Armor

Armor Mechanics

Damage Resistance

Armor has distinct values for "Kinetic" and "Ballistic" resistance. (However, this is currently the same for all armor as of 2024-2-10)

(No present armor has any resistance to the Pure damage type.)

Protection Points (PP)

If an armor has at least 1 Protection Point, it will have an elevated value for Kinetic and/or Ballistic damage resistance. These protection points can be "shredded" down to 0 (generally one point at a time.) If they reach zero, a much lower value is used for damage resistances. (For example the starter armor, SecurTek Lightsuit, reduces Ballistic and Kinetic Damage by 60% when fresh, and by 20% when shredded.)

As nicer armor with more than 1 Protection Point loses some but not all of its PP, your Armor Protection is reduced mostly proportional to the number of Protection Points and the difference between Full and Degraded Protection. As a simple example, consider armor with a Full Protection value of 60%, a Degraded Protection of 20% and Protection Points value of 2.

The armor would be at 60% until an Armor Shred reduces you to 1 PP, at which point you're at 45% Protection, and a second Armor Shred would reduce you to the minimum of 20%.

Protection Points can be shredded by most weapons with a fixed probability per weapon (some talents and weapon mods can change this probability.) Shotguns in particular are deadly for shredding somewhat reliably and up to two points per hit.

Protection Points can be recovered via some consumable items. Protection Points are restored for free back at the Safehouse.

Many enemies have armor without any protection points. Thus, their armor cannot be shredded as it is effectively always shredded. Accordingly these foes have limited damage resistance granted by their armor. Enemies show their armor damage reduction next to a little shield when they are highlighted. This shield will show a number which is the armor HP. If there is no number the armor is at its lowest value and cannot be shredded.

Shredded Equation

The exact equation for partially shredded armor is:

Soak Per Protection Point = (Full Protection - Shredded Protection) / Max Protection Points

Partially Shredded % = Shredded Protection + (current Protection Points x Soak Per Protection Point) + (0.25 * Soak Per Protection Point)

An illustrative example of this formula is as follows:

Armor with unshredded protection value of 80%, fully shredded value of 20%, 3 protection points.

This armor's Soak per PP = (80% - 20%) / 3 = 20%

At 0 shredded => 80% damage reduction (full protection value)

At 1 shredded => 20% + 2.25 * 20% = 65% damage reduction

At 2 shredded => 20% + 1.25 * 20% = 45% damage reduction

At 3 shredded => 20% damage reduction (shredded value)

Shred-Immune Armor

While no armor is permanently immune to shredding (other than extremely weak pre-shredded armor some foes have), some talents can give a temporary buff called "shred-immune armor". While this buff is active, the impacted character's armor cannot lose protection points.

Heavy Armor Tactics

Foes with Powerful Armor

Some enemies, much like the player's team, have 65% or more armor damage reduction. This can be challenging to deal with if your tactics remain consistent with how you've dealt with lightly armored foes. Instead, including weapons and grenades featuring high amounts of Pure damage can ignore otherwise formidable defenses. Examples of these weapons are the common but limited HE Grenades, the Revolver weapons, many Swords with IO charges remaining, and the E-Rifle.

Alternatively, or in addition to the Pure damage route, you can instead focus on lowering their protection points, ideally to 0. The most reliable ways of accomplishing this are using the Shotgun and/or some Soldier talents. An E-Rifle, if you have one, can often shred armor from a safer range than a Shotgun. Fully automatic weapons have a small chance to shred armor and they tend to shred slightly more armor in burst fire mode. E-Cutters can reliably shred a point of armor with a single IO Batt charge.

On paper, burst fire attacks from a fully-automatic weapon will shred armor more reliably than in a fully auto attack. However, fully auto hits each roll their shred chance during the attack. If three hits of a FA attack at 20% shredding hit a target, the odds of shredding the point of PP is:

1 - (1-0.20)^3 = 48.8%

Whereas the burst fire mode would've been a mere 30%. (Now you do have to land your hits, which tends to be easier in burst fire mode so that equation needs a grain of salt.)

A third option to deal with such foes is to debuff them with Stunners, Shock Mines, or various talents to reduce the threat they present. From there you can often run away and finish your mission objectives despite them. Overwatch is an easy way to deny a foe part of a turn, and can be activated with your last point of AP in a fighting retreat. If the mission objectives include killing this heavily armored foe, this becomes less helpful. Still, a focused team that denies a heavy armor foe any effective turns will eventually whittle him or her down.

Using Heavy Armor

Heavy Armor is its own dedicated category of armors (as of this writing 2024-2-10 there is only one heavy armor available to the player) that boast superior damage resistance and/or protection points than Light/Adaptive Armors. Heavy Armor comes with a drawback of reducing movement speed and initiative. Getting a slow, heavily armored mercenary into an ideal position before the fighting begins can mitigate that disadvantage. Additionally, investing in the Cyberknight talents to boost initiative can more than offset the penalties to turn order when it matters most.

Armor types

Here is a list of armor types.