The padding unlock gives you padding equal to your DS flare upgrades.
It's +2 padding per DS rank. So if you have the full 5 ranks of DS flares unlocked you get a padding flare of +10, if you only have 1 rank unlocked you only get a padding flare of +2.
The padding flare does not unlock all 5 ranks of DS flares.

Wyrom says, "Ordim is the reason savants won't be coded as well."