• An abstract global resource 'harvested' from equipment by 'using it up' leads to the problem that you can use it everywhere instantly, which seems rather odd.
• Militia gear not only depends on the individual class of the militiaman, but also on game progress, weapon progress, and distance to Meduna. How would the 'gear resource' address that?

• A local storage per sector would have to be separated from normal sector inventory. There needs to be a sort-of second inventory.
• Needs a functionality to move items to and from 'storage' to 'sector inventory'.
• If we assume militia uses storage once the sector is loaded, exactly this gear has to be removed from them once the sector is unloaded. Thus we need to mark 'stored' gear.
• What happens to standard militia gear that is replaced by storage gear?
• Outdated gear could 'overwrite' more useful standard militia gear. How should that be handled?
• Ammo is a problem. Either there is a need to store ammo as well - resulting in much bigger storage - or ammo magically appears on militia. This opens a new (though propably purely academic) exploit, where you can get expensive ammo by storing an empty gun, training militia, and then killing them for their ammo.

Concerning 1):

• An abstract global resource 'harvested' from equipment by 'using it up' leads to the problem that you can use it everywhere instantly, which seems rather odd.

• Militia gear not only depends on the individual class of the militiaman, but also on game progress, weapon progress, and distance to Meduna. How would the 'gear resource' address that?

Armor is a non-essential feature of typical militias
It seems like as usual everyone is talking about something else, but the two basic lines here are:
1) Guns as an abstract resource, adding 'militia points' for each [collection of] x items yet otherwise leaving the situation largely unchanged.
-OR-
2) Maintaining an actual equipment pool from which militia is equipped for a battle, i.e. the closest we'll ever get to actual control over their equipment while still keeping files reasonable.

There is another problem with this solution: some players may not like having militia use (and damage) some of their stocked weapons or, more important, use some rare ammunition, rockets or grenades carefully hoarded for the game end.

Concerning 2)

• A local storage per sector would have to be separated from normal sector inventory. There needs to be a sort-of second inventory.
• Needs a functionality to move items to and from 'storage' to 'sector inventory'.
• If we assume militia uses storage once the sector is loaded, exactly this gear has to be removed from them once the sector is unloaded. Thus we need to mark 'stored' gear.
• What happens to standard militia gear that is replaced by storage gear?
• Outdated gear could 'overwrite' more useful standard militia gear. How should that be handled?
• Ammo is a problem. Either there is a need to store ammo as well - resulting in much bigger storage - or ammo magically appears on militia. This opens a new (though propably purely academic) exploit, where you can get expensive ammo by storing an empty gun, training militia, and then killing them for their ammo.

Flugente

Concerning 2)

• A local storage per sector would have to be separated from normal sector inventory. There needs to be a sort-of second inventory.
• Needs a functionality to move items to and from 'storage' to 'sector inventory'.
• If we assume militia uses storage once the sector is loaded, exactly this gear has to be removed from them once the sector is unloaded. Thus we need to mark 'stored' gear.
• What happens to standard militia gear that is replaced by storage gear?
• Outdated gear could 'overwrite' more useful standard militia gear. How should that be handled?
• Ammo is a problem. Either there is a need to store ammo as well - resulting in much bigger storage - or ammo magically appears on militia. This opens a new (though propably purely academic) exploit, where you can get expensive ammo by storing an empty gun, training militia, and then killing them for their ammo.

I've left out 1 as I simply prefer approach 2. Points 1, 2 and 3; Can this be done and how much effort would be involved?
Points 4 & 5; My preference > Militia has no standard gear. They get everything from that storage. But this may cause a huge imbalance between 'Drop all' on and off.
Point 6; Ammo would be needed as well. You couldn't just equip militia with all the fancy stuff but need to make a conscious choice based on available ammo. Most AR magazines can be stacked to 24 at the moment, 10 slots for 240 magazines would allow some 20-32 militia to hold out in a few battles I think.

How about we simply 'tag' equipment and overlay it with, dunno, a green version of the ownership pattern? That way we'd also know what mobiles and reinforcements are allowed to take with them.

Maybe it would be possible to check the sector the trainer(s) of mobile militia are located in for gear to equip the mobiles with (like they take the coolest gear available as they are supposed to be the best ones)?

Maybe there should be a system like sell feature (alt-click). But instead of generating money it should generate Militia Points (a placeholder name). Distributing militia points on militia determines their item quality. Just an idea. Equipping militia seems too much of micromanagement tho i know many people love microing.

Using sector inventory items to equip militia from some storage point/unit/container is no more micromanagement than hauling it all over to Tony's in my opinion.

Whereas to equip militia with it you'd have to transport things to every place you want to train militia in - and this as some sort of constant routine if you want to improve gear of recruited militia as the campaign unfolds. And mark it in sector inv for militia's use.
(and hauling stuff also to merchants is still in as you still need money)