A Q about armor upgrades Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Greetings. I can't figure out how upgrading the ballistic armor of a suit works. In Misery, the protective capacity of armor is defined by its class (e.g. a class II armor would always be less protective than class III). So if I pay a technician to upgrade the ballistic armor of my suit, what would the benefit be? Tried that with a SEVA and didn't notice any increase of the armor class in the description after the upgrade.

Also, I opened the o_scientific_outfit_up file in outfit_upgrades directory and noticed there that hit_fraction_actor parameter is the same across the entire file. Would that mean that the armor upgrading actually does nothing to improve a suit?

The class rating would not change. It's not my area of expertise, and documentation for this engine is almost non-existent. I will Google around and see if I can find any explanation for the factors. I use the class ratings to match up my bullet class to overcome higher class armor. I assume that if the armor bar moves up my protection has increased overall. Maybe while I am satisfying my own curiosity, someone with actual knowledge will chime in

Thanks, Jasper. Tried googling it, nothing came out, hence my post About the armor bar, it's always full to the max, so I there's no way to see any difference. Although this just had given me an idea: I'm going to upgrade the armor of my SEVA and compare it to a "vanilla" one fresh from my local trader. I'll be back on this in a few minutes.

EDIT: happened faster than I've expected. So confirmed, for all that is worth, when comparing ballistically upgraded SEVA to an unmodded one, the armor bar of the latter turns red, i.e. the engine finds some difference in favor of the upgraded SEVA's armor.

Still, if someone here has any real knowledge on the matter, please feel welcome to share.

Edited by: SpeakWithCats

If you are comparing bars for an item, you need to have a like item in the appropriate slot, like a rifle equipped and click on one in the inventory. No armor fully fills the rating slot in use unless it has been hacked.

To compare things for fun and curiosity, you can just spawn them into your inventory. scientific_outfit. You just need to upgrade them for ultimate comparison.

Description files are independent....though that has me interested if you could add a new description string in the upgrade file.

Anyways fire_wound_protection is what you're going to be looking for I am pretty sure. For example the dolg heavy suit in items_outfit has a fire_wound_protection of 0.44. o_dolg_heavy_outfit_up has fire_wound_protection = 0.025 in there. What this does is takes the original value of 0.44 and adds 0.025 to it to give you a total of 0.465.

edit---------

description change didn't work.

Edited by: odizzido

I've been researching and most interesting thing I found was this: There is a reason to upgrade armor's bullet resistance. When your armor gets damaged, it's hit_fraction and armor values decrease. Having higher starting values makes it protect more when damaged. Worth considering when upgrading your armors.

Ultimately, this is very interesting. It means that armor piercing values are more important when considering yourself getting shot, and less so when shooting NPCs because their armor is always fully repaired.

I found mention of some category specific guides on GSC forum, but lots of dead links there.

^ This. So this is the reason to upgrade armor. Thanks, Jasper34, and Odizzido for your input. I may well have been looking at the wrong integer as usual.

Jasper34, you say "No armor fully fills the rating slot in use unless it has been hacked.". That's odd because ever since I installed Misery, all of the suits' armor bar has been filled completely, and I haven't done any modifications on this, I just assumed it was part of the new armor-rating system. Can you shed any more light on this?

It is important to ensure any remains of prior mods are deleted and start with fresh installs of both COP and then add Misery. I do it so often changing Betas it becomes second nature. I uninstall COP, delete all the remaining COP folders and start with clean 1.6.02 download. Fortunately I have 25MB internet so steam download doesn't take too long. You want to open, start, and save original game once before installing the all-in-one Misery file downloaded from either Misery Official site or Moddb to ensure not getting old or incomplete torrents. Your 2.1.1 save games should be good if you save them first. Making a backup of your user/ltx from the _appdata_ folder can save you some setup time if you don't know your graphics and other options by heart.

Your armor bar will never be full. Weapons accuracy can get very nearly full with top upgrades on Sniper weapons, but no rating bar IIRC ever gets full without some cheeki breeki tweaking.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to reinstall cleanly the game and see what happens. I really didn't know armor bar wasn't supposed to be always full.

I wonder if you were experiencing super armor effects before an now will be surprised how much weaker they are ;-) At least you will now get more of what you pay for.

Your armor bar will never be full. Weapons accuracy can get very nearly full with top upgrades on Sniper weapons, but no rating bar IIRC ever gets full without some cheeki breeki tweaking.

I think they're talking about the bar for the item itself, the one that comes up along with the description when you mouse hover over the armour, rather than the bar for the player in the middle that's always visible.

Perhaps I misunderstood, if you are talking about the bar next to the hand here Dropbox.com That should reflect the condition of your armor. at 100% it would be filled completely. The Rating bar I refer to is the one that appears at the bottom when you hover your mouse over it in the inventory. The further this bar is up the better your overall armor protection.

No, the bars that come up as part of the description when you mouse hover over an item. Like the accuracy, rate-of-fire, etc bars for weapons.

Those are the bars I was speaking of; I'm not positive which ones speakswithcats was referring to. I thought he meant the ones we speak of when you hover.

Here is a graphic showing the two different condition bars. It also clearly shows the benefits of having fully repaired armor on versus damaged Dropbox.com

Here is a graphic showing the two different condition bars. Dropbox.com It also shows you the benefits of wearing 100% versus damaged armor

Ignore the first download link; stupid forum won't let me edit :-(

Sorry for the late feedback. Indeed I was referring to the popup-description when you hover the mouse over the armor, and the lowest-most bar. NOT the current condition bar that always stays under armor's icon to show its current "health" . I reinstalled the game and Misery but it still is filled every time, yet when comparing a non-equipped armor with an equipped one by hovering over the former, the armor rating bar changes color accordingly. I can't quite guess if this reflect armor quality of quantity, but as long as I have the color-coding to show me which one is better, I'm fine with it. And besides, it seems consistent, since combat-oriented suits always have a green ballistic armor bar when compared to the anomaly-oriented ones. I'll stick with you explanation that it increases overall hits that can be taken before suit starts degrading (which, by extensions, would make it an equivalent of Reliability stat for weapon upgrades, I reckon).

As for super-armor effects, Jasper, no, apparently I haven't had those (or if I did, they was of the opposite variety), because the armor behavior after reinstall is pretty much the same; and besides, before reinstall it was still a complete misery (pun intended) to maintain the bloody armor after a stroll into a chemical of fire anomaly. Actually scratch the stroll, I meant a ginger trot since a minute too long inside, I got fricasseed or barbequed respectively. I was, in fact, pretty damn brought to tears by armor's low anomaly protection compared to all other mods I've played and my inability to stick more than my nose into an anomalous zone. So apparently the bar-rating behavior wasn't due to faulty remains of some other mod.

The mod is intended to make you wait until you have the 'right' equipment for the job or choose Misery. In a red eco suit you can cruise into and back out of a burner anomaly without a scratch. seconds in an exo, bye bye exo ;-) . The first thing you learn is that the first two cake missions you used to knock off for some quick cash are impossible without getting the right gear. The first round or two harvesting bandits (unless you are a masochist, I mean pacifist) is sure dicey, but that's what makes it exciting for me.

SpeakWithCats wrote:

Sorry for the late feedback. Indeed I was referring to the popup-description when you hover the mouse over the armor, and the lowest-most bar. NOT the current condition bar that always stays under armor's icon to show its current "health" . I reinstalled the game and Misery but it still is filled every time, yet when comparing a non-equipped armor with an equipped one by hovering over the former, the armor rating bar changes color accordingly. I can't quite guess if this reflect armor quality of quantity, but as long as I have the color-coding to show me which one is better, I'm fine with it. And besides, it seems consistent, since combat-oriented suits always have a green ballistic armor bar when compared to the anomaly-oriented ones.

Another way to gauge armour quality is by looking at the part of the popup description where it breaks down protection by body part.

Classes I, IIA and II are all pretty crappy protection. They'll ward off a stray pistol bullet or bit of buckshot, not much else. The eco suits and jackets are this type.

Class IIIA is alright, better than nothing. The Sunrise Suit, Heavy Overcoat and SEVA are IIIA on their strongest parts.

Class III is actually decent, noticeably better than IIIA. The Berill and Clear Sky armour are mostly III class.

Class IV is good, but still watch out for AP bullets. The Bulat and PSZ-6d Heavy Duty armour are class IV, as is the Sphere-08 helmet.

Class V is the best by a wide margin, but it still doesn't make you invulnerable. For class V you're looking at the Exoskeleton and Sphere-12 helmet.