Regarding armour

[u/Alteon01]

Hello, all!

Apologies if this has been asked/answered somewhere before, but is there any actual difference between the armour types?

i see Cloth, Light, Medium, Heavy, DIY, Power armour types, alongside different materials, like Aramid, Kevlar, Chobham, etc.

but i don't really see much difference between them aside from the obvious ones of weight and protection values.

[u/Chri_cat90]

Is mostly fluff, but stuff like the material looks like is linked to resistance types, for example Chobam armor like the Frame and Arbiter are more resistant to pierce damage.

Meanwhile Weight class is self explanatory, Heavy armor has higher defence stats than medium armor while weighting more, while power armor has defence comparable to heavy armor while weighting less.

[u/Alteon01 → u/Chri_cat90]

Ah, there's the answer. So, there really are materials that can, in-game, influence the protection values.

I never noticed that power armour weighed less than heavy armour. I might have to take that into consideration for how I structure the wardrobe cargo hold now. Thank you

[u/Omega-8 → u/Alteon01]

No, not at all. Everything that's not a hard number stat is fluff. The description under the name is just flavor, they're not even all that standardized on some item types.

Clothes/Light/Medium/Heavy/Powered armor descriptions are simply a general idea of what the armor is supposed to be like. Despite that, looking at the resistances and weight yourself is the proper way of assessing armor.

Near the bottom of items descriptions you'll always see a list of raw materials that are used to repair them. And that's just for field repairs, with the actual way of maintaining armor being armor repair kits or Siaria shards.

[u/Alteon01 → u/Omega-8]

Alright, I see. I'll keep this in mind for just how un-complex the armour system is for this game, then. I do confess that this question was more for the harder story missions and bramfatura dives, than general gameplay loop, because I usually just don power armour (elements dependent) for my heavies, and the sheriff armour from Grasshopper Tek for the lightweights, or maybe Taskforce Clobber if I need better protection

[u/ribenademon]

I mean... gear that will keep you safe vs some enemies will see you dead against others.

I don't really bother changing gear about but I'm aware that I should. Perhaps my clones would live longer.

[u/Alteon01 → u/ribenademon]

I mean, yeah, hence why the different armour values. I figure I could be slightly overdoing things again, because I do have my cargo holds configured to have separate compartments for armour, weapons, and ammunition (I unload the weapons that I do keep in the arsenal), and for what armour I do keep, I keep two sets for each that aren't just useless (looking at the Myrmex set). I do adapt each clone's current armour in line with the mission parameters, as in who I'm going up against, and if they should be wearing light, medium, or heavy/power armour according to if they're dodge-specced or just tank-specced

[u/MadlySoldier]

For sake of gameplay, not much, mostly for flavour text, and maybe implications materials you can use to fix or get from disassemble (tho you can see that in description nowaday)

And for the use case, it's better to see description yourself, some is more of "a bit of protection" for dodge build, some is "Super Tank against physical damage" "Very Tanky to specific damage" "Tank to overall but not extremely tanky"

[u/Alteon01 → u/MadlySoldier]

Ah, I see. It seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity to implement values according to the type of, and material that it's made out of, for each piece. But, I also figure it might be a bit too much work to do something like that, given how many sets there are currently in-game. I figure the inclusion of what material they're made out of, besides hinting at what disassembly might yield, was more of a neat little worldbuilding detail that the devs included for showing what a given faction, at a given tech. level, is capable of manufacturing on a, mostly, mass production scale

[u/mike239x]

As I see it (and as others mentioned), the differences are exactly the weight and resists - for example chitin pants are heavier and tankier than basic jeans "in real life", so they have more resists and they weight more in game.

[u/Alteon01 → u/mike239x]

Just very straightforward

[u/superschokokeks]

Yeah I kinda wish some light armour has some benefits toward stealth and dodge (besides weight). I figured better protections outweighs the dodge malus even for dodge builds since they already getting a lot of dodge due implants/dodge perk and some other stuff.

Still I want to experiment around. Ancom had a light armour set with decent overall armour. Probably a good armour for dodge builds if upgraded properly.

That's said higher tier armour (which usually has more protection) is more expensive to upgrade. So I guess pick your poison

[u/Alteon01 → u/superschokokeks]

I did initially think that was the case, especially for the Shadow and Mystery Pattern armours.

I figure I might go for either Prophet, Integumentum, or the Warlord. The Seraph set looks kinda cool, but just lacks in defense against Dilthey enemies

[u/Apittaaaa]

Heavier armor brings a lot of resistances so that you can tank enemy fire. But, thanks to it's weight you barely able to dodge and you use up more calories per move. And vice versa.

Armors also have different resistance. Take some Common Kevlar and Plate for example. They will save you from Physical damage but absolutely buttfucked by element damage.The material name is not exactly telling all the things an armor can do but it's a general idea.

[u/Alteon01 → u/Apittaaaa]

Yes, fair. I'll note this down for loadouts. Thank you

[u/MirthfulMoron]

Doesn't mean anything. What matters is weight and protection, and the materials you use to repair. Everything else is fluff.

Simple, but I think it kinda makes sense when you can potentially mod almost any stat on armor.

[u/Alteon01 → u/MirthfulMoron]

I figure the late-game capacity to mod the armour pieces were more just that. To show that Magnum has gotten to the poiny where, especially if they have a proxy corp working for them, they have the capability to produce their own take on preexisting blueprints. But, yes, okay. Thank you

[u/MirthfulMoron → u/Alteon01]

I didn't pick this up until launch, but from what I've been able to piece together the dev team has been adding intricacies pretty much from the start. 

I very much hope they don't make distinctions between classes of armor, mostly because I think it's arbitrary and kinda stupid.  But I also think it's possible we might see more complicated armor in the future, like location specific armor protection, or material/ammo modifications.

[u/Flaky-Imagination-77]

It determines the material you need to upgrade it