ANOMALY 1.5- How effective is stacking kevlar?

[Karina]

I play as ecologist and i want to use their armors for roleplay, but physical protection on those is very lacking to say the least. Can it be somewhat compensated by stacking loads of kevlar/steel plates? Ballistic protection value in inventory screen does not increase from those so its hard to say for sure.

Anomaly mod pack is basically Misery+COC+whole bunch of other mods, if you dont know. Also, i own all stalker games in GOG.

[Twoflower]

If you find out I'd love to know. I wear Freedom SEVA and have a bunch of kevlars sitting around.

[Heresy]

I have Anomaly but my experience mostly comes from Misery and yes they do stack to great effect.

The main benefit of them rather than armour is the increase of durability that they provide. As an example:

A Ghuillie suit with no attachments can be pretty much destroyed by a grenades or a couple direct bullet hits. Kevlar or Steel plates will greatly reduce repairs needed.

A plain leather jacket that has 5 open slots with 5 kevlar or steel plates is an excellent budget eco armour that is just as effective in terms of ballistic protection as mid tier battle armour.

Single plates do help but you truly notice them when stacked.

Just so you're clear all this actually does is increase your thresh hold for AP rounds to the torso. They provide nothing in terms of flesh or head protection and lower your electric resistance. So the biggest benefit in my eyes is the increase in damage that armour can take before it will need repairs.

So yes stack them up. Steel is even better. I prefer the kevlar tho because their weight gain cancels out about what they weigh, which doesnt effect your stamina in a negative way.

[Karina]

Originally posted by Heresy:

I have Anomaly but my experience mostly comes from Misery and yes they do stack to great effect.

The main benefit of them rather than armour is the increase of durability that they provide. As an example:

A Ghuillie suit with no attachments can be pretty much destroyed by a grenades or a couple direct bullet hits. Kevlar or Steel plates will greatly reduce repairs needed.

A plain leather jacket that has 5 open slots with 5 kevlar or steel plates is an excellent budget eco armour that is just as effective in terms of ballistic protection as mid tier battle armour.

Single plates do help but you truly notice them when stacked.

Just so you're clear all this actually does is increase your thresh hold for AP rounds to the torso. They provide nothing in terms of flesh or head protection and lower your electric resistance. So the biggest benefit in my eyes is the increase in damage that armour can take before it will need repairs.

So yes stack them up. Steel is even better. I prefer the kevlar tho because their weight gain cancels out about what they weigh, which doesnt effect your stamina in a negative way.

In my experience mutants are a lot more dangerous then stalkers, and because i play ecologist (stalker with a license) only hostile humans i ran into are bandits. I dont remember how things in misery but in anomaly kevlar does not protect against muties while steel does. So i rather wear heavy cumbersome steel plates then light kevlar, even though kevlar has higher ballistic res.

[Heresy]

yeah you can also use both

[Karina]

Hey, its actually works! Kinda. I aquired SSP "Ruby" outfit (compared to SSP-M it has heavily increased protection against fire and mutant claws, also built-in life support system, ♥♥♥♥ against bullets though) and equiped two aditional steel plates and 1 kevlar sheet. I was attacked by snork horde and they managed to hit me twice. And i only lost like 40% health + got minor bleeding. The suit however lost 10% durability which is a lot. Needs more steel plates.

Suit durability loss is insane. Got bitten by two dogs. Lost practically 0% heath + got very small bleeding that stopped itself. Suit however went to 89% durability.

[Karina]

Originally posted by Heresy:

The main benefit of them rather than armour is the increase of durability that they provide. As an example:

Do artifacts also have the benifit of increasing durability? I just found one- its stronger then 4 layers of steel plates.

[Heresy]

Im not sure. If they reduce rupture damage or give straight up ballistic protection then yeah possibly.

Suit maintenance is pretty easy but if you go below 85% then it starts to get expensive. Same goes for weapons. So as long you keep it repaired you should be fine. You shouldnt really be soaking any damage in stalker anyways. I look at the suit damage as part of your mortality so i dont ever fuss about repair cost. The more lazy you get, the more expensive it becomes.


I once played through Misery with the ghillie suit and 1 hit from any mutant shreds it to 50% or less it was insane. Thats when i first learned how to stack plates to reduce suit damage not just for survival but also for economy.

[Karina]

Originally posted by Heresy:

Im not sure. If they reduce rupture damage or give straight up ballistic protection then yeah possibly.

It has exactly the same stats as steel plates but much higher. 463/500/480 H/mm2. Also 525% impact resistace (no idea what it does). It also should affect the whole body while plates/kevlar only affect torso.

[xchrisx88]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Originally posted by Heresy:

Im not sure. If they reduce rupture damage or give straight up ballistic protection then yeah possibly.

It has exactly the same stats as steel plates but much higher. 463/500/480 H/mm2. Also 525% impact resistace (no idea what it does). It also should affect the whole body while plates/kevlar only affect torso.

Impact damage is from boars running you over or a poltergeist throwing stuff at you, also one anomaly (forgot the name),
fyi all bonuses with a % behind it scales from your already existing resistances

[Karina]

Originally posted by xchrisx88:

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

It has exactly the same stats as steel plates but much higher. 463/500/480 H/mm2. Also 525% impact resistace (no idea what it does). It also should affect the whole body while plates/kevlar only affect torso.

Impact damage is from boars running you over or a poltergeist throwing stuff at you, also one anomaly (forgot the name),
fyi all bonuses with a % behind it scales from your already existing resistances

Really? Out of all the things boars do impact damage somehow?

[Heresy]

You shouldnt really be allowing things like Boars or dogs to hit you. They kinda train you to be ready for the later mutants in the game which can mostly 1 shot the player if you get hit. Always use the terrain to your advantage.

I thought it was exploiting when i first started playing stalker but its really just survival. use rocks, cars, barrels anything to get you off the ground when confronted by mutants. Always have an escape plan. Sometimes its better to run away to a better position before trying to take on an ambush. Eventually Boars and Dogs will just become fodder to you.

I believe all physical damage from mutants is rupture damage.

[Karina]

Originally posted by Heresy:

You shouldnt really be allowing things like Boars or dogs to hit you. They kinda train you to be ready for the later mutants in the game which can mostly 1 shot the player if you get hit. Always use the terrain to your advantage.

I thought it was exploiting when i first started playing stalker but its really just survival. use rocks, cars, barrels anything to get you off the ground when confronted by mutants. Always have an escape plan. Sometimes its better to run away to a better position before trying to take on an ambush. Eventually Boars and Dogs will just become fodder to you.

Avoiding mutants all the time is impossible because sometimes terrain is blocking the view or you distracted with something else. I remember travelling in the swamp- it was pure hell. I kill one mutant pack only to be attacked by another from the back.

[Karina]

Im not sure if using artifacts is more efficient then using mundane equipment. This extremly powerfull artifact is also super heavy (9.3 kg in container) and drains stamina. I need to compensate it with another artifact that regenerates stamina and with something that gives extra weight. Not to mention that containers for artifacts (ones that allow to use them) are very expensive. Alternatively i could just upgrade suit some more and equip 1 extra layer of steel plates.

[cyäegha]

the full empty is a noob trap
using the basic empty is much more weight efficient and IIRC doesn't have a stamina penalty, and the negative electric res is smaller than you would get from stacking steel plates

as a rule of thumb the grav artifacts (except for the aforementioned) are the only worthwhile artifacts

everything else is worse - either weight-wise or in terms of negative effects - than improved attachments

[Karina]

Originally posted by cyäegha:

the full empty is a noob trap
using the basic empty is much more weight efficient and IIRC doesn't have a stamina penalty, and the negative electric res is smaller than you would get from stacking steel plates

as a rule of thumb the grav artifacts (except for the aforementioned) are the only worthwhile artifacts

everything else is worse - either weight-wise or in terms of negative effects - than improved attachments

Loner faction has "Voyager" suit, it has insane carry weight bonus of 64 while armor itself weight 6kg. And it was not even exo, so i assume backpack slot is avalible, meaning even more weigth. Imagine wearing like 3 Full Empty + 2 arts to compensate for stamina drain.