Whenever a character takes damage in a Crew Combat, their Armor may soak some of that damage.
Piercing versus Deflection
All Weapons have a Piercing score which represents their ability to punch through heavier armor while all Armors have a Deflection score which represents their ability to deflect or absorb damage from more powerful weaponry.
When a character is hit, the attacker's Piercing and target's Deflection are directly compared to see if the attack is Piercing. If the target's Deflection and the attacker's Piercing are equal, there is a 100% chance that the attack will be Piercing. For each point that Deflection is higher than Piercing, that is a 1% reduction in the chance of Piercing,
Effectively: Deflection% - Piercing% = Chance to Deflect (not pierce)
Example 1: 102% Deflection and 50% Piercing and -> = 102% - 50% = 52% Chance to Deflect (48% chance to pierce)
Example 2: 150% Deflection and 20% Piercing and -> 150% - 20% = 130% Chance to Deflect (always deflect) (0% chance to pierce)
A piercing hit reduces the non-rolled portion of armor soaking, effectively negating two-thirds of the damage reduction from armor on average.
Soaking Damage
All normal attacks are either classified as Ballistic or Impact. (Special damage types for bleeding, bio-poison, and energy damage also exist.) Ballistic attacks are made by any ranged weapon in the form of screaming bullets, sniper rounds. Impact attacks are made by any melee weapon in the form of slicing blades, stabbing steel or swinging blunt stunners. Every type of armor has a separate soak value for Ballistic and Impact Damage. All characters also rely heavily on their Fortitude to soak damage during combat.
Armor without any Deflection is by its nature weaker but also lighter. This type of armor will not soak Damage effectively, but can be used to create evasion focused combat builds. While heavier armor with a Deflection value can be hit with piercing attacks, the higher armor value generally compensates for the loss, even when the armor rating is reduced by 50%. When heavier armor is able to soak up hits and prevent them from being piercing, their stiff armor values can stop weaker weapons (particularly pistols) in their tracks.
Regardless of whether or not an attack is piercing, Fortitude reduces damage by:
(25% Fortitude) + BigDice(25% Fortitude)
When armor is soaking damage from an attack that is not piercing (deflected), damage is reduced by:
(50% Armor Rating) + BigDice(50% Armor Rating)
If an attack is piercing, armor only reduces damage by:
BigDice(50% Armor Rating)
Energy Damage
Fire, Plasma and the like ignore armor soaking but are instead impacted by Resilience and specific Energy Damage Resistance, if any.
Energy Damage Received = WeightedDice(Energy Damage) - BigDice((Resilience/2) - WeightedDice(Energy Resist)