Gearing up
Slots, trinkets, and why two cheap ones never beat one good one.
There is one rule here that is counter-intuitive, that the game never states, and that costs people real material when they get it wrong.
Bonuses are not added up. The largest single one counts.
Two cheap reach trinkets do not beat one good one — they do nothing at all beyond the better of the two. Wearing a second pair of speed boots buys you exactly zero.
You will need
- Whatever you are choosing between. Every item's page states its slot and its bonus.
Steps
- Learn the slots. Head, Body, Feet, Back, and six interchangeable Trinket slots. The six trinkets are genuinely interchangeable — nothing cares which one a given trinket goes in.
- Pick the biggest bonus in each category, not the most items. Reach and ground speed both resolve to the single largest you are wearing.
- Fill the trinket slots with different effects. Six slots is an invitation to combine, not to stack.
- Wear both halves of an armour set. This is the exception.
When it works
The exception, and why it exists: armour is summed. A helmet and a suit add together, and so does accessory armour — once per item.
That is not an inconsistency. The largest-never-summed rule exists to stop two cheap items beating one good one, and it bites where several slots can hold the same kind of thing — two trinkets, boots against a jetpack. Worn armour cannot do that: a helmet only fits Head and a suit only Body. There is no slot to stuff and no ladder to shortcut, and a game where wearing both protects you exactly as much as wearing one is a game that has taught you not to bother with the helmet.
Feet is a real decision. Rocket boots get you up, Hermes boots get you along at +60% ground speed, both go on the feet, and you cannot have both. That contest is why the slot exists.
When it does not
You put on a second trinket and nothing changed. Correct, if it duplicated an effect you already had a better version of. Check the numbers on both pages — only the larger is doing anything.
You wore two of the same accessory. Duplicate accessories never stack, even for armour.
A jetpack cost you your boots. It should not — packs go on the Back and boots on the Feet, deliberately, so that combining them is something crafting can reward.
You cannot find where a trinket goes. Any trinket slot. The item page says "Trinket" rather than naming one, because naming one would be a distinction the game does not make.
Heat or cold is still hurting you through armour. Protection is in degrees and it is a threshold, not immunity. The number is on the item's page; compare it to where you are standing.
Next
Farming and eating — a quieter system, and one with a genuine inconsistency in it worth knowing about.