Among the buildings that can be built within the city walls is the armory. It has one mission, to allow you to craft clothing and accessories for your officers to wear. These items bring with them some potent buffs, increases in strengths, shortened times, etc.
The items that you craft are constructed with objects that could be found in the wreckage of a zombie war. Every officer has eight slots in which a crafted item can fit. The four left most slots are for clothing while the four right most slots are for accessories. The slot displays either its current item. The eighth slot is unavailable through at least a level 17 armory.
The first four slots, on the left, are for a personal weapon, head gear, a coat and footwear. As you begin, you should have a pistol available for the first weapon for your officer. As you add it, you will see the buffs that it brings with it.
The armory can be upleveled just like most other buildings. As that happens, you gain the ability to craft items for additional types of suits. You begin with Trailblazer, and then add General, proceeding onward as the building’s level permits.
To craft items, you must obtain materials. One way to do that is through the armory, which will allow you to gain them over a varying period of time. Another way is to earn various materials crates or packages as rewards. Using one of them provides the armory with materials.
Each crafted item requires certain materials and they do not overlap from suit to suit. A material used to craft a Trailblazer item cannot be used to craft a General’s item. Items begin by requiring four materials in order to be crafted. They may need four different materials, or two of one kind and then one of each of two others. There is a slot for a fifth material which I have not begun using yet.
These items also require fusion cores, green cubes, as part of the crafting process. The number needed goes up as the level of the item and its type of suit does. They are obtained as rewards, and are often part of the winnings when you defeat a level 7 or level 9 zombie.
If you do not have enough cubes when trying to craft an item, the game will allow you to purchase enough with diamonds.
The depot tab will show you what materials you have on hand, and alternately, which items you have crafted. The colors behind each material and crafted item are an indicator of its level. Four of the same level material can be combined to make one material of the next level. A yellow up arrow will show you which materials are ready to be combined. Click on it and select combine all for the best result.
Trailblazer suit items enhance your ability to gather resources. The General’s items enhance training speed and reduce training costs. Guardian items are defensive enhancements while marauder items are offensive buffs. If the officer is wearing three or more items from the same suit, there are added buffs.
These buffs apply when you assign the offer to an army for service in the field. In addition, many of the buildings have a camp tab. This allows you to assign an officer to the efforts of that building. If you are going to train warriors, you may want an officer in camp with items from the General’s suit. At your wall, that camp should have an officer with Guardian suit items.
If you only have one officer, you will need to make a decision. With seven open slots, you could eventually fill them with items from seven differing suits. Or, you could fill them with seven from the same suit. Or, and this is an attractive alternative, four from one and three from another. (That way, you get the buff for three items and the buff for four items from the two different suits.) (Think a combination Guardian and Marauder if you will be doing a lot of combat.)