most of the enemies i run into these days have that little red shield that pops up whilst i'm busy trying to pop them. i get that some creatures and humans are armored and that this is playing a factor. i like how armor works out for me in all honesty, but i feel like it's almost everybody now. i even tried getting at a deathclaw and apparently, they're armored too! furthermore, i understand if i'm taking limb and body shots at a person that their armor would be a factor. but what about their heads!!?!?! what about their damn heads!?!?!

Helmets, and deathclaws have natural armor.

well all right, helmets i can understand. but i'm talking about dudes with no helmus!

Yeah I noticed that too. I just figured it was too hard/the devs too lazy to program DT to only effect areas that the armor cover. As it is now I think that it's applied to the body as a whole. It would have been better if you could headshot someone in power armor and completely ignore the DT if they didn't have a helmet on.

Super Mutants?
They got super skin.

so does this mean then that i have to use armor piercing rounds on everything that has the little red shield pop up?

No, you could get a better weapon :wink_smile:

well, i've got a .44, some rifles, some lazers and junk, and THAT gun. what's it take, huh!?

Higher gun skill, or maybe your weapons are (almost) broken?

Probably "not possible" given the way the game engine works.

Unlike some other RPGs where you can mix and match outfits, FO:3/FO:NV really only give you 3 clothing slots (body / head / face). So while it would have been nice if there were varying DT values per body part, I can see why they didn't bother. Too hard to explain to the player and it would take a dozen or two lines in the code where the current calculation can be done using a single line.

A combat overhaul, using a script extender like FOSE, can probably expand that. Maybe calculate a basic "body part A gets X% of the body slot's DT" or "the head only gets DT if a helmet is worn". Especially since it already keeps track of damage-per-limb to calculate crippled limbs. But there would be a lot of special cases for enemies that aren't humanoid, or their model has special armor on one limb and not another.