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 multiple; 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

Ranged Protection

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.