How does armor works?

[ZOMBIE 999 TP]

I can't find the information in the game or in the wikia. If i have an armor of 5, what does that mean?

[Darth Cannabis]

It is explained thru tutorial pop up on your 1st battle encounter but it is a basic threshold system.

Every weapon has a penetration value to it. If the weapon has higher penetration than the armor value, it does 100% of the damage it shows. If the gun doesn't then it only does 50% damage (at least that is what the pop up shows).

Now as to whether there is a rounded scale, based on how much penetration, is not entirely clear, but it appears not. The pop tutorial pop up shows 4 penetration, vs 10, and 1 armor.

4 vs 1 = 100%

4 vs 10= 50%

so there appears to be a flat 50% reduction, if a weapon fails to have higher penetration than armor.

The exception to this of course, is energy weapons. Those have a full scale of 3 thresholds, which actually give the most damage when the armor is high. what % an energy weapon gets, based on armor is shown on said weapon.

So for your question, with an armor of 5 what does it mean? It means, if the armor penetration of weapon is 4 or lower, 50% damage. If the pentration of weapon is 5 or higher, your going to take full damage.

[ZOMBIE 999 TP]

Originally posted by Darth Cannabis:

It is explained thru tutorial pop up on your 1st battle encounter but it is a basic threshold system.

Every weapon has a penetration value to it. If the weapon has higher penetration than the armor value, it does 100% of the damage it shows. If the gun doesn't then it only does 50% damage (at least that is what the pop up shows).

Now as to whether there is a rounded scale, based on how much penetration, is not entirely clear, but it appears not. The pop tutorial pop up shows 4 penetration, vs 10, and 1 armor.

4 vs 1 = 100%

4 vs 10= 50%

so there appears to be a flat 50% reduction, if a weapon fails to have higher penetration than armor.

Thanks :)

I skipped the tutorial...

[Executor]

Straight from the game code:

Target armor <= armor pen: 100%
Target armor = armor pen + 1 : 80%
Target armor = armor pen + 2 : 70%
Target armor = armor pen + 3 : 60%
Target armor = armor pen + 4 : 40%
Target armor = armor pen + 5 : 20%
Target armor => armor pen + 6 : 0%

[Darth Cannabis]

Originally posted by executor115:

Straight from the game code:

Target armor <= armor pen: 100%
Target armor = armor pen + 1 : 80%
Target armor = armor pen + 2 : 70%
Target armor = armor pen + 3 : 60%
Target armor = armor pen + 4 : 40%
Target armor = armor pen + 5 : 20%
Target armor => armor pen + 6 : 0%

Ok cool, so there is a scale. Good job finding it.

[red255]

Armor is basically go big or don't bother.

the light armor in AZ is 4, the penetration of most enemies in the second half of AZ is like 5.

if you wear heavy armor with the thick skinned, hardened and whatever the heavy armor perk in the weaponsmithing tree is, thats +4 armor on top of heavy armors pretty heavy bonus and we can kick around over 10 armor in AZ and be mostly invulernable to everything except Energy and explosives.

so I either wear the light jackets and use tinkerer for the +1 AP and take 100% damage, or really pack on the armor.

really hard to get it less than taking 100% damage with light armor.

[Zadok]

It ought to be a ArPen/Armor damage multiplier, though it can't be above 1 (-> No extra dmg for an ArPen higher than the armor). Thus 4 armor and 3 ArPen should be a 3/4 = 80% damage multiplier. However: 7 armor vs 6 ArPen ought to be a 6/7 = 85% damage multiplier. Isn't that the tooltip? It's what the wiki[wasteland.gamepedia.com] claims anyway.
Mind: It is one armor more than ArPen in both cases, which ought to be 80% damage according to executor's post - only that it isn't. The formula renders surplus armor less efficient the higher the total armor is. One of the best WL2 guides also goes with the ArPen/armor formula. Since executor claims to have it "Straight from the game code" he may be right anyway - I didn't test that.

Could somebody confirm either formula? It may be a difference between the original and the DC version I guess..?

[Executor]

The code is from the Assembly-CSharp.DLL, and this part hasn't changed between the original game and the DC version. The WL2 guides and wiki have just always been wrong.

The relevant code:

public virtual int CalculateDamage(Targetable target, Vector3 damageOrigin, int randomDamage, out Targetable.DamageMitigation mitigation, ItemTemplate_Weapon weaponTemplate = null)
{
	...
	int value = armor - penetration;
	num = Table_PartialPenetration.GetValue(value);
	...
}

public static float GetValue(int key)
{
	return rows[Mathf.Clamp(key, 0, rows.Length - 1)];
}
private static float[] rows = new float[]
{
	1f,
	0.8f,
	0.7f,
	0.6f,
	0.4f,
	0.2f,
	0f,
	0f,
	0f,
	0f,
	0f,
	0f
};

[Zadok]

Originally posted by executor115:

The code is from the Assembly-CSharp.DLL, and this part hasn't changed between the original game and the DC version. The WL2 guides and wiki have just always been wrong.

That's enlightening - thanks! Guess there's room for a heavy armor ranger after all :)

[EolSunder]

never a bad thing to be wearing heavy armor, except if you fight something with energy weapons and you have metallic armor on that increases damage. In those fights its simpler to just remove your armor before and fight, so you don't get those higher conductive attacks. Most of the game high armor is perfectly fine and not much of a penalty. Except vs energy weapons.