Armor, Ammo & Time to Kill

What a bullet is worth

Damage starts with the cartridge. Every round carries a base value: a 5.56x45mm hit lands 28, a 7.62x39mm lands 42, a 7.62x54mmR lands 55. That number is then reshaped four times before it touches the health bar.

• What is firing it. Each weapon belongs to a damage class, and the class scales every hit zone. This is the part people miss, and it is worth more than most attachments. See below.
• Where it hits. The body has twelve zones, from head and neck through three torso bands and pelvis down to thighs, calves and feet, each with its own multiplier.
• How far it flew. Damage falls off with distance on a per-weapon curve. Inside its effective range a rifle keeps its numbers, past it shots start paying less.
• What the target wears. Armor eats a percentage of the damage on the zones it covers, until its durability runs out.

The gun matters as much as the round

Two weapons chambered in the same cartridge can hit for very different numbers, because the weapon's damage class carries its own set of hit-zone multipliers. The clearest example in the game is a pair of 7.62x54mmR rifles:

Same round, roughly 38% more damage per hit on the bolt gun. Sniper rifles carry the heaviest class multipliers in the game and stay dangerous even on limbs, while marksman rifles trade that for rate of fire. Assault rifles sit lower on the body and keep a strong head multiplier. A handful of weapons also carry an individual balance dial on top of their class.

So when you compare two guns in the same caliber, compare them in the damage calculator, which runs the real class tables per hit zone. Reading the cartridge alone will mislead you.

Standard, Flesh, Piercing

Most calibers come in three flavors, and the choice is a bet on what the enemy is wearing:

Flesh rounds delete unarmored targets, and they are close to useless the moment a plate is in the way. Piercing turns armored fights around. Against a mixed lobby, Standard stays the safe money. And at the top of the food chain, .50 caliber needs no trick: the heaviest vest still takes its 65% cut, and what gets through kills in two.

How armor actually works

A helmet and a vest each cover specific zones and stop a set percentage of incoming damage there: roughly 30% at the lightest tier rising to 65% at the heaviest. Protection is a pool. Every hit drains durability, and once the plate is spent the wearer is soft again. Two practical consequences:

• Armor only argues with the zones it covers. Limbs stay soft, and only the heaviest vests reach the pelvis and upper arms.
• Sustained fire beats armor twice: first through the reduction, then by emptying the durability pool for the next burst.

Every helmet and vest in the equipment database lists its protection, durability and covered zones.

Time to kill

Shots to kill decide half the fight, fire rate decides the other half. A weapon needing five hits at 800 rounds per minute kills faster than one needing four at 500. That trade, per hit zone and per armor tier, is the whole story of the TTK rankings: every weapon in one table, at the range and armor you set.

The clock starts at the trigger pull, so the round's flight to the target is on it too. At range that flight is most of a bolt gun's number. A one-shot kill at 300 meters reads as the third of a second the bullet spends in the air, and a faster round gets there sooner.

One more number worth respecting: suppression. Rounds that miss still land pressure on whoever they pass, and a belt-fed gun that never kills anyone can still win the fight for the people who do.