Armor

Protection levels

Every vest panel and plate has a protection level. A fresh layer reliably stops any round whose penetration is at or under the level's rating, so compare the rating here with the penetration of the round in the table further down.

Wear, cracks and a soaked soft vest all take rating away, so a worn layer stops less than its level says.

Plates and inserts

These are the plates and soft inserts that go into a vest's pockets. Hits to wear out is how many stopped 7.62x51mm NATO / .308 rounds take a new plate from 100% to nothing, and rating lost per repeat hit is what each earlier hit on the same spot takes off the plate's rating there.

Plate	Pocket	Level	Rating	Material	Weight	Hits to wear out	Rating lost per repeat hit	Spall, bare	Spall, coated	Takes a spall coat
Improvised Steel Plate	Front or back plate	UNR	1.9	Mild steel	4.6 kg	7.5	0.15	60%	10%	Yes
Polyethylene Plate (III)	Front or back plate	III	3	Polyethylene	1.45 kg	5.4	0.4			No
Steel Plate (III)	Front or back plate	III	3	Hardened steel	3.8 kg	17.9	0.05	45%	3%	Yes
Ceramic Plate (III+)	Front or back plate	III+	3.3	Ceramic	2.6 kg	6	0.8			No
Ceramic Plate (IV)	Front or back plate	IV	3.6	Ceramic	3.1 kg	6	0.8			No
Ceramic Side Plate (III+)	Side plate	III+	3.3	Ceramic	1.1 kg	6	0.8			No
Soft Armor Insert (IIIA)	Soft insert	IIIA	1.75	Aramid	0.7 kg					No

Spall is the chance that a fast rifle round stopped by a steel plate throws fragments that cut you. A spall coat brings it down to the coated figure.

A soft insert worn behind a plate adds 0.15 to the plate's rating and cuts the bruising from a stopped round to 60% of what it would be.

Armor materials

What a layer is made of decides how it wears and what defeats it. Condition lost is for one stopped round of 9x19mm Parabellum or 7.62x51mm NATO / .308; the bonus columns are extra penetration that a steel-core or armor-piercing round gets against that material.

Bruise is the share of the hit that still reaches you as blunt trauma when the round is stopped: it grows with the round's energy between the least and the most.

A layer wears faster when the round gets partly or fully through it than when it stops the round cleanly.

Vests and plate carriers

A soft vest has its own built-in panel; a plate carrier protects only with what you put in its pockets. Weight is the empty vest, bites turned is the share of bites to the torso it stops at full condition, and heat is how many degrees warmer you run while moving fast in it.

Vest	Type	Built-in panel	Pockets	Covers the sides	Weight	Bites turned	Heat	Movement noise
Crate-Wood Armor	Improvised armor	Improvised	None	No	2.4 kg	20%	+1 °C	x1.03
Concealable Vest (IIA)	Soft vest	Level IIA	None	Yes	1.7 kg	16%	+1.5 °C	x1
Concealable Vest (II)	Soft vest	Level II	None	Yes	2.1 kg	17%	+1.8 °C	x1
Patrol Vest (IIIA)	Soft vest	Level IIIA	Front plate	Yes	2.6 kg	19%	+2.2 °C	x1.02
Slick Plate Carrier	Plate carrier	None	Front plate, Back plate, Front soft insert, Back soft insert	No	0.95 kg	10%	+1.6 °C	x1.03
Modular Plate Carrier	Plate carrier	None	Front plate, Back plate, Left side plate, Right side plate, Front soft insert, Back soft insert	No	1.45 kg	13%	+2.4 °C	x1.05

Each bare steel plate in a vest multiplies your movement noise by a further x1.06, and each coated steel plate by x1.03.

Where armor covers you

A plate is about the size of your heart and lungs, not your whole chest, and soft armor wraps more of you. The table gives the chance that a hit to each part of the torso meets a plate, and failing that, the soft armor.

From the side, the plate figure is for a side plate and the soft figure for a vest that wraps the sides; the soft figure is then multiplied by the figure for the part that was hit.

Nothing here protects the head, neck, arms, legs or pelvis.

Which round goes through which armor

Each cell is the chance that the round goes clean through a new, undamaged layer of that level and material at point-blank range. At 0% the layer stops it or lets only part of it through; at 100% it always gets through.

A round is certain to go through once its penetration is 0.3 over the layer's rating. Steel-core and armor-piercing rounds gain extra penetration against some materials, which is why the same round fares differently against steel, polyethylene and ceramic.

A stopped round still bruises. A round that gets partly through does 35% to 55% of its damage, and one that goes through does 85% through a plate or 95% through soft armor.

Rounds lose penetration with distance, down to 70% of it at the longest ranges, so armor does better far away than this table shows.

Shotgun figures are for a single pellet. A broadhead bolt cuts aramid, so soft armor counts for half against it.

Working on your armor

This is how long your hands are busy for each job on a vest. You do all of them from the inventory.

Job	Time	Uses up
Put a plate or insert into a pocket	4.5 s
Take a plate or insert out	3.5 s
Spray a spall coat on a bare steel plate	12 s	Spray Bed-Liner Can
Patch a soft vest or insert	9 s	Armor Patch Kit

A patch puts back 30% condition on aramid, and never brings it past 85%. Plates and wooden armor cannot be patched.