 Unfortunately, there is no perfect kit. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we're here today to talk about trade-offs. Unfortunately, and believe me, I've tried, I'm sure you've tried, there's no such thing as a perfect piece of gear. There's always going to be a trade-off. You're always trading something for something, and that's just the way life is in general, let alone when it comes to gear. So I've been messing with my gear a lot recently as I always am, right, because I'm tinkering, I'm sure you're tinkering all the time, and it's just dawned on me in the past couple of weeks, past couple of months, that I'm always gonna have to make a trade-off, and I just have to decide what trade-offs am I willing to make. And that's really it. And once I realized that, it helped me not be so enamored, stressed out, preoccupied, whatever word you wanna use with gear setup. So for example, with my radio gear, I went back to just a simple chest mic, right? I used to have a little push-to-talk system, some little cheapy Amazon thing I was testing out, and it worked okay. But then I would like plug my ears into it, I'd have a fancy microphone coming to my mouth and all that kind of thing, right? But one, last time I went out, people were having trouble hearing me, so that kinda killed that. And then two, and more importantly, when I would just, if I were to just throw this on with like a boony hat or something, and I didn't have my ears on my helmet to plug into, well, now I can't use my radio, right? So it limited me to just that role. So the trade-off that I made, because there is a trade-off, is I went back to just the normal chest mic because now, no matter what, my radio's always ready to go, right? That's what I gained. What I lost is the fancy microphone coming directly to my mouth so that I can keep my head up while I talk on the radio. Now I'm gonna have to tilt my head just a little bit. Maybe I can bring this up and talk. We can mess with that some more. But point being, there's a trade-off, right? I lost a little bit of ease of use for using it across all my platforms, right? No matter what, when I throw the chest bring on, radio's gonna work. Whether I'm running just a boony hat or a helmet or whatever, it doesn't matter. Radio's always gonna work and always be good to go versus an only being compatible with my helmet setup. Now, that's the trade-off that I decided to make for, again, versatility and having my kit set up for as many situations as possible, that's the trade-off I decided to make. You might decide to make the opposite trade-off and say, no, I'm sacrificing versatility across all platforms because I'd like and prefer ease of use and having that microphone come directly to my mouth so I can keep my head up and I can talk to my guys easier, right? I can still route my headphones, my mic through my headphones, right? There's a little auxiliary jack right here and I plan on plugging that into my ear pro, but point being, I don't have to do that, right? Now, this is just one example. There are a gazillion examples. Once you start putting lights and lasers and all this stuff on your gun cans, guns get heavy, right? So one of the trade-offs that people tend to make, not always, but tend to, is they start chopping those guns down, right? Well, the trade-off you're losing is velocity of the bullets, right? You're losing ultimately effectiveness, which at velocity in AR-15 translates to effectiveness. You're losing effectiveness of the round on target, right? That's what you're trading, but you're gaining all these different capabilities, you're cutting the weight, and you're allowing to still be able to carry that thing and move it around, that's the trade-off you're making. You might decide to hell with that, I don't wanna make that trade-off, I want all the things, and I'm just gonna carry a heavy gun with all the stuff on it. That might be the trade-off you wanna make. It all comes down to trade-offs. And I think once you start looking at gear that way, as there's a trade-off, what trade-off here am I willing to make? And what is my priority right now? What am I trying to accomplish? That's gonna help you think through how to make better gear decisions. I heard it said once, and it's not mine, although I'd love to claim it, that mission drives the gear train. So I think you start with what it is you're trying to accomplish, or what you're trying to set your gear up for to do. And once you've determined whatever that is, whatever that scenario is, then you set the gear up based on priorities of what you're trying to do within that mission, right? You're like, well, I'm an everyday minute, man. I want a rig that's around that I can throw on in a minute. I can grab my rifle and head out the door and I'm good to go. Well, hey, that's okay. That's your mission set, right? So what's the priority within that? Well, the priority within that is I need mags and medical and water and comps. Those are the things that are our priorities. So you start looking for a rig or building a rig based on that and then you decide within there what's more important. Well, it's more important that my ammo is primary up front and I'm able to access it quickly and easily, right? That's more important to me and medical that can take a secondary role. Or you know what? I'm the team medic actually and so that's actually really important. So I need to have my medic bag super accessible. So my mags, I need like one or two speed reels but other than that they can be more off to the side and not primary. Whatever your job is, you need to decide that and prioritize your gear and make the trade-offs. That's all it is, that's all you're doing. You're making the trade-offs based on your priority. So I hope that gives you a helpful way to think through your gear setup. To think through when setting up your gear, what is my priority and what do I need to be primary? And then focus on that, right? Build your rig, build your kit around that and then let the other things be secondary. I used to think everything needs to be accessible right away all the time. Like I need to be able to access everything and that's just silly. One, that's not physically possible. And two, again, that lacks priority. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So set your priorities about what is your job? Within your team, within your mission set, what's your job? Well, Dylan, I'm just like a lowly rifleman guy. So okay, so your priority is mags on, mags on, mags. Right, that's your priority. You need access to all the mags. That's what's primary for you. Well, you know Dylan, in my crew, I kind of function as a team leader and so I'm kind of directing traffic a little bit more. Okay, so your priority, necessarily mags on mags, your priority might be comms, right? And being able to communicate between your team and the other team, you might have maps that are more primary because you're in charge of getting your team around, right? There might be different priorities for you and that'll change based on your, we're gonna call it tactical jobs, right? Based on your tactical job, that might change for you. So understand the mission, understand your job within the mission, understand your priorities based on those two and then set up your gear, make the trade off and just live with it. I hope that's helpful. Hope it gives you some thoughts. Do brave deeds and endure.