Damage Threshold for Armour

[Professor Cupcake]

I find it pretty annoying that being pin-pricked with a shoddy shiv is still capable of dealing.. well, any damage at all through power armour. I feel like there needs to be a more meaningful measure of protection for the armour, but just increasing the stats of it starts to make it a little OP and still doesn't solve the problem.

I suggest the addition of a damage threshold (hereafter, DT), as well as the already-present damage reduction (DR). This DT is simply a minimum amount of damage to even get through the armour; before calculating the DR, you deduct the DT from the amount of damage. If it's 0 or less, then the damage was completely absorbed by the armour and does no damage to what it was protecting.

[Mihsan]

I find it pretty annoying that being pin-pricked with a shoddy shiv is still capable of dealing.. well, any damage at all through power armour. I feel like there needs to be a more meaningful measure of protection for the armour, but just increasing the stats of it starts to make it a little OP and still doesn't solve the problem.

I suggest the addition of a damage threshold (hereafter, DT), as well as the already-present damage reduction (DR). This DT is simply a minimum amount of damage to even get through the armour; before calculating the DR, you deduct the DT from the amount of damage. If it's 0 or less, then the damage was completely absorbed by the armour and does no damage to what it was protecting.

I was thinking about the same thing for some time already. DT could be really nice, but it brings another problem.

Not only armor system is not ideal. Weapon's system is not ideal too. For example:

Enfield has dmg=18.
M-24 has dmg=40.

But why? In general they both are the same thing (rifle cartridge, rifle barrel...), so the damage should be at least not far away from each other. DT thing will not work right, while we have such random characteristics for weapons.

For more beliveable armor we must have more beliveable weapons too. Pistol should not do more damage, than M-16 (it should be quite the opposite).

P.S.: Also we should have some AT weapons (single use LAW, reusable RPG, AT hand grenades, AT/antimaterial rifle or some future energy stuff... anything!). I am really frustrated from killing tanks (centipedes) with lots of MG fire. And current heavy weapons are not really working in this case.

P.P.S.: Buildings (doors and walls) should have DT too.

[Johnny Masters]

This is one of my constant naggings (made quite a few rants on it). That's how most/a lot of games that feature damage resistance/reduction handles it.  Damage/type - Reduction/type = final damage. Simple. Elegant. Reasonable. Efficient. You could either add the regular % reduction or randomize weapon damage.

Weapons should have an AP (armor piercing) value. So a shotgun could deal a lot of damage up close but have low penetration, so ineffective against armored foes. Enfields could still have lower damage than M-24 (since m-24 muzzle speed is higher) but should still have some armor piercing quality to keep it at par. But yeah, i have no idea what's the reasoning behind a pistol having better power than an m-16. A revolver maybe, but hardly a pistol. Could probably use another type of damage (slash/cut/chop) or have weapons to deal both piercing and crushing, and armor % reduction would transform absorbed penetration damage into bash damage.

Don't let me start on walls. Punching down walls is outrageous, let alone stone or metal ones. Give stuff proper DR and raiders  better/sensible gear to get past stuff instead of punching doors in seconds. Then we won't need to exploit with wall rebuilding tricks.

P.S.: Pistols should be what they are, side and backup arms (need more slots, hint hint), or weapons better suited for inexperienced pawns.
Ammo could bring some fun tactical choices, and those tactical one-shot/rare ammo weapons could be feasible.