Armor - How does it work?

[Sprayer2708]

Firstly, hello Kenshi community! I'm a new guy coming from the recent Steam release.

The wiki entry about this hardly goes beyond common sense and is thus fairly useless..

I'm guessing here:
-the coverage value is a chance for the resistance/dampening to be apllied if the corresponding body part was hit
-the resistance value is a flat modifier to damage
-the dampening value converts a part of the cutting damage to blunt damage so it can be healed without bandaging, it is applied after the resistance value
-if multiple equipment pieces have coverage values for the same body part, each chance for the reduction/dampening values to apply will be calculated seperately
-if multiple reduction/dampening values apply, the sum of each will be used to calculate the final damage

Examples (still guessing):
A bandit cuts my right arm for 50 damage. Luckily, I am wearing my medics plate of hybrid steel. The 60% coverage tells me that the chance of my armor protecting my arm from harm is above average. Also, I am wearing a chain shirt which has 50% coverage for my right arm, which means it reduces damage in one of two cases.
The medics plate protects me in this particular case, the chain shirt does not. the medics plate has a cut resistance value of .5 thus my arm only receives 25 damage. Additionaly, the plate has a cut dampening value of .14 so in the end my arm receives ~21 cutting and ~4 blunt damage.

This time, the bandit cuts my stomach for 50 damage. The plate has a coverage of 80% and the chainshirt covers my whole stomach (100%). Lady luck is on my side, both armor values apply.
The chain shit brings in .2 cut resistance raising the total to .7 and .2 cut dampening raising the total to .34.
This time, the resistance value decreases the damage to 15. After apllying the cut dampening value my stomach receives ~10 cutting and ~5 blunt damage.


Can anybody verify or correct my thoughts on armor values? I'd be happy for constructive answers on the matter.

[Fulgore]

Just to clarify - Do you multiply the damage by the resistance (50 x 1x resistance) or is it 50 x (1- resistance)? Cause the first method would imply lower is better, which doesn't correspond with the prices and quality - The latter method might be correct though.

Another possibility is that it subtracts from the weapons damage modifier - ie. a katana with 1,2 damage mod, would have the resistance subtracted. So a katana with a 1,2 cutting mod would be a 0,7 cutting modifier, assuming it armor takes effect, per your % chance.

This is all guesswork as well.

[Sprayer2708]

I did the examples to clarify that, yes I guess the damage is modified by the forumla actual damage=(incoming damage*[1-resistance])
I didn't include the modifiers from the weapons at all yet, trying to focus on the armor.

[Meynolt]

I actually thought that cut dampening reduced how much you bled from a cutting attack, but a quick look at the construction set tells me that you are correct [although technically I was right too... I just didn't know you took blunt damage]. Makes more sense too

[CalPal]

I did the examples to clarify that, yes I guess the damage is modified by the forumla actual damage=(incoming damage*[1-resistance])
I didn't include the modifiers from the weapons at all yet, trying to focus on the armor.

I think the formula would be

D = w(r)(a1)...(ax), where

D = actual damage
w = incoming damage/initial wound
r = armor resistance
a = weapon attack modifier (based on what kind of damage your weapon is capable of doing).

[Sprayer2708]

D = w(r)(a1)...(ax), where

D = actual damage
w = incoming damage/initial wound
r = armor resistance
a = weapon attack modifier (based on what kind of damage your weapon is capable of doing).

Would that mean to figure out D, w is multiplied by all those factors or w is an unknown function of r multiplied by the weapon attack modifiers or w is an unknown function of r is an unknown function of a....?
Sorry, my understanding of equations comes mostly from physics, neither maths nor informatics ._.

[CalPal]

Yeah, math was never my strong suit either, but 'w' would be its own separate factor that is determined by other factors inert to the attacking character, such as STR, DEX and skill with a weapon. The other factors are all their own part that contribute to final damage delivered (D).

Actually, let me re-modify that equation - I just realized it wouldn't make sense for 'r' to be adding to total damage, it should be taking away...

D = [w/r](a1)...(ax)

So let's suppose the following statistics can be gathered from one successful attack:

w = 27
r = 1.1
a1 = 0.83 (Let's assume it's just a katana for now)

So,

D = [27/1.1](0.83)
= 24.5(0.83)
= 20.4

So one total attack might, for example, lead to about 20.4 damage to a specific body part, which makes a bit of sense considering the range of damage one can receive / deal in the game. I don't know how Chris has actually figured out the damage system, but as far as I can guesstimate, this is about the closest I can come to explaining how armour resistance might play out.

[Sprayer2708]

Okay, so how does that r the 1,1 in your example translate to the armor values given ingame? I didn't come upon any armor exceeding a cut/blunt resistance value of 0,5.

[CalPal]

Admittedly, there's no armor in-game that has that kind of stats, but Chris has shown models of armor that look like they'd easily have 1 - if not more - damage resistance to a certain kind of attack. So max for now would be 0.5.

[Sprayer2708]

My point here is that 0,5 would increase the damage taken according to your formula.