Another thing to keep in mind (especially if comparing to real-world body armor) is that the armor is designed just to make a shot surviveable... not incidental. Turning an AK-47 round into an inconvenience is something that only happens in fiction. A soldier wearing modern military body armor is still more likely than not a tactical kill when shot by a high powered rifle. The difference the armor made is that he's out of the current firefight due to injuries rather than outright death.
Yes, exactly. That's the reason why I'm not a fan of the "Hero" armor rules. Fatigue damage is recovered in minutes, so that doesn't adequately reflect the injury from stopping a bullet. Neo Chain vs Sternschnat Claymore should do more than fatigue. There's also a very large break between no lasting damage at all and no effect at all.
Perhap I haven't shown what I'm talking about clearly enough.
Ballistic vest: Rifles reduced by 1 or 2 points, pistols reduced by 2 - 3. IMO this works quite well.
Flak: vs ballistic rifles are reduced by 1 except for the snipers, Zeus and elephant gun. Those have no reduction. Pistols are reduced by 1 or 2.
Ablative: vs energy, the same as Flak against Ballistic.
Ablative/Flak: No rifle is affected at all, and about half the pistols are reduce by 1. The other half see no reduction at all.
Below this, there's no effect from armor at all against pistols and rifles using standard ammo. Might as well not be wearing any, it just slows you down. This is where the stats break down, at BAR 3 or lower. With Melee, it's actually fine, just with standard pistols and riffles.
So what I'd like is some damage reduction, but not 0 damage or all fatigue.
Maybe just increase the Damage reduction by 1 point? Unless maybe the AP is double? This means that a cooling vest would have some utility against pistols but is totally outclassed by riffles and leather has no effect on gunfire at all, but reduces some melee.
Might work.
- Shane