Both of them put something on the floor, so most people talk about them as one thing. The game does not, and the line it draws is the one that decides your shopping list: ten items you pay for and lose as you use them, four that belong to your class, sit on their own button and come back on their own.
Only Equipment runs out
Ten items sit under Equipment. Four sit under Tactical Gear, one for each class. The second list is the one the game bothers to define:
In the game’s words
“Tactical Gear is a rechargeable item that can be deployed [...] to affect enemies or give you and your squad advantages in combat.”
Rechargeable is the whole difference. Equipment sends you back to a Cache when it runs out. Tactical Gear never runs out. It is either ready or it is not. You do not pick it either: “Each Class has its own Loadout and Tactical Gear.” Choose the Medic and you are running the Stim Vaporizer. That decision is made for you.
All ten Equipment items
Names and effects are the game’s own wording, unedited.
Frag Grenade
Explodes after a short delay, dealing high damage within the blast radius.
Incendiary Grenade
Explodes on impact, dealing damage and spreading flames.
Smoke Grenade
Explodes on impact, creating a thick smoke screen that obscures vision and disrupts targeting.
Concussion Grenade
Explodes after a short delay, Stunning enemies within the blast radius.
Stim Grenade
Deploys on impact, healing or reviving downed allies within the area.
Razor Mine
Explodes when an enemy is nearby, dealing high damage and filling the area with razor wire that slows and damages.
Spike Trap
Scatters caltrops in a large area that damages and slows enemies.
Explosive Decoy
Deployable decoy that attracts enemy attention and explodes when destroyed.
Machine Gun Sentry
Stationary turret that engages enemies with sustained direct fire.
Mortar Sentry
Stationary turret that engages enemies with indirect explosive fire. Requires clear area overhead.
Five you throw and five you put down. Six of the ten turn up in Versus and in Horde Siege (the five grenades and the Razor Mine); the other four deployables are Horde Siege only.
Read one line on that list before you spend. Requires clear area overhead is on the Mortar Sentry and on nothing else, and it rules out the tunnel, the underpass and about half the doorways you would want to hold. Buy it for open ground or do not buy it.
The four Tactical Gear
The class picks it, not you.
Stim Vaporizer
Medic
Creates a large area that heals and revives Gears.
Pulse Drone
Marksman
Pulse enemies in a large area, making them more visible to Gears.
Sonic Disruptor
Assault
Stuns Drones and disrupts other enemies in a forward cone, interrupting their attacks.
Injector
Breacher
Immediately refills health and grants a large amount of Adrenaline, reducing damage taken and increasing damage dealt while active.
All four take mods of their own, kept apart from your armor mods. The game names a Stim Mod Slot, a Pulse Drone Slot, a Disruptor Mod Slot and an Injector Mod Slot, each one worth “an additional Mod Slot” for that piece of gear, and it says where they go: “Customize your Tactical Gear mods in the Class menu.”
You never see the cooldown, but three separate things move it. A Squad Perk shortens it, and that one runs as high as five plus signs, the game’s way of showing strength. A mod puts the Medic’s Stim waves on it, cutting the cooldown for the whole squad. And a mission can push the other way, because Longer Tactical Gear Cooldown is one of the things a mission is allowed to do to you. How many seconds any of that moves, the game does not say.
Where you buy it and how much you carry
There is one place to buy Equipment and one thing to buy it with: “Use energy at the Supply Cache to buy Weapons, Equipment, or upgrade Squad Perks.” The game keeps a running total of what you have spent on it.
Two other lines matter more than the price. “Picking up a new weapon or piece of equipment unlocks it permanently in the Supply Cache.” The Cache’s stock is not fixed, so a Razor Mine you find on the floor is a Razor Mine you can buy from then on. And what you walk out with sticks: “Your equipment set up is always saved after you exit a Supply Cache.”
The loadout screen labels three slots, Equipment 1 through Equipment 3. Getting another one, and carrying more in each, are both things you earn, worded “Gain a new Equipment Slot” and “Carry more Equipment per Slot”. At what level either of them arrives is not published, so there is no level here.
What the game counts
Seven of the ten carry a published damage, blast or radius figure: Frag Grenade (2,000 blast damage*, 5.12m radius*), Incendiary Grenade (1,500 on a direct hit, 1,500 blast damage*, 1.35m radius*), Concussion Grenade (2m radius*), Stim Grenade (5.12m radius*), Machine Gun Sentry (80 damage a shot, ×1.25 on a headshot), Mortar Sentry (2,000 on a direct hit, 2,000 blast damage*, 3.5m radius*) and Razor Mine (320 blast damage, 3m radius). An asterisk (*) marks a figure not yet confirmed in play. The other three Equipment pieces and all four Tactical Gear carry no figure. Their descriptions still say “high damage” and “a large area”, and stop there.
Blast radius was the figure everybody wanted. Six of the ten have one now, the Frag Grenade’s included at 5.12m*, and they are on the equipment page. A radius quoted from an older Gears is not this game’s.
Uses, though, it counts closely. Frag, Incendiary, Smoke, Concussion and Stim Grenades Used each have their own tally, as do Razor Mines Deployed, Spike Traps Deployed, Explosive Decoys Deployed, Total Equipment Used and Tactical Gear Used. Four counters go past counting throws, and they say what each piece is for: Spike Trap Kills, Stim Grenade Revives, Explosive Decoy Damage Done, and Explosive Decoy Damage Absorbed.
That last one is the giveaway. The decoy is the only piece of Equipment scored on what it soaked up rather than what it killed. Put it where you do not want to be standing.
What to carry
With only seven of the fourteen carrying a figure, and nothing that lines up across categories, the useful question is what a piece leaves behind once you have walked away from it.
Three of them change the ground. Razor Mine, Spike Trap and Incendiary Grenade all put something down that keeps slowing, burning or shredding after you have moved on. In a mode built on holding a spot until a R.I.G. finishes, a thing that keeps working beats a thing that happens once.
One of them fixes a mistake. The Stim Grenade heals and revives downed allies in an area, on impact, so you get the revive without walking into whatever did the downing. If nobody in the squad took Medic, it is the closest thing you have to one.
Two of them shoot while you do something else. The sentries are the only Equipment that fights on its own, and they are the reason to care about the perks that touch equipment. Enhanced Equipment gives it more damage and more health, Explosive Equipment makes it explode when destroyed, and Generous Grubs gives kills a chance to drop more of it. Carry deployables and three Squad Perks start working for you that otherwise do nothing.
One kind of mission turns the order upside down. Equipment Damage Up, Weapon Damage Down is a modifier a mission can carry, and when it does, the mines and the sentries are the loadout rather than the extras.