Warning: The information provided here is the based on what is known about equipment as of July 23rd, 2022. There has been talk from the developers about overhauling equipment in the near future. If that occurs, I will try to update this page, but just take everything here with a grain of salt.
There are three types of equipment in Shelter 69 - clothing, weapons, and trinkets. Each is improved in its own crafting room. Equipment in Shelter 69 improves the standard W.A.I.F.U. stats, while also providing four equipment stats: DPS, DEF, Dodge %, and Crit %.
| Stat | Effect | Found On |
| DPS | Major factor in how much damage a character deals in combat. | Weapons Only |
| DEF | Major factor in reducing damage taken by a character in combat. | Clothing and Trinkets |
| Dodge % | Increases the chance a character will avoid being hit in combat. | Any |
| Crit % | Increases the chance a character will land a critical hit in combat. | Any |
¶ Clothing
Clothing comes in three forms - tops, bottoms, and dresses. Your characters can wear either a top + bottom, or a dress. As far as stats go, a top and a bottom provide roughly the same amount of defense and other stats as a single dress does - assuming they are the same level and rarity. The only, very slight, advantage dresses have is that they are marginally cheaper to Upgrade, and require fewer gems to Enhance compared to improving both a top and bottom.
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| Foxy's Sets (dress) vs Gaia's Top and Bottom |
All crafting related to clothing is done via the Armory. As you enhance the rarity of clothing the appearance will change - some are slight changes in color, while others see a significant change in appearance at different rarities. Items that change like this usually match different preset outfits for various Champions.
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| Shorts | Mercenary | Cross |
| Irma's Top changes to match some of her Preset outfits. | ||
When selecting clothing for your characters it is important to know that all clothing is functionally equal, assuming the same level and rarity. A level 70, Legendary Sweatshirt is just as good as any other level 70, legendary top. So pick what you like. As far as maximizing stats goes, you want to choose (or reforge) clothing that pairs well with the character's job and DPS stat. Additional points in Fortitude and Utility are also good secondary stats as they provide defensive benefits in combat.
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| The dress on the left has stats too spread out to be useful. The dress on the right focuses on Fortitude, making it ideal for anyone working in the Quarry or Server Room. |
Note 1: Recently a change was made to highlight the DPS stat of weapons, this appears to have also caused clothing and trinkets to have a highlighted (golden) stat. However, as far as anyone knows, these stats don't have any special meaning on clothing or trinkets.
Note 2: Some clothing seems to be stuck on a limited selection of stats when reforging - for example you may get a Dissolved Cloth top that cycles between a mix of Intelligence, Fortitude and Utility, but always has extremely low Willpower and Agility. Its not clear if this is a bug or intentional, but watch out for it so you don't waste too many reforges trying to get a stat that is unavailable on an item.
¶ Weapons
There are a multitude of weapons in Shelter 69 and they are the primary determining factor for how much damage your characters do. Different weapon types do have different amounts of DPS - though this is expected to change when equipment is overhauled. If you want to maximize your damage, you can focus on melee weapons (particularly wrenches and katanas), but this is entirely unnecessary. You can give your girls whatever weapons you like and they will be fine once you have crafted them to high enough levels and rarity.
When determining a character's DPS, the weapon's DPS is the main factor. The base DPS of a weapon is determined by its DMG stat, along with the number of attacks being done per round ranged from 2 to 4 across all weapons. Each weapon will be assigned either Willpower, Agility, or Intelligence. That stat will increase the damage dealt with that weapon. For example, PAIN has a lot of Agility, so she does more damage with an Agility weapon, and that damage can be boosted further by making sure that all of her equipment also gives good Agility.
Note some weapons have a hybrid scaling, like Agility and Intelligence for instance. In this case, half of both stats is taken into account, meaning you effectively need to scale both to have proper damages compared to a single stat scaling weapon.
The base damage of a weapon is increased by 30% of its scaling stat, or 15% per stat in case of a hybrid weapon1.
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| The weapon's DPS stat is circled on the weapon's card, and highlighted on the weapon's stats. |
Like clothing, weapon appearances change slightly as they are enhanced to higher rarities. However, the change is never more significant than changing colors.
¶ Trinkets
Trinkets are pretty much identical to clothing - they provide all the same stats. The same advice for stats on clothing applies to trinkets. Unlike clothing or weapons, trinkets do not change the appearance of characters.