The Absolute State of Armor Encumbrance

[Damous]

I want do know the forum opinion of the slowdown on the standard M3 Armor, leader versions and some other variants which carry the slowdown along with them including the vests the dead guards use on prison). The only reason people use the standard marine armor (but not theLeader version cuz it has good protection) is because of FF

As far as i've been playing, the bullet proof armor is way superiour to the M3 Armor just for the reason that you get more freedom of movement, and besides the obvious differences, this game still is SS13 and movement is key to combat since stuns still rule the way fights are done in this game(first one to get stunned will probably die, this also apply to the xenos). This is why i believe the bulletproof armor to be way superiour to the M3 Armor.

In my opnion, there should be two versions of the M3 Armor, and it would add more of a personal approaching to the combat mechanics and not a universal one (as we have now).

• M3 LV(Lighter Variant (striped down, no pauldrons, no knee protection...ect)

Pros: Faster
Con: Weakly Armored

• M3 Standard Armor.

Pros: Offers more protection
Cons: slowdown

[Damous]

JUST A DISCLAIMER
Im not just implying that the M3 (PFC version) is useless, of couse extra protection is always good.

If you feel ofended, or believe exactly the contrary, feel free to discuss.

I just want to know what you people think.

[CABAL]

FF damage, limb aiming xenos, other PFC's that are slower... Those three things defeats the purpose of lighter armor.
M3 armor is pretty good, though. You can survive a grenade blast in your hand and live in paincrit, but in stable state. Young runners that RNG hit your chest might sometimes didn't do any damage.

I think it would be nice to add this, but this would be... Nerf for marines. Marines are designed to stay behind cades, xenos are designed to rush.

[carlarc]

m3 armor is only bad because you never really realize how much it protects, young drones and a single rifle bullet will break your chest without protection. bulletproof vest is good but it doesnt protect limbs (where good xenos/marines who dont change their targeted limb after healing aim) and it has little slash resistance, meaning a drive by asshole lurker will fuck you up, guaranteed

the "light" armor idea was proposed by chowder but sppoky denied it on the grounds that it encourages powergaming

[Damous]

FF damage, limb aiming xenos, other PFC's that are slower... Those three things defeats the purpose of lighter armor.
M3 armor is pretty good, though. You can survive a grenade blast in your hand and live in paincrit, but in stable state. Young runners that RNG hit your chest might sometimes didn't do any damage.

I think it would be nice to add this, but this would be... Nerf for marines. Marines are designed to stay behind cades, xenos are designed to rush.

Bones Breaking are purely RNG, a single M41 (non AP) will fuck you up if RNJesus is not on your side, a young lurker hit might break your ribs and give you IB.

Anyway, being speedy is helpful, with the downturn you being extremely vulnerable to FF and other types of Damage.

m3 armor is only bad because you never really realize how much it protects, young drones and a single rifle bullet will break your chest without protection. bulletproof vest is good but it doesnt protect limbs (where good xenos/marines who dont change their targeted limb after healing aim) and it has little slash resistance, meaning a drive by asshole lurker will fuck you up, guaranteed

the "light" armor idea was proposed by chowder but sppoky denied it on the grounds that it encourages powergaming

It still really bad just by the fact that slows you down, as i stated in the OP; besides the obvious differences, this game still is SS13 and movement is key to combat, Stun = Death, having a option to be speedy would be good.

It doesnt mean you would be immortal, just harder to hit and a single ravager lunge or a lurker pounce would be garanteed death(see, balance ).

Of couse it always come down to skill, you can still do fine with the M3.

[CABAL]

Just run the test on Prison Station. Go to abandoned ship and wear gear of "unknowns". I did few "experiments" myself like that.

You pretty much can't run away from Queen Screech. The moment you see Queen "charging" at you, it's too late already. Xenos would especially target you, becouse you might escape. Even if you die, damage to your body will require a lot of meds to just go below 200.

There is also not much you can do against spitters. Decent spitters can aim and even if they don't, they can spam neuro. One of those will hit you. Few slashes aimed at leg and you are fucked in something less than M3.

Lurkers are based on stealth. No matter how much of "Sanic speed" you have, they will lunge at you (Like homing missle in case of warriors), few slashes and you are good only to occupy medevac streecher.

IB and bone breaking might be RNG, but the chances rises proportionaly to damage done (I guess). Also M3 has a chance to absorb/soften the damage. It's another "check" for RNGesus to consider. Xeno have to slash you, RNG have to choose which limb, RNG have to choose damage, RNG have to consider IB, RNG have to consider Fractures and with M3 armor RNG have to consider armor softening the blow.

Yet the most "dangerous" thing is going ahead of other marines. Imagine squad consisted of 5 normal M3 armor and 5 light armor. Group of those 5 with light armor would chase the xenos and the M3 couldn't keep up. "Sanics" would have to wait, which defeats the purpose, or go after xenos and be caught in ambush.

[JJG]

The only reason to take armor at all is for the slots. Getting hit in the limbs doesn't really matter since you can just splint them.

Let's put it like this. If you wear armor and get slashed a couple times you will live but then you will lie around in pain crit, wait for a medic, wait for the medic to fix you, slowly walk back to the LZ, wait for the DS, go to medbay, wait your turn in the medbay, go into surgery, wait for the DS again, walk back to the frontline.

If you don't wear armor or a vest you will probably die if you get slashed a few times. But you will end up in medbay all the same.

With less armor you move faster which ultimately means xenos will have a harder time hitting you if you stay vigilant to lurker pounces.

So the armor vest from a user experience point of view is the better choice to the M3 everytime. Too bad it doesn't fit on your uniform for some stupid reason

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

Bones Breaking are purely RNG, a single M41 (non AP) will fuck you up if RNJesus is not on your side, a young lurker hit might break your ribs and give you IB.

NOPE. BONE BREAKING IS NOT RNG. 40 brute damage means a bone is broken. IB and Organ damage on the other hand, yeah.

[Damous]

The only reason to take armor at all is for the slots. Getting hit in the limbs doesn't really matter since you can just splint them.

Let's put it like this. If you wear armor and get slashed a couple times you will live but then you will lie around in pain crit, wait for a medic, wait for the medic to fix you, slowly walk back to the LZ, wait for the DS, go to medbay, wait your turn in the medbay, go into surgery, wait for the DS again, walk back to the frontline.

If you don't wear armor or a vest you will probably die if you get slashed a few times. But you will end up in medbay all the same.

With less armor you move faster which ultimately means xenos will have a harder time hitting you if you stay vigilant to lurker pounces.

So the armor vest from a user experience point of view is the better choice to the M3 everytime. Too bad it doesn't fit on your uniform for some stupid reason

Point taken.

NOPE. BONE BREAKING IS NOT RNG. 40 brute damage means a bone is broken. IB and Organ damage on the other hand, yeah.

Did not know that, few hours ago an SL got slashed once by an mature lurker, broke his chest WITH ib. He might have been wounded before hand, so i dont know.

[Pogo92]

The only reason to take armor at all is for the slots. Getting hit in the limbs doesn't really matter since you can just splint them.

Let's put it like this. If you wear armor and get slashed a couple times you will live but then you will lie around in pain crit, wait for a medic, wait for the medic to fix you, slowly walk back to the LZ, wait for the DS, go to medbay, wait your turn in the medbay, go into surgery, wait for the DS again, walk back to the frontline.

If you don't wear armor or a vest you will probably die if you get slashed a few times. But you will end up in medbay all the same.

With less armor you move faster which ultimately means xenos will have a harder time hitting you if you stay vigilant to lurker pounces.

So the armor vest from a user experience point of view is the better choice to the M3 everytime. Too bad it doesn't fit on your uniform for some stupid reason

I've survived many, many hunter and drone attacks with only raw damage while wearing the M3 armor, and I'm pretty sure in 90%+ of those cases without the armor I'd have broken bones or missing limbs. Plenty of other cases of things like a Rav getting a single slice on me that only batters my arm instead of delimbing. Only time the armor isn't particularly useful in general defensive terms is if you're already injured and get Boiler clouded, you get Facefugged, or a Crusher tramples you.

[YourGuts]

The amount of times I've face tanked Ravager charges due to. . your armour absorbs the blow! Or whatever, is pretty nuts. I find the armour to by highly valuable regardless of the movement speed. Play a round without the protection and see how it is.

[Damous]

The amount of times I've face tanked Ravager charges due to. . your armour absorbs the blow! Or whatever, is pretty nuts. I find the armour to by highly valuable regardless of the movement speed. Play a round without the protection and see how it is.

I play every round this way, and i normaly never die until xenos board the almayer.

[Grubstank]

I play every round this way, and i normaly never die until xenos board the almayer.

You can play every round in a lot of stupid ways and consistently make it to the Almayer. Not necessarily implying that going without armour is stupid, but your positioning, playstyle, and gamesense have a lot more to do with survival than any other single factor does

[Damous]

You can play every round in a lot of stupid ways and consistently make it to the Almayer. Not necessarily implying that going without armour is stupid, but your positioning, playstyle, and gamesense have a lot more to do with survival than any other single factor does

Survival can come down to two things, RNG tank a ravager lunge or dodge it.

...have a lot more to do with survival than any other single factor does
Death is boring, i rather stay among the living where i can have fun and actually enjoy the game.

And actually trying to survive is not stupid, i see marines dumping their armor quite often to run faster from xeno slaughter(barricade breaching).

[Damous]

I still think the light armor is a good idea, and would create a devide with people and their own playstyles.

It sure was not a good idea back in the day, when you could mount rapid fire attachment on M41's and Gyros made shotguns god tier.

[spookydonut]

This should be on gitlab

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

Even in armor marines are still faster than the majorty of beno castes, hell they are faster than a young runner in the heaviest of armor. Plus no armor duel-shotgun is still a thing if rare- but fun!

We don't need a speed boost.

[kamenkuro]

An issue is weeds and sticky resin. You still gotta deal with that. Being able to yakkity sax away is all well and good, but that shit will hinder you no matter what. In both scenarios of being in a squad and being alone it's not entirely useful. Your speed will keep you up front, and here you have paper thin armor. Maybe you're in the back or center, but what's the point? You can't just run away from your squad, and worst case scenario you can end up full of holes because poor aiming. It's a grand idea, but it comes with a lot of pitfalls. It'd have to have more than "fast boi special" on it.

[CABAL]

Even in armor marines are still faster than the majorty of beno castes, hell they are faster than a young runner in the heaviest of armor. Plus no armor duel-shotgun is still a thing if rare- but fun!

We don't need a speed boost.

Are you sure about that? I'm not playing for less than a week and I don't see anything in changelog about speed.

[JJG]

Are you sure about that? I'm not playing for less than a week and I don't see anything in changelog about speed.

An unarmored human might be almost equal in speed to a young runner.

But marines in armor are most definitely slower than almost all xenos. The only thing a marine in armor could catch is a boiler. Maybe have equal speed to a young praetorian if they arent running on weeds. But in general it can be said that the marines cant catch shit.

Boilers and praes can always use acid spray to just block a path so the marines wont get em

[Damous]

Even in armor marines are still faster than the majorty of beno castes, hell they are faster than a young runner in the heaviest of armor. Plus no armor duel-shotgun is still a thing if rare- but fun!

We don't need a speed boost.

Played as survivor and an young runner was faster than me, so no.

An issue is weeds and sticky resin. You still gotta deal with that. Being able to yakkity sax away is all well and good, but that shit will hinder you no matter what. In both scenarios of being in a squad and being alone it's not entirely useful. Your speed will keep you up front, and here you have paper thin armor. Maybe you're in the back or center, but what's the point? You can't just run away from your squad, and worst case scenario you can end up full of holes because poor aiming. It's a grand idea, but it comes with a lot of pitfalls. It'd have to have more than "fast boi special" on it.

well said, theres also the issue of other types of damage like acid spit and explosions.

Most of the usefulness of the light armor would come down to being able to chase flankers, being able to dogdge attacks(even thought this would fall under player skill, with the L-armor making it easier).

[JJG]

Speed + Damage = Maximum Unga. You want to damage aliens as quickly as possible and be able to run after them when they retreat to heal so you can finish them off, otherwise all damage dealt will have been for nothing.

Dying for the USCM is its own reward!

[Damous]

Speed + Damage = Maximum Unga. You want to damage aliens as quickly as possible and be able to run after them when they retreat to heal so you can finish them off, otherwise all damage dealt will have been for nothing.

Dying for the USCM is its own reward!

You can still replicate this just by having no armor, but remember, you got no flashlight.

[JJG]

You can still replicate this just by having no armor, but remember, you got no flashlight.

You can in fact do this better without armor since you run faster. You will die of course, but what is one dead marine in a tidal wave of ungas.
Also, if the round ends 10 minutes later because you have just completely overrun the entire enemy who cares that you are dead.

[Sulaboy]

You talk about the lack of use armor has, but what happens when a lurker breaks your chest while running past you?