Weapon Technology in Solar Echoes (part 2)

Today, we'll feature one of the possible augments that can be found on a weapon: Armor Shredding

The Armor Shredding augment can be found on both firearms and simple weapons. Weapons with this augment will double the degradation rate of an opponent's armor. What this means is that the hardness value of armor will be reduced two times faster, making it much easier to destroy a foe's armor and remove the damage absorption it provides him. The Chiraktis Wrist Blade is an excellent example of the Armor Shredding feature, but it is currently the only melee weapon that performs this function without the actual augment. An average suit of combat armor has 20 hardness and is rated as armor 2, meaning that the armor will absorb 2 points of the damage that passes through. Basically, it does double the damage the armor prevents. If a bullet from a sniper rifle normally does 6 ballistic damage, the armor's hardness would be reduced to 18 after one hit (hardness 20 – 2). However, if the sniper rifle had the armor-shredding augment, the hardness would be reduced by 4 instead of 2. The armor would be reduced to hardness 16 with a single hit from the sniper rifle. This becomes even more effective against a robot, because the “hit points” of a robot are their actual hardness and their armor is often 3 or higher.