Do artifacts stack or not?

[yura0392]

If you equip two Compass artifacts with maximum physical defense, will the second artifact have any effect, or will the first one already hit the cap, making the second one useless? How can this be tested?

[udtojan95]

I think it can not be stacked. Also weight artifact has a cap. More than three of them dont have any effect.

Myself i can not see any difference by wearing 3 compass artifacts or only one.
For me its same amount of damage i receive so i just use only 1 compass artifact.

[Baron01]

General consensus is artifact effects stack. You can easily see this if you equip 2 Thunderberries and observe your stamina duration and regeneration rate. It definitely takes longer to drain one bar of stamina and it regenerates back faster as well. It is harder to test artifacts like Compass or Liquid Rock. I tested radiation and 2x Liquid Rock did not protect me significantly more in deadly areas such as train bridge in Cooling Towers. However, using Liquid Rock and Weird Water produced better results in radiation protection.

[udtojan95]

Problem is that you have also armor. I use the diamond skeletton armor. And generally armor has a cap. So it doesnt matter if you wear 3 compass or 5 compass. It wont have an effect. There is a hidden camp for physical armor. As well for weight.
Stamina i did not test yet. But i can say for sure for weight and physical protection. It does stack, but it doesnt stack anymore at a certain hidden point.

[SHOKKERZ91]

They stack, but there are hard caps.
Resistances are capped at 90% except radiation with 85%.
Max carryweight is capped at 140 kg.
Stamina regen at 30.
Your armor is part of the calculation and the bars in the ui are the cap.
Each level of a artifact equals one full bar in your armor stat.
weak 1, medium 2, strong 3, maximum 4
So running a diamond exo with a compass is pointless.

[udtojan95]

I m wearing a diamond exo. But i can feel the difference between equiping compass or not. But i can not feel any difference of wearing more than one compass.
But one compass with diamond exo is still a good choice.

[Baron01]

Originally posted by SHOKKERZ91:

They stack, but there are hard caps.
...
Your armor is part of the calculation and the bars in the ui are the cap.
Each level of a artifact equals one full bar in your armor stat.
weak 1, medium 2, strong 3, maximum 4
So running a diamond exo with a compass is pointless.

If this is true, the game was released in worse state than I assumed. This suggests they had to gut the game in order to get it out and simplified these systems to crazy levels.

I'm not disputing the statement as I do not have any subjective tests of my own at the moment. This is also hard to test in fire fight but I will try to engage in some combat in Pripyat without Compass and Flower Bud (Max and Medium physical protection bonuses) when I'm back from work.

On the other hand, if true this opens slots for other artifacts to replace your physical protection artifacts when wearing upgraded end-game exo suits.

[udtojan95]

They simplified all mechanic's to a maximum. If they would work well i could at least accept it. But in this technical state its just terrible.

[SHOKKERZ91]

Pretty easy to test. Just take something good in physical protection armor (fully upgraded falcon armor has 5/5 physical protection) and a couple grenades. Then just throw grenade at your feet and stand on top of it. Look at your health. With compass or without makes no difference. Now take a weaker armor, lets say seva, and repeat the test. With compass, seva will compensate as much damage as falcon armor does.

[Baron01]

Originally posted by SHOKKERZ91:

Pretty easy to test. Just take something good in physical protection armor (fully upgraded falcon armor has 5/5 physical protection) and a couple grenades. Then just throw grenade at your feet and stand on top of it. Look at your health. With compass or without makes no difference. Now take a weaker armor, lets say seva, and repeat the test. With compass, seva will compensate as much damage as falcon armor does.

Are you positive that grenades are physical damage rather then something obscure such as explosive damage?

Grenades are easy enough to use for testing. You can simplify the test by using fully upgraded physical protection armor with and without compass to see how much HP damage you receive. I would always reload after a grenade to eliminate potential damage reduction from suite wear & tear but it should be minor enough to barely make any difference. I will definitely test this when I'm back home and able to play.

[SHOKKERZ91]

Yes, explosions are physical damage.

[n050up4u]

Same artifacts, you mean? yes - they stack in inventory and the effects stack when more than one are equipped.

[yura0392]

Originally posted by SHOKKERZ91:

So running a diamond exo with a compass is pointless.

This needs to be checked. It would be strange if the artifact did not give anything. It is important to check this. But how to know for sure?

[Baron01]

Originally posted by yura0392:

Originally posted by SHOKKERZ91:

So running a diamond exo with a compass is pointless.

This needs to be checked. It would be strange if the artifact did not give anything. It is important to check this. But how to know for sure?

You can run the same test the person posted about it. Get armor suit with maxed out physical protect, drop grenade at your feet and observe amount of damage to your HP. Now do the same just with Compass equipped. What damage you received now? Compared two HP values and you get the result.
I will be doing this testing when I'm able to play.

[SHOKKERZ91]

Originally posted by yura0392:

Originally posted by SHOKKERZ91:

So running a diamond exo with a compass is pointless.

This needs to be checked. It would be strange if the artifact did not give anything. It is important to check this. But how to know for sure?

It's not that the artifact gives nothing, it's that the diamond exo gives gives enough to run into the hardcap. It makes more sense to slot some resistance artifacts like burn, shock, acid or bleed instead. You could also slot the compass in a low tier hobo armor and make it endgame tier that way. Doesn't devalue exos either, because they come with massive carryweight boosts. The hobo armor is like a honda civic tho, piss cheap to repair.

[John Ten]

I did a few tests but all artifacts with physical protection seem to provide enough protection to reach the hard cap.

I tried leather jacket/seva-v/falcon with jellyfish/flower bud/compass/weird bolt against grenade to the feet and base guards with ak but there's no noticeable difference.