Hello. I come to you in these trying times with the promise of an armor rework and the question of how to do it. Currently, our armor system is very binary. It either blocks half the damage or does nothing. Pretty bad, right? That's why I want to rework it.
However, the question is how. How should new armor behave? I've thought up two reasonable alternatives. In both cases armor will decided by the plates you put into a carrier.
1. The plates have a durability system, so to speak: shooting a ceramic plate a bunch (number of exact shots TBA) will break it, and it will no longer be as effective. Think a 75% to 100% reduction on its effectiveness. While your plates are working fine, they'll deduct a % from shots that hit your armour. For example, a plate with 100% health and 70% bullet damage reduction will deduct a solid 70% from all bullets. A plate at 50% health will deduct a solid 35% (50% of 75%) from shots that hit you. I have ideas for how to handle mercenary armor/voidsuits/rigsuits and such, so that will not be a problem.
2. Armor will just deduct a solid % based on its armor values. Nothing more, nothing less. This will come with some adjustments such as making exponentially smaller damage be ineffective.
I am now asking you to help me decide which system I'll have to go for. Go nuts in the comements.