I like the idea of having helmets being implicitly part of the armor and offer partial coverage, but I don't think they should be stronger. Historically armor was all about being hard, but when rifles were invented, that entire line of infantry armor died and war was virtually armor-free for hundreds of years; helmets, where used, were similar to swords in that they were artifacts rarely applicable to actual combat. Helmets came back en masse in WWI because they could protect the head from much slower and less penetrating shrapnel from above, which was a particular danger in trench warfare with regular artillery barrages. Body armor came back in WWII in the form of flak vests to protect bomber crews from shrapnel. In both cases armor returned because of the large scale deployment of area effect weapons that were weak enough to be stopped by outdated armor technology.
When it comes to actually stopping bullets, that's taken a different approach altogether. In this, it's torso armor that has been the champion, and helmets are usually quite a bit weaker. The US Army, for example, uses armor that surrounds the torso and head with kevlar capable of reliably and repeatedly stopping the light MP5 used by LCS, but can't consistently stop rifle rounds like the AR-15, M16, and AK-47 that LCS uses. To do that, the army relies on large hard ceramic inserts to the chest and back. The ceramic plates break apart as they're shot and don't guarantee more than a few hits of protection (the armor becomes "damaged" and loses the ability to stop high end weapons), so they have to be pulled out and replaced (the armor is "repaired" and brought back up to effectiveness). There's no equivalent mechanic in the helmets, and a single AK-47 round can kill a soldier through his helmet if he's not lucky.
With that said, that doesn't mean they're useless, as they can still prevent a glancing blow from penetrating and so still save a soldier's life even with a round they don't guarantee protection against, and this feeds into a criticism of the model I described: Currently, if the weapon is stronger than the armor, it *ignores* the armor, while if the weapon is weaker, it rolls for damage at a penalty. I think this is totally backwards; if the weapon is weaker, the weapon should be reduced to no damage, and if the weapon is penetrating, it should roll with reduced damage. To compensate, a more realistic way of rolling whether the armor has an effect could be used. Most body armor does not protect the entire torso, just as most helmets don't protect the entire head, and so body armor could have a roll to see whether it kicks in. Or, it could just rely on head shots and arm and leg shots to bypass the body armor if you don't have a strong enough weapon.
Either way, all these special calculations would get pretty suspiciously opaque, so the feedback to the player would have to be updated. "Joe's armor absorbs the attack." "The attack penetrates Jane's armor!" Or something like that. Then the player knows if the armor was hit, and whether the attack was stopped by the armor or not.
Edit:
- Mithril armor briefly, for like one release, provided a small amount of protection. With the body armor redesign it has been re-relegated to the junk heap. On the flip side, the also-promised 90% price reduction is still in effect. But a worthless object sold 90% off... caveat emptor.
Your Liberals must have missed the disclaimer:
MITHRIL ARMOR IS PROVIDED TO YOUR LIBERALS "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THE RIGHTS OF A THIRD PARTY. IN NO EVENT SHALL OUBLIETTE PARTY SUPPLIES INC. BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR ANY OTHER LIABILITY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DAMAGES RESULTING FROM DEATH OR SERIOUS BODILY HARM, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH MITHRIL ARMOR OR THE USE OR POSSESSION THEREOF.
- Civilian armor is meant to be a concealable "bulletproof" vest under clothes. It's called civilian simply because it's lighter than whatever the police use and I couldn't think of a better name. It's probably only effective against the .22s that security guards favor and random melee weapons and fists people like to smack you with. I think even police handguns will punch through it.
- For driving, I don't know off hand how much skill will totally prevent a crash. To improve survivability I might suggest not swerving around fruit stands. While your heart must go out to fruit sellers that might get squashed, avoiding fruit stands is my experience the most dangerous maneuver you can pull during a chase. Sad but, at least in my tests, apparently true.
[ June 04, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
[ June 04, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]
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Topic: Help with cars and armor? (Read 2857 times)