Loadout Cabinet for Exosuit Mechs
A functional add-on for AOBA's Exosuit Framework (EF).
Provides a Loadout Cabinet that fully manages what a pilot wears and carries while piloting an exosuit, and automatically restores their personal gear when they disembark.
Why I made this mod
In my opinion EF combat exosuits are extremely tedious to use right now, especially under Combat Extended:
- Gear scattered everywhere — Before boarding, the pilot strips and dumps their personal gear on the floor; after disembarking they walk around picking it back up.
- Pilot suit has to be put on manually — EF provides a pilot suit with decent protection that can save your colonist's life in a pinch, but it slows them down and tanks their rest — not something you want to wear day-to-day, only while piloting a mech. You have to manually put it on and take it off every single time.
- No pre-configured ammo — Under CE you cannot pre-set how much ammo to take. The pilot boards empty, you manually feed them ammo, and on disembark they dump it on the floor again — repeat every single sortie.
- Inventory junk — CE / Simple Sidearms / any inventory mod will happily let the pilot board with a backpack full of junk that just eats their carrying capacity.
- Vanilla shelf is too limited — The EF storage shelf cannot specify how many consumables to bring; it really only works as a weapon rack.
What this mod does
- On boarding — The pilot packs everything they are wearing and carrying (clothes, weapon, inventory) into the cabinet, puts on the assigned pilot suit, boards the mech, then pulls a configured amount of ammo / weapons / consumables / food out of the cabinet to carry on the mech.
- On disembark — Automatically returns all mech-side items to the cabinet, hands back the pilot suit, and re-equips the personal gear they had before boarding.
Usage
- Find the Loadout Cabinet in the storage build menu.
- It must be placed directly adjacent to a maintenance gantry (the same way an auto-repair arm is). Each gantry can only have one cabinet linked to it.
- In the cabinet's Loadout tab, configure the pilot suit plus the consumables / ammo / weapons the pilot should carry while piloting. Your colonists will automatically haul the required items into the cabinet.
- Order your pilot to board — they will prepare everything automatically.
- When they disembark from the gantry, they return all mech-side gear and restore their pre-boarding loadout.
- If the pilot dies in combat, the cabinet unbinds and ejects their personal-gear package. Right-click the package with another colonist to retrieve their belongings.
Important Update History
2026/4/27
- Added loadout preset save/load support
- The cabinet now supports up to 3 presets for quick response: pawns haul items based on the union of all 3 presets. E.g. preset A = 50× HE + 50× AP, preset B = 100× AP, preset C = 100× HE → the pawn hauls 100× AP and 100× HE into the cabinet, then boards carrying whatever the currently active preset specifies
- Added a shortcut to the loadout menu on the maintenance gantry — no more hunting for the 1×1 cabinet to open the loadout panel
2026/4/30
- Added a boarding apparel option. By default, pawns store all personal apparel before boarding. If disabled, pawns will keep as much personal apparel as possible and only remove pieces that conflict with the loadout cabinet setup or the exosuit itself.
- Improved hauling logic: multiple pawns can now participate in stocking/hauling at the same time.
2026/5/3
- Added a personal-inventory boarding option for consumables/weapons. You can now choose whether pawns keep personal inventory items while boarding.
- Added an inventory filter that lets you specify which personal items are allowed to be carried onboard.
- Items stored in the cabinet are now also considered when checking mech apparel requirements.
FAQ
Q: Why are items hauled into the cabinet auto-forbidden?
A: By design — to keep other pawns from raiding it. You don't need to unforbid; pilots can still interact with these items during boarding/disembark.
Q: How much ammo / consumables can I bring?
A: Under vanilla, all configured consumables will be carried. I originally tried to cap this using vanilla's carry-weight system, but vanilla pawns wearing an exosuit still only have 35 kg of capacity, meaning almost nothing gets through — so I dropped the weight check and now simply call the vanilla API to stuff items onto the pawn. I don't play much vanilla, so I'm not going deeper on this. Under CE it's capped by the pilot's carry weight on the mech; anything over that limit is left in the cabinet, so set sane quantities yourself.
Q: What happens if the loadout has conflicting apparel layers, e.g. two helmets?
A: Only one of them will actually be worn.
Q: CE?
A: This mod was actually built to solve CE's ammo-carrying problem in the first place. I will make sure it works well under CE. Vanilla has been tested and all features are functional — it just lacks some balance restrictions: consumables and weapons will be carried without any weight limits.
Known issues
- If the cabinet contains apparel the boarding pawn's race cannot wear (e.g. a vanilla knight helmet on an incompatible modded race), those items will not be equipped and will disappear. Manage your cabinet contents and which pilots can use it accordingly. Fixed — incompatible apparel now stays in the cabinet instead of disappearing.
