Skip to main content
Table of Contents
< All Topics
Print

Damage Types and Resistances

Posted
Updated
By

Direct cold damage has its own damage threshold and resistance. All six types follow the same order: physical, cold, radiation, poison, energy, fire. Effects that previously gave a shared protection bonus change the values for all six types.

Weather cooling and frostbite are calculated separately; these changes do not improve protection against them.

A hit on target isn’t damage yet. Between "I landed it" and "the enemy lost health" stands defense, and it reacts differently to different kinds of threat. Let’s break down what damage types exist in the game, how the two layers of defense work, and why a weapon that’s perfect against a beast can hammer uselessly against armor.

Six damage types

Every attack carries a single damage type, and defense is calculated separately for that type. In the current version, there are six damage types, each with its own threshold and resistance:

  • Physical — bullets, shrapnel, blows, claws. The most common type in ordinary combat.
  • Cold — direct cold damage; weather cooling and frostbite are calculated separately.
  • Radiation — dangerous not just for its damage: contact with radiation leaves lasting aftereffects.
  • Toxic (poison) — same story: on top of direct harm, it adds a poisoning condition that keeps grinding you down after the hit lands.
  • Energy — a separate threat, against which ordinary "thick" armor doesn’t automatically help.
  • Fire — also calculated against its own resistance and often arrives as a secondary effect of explosions.

The key takeaway: armor that holds up beautifully against bullets isn’t required to protect you just as well from fire, energy, poison, or radiation. Resistance to each type is its own thing.

Two layers of defense: threshold and resistance

Once an attack has passed the hit check, the damage runs through two different mechanisms on the target.

  • DT — damage threshold. This is a flat number that is subtracted from incoming damage. For a burst, its contribution accounts for the number of hits.
  • DR — damage resistance. This is a percentage of the attack’s original damage.

The threshold and a resistance percentage of the original damage are subtracted from that same original value. For a burst, the flat deduction accounts for the number of hits. Armor and resistance alone do not fully cancel an ordinary nonzero hit: a damage floor remains at 20% of one hit’s damage, and at least one point. Final damage-taken modifiers are applied separately.

Your own protection and armor

Threshold and resistance are selected for the current attack’s damage type. Worn armor adds its contribution for that same type to the character’s own values; there is no separate general layer. The same armor can therefore hold up well against bullets and offer little protection against cold, energy, or fire. Negative armor resistance means vulnerability.

Penetration (armor piercing)

Special ammunition and effects let you bypass the contribution of worn armor specifically: armor-piercing rounds or a high enough penetration rating on the attacker switch off the DT/DR of the target’s equipment. But penetration doesn’t leave the target defenseless across the board — the creature’s or character’s own resistances stay in place. The armor-piercing approach solves one problem (heavy armor), but it doesn’t cancel the question of exactly what you intend to finish the target off with.

What else affects the outcome

  • Broken armor doesn’t protect. While an item is intact, it provides full DT/DR; the moment it breaks, its protection drops to zero until repaired.
  • Poison and radiation are more dangerous than their damage. They leave behind conditions that keep grinding the character down after the hit itself.

Practical takeaway

A weapon doesn’t exist in isolation from the enemy’s defense. What instantly takes apart a weak beast can helplessly hammer against armor. If a fight feels like it’s dragging on, the problem usually isn’t the character’s courage but the wrong tool: sometimes you need raw damage, sometimes penetration, sometimes a different type of effect — and sometimes the best solution is not to get into it at all.