Armor Condition Damage Formula

[PushTheWinButton]

EDIT: So I've done some more testing, and arrived at the following:

ATT = attack base damage
DT = total damage threshold
DAM = damage received, e.g. max [ ATT-DT, fMinDamMultiplier * ATT ]
COND = condition damage

if (DAM > DT)
	COND = fDamageToArmorPercentage * DT
else
	COND = max [ fDamageToArmorPercentage * (DAM - fMinDamMultiplier * ATT) , 0 ]

The armour piece that takes damage is dependent on what limb is hit, which explains why backpacks and accessories don't take damage. The above formula also means that condition damage is completely negated when the damage received is equal to fMinDamMultiplier * ATT, the minimum damage that gets through if DT is high. In other words, a really high DT would mean that your armour won't degrade, as every hit will be reduced to its minimum damage.

 

Also, it looks as though effects ARE factored in. Weird stuff.

 

 

 

ORIGINAL POST:

 

I've been doing some testing this morning to try and work out the formula that governs how apparel takes damage. I couldn't find any information anywhere else (though admittedly I didn't look hard), so I thought I'd share my findings here for anyone who's interested, since it's not what I expected.

 

So there's a game setting called fDamageToArmorPercentage, which by default is 0.35. Naturally, I've always assumed this was the percentage of the incoming damage dealt to armour because that seemed logical, and just left it at that. Not so.

 

Turns out, every time you're hit, this is multiplied by your total DT, and then the result of this is subtracted from your armour's current health. I only tested this with torso armour, but I expect it's a similar case for headgear, though notably some slots don't take damage at all, as I've experienced with backpack and accessory-style mods.

 

Note I said total DT. That leads to some strange quirks. It means that equipping a helmet that adds extra DT actually speeds up the rate of your armour degradation, and having no DT at all means your armour doesn't degrade when you're hit. Obviously, this means that the magnitude of incoming damage has no effect on the damage your armour receives—DT is the only thing that determines condition damage and, as long as this is constant, your armour will take constant damage per hit regardless of if your shot by a .44 or nibbled by a rat. This also means that your armour will degrade slower as it takes damage and looses DT.

 

I haven't tested this with effect-added DT, but if it's included in the calculations it would mean that the DT from the OWB perks will also increase the degradation rate of armour. I also haven't tested the effect of DR at all, so that might be worth looking into if anyone wants to explore this further.

 

I don't think this is a very logical formula at all. It reminds me a lot of how weapon degradation worked in Fallout 3, where damage per shot was a multiple of weapon damage. This meant that a sniper and a handgun with the same health would degrade at different rates, making balancing pretty difficult, which is probably why the devs choose to have a flat rate for each shot in NV. An example for armour from NV would be that the Settlers Outfit and Armored Vault 21 Jumpsuit have the same health, but the latter will degrade 4x faster due to it's higher DT.

 

If anyone is interested in a mod idea, it is more than possible to change this behaviour by setting the aforementioned game setting to 0 and using JIP's OnHit event handler and GetHit___ functions to implement a different method, even changing the damage based on hit location and damage type.

Edited October 28, 2018 by PushTheWinButton

[Mktavish]

Wow nice work there , and it does seem like the formula is working backwards than it should.

But I guess in the bigger picture for game balance and making things not become worthless at higher game levels ,

it seems it is working as intended.

And then if you compare it with say like a new car taking damage. Initial damage is much more damaging to its value than say the 50th ding for sort of a quasi comparison .

 

It does make you wonder though if DT added outside that of armor does then effect the armor health calculation.

But then it may be a separate formula than the one damaging the player health. Would hope that was the case anyways.

 

I agree that they should have spent more time in setting up the factors involved in damaging the armor.

At least put in a type of damge consideration. But maybe they decided to not consider the incoming damage amount , because DT is much more significant against lower damage.