Armor Basics

In ACF, every entity has 2 stats, Health and Armor.

Health

Health is a number that determines how much damage an entity can take before it is fully destroyed and turned into debris. It depends on the total surface area of the entity, and is affected by the ductility of the entity. Explosives tend to eat away at this very quickly, so make sure you have plenty of this!

Armor

Armor, expressed in millimeters, determines the level of protection provided by an entity. If a projectile's penetration is exceeded by the entity's armor, then the projectile is stopped. If a projectile's penetration however exceeds the armor of the entity, then the entity takes a little damage and the projectile passes through. If a projectile hits the entity at a very shallow angle, then it will most likely bounce, and may not even damage the entity.

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Nifty Tools

There are 2 tools that have direct impact on these 2 stats, the Cutting Torch found in SWEPs, and the ACF Armor Tool.

The Cutting Torch is capable of repairing or stripping health and armor until full or gone. It's very nice in the heat of a battle if you get away to make quick repairs.

The ACF Armor Tool on the flip side is to be used when building your vehicle. It has 2 fields, Armor and Ductility. The Armor is the actual armor to put on the entity, in millimeters. Ductility, like mentioned above, directly affects the health of the entity. Combined, when you click on an entity to apply, it will automatically set the mass of the entity correctly, as well as apply the armor. Afterwards, it calculates how much health the entity should have, and then applies that. Remember in the end that health is based on the size of the entity, so pick big chunky props for more health at the cost of more mass.

If you press R on your constructed vehicle with the ACF Armor Tool, it will give you a total contraption mass among other useful information. This total mass is useful for determining your vehicle's weight class, which is commonly used to put your vehicle in a "weight class" which is useful for picking fights.

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Weight Class Concepts

Light Vehicles (<20t)

Often these are light tanks, cars, or even just bikes. They typically have little to no armor, focusing more on mobility to get around, and even flank to behind heavier armored vehicles.

Medium Vehicles (20t-40t)

More mobile than heavy vehicles, but better armored than light vehicles. Armor on these kinds of vehicles is typically pretty even, with maybe some bias to the front and sides.

Heavy Vehicles (40t-60t)

The steel beasts lumbering across the field, these are heavily armored, and move about as well as you'd expect. Often they have armor focused mostly on the front, and sometimes the sides.