Armorsmith Archive

The armor protection cap refers to the average protection value of the armor.

This is how I understand it:

Segments have a protection value of 100+9*experimental protection. So if you use very good resources and experiment your segments to 95%, you should get segments with 955 protection.

Cores have a protection value of 200+28*experimental protection+the combined protection values of each segment, so with 95% segments and 85% cores, you should get around 5445 base protection on the cores.

Using this core for a piece of armor will add another 400 points to the equation, so you will hit 5845 protection.

Had you used 91% cores with the same segments, you would get5613 cores, which would be 6000 protection in the final, not 6013. This is because of the cap.

(Recon and assault modify the kinetic/energy ratings by +/- 1000, but you already know that, so let´s keep it simple and stick to battle cores)

The thing with caps is that the average protection will never exceed 6000. This means that capped unlayered armor will always have an average protection of 6000.

Logically the same should be true for layered cores, however as the penalty for layers always exceed the bonus by a few points, the average should be 1-2 points lower for capped layered cores.

Also consider that layered armor will be relatively weaker against opposite damage types than it will be stronger against it´s intended damage type. e.g. a balancedcapped battle armoris 48% damage reduction, if you put modify this with energy layers you will get 4.5% more energydamage reductionbut lose 5.5% kinetic damage reduction.

In my opinion, layered suits are useful for specialized situations, e.g. energy against most npc´s / pvp and kinetic for most pve hunting.

I understand that with layers I rob one stat to boost another--got it. If the piece shows a number higher than 6000 (battle) or 7000 for assault or recon, is it actually the value shown when you examine it?

Thanks again,

Ryd

Yes, it should be

With layered armor, I believe the cap is +1200 forsimple layersand +600 for advanced layers, so 8200 energy recon/kinetic assault or 6600 kinetic/energy primus battle.