Alright, I've been thinking about some things that might make the armor in BW a bit more unique compared to other FPS's out there.

One main thing I'd like to see is armor that outlasts you. Sort of like in classic Doom. If you got 200 health and 200 armor, your health is probably gonna be destroyed first (if I remember correctly). I think what I would most like to see is the armor degrading a lot slower.

One possibility with this type of change is that you drop your remaining armor after dying.

Also, another thing, is a difference between heavy armor and light armor.

At the current state, you pretty much pick up armor to build your armor grade up higher, like you're just putting on all the armor you come across. Doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

So, another idea includes differentiating those two types of armor. For one, what one you use would really determine how you should fight. Light armor should provide near full mobility and would be considerably lighter compared to heavy armor. Heavy armor on the other hand, would catch a great deal of bullets without being destroyed. But it is heavy. And chances are your movement would be restricted considerably.

Also, picking up say, some heavy armor and it gets heavily damaged, you can't just pick up a vest and kevlar to repair it. Instead, it'd just replace the heavy armor with light armor. As for repairing armor, armor plates could do the trick. I don't think the armors should be able to be "repaired" past their max levels.

If you pick up armor plates without any armor on, maybe you'd treat that like the UT04 armor, only you'd maybe only be able to get a max armor of 25.

Another thing is the max armor levels. If you the armor behaves like how I stated, it wouldn't make much saense that light armor would have 50 to represent a state of perfect condition while heavy has 100. I think the armor should be represented in a percentile fashion, with their maxes being 100, though the rate at which they decay would remain the same.

As for how well the armor protects you, I think if they just made the penetration system work for armor (probably would need some tweaking, though) too, it'd be perfect. Maybe you'd have to have the armor appear in your character in order for the penetration to work, but I think that'd be better. You'd have unarmored spots this way that would be more vulnerable. Makes sense to me.

Although I am definitely happy with the current armor system, I would love to see some of the ideas I have implemented.

Also, I'll just mention again my idea to make armor a selection in loadout.

Good suggestion...

Problem is, with BW as it currently is, it be very hard to use this feature tactically...

Let's just say that Light Armor has good defense against small arms fire (pistols) and Heavy Armor is good for huge explosions...

How is the attacker gonna know what the defender is currently wearing...? With so many models out in UT2, I doubt there can be an Armor model that is one-size, fits-all. There has to be a tell-tale sign as to what armor a person is currently wearing so opponents wouldn't waste their bullets trying to guess their armor-type.

Also, methinks armor should be picked-up piecemeal: Helmet, Chestplate with Armguards, and finally Leggings. That way, the more armor you have, the less mobile you are, but you get the full protection you need. Goes for both armor-types, but the Light Armor set would obviously be lighter than the Heavy Armor set (duh!).

Hmm... good point.

But actually, with a majority of the models being human in shape, I'd say you can easily just take the existing models of the armor and get them the right scale for the stock characters and attach them like you would the back packs. Chances are they will work on a good portion of the models out there.

I still dunno... CUT2 still had a problem with it... and it was on a stinkin' GRAVBELT!!!

Ah, I see.

Well, this would be nice to have in PA though, then they'd have more control over things like uniformity and stuff.

But, y'know, this is RuneStorm we are talking about.

*prays to the Gods of Runestorm for a miracle to happen*

Would an energy shield fit into the runestorm universe? It could be 80% transparent, but have different colors according to the shield level. For example, you could have a standard light energy shield (yellow?) that deflects small arms with no effect on speed, or you could have a shield (black) that absorbs energy in its proximity and would also absorb some of your kinetic energy (slow you down). The absorbtion shield I'm thinking of is kinda like the battleship shield in the book, "A Moat in God's Eye", but for personnel.

I forgot to mention the idea of energy armor, actually, but you are thinking along the same lines of me.

I like the idea of the kinetic energy absorbing shield, be a great way to balance it out.

Having personal shields as armour is a lovely Unreal novelty IMO so I welcome such a suggestion

A possible reason the current armour system doesnt make much sence is because you made 2 types of armour for the same bodypart.

In UT1, different armour types covered different parts of the body. Here stackable armour made perfect sence: you didnt wrap on another layer but simply add more coverage. And getting new armour just meant replacing damaged armour parts with new ones.

However the ability for a single body armour component to provide full body protection seemed a bit silly.
So for UT2 they changed that into shield modules that can absorb eachother instead. Still stackable, but a little more sence. Too bad noone liked the cartoon design

You could try combining both the UT1 and UT2 styles: Shield pads for light armour and shield vest for heavy armour.

We can follow the "glowing aura of shieldness" feature to indicate the present armour like in UT1.

Hmm... yeah, UT99 did make a bit more sense there.

Dunno about combining the two armor types. It just seems to me that energy armor would be very different than ballistic armor, considering the Skrith are the only ones that have that tech as far as I know, and that armor did awesome for stopping and absorbing energy, but was crap against the ballistics. Regular old fashioned terran armor would be great at soaking up ballistic rounds but not so great at energy.

I always felt that the vest and helmet should protect the torso and head from damage, while the heavy body armor protected the limbs and torso.

That'd be so cool.


Okay after a full look through, this idea is awesome. Wonderful attention to gameplay X, this would defiantly change the way BW is played. Though i think some would want to have a choice on whether playing the old way or this way, so again, this would most likely be optional, which is great anyways cause it gets in, and if things get to boring, you just change it to the original armor system (but who would do that).

I dont mean to merge both armour types.

I mean to merge the two styles: wearable pads and overcovering shields into a new style that is wearable pads that produce an overcorvering shield. Hence a plausible stackable armour than still provides full body protection
when only one component is used.

This does not mean your traditional Iron Jack armour is gone.