Bucket Helmet

You have just dropped a Level 1 workbench, the first barrels on the road paid a little scrap, and every roamer around swings a spear or draws a bow. This is the helmet to spend that scrap on. Twenty metal fragments buy one, so losing a few before the wipe settles down hurts nobody.

At this bench the choice is between the bucket and the riot helmet. Both cost 30 scrap to research. The riot helmet wants more frags plus cloth and, by its own description, is great at deflecting melee, but it has 150 durability against the bucket's 200. If arrows and pistol rounds are what usually hit you, most people keep the bucket and save the frags for a furnace.

Its time ends at Level 2. A coffee can helmet costs three times the frags, a sewing kit and some cloth, and it is the helmet people actually wear into a mid-wipe gunfight. The bucket goes into the recycler then and gives back part of its metal. Own Clatter? The game swaps the bucket for the Clatter Helmet for you.