Gear is any backpack, armor piece or tool that a Prospector can equip into their Inventory. For information about Weapons and Consumables, consult the respective pages.
Backpacks
For details, see: Backpacks
A backpack is one of, if not the most, essential item. It enables the "Backpack" section in your inventory, drastically increasing your carrying capacity. Without one, you can only carry your equipped armor, weapons, and the contents of your Safe Pockets. This limits space for ammunition and loot to the point of non-viability, so a Backpack is more or less required to achieve anything on the surface of Fortuna III. A tour to the surface with only a Backpack equipped is referred to as a "Naked Run".
Backpacks come in different sizes, depending on the rarity. They can be found in your Stash under the "Utilities" filter.
Armor
For details, see: Armor
Armor is worn to reduce the damage taken from other sources. The damage reduction depends on the "Armor"-value of your Armor and on the Penetration-value of the damage source.
A prospector can equip one helmet and one piece of body armor, called Shield, by placing them in the appropriate slots in the inventory screen. You can also carry armor in your Backpack, but it won't protect you in there.
If you take damage while you have armor equipped, the armor gets ablated. You can repair it at the Crafting Station for a small amount of K-Marks.
Certain types of armor grant additional benefits like more stamina, health regeneration or night vision.
Tools
Tools are items that need to be actively used, but unlike consumables don't get used up. You can access your available tools during a run by holding "q". The last used tool is available as quickslot by shorty pressing "q".
Default tools
Every prospector carries a Flashlight, a Binocular and a Pickaxe with them at all times. They don't have to be bought and can't be lost. Most notably, the Pickaxe is used to crack open metal ore deposits.
Mineral Scanner
The Mineral Scanner can be bought at all Shops on the Station and also be found on the surface. When activated, it sends out a pulse and then highlights nearby mineral deposits. Initially it can only detect Nickel, additional resources can be unlocked with attachments. Korolev sells a Veltecite scanning attachment.
Heavy mining tool
This tool is sold by Korolev after fuliflling the "What a Tool" contract.