Armor
Certain aliens have armor, which reduces incoming damage by a percentage each time they take a hit. Specific castes have armor which aids in their survivability, notably the crusher and defender.
When taking damage with armor, it factors in the damage's armor piercing ability and the alien's current armor status.
For example, if a crusher were to be shot at with a normal rifle bullet, the crusher would take a small amount of damage, due to having armor. The crusher will still take damage but the damage is heavily reduced.
But, if an armor piercing rifle bullet were to hit the crusher, they would take full damage from the bullet.
How armor actually works:
1. armor_deflection_total is calculated, Which is equal to 1.1^(armor/5)
2. The damage is then divided by armor_deflection_total
3. If the (newly calculated) damage is smaller than the armor times two, Steps 4,5 are executed, and otherwise skipped.
4. damage_with_armor is calculated, Equal to damage*4 - armor
5. The damage is then multiplied by damage_with_armor/(damage*4)
Example:
Damage = 35, Armor = 30
armor_deflection_total = 1.1^(30/5) = 1.771561
damage \= armor_deflection_total = 19.7565876
damage < armor * 2 so:
damage_with_armor = damage*4 - armor = 49.0263504
dam_pass = damage_with_armor / (damage*4) = 0.620379787
damage *= dam_pass = 12.2565876
Conclusion: Use armor penetrating rounds.
Do remember Armor =\= more Health . It reduces the damage taken to your health.
Explosive armor
Unlike regular armor, explosive armor functions somewhat differently. It protects you from explosions and explosion stun times. The more explosive armor you have, the less damage and stun you take from explosions.
Armor penetrating munitions and weapons
Certain weapons and ammunition penetrate armor. All armor piercing munitions are quite efficient at piercing armor and certain munition types at penetrating armor, unlike their softpoint counterparts. The following lists examples of Armor Piercing/breaking weapons and ammunition:
- M240 flamethrower (ignores it)
- Slugs
- Flechette
- M56D machine gun
- M56 Smartgun
- M42A Scoped Rifle
- Any AP ammunition
Evasion
Aliens that don't have armor have an added bonus to projectiles missing them. Only drones have this bonus.