Armor stats explanation?

[Baron01]

Hello guys, I have recently bought COP and enjoying it thoroughly. I have installed some basic add-ons suggested here such as Arsenal Overhaul + Atmosfear 3 + Absolute Nature 3.

One thing I cant get my head around are armor stats, specifically Armor and Impact. I was looking around Wikis and guides but none provided complex answer and explanation of interaction of these 2 stats.
Game provides some basic description (not in character/inventory screen but from item upgrade screen) but this info is in conflict of what I could find on the web.

Can anyone explain to me what Armor and Impact stats do and how, if at all, these stats interact with each other?

[𝕱𝖚𝖗𝖚]

Armor is essentially bulletproofing. There are no 'tiers', every type of bullet and weapon simply do different amounts of damage. The more armor you have, the lower this damage becomes (percentage-wise). Piercing or AP rounds lower this value when damage is calculated, thus doing the same amount of damage to armored foes.

Impact is the same, but for falls, telekinetically thrown objects, and gravitational anomalies.

Integrity is simply how long your armor is going to last and how fast its condition will degrade, depending on the abuse it receives.

[Mystic Referee]

Bullets are also defined with different damage and impact values. Exaple, 12ga slug does 1.8 impact will also doing 1.25 damage. 5.56x45mm does 0.8 impact but 1.9 damage. This is multiplied against the damage stat of the weapon I believe.

Just think of "Damage" as raw tissue damage and impact as blunt force. Armor protects against tissue damage, impact resistence protects against impacts.

Also, mutants attack with a mix of impact and damage. But it differs as Chimera and Bloodsuckers deal high tissue damage while a Pseudogiant is usually just tremendous amounts of impact damage.

It also gets more complicated in fire fights as every bullet has a travel arch and velocity. Damage is also calculated based on the angle of impact. A perpendicular angle receiving a much higher damage calculation. This will affect impact damage more than tissue damage though. Also, the further the bullet travels, the less damage it will do. Keep this in mind as realistically as possible. Low caliber low energy rounds such as 9x18 and 9x19 have an effective range of 50m and minimal effect at 150m with a great ballistic arc to follow. High caliber low energy rounds such as the .45 really shouldn't be used past 50m because afterwards you're looking at a steep decline in energy (It's a big round).

Flatness is also a very important thing to consider as well. Damage is calculated based off of the velocity of the bullet right? Every bullet leaves the chamber of the gun at a set energy. If that bullet is travelling with a high ballistic arc then some of that energy is actually going towards propelling the bullet up and not forward, thus resulting in a lower velocity (But travels further). Increasng flatness lowers the ballistic arc and increases the velocity of the bullet traveling forward. This can sometimes create better hit angles but always increases forward velocity. Though it will decrease the range as bullet drop will start faster.

The game has a very in-depth damage system that is often times overlooked.

[kaay]

There will always be contradictory info because to my knowledge these stats have never been offcially explained and to make things even more confusing, some mods added new names for these stats and changed the way they work.

I reserve the right to be wrong but from what i noticed during my gameplay, armor will reduce the amount of hp damage you take, while impact negation will reduce the bleeding chance and severity.
For the life of me i couldnt notice a difference in the damage taken from the plethora of objects that were so generously "impacted" over my head by burers and such.

[Mystic Referee]

Oh I just edited the ♥♥♥♥ out of that post. Yeah look over it. I've been stuck in MISERY's comprehensive rework of the game and reviewing documentation of the X-ray engine in it's applications in STALKER. It's not a direct translation but this game definitely does some massive ballistics calculations that are easy to ignore because it's calculus level math. (And it's really easy to just go "K, made this number bigger, more damage!")

And there areonly a few creatures which have a scripted attack such as the Burrer, Poltergeist and the Pseudogiants hulk smash. I have no idea how those are calculated because I don't understand their scripts.

[Pèpè Silvia]

Originally posted by Mystic Referee:

Bullets are also defined with different damage and impact values. Exaple, 12ga slug does 1.8 impact will also doing 1.25 damage. 5.56x45mm does 0.8 impact but 1.9 damage. This is multiplied against the damage stat of the weapon I believe.

Just think of "Damage" as raw tissue damage and impact as blunt force. Armor protects against tissue damage, impact resistence protects against impacts.

Also, mutants attack with a mix of impact and damage. But it differs as Chimera and Bloodsuckers deal high tissue damage while a Pseudogiant is usually just tremendous amounts of impact damage.

It also gets more complicated in fire fights as every bullet has a travel arch and velocity. Damage is also calculated based on the angle of impact. A perpendicular angle receiving a much higher damage calculation. This will affect impact damage more than tissue damage though. Also, the further the bullet travels, the less damage it will do. Keep this in mind as realistically as possible. Low caliber low energy rounds such as 9x18 and 9x19 have an effective range of 50m and minimal effect at 150m with a great ballistic arc to follow. High caliber low energy rounds such as the .45 really shouldn't be used past 50m because afterwards you're looking at a steep decline in energy (It's a big round).

Flatness is also a very important thing to consider as well. Damage is calculated based off of the velocity of the bullet right? Every bullet leaves the chamber of the gun at a set energy. If that bullet is travelling with a high ballistic arc then some of that energy is actually going towards propelling the bullet up and not forward, thus resulting in a lower velocity (But travels further). Increasng flatness lowers the ballistic arc and increases the velocity of the bullet traveling forward. This can sometimes create better hit angles but always increases forward velocity. Though it will decrease the range as bullet drop will start faster.

The game has a very in-depth damage system that is often times overlooked.

Wow, thanks for the info! It sounds like STALKER has similar ballistics modelling as Arma 2/3.

[Mystic Referee]

Yeah and similar to ARMA bullets will rocochet off of terrain if the angle is right. Not like a right angle, more of an obtuse angle. Yeah... Feel the awkwardness in a post.

[Baron01]

Thanks for the great info guys. Great stuff to read but not so easy to translate it to a simple rules of behaviour in game :) I guess I will go with usual "Bigger number is better" approach for now.

Now, I wonder if similar explanation can be given for weapons and their 4 primary stats?

Additional questions:
Is Flatness translated into the accuracy stat on weapon?
What exactly is handling and what maneuvers does it impact?
Are there any general/simple rules to follow to judge weapon quality?
What is the order of importance that weapon should be upgraded? What of 4 stats should be prioritized? Is reliability any important and what does it do?

[kaay]

Flatness adds more damage (and in theory more penetration but cant test to see if really does that in the game). I noticed that sometimes increasing the flatness will also increase the accuracy on some weps. For me accuracy is the most important but i guess that depends on your playstyle. Reliability is how long you can use it before it degrades and needs repairs, a pretty much insignificant stat. Handling is how fast the wep recovers after a recoil.

[Mystic Referee]

Originally posted by kaay:

Flatness adds more damage (and in theory more penetration but cant test to see if really does that in the game). I noticed that sometimes increasing the flatness will also increase the accuracy on some weps. For me accuracy is the most important but i guess that depends on your playstyle. Reliability is how long you can use it before it degrades and needs repairs, a pretty much insignificant stat. Handling is how fast the wep recovers after a recoil.

Flatness changes ballistic arc, which is why it can seem more accurate. This increases bullet velocity which increases damage albeit bullet drop will begin sooner.

Handling increases how fast you can move the weapon and still be on target. This is easiest to notice when hold from the hip.

Reliability is increadibly useful on MISERY but considering you aren't out of the safe house for days at a time, reliability isn't as useful in other game mods.