So, the best readily available armor I have found (synth), fully upgraded, you have armor protection values of about 20. Not certain whether or not there is "global" protection or only hit zones matter - I noticed that, say, cage armor has a protection value of 20 but when you wear it, it shows hit zone protection of about 4.

But 4 what? The best power armor I could find has a protection of 300. But it doesn't feel like you have 75 times the damage resistance - power armor is tougher but your hit point gauge drops steadily if someone is shooting you.

So I wonder if Bethesda did something lame like guaranteeing you always take 10% damage no matter how much armor you had, or something similarly [censored]. The reason it's really dumb is it makes no sense - if you are literally wearing a bank vault worth of thick armor plates, why should a .38 round harm you at all? That was how it worked in Fallout 3 - the formula was stupid and if I recall correctly, you maxed out at 85% damage reduction, such that you always take 15% damage no matter what.

Anyways, the damage threshold system - if it's a hard threshold, where you take zero damage if the incoming shot damage values are below say half the threshold - from NV would be a lot better.

Also, the whole "automatic weapon bullets do less damage because" is also really dumb. Auto weapons ought to have a huge amount of recoil and spread, but the individual shots should do the same damage if they hit...

Auto is for balance as you say but I got to say your idea is good. As long as they balance it well. I'm personally not a big fan of random spread on guns however bc I feel it puts luck into the equation instead of skill. Not sure about armor, tho I can say I got a right arm that increases def as my hp goes down and when I check my pip boy it shows the new numbers which is nice

I wish it was more of a hit or miss based system instead of a damage reduction system, you take hits depending on how much your covered, I would of loved to see heavy armor deflect bullets better but only offer about 50-75% protection (bullets will only hit your skin 25% of the time) but leather armor able to cover more of your body like 90% but reduce bullet damage instead of deflecting it.