Body armor and plates

A vest is something you wear, not a bar that drains. It goes in the Armor slot of the Clothing section in your inventory (F2), it weighs what the real thing weighs, and what it stops depends on its protection level and the round that hits it.

Soft vests and plate carriers

• Soft vests have aramid panels sewn in that wrap round your chest, back and sides. They stop handgun rounds and buckshot, and nothing a rifle fires. Concealable vests go under your top and don't show. The Patrol Vest (IIIA) is worn over your clothes and has a front pocket for a rifle plate.
• Plate carriers stop nothing on their own: they are pockets. The Slick carrier takes a front and a back plate, and the Modular carrier takes side plates and soft inserts as well. An empty carrier is only webbing.
• Crate-Wood Armor is what you make when you have nothing better: slats off a crate and flattened boxes taped over a seat-belt harness. It turns teeth, claws and a knife, and nothing a gun fires. It splinters with every blow, wet cardboard is useless, it takes no plates and it can't be patched: make another.
• Soft inserts go behind the plates. They add a little to the plate, soften the blow when it stops a round, and cover your belly where the plate doesn't reach.

Protection levels

Every vest, plate and insert shows its level in its name and its tooltip. A level stops everything up to the round it was tested against, and what the round is made of matters too.

Putting plates in and taking them out

• Wear the vest first: right-click it in your pockets and pick Wear. It takes about ten seconds.
• Drag a plate or an insert from your pockets onto the Armor slot in the Clothing section, and it goes into the first pocket that takes it. That takes a few seconds with the vest on. You can also Use a plate, or right-click it and pick Put in your vest.
• To take one out, right-click the Armor slot and pick the pocket. It goes back into your pockets with its condition and its cracks.
• A vest in your pockets keeps its plates and weighs what it has in it. Right-click it to take them out.
• The Armor slot shows the level and one mark per pocket: white is good, amber is worn, striped is cracked, red is broken, and an outline is an empty pocket. The HUD shows the same marks above your health.

What it covers

A plate covers your heart and lungs, not your whole chest. A round that hits your chest usually meets the plate, but one low in the belly, in the armpit or from the side goes past it unless you wear side plates or soft armor there. Nothing protects your head, neck, arms, legs or pelvis, so against a vest the head shot is the one that matters.

Stopped, partial or through

• Stopped: the round doesn't get in, but you feel it. You get a bruise (now and then a cracked rib), a jolt, the breath knocked out of you, and from a heavy rifle round sometimes a stagger. You don't bleed. See Medical and the Bloom.
• Partial: the round got partway through a worn or outclassed layer, and you get a lighter gunshot wound.
• Through: a full gunshot wound, as if you wore nothing.

How plates break

• Ceramic cracks where it is hit. The rest of the plate is still good, but a second round in the same spot will usually get through. Expect about three rifle hits to the chest before one does.
• Steel takes hit after hit and barely wears, but it is heavy, and a bare steel plate throws the bullet's fragments up under your chin and down your arms. Spray it with a bed-liner can (Use the can) and the coating catches almost all of them.
• Polyethylene is light, but steel-cored rounds go straight through it, and every hit weakens it.
• Soft armor wears a little with every round it stops, and a wet vest stops less until it dries. Keep it out of the rain, and don't wash it unless you have to.

Weight, heat and noise

A patrol vest weighs about 2.6 kg. A steel plate weighs about 3.8 kg, a ceramic one 2.6 to 3.1 kg, a polyethylene one 1.5 kg, and a carrier 1 to 1.5 kg. It all counts toward your load, so a fully plated carrier makes you slower and tires you faster (see Carrying weight). Armor keeps you warm in the cold and cooks you when you run in the heat. Steel plates clank when you run, and the infected hear it.

Repairs

An Armor Patch Kit mends the aramid in the vest you wear, but never past 85%, because aramid is never new again. Plates can't be repaired. A broken plate stops nothing, so replace it and recycle the old one for parts. Sew up a torn carrier with a sewing kit like any other garment.

Where to find it

Police stations have concealable and patrol vests, soft inserts and the odd steel plate. Military sites, Blackmere lockers and bunkers have carriers and rifle plates. Traders sell police vests, patrol vests, soft inserts, slick carriers and liner cans, and a few sell rifle plates. You can make an improvised steel plate and crate-wood armor at a workbench, and a slick carrier, a Level IIA vest and soft inserts at a tailor's bench. See Crafting, recycling and schematics and Traders, supply runs and trust.

Old vests from before this update turn into the new kit the moment you carry them: an Old Soft Vest becomes a Patrol Vest (IIIA), an Old Plated Vest a Slick carrier with two steel plates, and an Old Titanium Carapace a Modular carrier with two Level IV ceramic plates. The Plate Carrier rig is now the Carrier Chest Rig, pouches only. See Clothes, washing and scent and Combat and weapons.