Equipment racks seem useless to me. here is my suggestion

[Mystic]

I like this idea a lot, and in a more general sense, where food and medical supplies are also subject to the same type of thing.  The idea of leaving weapons, food, medical supplies, etc. lying in the grass or dirt for weeks or even months on end without any negative consequences feels wrong.  However, I do eventually set up drop zones inside my buildings for such things, and wouldn't expect items to get degraded there, as long as they aren't sitting on bare ground.

I have to amend the above slightly in light of my discovery last night that prepared meals already DO spoil after several days.  I sort of wish there had been a message indicating that such spoilage was occurring ... and it is also a little weird that this happens so quickly to prepared meals while the raw ingredients thereof (even cuts of raw meat) can be stored apparently forever without any suggestion of refrigeration being involved.  Although if the raw ingredients spoiled as quickly as the prepared meals do it would be almost impossible to keep a colony fed, especially in light of how common those darned crop-destroying blights seem to be.

Anyway, that little discovery led me to dramatically shift how I deal with food preparation.  And now the cook stove's "bills" make much more sense to me as well.

[Xerberus86]

I like this idea a lot, and in a more general sense, where food and medical supplies are also subject to the same type of thing.  The idea of leaving weapons, food, medical supplies, etc. lying in the grass or dirt for weeks or even months on end without any negative consequences feels wrong.  However, I do eventually set up drop zones inside my buildings for such things, and wouldn't expect items to get degraded there, as long as they aren't sitting on bare ground.

I have to amend the above slightly in light of my discovery last night that prepared meals already DO spoil after several days.  I sort of wish there had been a message indicating that such spoilage was occurring ... and it is also a little weird that this happens so quickly to prepared meals while the raw ingredients thereof (even cuts of raw meat) can be stored apparently forever without any suggestion of refrigeration being involved.  Although if the raw ingredients spoiled as quickly as the prepared meals do it would be almost impossible to keep a colony fed, especially in light of how common those darned crop-destroying blights seem to be.

Anyway, that little discovery led me to dramatically shift how I deal with food preparation.  And now the cook stove's "bills" make much more sense to me as well.

many mods add resource storage devices, i play with TTM mostly and there are several storage devices from a simple food preserver which extents the lifetime to 2 weeks or like the fridge which prolongs it indefinitely. you should try one of these!

[Clayton]

Equipment racks are far from useless; make an armory and store weapons in them that you don't want to sell. Bamn! Better than leaving them on the ground. Enjoy some immersion.

[Coenmcj]

How about an equipment rack that lets you stack items, instead of having massive stockpiles full of pistols, you could have an equipment rack that stores say, 50 items of a certain type, like 50 pistols, 50 M-16s, 50 Jackets, that would be far easier than those stockpiles for gear...

I don't like the amount he suggest but i support this idea i would love to see them able to hold 8 weapons per side.

I reckon having predetermined limits applying to All weapons seems a bit cheap, how can 8 M16's fit in the same space that 8 pistols do for instance?
I was thinking that items that can go into a equipment rack are given some sort of volume or Mass label or something, the smaller things can have more put into the rack, while the bigger things can have less there.

Say for example
Pistol Mass - 200
Minigun Mass - 1600
ER. Capacity - 1600
So the rack could hold say... 8 Pistols, but only the one minigun.

That seems like it would be harder on the game, from a performance standpoint and be very gimicky.

Purely an example of how it could be done, I'm sure Ludeon knows how to do this alot more effectively than something as primitive as my suggestion.
Immersion wise it does seem silly that at the current time Equipment racks hold the same amount of pistols as they do assault rifles, so there's that going for it I hope.

[bobucles]

regarding the weapon rust, sure after some years the weapon will rust without care but who said that the rimworld colonist won't repair

That would be true if the weapon is kept locked in a safe. In rimworld colonists carry their gear everywhere- in the dirt, in the rain, picking crops or hauling corpses or barn raising. Exposing weapons to nature causes more wear and tear than actually firing it.

It would be nice if equipment racks acted like beds, in that a colonist uses them to stash their gear until it's needed.

[Xerberus86]

regarding the weapon rust, sure after some years the weapon will rust without care but who said that the rimworld colonist won't repair

That would be true if the weapon is kept locked in a safe. In rimworld colonists carry their gear everywhere- in the dirt, in the rain, picking crops or hauling corpses or barn raising. Exposing weapons to nature causes more wear and tear than actually firing it.

It would be nice if equipment racks acted like beds, in that a colonist uses them to stash their gear until it's needed.

well who says that they won't repair their weapons when you are offline or look away, maybe they just don't like to be seen doing it....getting intimite with their weapon.

why should they leave their weapon at home while doing their job? never had a pirate drop right next to you or some raidings while you were out collecting stuff? oh boy i wouldn't go out without a weapon.

[bobucles]

why should they leave their weapon at home while doing their job? never had a pirate drop right next to you or some raidings while you were out collecting stuff? oh boy i wouldn't go out without a weapon.

Enemy drops give enough time to run away. Anyway that's just a risk you'd have to take. Wear the equipment down with repeated exposure (small arms are easier to protect because of holsters and such), or keep it at home.

Anything that happens off camera is a moot point. Whether or not weapons need future maintenance is only dependent on if it gets implemented or not.

[MoneyFish]

How about an equipment rack that lets you stack items, instead of having massive stockpiles full of pistols, you could have an equipment rack that stores say, 50 items of a certain type, like 50 pistols, 50 M-16s, 50 Jackets, that would be far easier than those stockpiles for gear...

I don't like the amount he suggest but i support this idea i would love to see them able to hold 8 weapons per side.

I reckon having predetermined limits applying to All weapons seems a bit cheap, how can 8 M16's fit in the same space that 8 pistols do for instance?
I was thinking that items that can go into a equipment rack are given some sort of volume or Mass label or something, the smaller things can have more put into the rack, while the bigger things can have less there.

Say for example
Pistol Mass - 200
Minigun Mass - 1600
ER. Capacity - 1600
So the rack could hold say... 8 Pistols, but only the one minigun.

That seems like it would be harder on the game, from a performance standpoint and be very gimicky.

Purely an example of how it could be done, I'm sure Ludeon knows how to do this alot more effectively than something as primitive as my suggestion.
Immersion wise it does seem silly that at the current time Equipment racks hold the same amount of pistols as they do assault rifles, so there's that going for it I hope.

A simpler alternative would be to classify weapons as small/medium/large. A weapon rack could hold 3 large weapons (minigun, launcher), 6 medium weapons (rifles, shotguns), or 12 small weapons (grenades, pistols).

[Coenmcj]

That seems like it would be harder on the game, from a performance standpoint and be very gimicky.

Purely an example of how it could be done, I'm sure Ludeon knows how to do this alot more effectively than something as primitive as my suggestion.
Immersion wise it does seem silly that at the current time Equipment racks hold the same amount of pistols as they do assault rifles, so there's that going for it I hope.

A simpler alternative would be to classify weapons as small/medium/large. A weapon rack could hold 3 large weapons (minigun, launcher), 6 medium weapons (rifles, shotguns), or 12 small weapons (grenades, pistols).

Much simpler indeed.

[RawCode]

I worked a bit on ammo for weapons and durability for armor (with no viable results due to current limits of game), plan was:
(copy of Gnomoria system actually)

1) Each colonist have two sets of armor\weapons, first is civilian set, second is combat set.
Civilian set by default have any civilian item and combat set any combat item.
Colonists have flag that allow them to automatically manage their equipment - pick better armor and better weapons, drop damaged and discharged ones.
This includes automatic corpse looting.

2) Civilian weapons and armors can be worn permanently have no ammo or durability and worn under combat armor.
Some civilian items are actually military (like power armor jumpsuit or energy pistol) but have this class due to indestructible (no ammo) state.

3) Combat armor feature rest, work and movement penalty.
Colonist in combat armor can't sleep, can't work and exhaust quickly.
Untrained off duty colonists will try to drop armor and weapon ASAP and get negative emotions if forced to wear armor for too long.
Trained colonists will drop weapons\armor if they need maintenance or when they go sleep.
Unlike untrained ones, they feel comfortable and safe in armor.

4) Here racks come - colonists "mark" ownership of weapons and armor left for maintenance (if no free replacement present in stock, if replacement present, colonist will drop armor\weapon and pick "new" one from stock on his own).
When maintenance is done (by colonists with gunsmith skill), owned items will be delivered to rack located in owner's room.
If no rack is present - no delivery is done.
Rack can hold entire set, no matter how many armor parts included and how large weapon is.
Items with minor damage not placed on maintenance, instead gunsmith visit racks and perform maintenance on spot if have no other bills to do.

5) Without racks colonists forced to search weapon and armor on each alarm, wasting time and "resetting" sets each time, since no ownership is tracked and "best" armor picked by fastest colonist instead of colonist who really need it.

6) As for ammo\damage - fully discharged weapons dropped on spot and colonist will try to search replacement or switch to civilian weapon.
Armor does drop when durability is depleted automatically.