPCs.^{[Fact Check]}

Unlike frag grenades, grenadier armor has a quality – an awful grenadier armor will deal less damage (90%, 45) than frag grenades (50), while masterwork (125%, 62) and legendary (150%, 75) quality armor has increased damage.

The warmup time before firing the launcher is affected by the Aiming Time stat of the wearer.

Wearing a shield belt prevents firing the grenade launcher.

Analysis

While less protective than Marine Armor, it gives the user the ability to launch up to two frag grenades at will before requiring a reload. These weapons are equivalent to the regular thrown variant but do not take up a weapon slot. This can be useful to give the user flexibility in combat, such as giving snipers a crowd control option.

Compared to flak vests

Compared to a flak vest and duster, the grenadier armor offers strictly superior protection to the arms and legs when all items are the same quality, regardless of duster material. The interactions of two layers are dictated by the games Armor Rating calculations, and the result is that grenadier armor provides torso, neck and shoulders protection approximately equivalent to the combination of a devilstrand duster and flak vest, assuming all items are the same quality. However, replacing the devilstrand with hyperweave or thrumbofur results in more protection to those areas. So while grenadier armor is more protective than a devilstrand duster and flak vest, when compared to better duster materials, the overall impact of the opposing traits of superior arm and leg protection and inferior torso, neck and shoulder protection on pawn survivability is currently unclear. However, in this comparison, it should be noted that several vital organs are in the torso and the destruction of these can result in immediate death. It should also be noted that grenadier armor comes with a Move Speed debuff of -0.40 c\s, while a flak vest has a penalty of only -0.12c/s meaning there may be a reason to choose the flak vest and duster even with inferior protection.

Compared to marine armor

Grenadier armor is a sidegrade to Marine armor. Grenadier armor has −5% Sharp and −5% Blunt armor, before quality. This discrepancy increases at higher quality; at legendary quality, grenadier armor is −9% less protective in both armor categories. Grenadier armor, like marine armor, slows a pawn down by −0.40 c/s. Both grenadier and marine armor require 100 Plasteel, 20 Uranium, 4 Advanced components, with grenadier armor also requiring an additional 75 steel and 4 components. Each grenade fired must be reloaded using 25 steel. Steel and components are relatively easy to acquire or produce, so the material cost difference is not terribly significant between the two armors.

The advantage of grenadier armor over marine armor is in allowing a colonist to use a non-grenade primary weapon, while still being able to use grenades when the need arises. This allows the combination of the longer range offered by most firearms and the high stopping power of a grenade against enemies who get close. The grenades fired by a grenadier armor-equipped pawn can do significant damage against targets who are clumped together, but are not effective against large or armored targets. However, the limited number of charges and natural inaccuracy and low range of grenades limits the effectiveness of this armor. While grenades can be useful, this usefulness is only seen at close range.

Compared to other power armors

Grenadier armor is a half step below Marine armor, the middle tier power armor, in terms of protection. While it is still as or more protective than an equivalent set of Recon armor, it only really maintains its superiority against sharp threats. Against secondary threats like blunt and fire, it is largely equivalent. Unlike marine armor, recon armor of better quality offers superior protection, while for some tiers it must be 2 tiers higher than a set of Cataphract armor to be more protective.

Stats table

Grenadier armor	Sharp	Blunt	Heat	HP	Insulation - Cold	Insulation - Heat	Market Value
Quality	Sharp	Blunt	Heat	HP	Insulation - Cold	Insulation - Heat	Market Value
Awful	60.6%	24%	29.4%	340	-25.6 °C (-46.1 °F)	+7.2 °C (13 °F)	1150
Poor	80.8%	32%	39.2%	340	-28.8 °C (-51.8 °F)	+8.1 °C (14.6 °F)	1730
Normal	101%	40%	49%	340	-32 °C (-57.6 °F)	+9 °C (16.2 °F)	2305
Good	116.15%	46%	56.35%	340	-35.2 °C (-63.4 °F)	+9.9 °C (17.8 °F)	2805
Excellent	131.3%	52%	63.7%	340	-38.4 °C (-69.1 °F)	+10.8 °C (19.4 °F)	3305
Masterwork	146.45%	58%	71.05%	340	-48 °C (-86.4 °F)	+13.5 °C (24.3 °F)	4305
Legendary	181.8%	72%	88.2%	340	-57.6 °C (-103.7 °F)	+16.2 °C (29.2 °F)	5305

^{For the full effects of qualities, see Quality.}

Attack table

Grenadier armor			DPS (Optimal)	Market value
Quality	Dam.	AP	DPS (Optimal)	Market value
Awful	45	9%	18	1150
Poor	50	10%	20	1730
Normal	50	10%	20	2305
Good	50	10%	20	2805
Excellent	50	10%	20	3305
Masterwork	62.5	12.5%	25	4305
Legendary	75	15%	30	5305

^{For the full effects of qualities, see Quality.}

Trivia

It appears that this armor was originally meant to be worn by Imperial Grenadiers as implied by the item description. This is further evidenced by the Version 1.3.3066 patch notes which mention that they "updated" to spawn with plain marine armor. As 1.3.3066 was the first stable version with grenadiers in the game, added as part of the Breacher raids that update brought, they must have spawned with Grenadier armor in unstable or internal testing versions prior to this.

It is unknown why this was changed. The most obvious theories are:

Ludeon never developed a method for NPC pawns to use the armor's ability and it was therefore incongruous to spawn in it; or
That to fullfil the vision for their role as breachers, they needed more than two grenades but redundantly spawning with both the grenadier armor and frag grenades would be incongrous; or
Some combination of both 1 and 2.

However, without confirmation from Ludeon staff, these remain only theories.

Version history

1.2.2719 - Added.
1.3.3066 - Listed as no longer spawning on Imperial Grenadiers, however see Trivia. Wearing a shield belt now prevents firing the grenade launcher. Previously, it could be fired but could only target only adjacent squares (including diagonals), meaning that self-detonation was likely. However, the protection offered by grenadier armor and the delay before detonation meant that, with careful timing, the wearer could escape without injury, making it a dangerous but potentially useful option in emergencies.