Damage to Armor

[Aigol]

Are there any rules for armor damage or degradation of armor particularly for Ultratech armors?

Also if a sealed armor is penetrated does it lose it's sealed quality? Like if space armor is shot through would it be useless in space?

[McAllister]

Armor damage rules exist on a spectrum from "no armor damage whatsoever except Corrosive attacks" (the default) to "determine the armor's DR and HP using its physical properties and apply the overpenetration rules to model it" (which is a little involved). A happy medium exists in Low-Tech Companion 2, although despite the name it should work fine for high-tech armor.

The summary, as I recall, is that any attack that penetrates armor also deals damage to it. Rigid armor is Homogenous, and flexible armor is Diffuse: it is protected by DR equal to the DR it provides minus one, and has HP based on its weight. I forget what happens when it runs out of HP, though. So, if my sword penetrates your DR 4 scale mail with a total of 6 damage, the mail is protected by DR 3 and takes 4 injury due to the cutting multiplier. If my spear penetrates your flexible chain mail, it will probably only take limited damage due to being Diffuse. If my spear penetrates your plate, I think the damage it can inflict is capped by the armor's HP based on the overpenetration rule in High-Tech.

[Gedrin]

IMC, which is non-DF fantasy, I only require armor repair if a character is downed in combat.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by McAllister

<snip>it is protected by DR equal to the DR it provides minus one... <snip>

While that is what RAW says it should be noted that that Low-Tech uses a flat -1 do to the fact that almost all armor in those books is under DR 10 and for armor with higher DR it should be protected by its DR -10% instead.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

While that is what RAW says it should be noted that that Low-Tech uses a flat -1 do to the fact that almost all armor in those books is under DR 10 and for armor with higher DR it should be protected by its DR -10% instead.

Is that noted somewhere, or an idea of yours? It seems like a good idea. I hope GURPS actually addresses it. I think I consider scaling to be much more important than most, as it's the only area I consistently wish GURPS addressed better.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Aigol

Also if a sealed armor is penetrated does it lose it's sealed quality? Like if space armor is shot through would it be useless in space?

See Suit Patches, UT188. Penetrated sealed armor loses stored air until patched. If you don't have stored air (say, you're breathing local air, but filtering it through the suit to get rid of contaminants), I'd say you're immediately affected by the local environment until you can get a patch on (and possibly for a bit of time thereafter, thanks to what managed to get through, but that's up to the GM).

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Varyon

See Suit Patches, UT188. Penetrated sealed armor loses stored air until patched. If you don't have stored air (say, you're breathing local air, but filtering it through the suit to get rid of contaminants), I'd say you're immediately affected by the local environment until you can get a patch on (and possibly for a bit of time thereafter, thanks to what managed to get through, but that's up to the GM).

That depends largely on how long it took get get a patch on, and what concentrations of whatever you're filtering it takes to be dangerous. Duct tape does wonders against things that aren't as dangerous as chlorine gas!

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by McAllister

Is that noted somewhere, or an idea of yours? It seems like a good idea. I hope GURPS actually addresses it. I think I consider scaling to be much more important than most, as it's the only area I consistently wish GURPS addressed better.

It's not fully officially noted anywhere that I know of but what I said is based on general observation of how the DR modifiers work backed up by the fact that in Eidetic Memory: Low-Tech Armor Design (Pyramid 3/52) pg. 19 it says under the dagger mark on the Construction Table that's if mail has DR 10 or more it has -20% vs. crushing damage instead of a flat -2.

While the given example is only listed for one type of armor for use against only one type of damage, to me at lest, it seemed to suggest that this was the intention for all armor in general. Also I think we can agree that having armor protect it's self at -1 DR no matter how much or how little DR the armor has is kinda silly.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

Also I think we can agree that having armor protect it's self at -1 DR no matter how much or how little DR the armor has is kinda silly.

I'm not so sure. There's armor that's designed to protect its wearer by deforming like modern ballistic armor, which probably protects itself with a fraction of its DR, and there's armor like plate; I'm pretty sure it's possible to kill someone through plate armor with a hammer, and I'm not even sure you'd have to dent the armor to inflict sufficient trauma, so maybe that protects itself with more DR than it provides.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by McAllister

I'm not so sure. There's armor that's designed to protect its wearer by deforming like modern ballistic armor, which probably protects itself with a fraction of its DR, and there's armor like plate; I'm pretty sure it's possible to kill someone through plate armor with a hammer, and I'm not even sure you'd have to dent the armor to inflict sufficient trauma, so maybe that protects itself with more DR than it provides.

Why are you sure that you can transmit a killing hammer-blow through undeformed plate armor?