Fighting hostile humans and wild Pals will require you to have equipment, especially when you are going against tougher foes.
As you continue to use the many kinds of equipment that you craft, these will become worn out and will eventually become ineffective.
This is measured by the durability of the equipment, which is reduced when weapons are used and when armor protects you from damage.
Durability
Most of the items that you will be equipping your character with will have a certain durability that can be checked when viewing the item.
This is also represented by a bar and whenever the item is used, this will drain your durability until it reaches zero, but this won’t destroy the item.
Instead of the item breaking, it will be less effective to the point where it becomes useless until you repair it, which restores its durability.
The following reduces equipment durability:
- Melee Weapons – Attacking Pals with Melee Weapons (Misses don’t count)
- Ranged Weapons – Firing Projectiles from Ranged Weapons (Hit or Miss)
- Helmet and Armor – Taking damage when armor is equipped (Reduced Per Hit)
- Shield – Taking damage while Shield is up (Shield must be active)
How To Repair Items?
To repair items, you will need to build a Repair Bench, and this will be your main method of repairing the equipment you need to restore durability to.
Using a Repair Bench is as simple as interacting with it to open the Repair Menu, which is where you will select the equipment that needs to be fixed and select the Repair action.
This will require that you have a certain number of materials, which is based on what was originally used to craft the equipment that needs to be repaired. (Repairing takes only a few seconds)
How To Build A Repair Bench
Before you can build a Repair Bench, you will need to unlock it by opening the Technology menu to spend Technology Points on it.
The Repair Bench becomes available once you have reached Level 2, which is good since this becomes an important structure to have throughout the whole game.
Crafting the Repair Bench can easily be done and requires only 10 Wood and 10 Stone, which can be farmed early even if you have just started.
Repair Costs
Repairing your equipment will cost only a small percentage of the materials that were used to craft it, which makes it important to have backup materials.
It seems that often you would need about 40% of the materials that were used to fully repair equipment that has been brought to zero durability.
An example would be an Old Bow that is crafted with 30 Wood, 5 Stone, and 15 Fiber would need 12 Wood, 2 Stone, and 6 Fiber to be repaired. (All are 40% of the original cost)
Verdict
It is a good idea to always repair your items once you get back to your base or before you head out to explore again to make sure you are prepared.
Having more than one Repair Bench in your base is not necessary as your equipment will be repaired in a couple of seconds after you confirm the action.
Eventually, you will need to farm more materials to make sure you have enough to repair but this is better than crafting the same equipment from scratch.