Armor Penetration

[Zelentron]

since the little shields on enemies represent armor I am guessing, is there a way to get around that? does magic ignore it or something, I am looking for the most game breaking build to do

[Clockwork]

Just wanted to clarify it, just in case (even if I think you know it already).

The little shield above enemies represent cover :
- Crossed shield : standing in the open/flanked (will take critical damage)
- Empty shield : small cover
- Half shield : medium cover
- White shield : heavy cover.

The dot-like shields do represent the armor rate, from 0 to 10 (although some spells can reduce taken damage too, like the Dragonslayer one).

You have many ways to get through armors :
- Some weapon (and weapon abilities) can pierces through armor (mostly the Sniper Rifle as far as I'm concerned, then the Revolver)
- Some weapons, abilities and spells allow you to rip armors off the target (some enemies like to spam it, which is why my PC tend to have the message "Armor broken" appearing above him). Glory has some nice melee attacks to rip off armors if you pick them
- Bleeding targets (unlike poison and fire, it ignores armor)
- Critical Strikes (a 20 damages Sniper Rifle with 4 in armor piercing will deal 34 damages to a target with 10 armors).
I saw some Rogue Fire Spirits dealing over 50 damages to conjurers and such.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865351935

[Zadok]

Clockwork sums it up nicely. Here's some bonus information.

Armor is simply subtrated from the damage taken.
Penetration reduces armor by its value for the shooter, while stripped armor remains reduced for every attacker.
Damage reduction can't be penetrated or stripped yet otherwise works like extra armor.

In many games armor gives a % dmg reduction but SR:DF has a flat reduction.
For one thing it means armor can reduce (low) damage to 0.
One could say armor gets more valuable per point the higher it goes.
Armor is very good at preventing low damage and not so good at blocking high damage attacks.

Consequently armor is fallible to critical strikes.
When 20 damage hit 4 armor it'll cost 16 hp, that's 20-4=16. If the same weapon's crit hits 4 armor it is 20x2-4=36. In other words: The extra damage of criticals is not reduced by armor, because the armor is "used up" already. That's different compared to a % dmg reduction and renders crits very powerful.
It follows, that high armor does not allow moving out of cover (opening oneself up to being critted). On the contrary: Those two defensive measures synergize too well to waste one's armor in the open.
This is also why two 10 dmg attacks are usually worse than one 20 dmg attack in SR:DF (armor applies twice if it is two attacks). Consequently crits (high weapon skill + flanking) are very important for Pistols and SMGs due to their low base damage.

Magic damage is just damage and works against armor exactly like physical damage does. Mages have access to 'Strip Armor' as well as high damage spells however, which are very effective against armor. Conjurer's don't have damage spells nor Strip Armor but their Spirits hit very hard if you let them.

Enemy armor increases over the game, so penetration / armor stripping / crits become more important the later it goes.
Enemy damage also goes up, in fact mostly outscaling your armor. Therefor Armor is strongest early, when opponents don't have the means to tackle it yet.