Make general body armor work differently. In 3.0, a flat damage reduction to most sources of damage was fairly alright, but I think some improvement could happen.For example, one thing that bothered me about 3.0 is that one could be naked or toting a full military set and an alice pack and walk around just fine without any sort of encumbrance or difference. Here’s my proposed changes that you might want to add for Unturned II:
Point 1) Encumbrance and mobilityI think higher-tier body armor should have stamina and/or movement speed penalties that would compensate for the sheer survivability bonus of having armor. Maybe even make it so if you’re wearing a full-sized EOD suit (If that’s ever in the game that is), you can’t go prone at all.
Point 2) What armor protects you from: Body armor should have different resistance values to different forms of damage. This was done to a degree in 3.0 with firefighter armor making you less vulnerable to fire, but I think there should be different resistances to different sources of damage altogether, some examples being melee resistance, zombie resistance (Merge with melee if redundant), projectiles resistance, fire/explosives resistance, and contamination resistance.
For example, a set of american football armor with a helmet would probably make you a tricky target to eat if you’re attacked by zombies, but chances are that armor won’t be of any help if you come across a Bandit who shoots you with a 9mm handgun. On the other hand, a military ceramic plate vest would work wonders against Bandits with guns, and maybe even knife attacks, but it definitely won’t save you from a flamethrower or a burning zombie. A biohazard suit would let you have more survivability in highly infected areas with spores or radiation, but that simple protective clothing will probably do nothing against actual, physical zombie bites.
Point 3) Armor durability and mainteinance: Lastly, I would like to tackle the armor durability and mainteinance issue. The rate at which armor decays in quality is extremely low, hence why people barely, if ever, repair armor other than the first time after finding it. Due to the low general time-to-kill in gunfights, usually you’ll never see a player toting a vest with a condition of 80% or lower, because it’s much more likely to die with a high durability vest than survive until your vest has a low durability and needs a repair. This is also why people avoid Spec Ops armor, as it doesn’t have enough of an impact on a character’s survivability against other players. I think that Unturned II should have armor durability be something that actually matters, where after a gunfight players actually have to stop and inspect if their armor is in working condition.
This doesn’t necessarily have to be just making armor decay at a faster rate (i.e. going from full condition to basically useless after only 5-10 bullets tanked), but also making armor repairing be a relatively difficult task depending on the type. A military vest will probably require strong ceramic plates or very sturdy materials to repair, rather than just slapping scrap metal on it. On the other hand, you probably won’t need a full set of equipment, a blowtorch, fission batteries and a workshop to simply repair a civilian stab vest.
