DR or DT?

[Traveler]

Which is more useful DR or DR? ex: you have to helmets one has a DT of 3 the other has a DR of 3, which would be more helpful?

[Yhwach]

New Vegas has a needlessly more complicated, but insightfully complex system over fallout 3 and 4 and makes them situational but only for your enemies.

It really only matters depending on your opponent, as they'll have that shield symbol so you know that firearms will be guarded against, and it'll turn red when broken.


As for you, the player character:
DR gives you a equative resistance to damage, and DT gives you a flat reduction to damage as
DR = Damage Resistence, or % damage taken away from how much damage you take
DT = Damage Threshold, or how much damage is reduced at a flat rate


Each one calculated differently into what damage you take, so for example, let's say you take 100 damage:
You have 50DR and 10 DT, so 50% of that damage is reduced, and 10 of it is subtracted from it so you'd take 40 damage in the end.

Now that's out of the way, which one's more useful?
Well, both are useful in their own rights, but DR cuts your damage down more.

And just so we're clear, you cannot take 0 damage from an attack, as you'll always take at least 1 point of damage.

[Scythia]

Given an equal amount of each, DT will benefit you more for any attack that does less than 100 damage.

[talgaby]

The system is somewhat between FO1/2/T and FO3. In general, DT is more useful, that is the most simplistic answer.

[Traveler]

I'm just playing around with a build. Was wearing mettal armor (DT 11 I think) and was a attacked by some small mantis. I just stood there and didn't seem to take any damage. That seems really useful in general but probably not much help against an alpha deathclaw.?

[MannsOverMeta]

Deathclaw attacks ignore DT, so no amount of heavy armor is going to do you any good.

[Yhwach]

Originally posted by MannsOverMeta (WEMP):

Deathclaw attacks ignore DT, so no amount of heavy armor is going to do you any good.

No armor at all will do you any good, deathclaws are a cheap enemy that sawyer thought would be great but it just gives them artificial difficulty like the hillbillies in point lookout.

[Traveler]

Originally posted by MannsOverMeta (WEMP):

Deathclaw attacks ignore DT, so no amount of heavy armor is going to do you any good.

So DR doesn't work on some enemies?

[4and4squared]

In New Vegas without mods. The only wearable item that provides DR is the rebreather. Every other piece of clothing/armor has DT or a placeholder Dr value of 0. Additionally DT caps out at providing an 80% damage reduction.
Only way of getting any useable amount of Dr in the base game is to use chems.

[Yhwach]

Originally posted by 4and4squared:

In New Vegas without mods. The only wearable item that provides DR is the rebreather. Every other piece of clothing/armor has DT or a placeholder Dr value of 0. Additionally DT caps out at providing an 80% damage reduction.
Only way of getting any useable amount of Dr in the base game is to use chems.

Companions give DR as perks