User:Studenterhue/Armor

How Armor Protects You

Though there are six body regions (head, torso, arms, legs) that can be targeted, there's really only two for the purposes of armor, "head" and "chest". Thanks to some interesting coder decisions, the game considers attacks aimed at the legs and arms to be attacks aimed at the chest and thus applies the armor values of the chest region. As you might expect, attacks aimed at the head sensibly consider armor of the head region. It's good news for you, because it's less vital parts to worry about.

Anything in the head, ears, eyes, and mask/mouth slot is considered to be the "head" region, while anything in the (exo)suit, jumpsuit, shoes, gloves, and hand slots are considered part of the "chest" region.

However, additional armor is not always a good choice. Melee and ranged resistance (and by proxy stamina damage reduction) doesn't stack or multiply; the game just takes the highest value of all the pieces considered. So if you, say, get some body armpr that grants -5 melee resistance, then find a shield that grants -9 melee resistance, you have -9 melee resistance, not -14. However, this doesn't apply to heat, cold, and viral resistance. They do stack.

Melee Resistance

Melee damage is reduced by a simple subtraction, which applies regardless of the damage type:

Melee damage received = Raw melee damage - melee resistance value

For example, let's say you're getting whacked in the chest by a fire extinguisher, which has a raw damage value of 10, while wearing an armor vest, which has a melee resistance value of 6. Based on this formula, you'll receive 4 (that's 10-6) damage, which in practical terms is pretty good. If you've 100 HP, that means that with armor, they'll have to land 25 hits to put you into critical condition, compared to 10 without. Easy, no?

Ranged Resistance

Ranged resistance is a bit more complex than melee resistance, though the math is still accessible. The formula is simply:

Ranged damage received = Raw bullet damage / (Ranged resistance value + 1)

This applies regardless of whether the bullet was kinetic or energy-based and regardless of the damage type inflicted by the bullet, with one major exception: stamina drain follows a different formula that's dependent on proportion of damage reduced.

For example, suppose someone is shooting at your chest with an energy gun on lethal, which does 45 damage, while wearing an armor vest, whose ranged resistance is 1. You receive 45/(1+1) = 22.5 damage, meaning the armor essentially halved the damage.

In practical terms, this means ranged protection is actually percentage-based, but because of the equation used, it's not a linear, one to one relationship. There's some diminishing returns involved; the first bit of ranged protection reduces damage by a lot, but every additional bit offers less and less protection. Plug in some values yourself, and you'll see it:

0.5 → Formula simplifies to Raw damage/1.5 → 33% of damage blocked
1.0 → Formula is Raw damage/2 → 50% of damage blocked.
1.5 → Formula is Raw damage/2.5 → 60% of damage blocked.
2.0 → Formula is Raw damage/3 → 66% of damage blocked.

Stamina Damage Reduction

Armor also reduces the amount of stamina drained in an attack, based on the proportion of damage blocked to damage of the attack. For example, if an attack does 10 brute damage and 40 stamina damage, and your armor blocks 5 brute damage, then your armor also reduces the associated stamina damage by 50%. Thus the attack drains only 20 stamina.