Armor Factor

Armor factors derive from your skin and the gear you are wearing. Armor reduces the severity of attacks on spacecraft, vehicles, creatures and items.

Two numbers show the total effectiveness of armor, separated by a %. e.g. 5% 12hp. The first number is the percentage of damage that is absorbed by armor. The second number is the amount of damage that is blocked by armor.

Armor factors on the Gear window are shown for kinetic contact damage. Armor factors can vary considerably against other types of damage.

Combat Example

A knife is used to attack a target. It's damage range is 5-20hp per strike.

By random chance the knife makes a good strike with all 20hp. The calculation to solve that 20hp strike against the target's 5% 12hp armor looks like this:

Strike	Absorbed	Blocked	Unblocked Result
20hp	- (.05 * 20hp)	- 12hp	= 7hp

Unblocked damage is what gets through the target's armor and reduces its health, by 7hp in this example.

Spacecraft	Explode when a critical system, whose health is already at zero, is further damaged. Those critical systems are the Hull, Maneuver Drive, Power Plant, FTL Drive and Bay Weapon.
Vehicles	Explode when their health is reduced to 0.
Creatures	Fall unconscious when their health is reduced to 0. Die when their health is reduced to -30.
Items	Destroyed when their health is reduced to 0. Some items explode when combat damage is applied to them.

Armor Wear

Armor gear degrades 1 point for every 10hp of damage it reduces; hardened armor degrades only 1 point for every 20hp, when hit by the type of damage it is hardened against.

Environment armor and helmets lose their ability to protect against the environment when reduced to zero condition points. Inspecting these items will report the environment seal as broken when this is the case.