Fringe Planet is a cold place and the peons first defense against the cold is the clothes that they wake up wearing. Clothes have an important effect on not only the survival of a peon during the freezing weather they encounter, but also has an important effect on a peons morale.

All clothes have a warmth rating, which is determined by the quality of the garment as well as the material the garment is made from. High quality clothes made of fur will keep a peon much warmer than a low quality item of clothing which has been made from a thin material. Each of the above slots have multiple options for clothing and the peons can even make their own clothes once they have unlocked the correct research.  This is something that will need to be done fairly often – clothes will degrade over time, depending on what the peon is doing and if they have been involved in combat.

Initially peons can construct clothes from the materials provided by the Fiber Plants – this surprisingly warm material will make some comfortable clothes which are particularly handy during the early period of the game. All clothes are crafted at a crafting table and can be created by any peon.

As the peons research more about clothing, they will unlock additional materials that can be used to craft more hardy/warmer clothes.  This will become an essential task as time passes and The Void becomes colder and colder. It is a good idea to keep an eye on the condition of the peons clothes – they will generate a message when a clothing item degrades completely, as well as regularly complaining if they are missing clothing. It’s possible to check out clothes visually in the game, or more accurately by looking at the detailed peon info window

As clothes become well worn, they will slowly lose the warmth that they offer.  Additionally, shabby or well worn clothes will cause peons unhappiness – no one likes to wear old clothes.  This is why it is doubly important to make sure you provide the peons with new and fresh clothing often.

Finally, clothes can become dirty. Every task has a “dirt rating” assigned to it. Things like doing research won’t create a huge amount of dirt. But if a peon is regularly mining however, their clothes will get dirty very quickly. Simply walking outside in the snow will also cause dirt to be transferred onto clothes. Apart from making a peon unhappy, dirty clothes increase the chance of disease – so it is important to keep clothes clean as well as by providing new and clean clothes. Dirt won’t effect effect how warm an item of clothing is – but it will make the peon sad (unless they have the “slob” trait).

The more coverage points an item of clothing has, the better, therefore it is better to wear just a coat, rather than just an undershirt. Material that clothes are made of also matters greatly, as can be seen :

Damage done to the clothes is the final thing to take into consideration when working out how warm an item of clothing will keep a peon – the percentage not only provides a description for the clothes, but is also used to determine the warmth of some clothing.

So this is a little bit about how clothes work in Fringe Planet – using the word “fashion” in the title was perhaps a bit misleading – in a life and death struggle for survival, fashion probably doesn’t matter too much!

There is a lot more to read about Fringe Planet… why not try:

• The Peons – Skins – Dev Blog 93
• Dynamic clothing, wounds and dirt – Dev Blog 2
• On the many uses of plants – Dev Blog 5

1. Underwear is a unique class of clothing and cannot currently be crafted, replaced, removed or destroyed – and thankfully it will never get dirty either.
2. This is a special class of material that is only created at the start of the game, it is what the peons clothes are made of when they wake up.
3. Plant fiber that has undergone a chemical process involving lavarite.