Equipment Basics: How Equipment Work

Dolls have 3 equipment slots that vary based on their class, with certain dolls being able to equip equipment not typical to their class.

Barring a few very specific exceptions (such as not equipping T-exos on DPS dolls, as this lowers their damage output) you should always equip dolls with equipment that will help their performance. 
Getting the best equipment comes with time, when you are completely new you make do with what you have until you can replace it with better ones.

Most equipment can be enhanced and calibrated from the research menu.

Calibration and enhancement are both required to reach the maximum output for an equipment and can be done in any order. 

While you could max out every equipment, this is often not needed and often a waste of resources that could be spent elsewhere.

Note that later enhancement levels cost more than earlier ones but give the same benefit. For example, enhancing to +8 is only half the cost of enhancing to +10. As such, upgrading to +8 early on and slowly building to +10 later is a good strategy to make the most out of your limited resources.

It is also important to note that low quality equipment (blue or green rarity) have much lower potential. Blue equipment should not be upgraded, green equipment should not be maxed out but can be upgraded slightly if you find your power lacking. Always remember to prioritise offensive equipment early on.

For offensive equipment, the recommendation is usually to max them out completely when possible. Dead enemies don’t shoot back.

For defensive equipment, you often only care about getting the defensive stats maxed. Offensive stats often do not matter much on defensive units so resources are often better spent elsewhere, such as on your offensive units to ensure that enemies die faster.

As noted above there are several equipment types that do not require max calibration or to be fully enhanced to do their job well, below is a list of these.

Full calibration not needed

• Ammo Box
  Evasion does not matter for MGs, simply max out the clip size increase and leave it be.
• Armor Plate
  Max armor and do not worry about evasion.
• T-Exo
  Only the evasion matters here, reducing the damage on your tank that does no damage doesn’t matter.

Enhancement and calibration not needed 

• SLAP
  There are very few enemies in the game with more than 250 armor outside ranking.
  Note that if you care about CE stacking or Theater, these give stupid amounts (more proof it’s a useless number).
• Flare
  Support equipment, the buff is always maxed.
• Flash
  Damage reduction is what it’s for, not accuracy.
• PEQ
  Anything above 80% is usually more than enough, note that this is green quality.
• Suppressors
  Very low gain for investment.
• SureFire Taclight
  Low gain for investment, skill not affected.
• Birdshot
  The only SG that uses these (FO12) does not need RoF or Crit Damage.

SPEQs (Special Equipment) are equipment only usable by a specific doll or a few specific dolls and often are better than base gold equipment. This does not mean however that all SPEQs are good, and making sure that the equipment is enough to make a doll usable (if the doll is not already good) is best checked on their respective pages. 

SPEQs also require triple the investment of normal equipment to be fully enhanced, meaning that enhancing a SPEQ that only offers a very minor bonus or none at all will not be worth the large amount of resources it takes to enhance.

SPEQs are gained through a couple of ways:

Mod III equipment

Gained through modding a doll to mod3.
See the Neural Upgrade Priority page for details on whether they are worth getting.

Black Market

Bought by spending Forward Base currency.

Login SPEQs

Gained as a login bonus.
These usually have an extra effect attached to them, altering the skill of their respective doll.

Event Shop

Bought for event currency during some events.

Note that certain dolls have access to a wider selection of equipment than default; for example Contender can equip AP ammo, even if this is usually only available to RFs and MGs. As which equipment a doll wants is often influenced by their Skill, checking individual doll info is recommended.

Accessories

• Suppressor
  Minor increases to evasion and crit rate.
  HG, SMG, RF, AR
• Optical Sight (Crit scope/VFL)
  Large increase to crit rate.
  SMG, RF, AR, MG, SG
• PEQ
  Counteracts the night penalty.
  HG, SMG, AR, SG
• S.F. Modified Tactical Light (Taclight)
  Increases evasion and echelon night vision.
  HG, SMG, AR, SG
• Auxiliary Sight (Aux/RMR)
  Medium increases accuracy and crit rate.
  HG, MG
• Holographic Sight (EOT)
  Damage and accuracy increase at the cost of RoF.
  SMG, RF, AR, MG, SG
• Red Dot Sight (Red dot/ITI)
  Large increase to accuracy at the cost of RoF.
  SMG, RF, AR, MG, SG
• Choke
  Increases clip size and accuracy.
  SG

The Night Penalty reduces Accuracy at Night by 90%. Any Night Vision will reduce this penalty by a percentage. For example, 50% Night Vision will reduce the 90% reduction by 50% => 90 / 2 = 45% reduction in Accuracy instead.

Magazines

• AP Ammo (AP)
  Large increase to AP.
  RF, MG
• Sniper Ammo (Sniper)
  Increase to AP and FP.
  RF, MG
• HP Ammo (HP)
  FP increase at the cost of AP.
  HG, SMG
• Flare
  Increases echelon accuracy at the cost of RoF.
  HG, SMG
• Flash Shells (Flash)
  Reduces damage taken by 3 after armor calculations, plus some accuracy.
  SG
• Buckshot
  Increases damage and crit damage.
  SG
• Slug
  Removes multi-target and multiplies single-target damage (excluding most skills) plus some accuracy.
  SG
• Birdshot
  Increases multi-target by 2 targets and RoF at the cost of crit damage.
  SG
• High-Velocity Ammo (HV)
  Increases damage.
  AR
• SLAP
  Very large increase to AP at the cost of RoF.
  MG

T-Doll

• #2 Processor (#2 chip)
  Large increase to FP and RoF at the cost of crit damage.
  SMG, AR
• Focus Chip (Crit chip)
  Increases FP and crit damage at the cost of RoF.
  SMG, AR
• T-Exoskeleton (T-exo)
  Large increase to evasion at the cost of FP.
  HG, SMG, AR
• X-Exoskeleton (X-exo)
  Increases evasion.
  HG, SMG, AR
• Armor Plate
  Increases armor at the cost of evasion.
  SG
• Maximum Ammo Box (Box)
  Increases clip size at the cost of evasion.
  MG
• Tripod (Bipod)
  Reduces reload time by 2s and increases accuracy at the cost of movement speed.
  MG
• Camouflage Cape (Cape)
  Increases crit damage.
  RF
• Laser Rangefinder (LRF/Rangefinder))
  Reduces the initial skill cooldown for Bamboos as well as increasing FP.
  RF

While it might seem like there’s a lot of choice and options here, most slots only have one objective option that is used. Here are some examples of what you should equip on your various dolls:

Not all equipment, standard or SPEQ, are displayed here. We're currently updating this list