Whoo boy I guess this is kind of necro-posting but anyways; the current weaponry arrangement of 3.x has mainly the issue of armor taking way too much damage off of every shot, including even the grizzly and such but that matters significantly less than stuff like the Zubeknakov or even the Heartbreaker. The only reason I’ve really see the Matamorez, Maplestrike and “PDW”/Honeybadger thrive is mainly just because of their high rate of fire which is the detriment to high DR setups, as shown in other games that use that “High DR” armor system like various accessories in Terraria. This makes high damage per shot but low rate of fire weapons just usually worse because your DPS is going to be significantly lower due to the amount of rounds you’re getting down range more than anything but the fact that ammo is so utterly common and being practically universal, even for guns that can destroy high-caliber vehicles and walls, doesn’t help at all.
From what I’m hoping that Nelson does with Unturned II/4.x, from seeing the armor plate and rig system, is that instead we get general resistances based on how large caliber it is similar to how the US does it in real life (Hyperlink) due to that system being very easy to grasp, basically just being this level of body armor stops or reduces the damage from this bullet.
Frankly in my eyes this works a lot better than just a Damage-Reduction system mainly because then your Level 3A plate might help you against new players with something like a .45 ACP pistol but won’t help you at all against the penetrative power of 5.56x45mm NATO and would actually allow for ammo types like AP rounds or even Hollow Point to be made reliably without just upping/decreasing damage.
Another kind of main flaw I see is just how long the time to kill with everything but the four “metaling” weapons is, mainly due to the DR system again but also due to med spamming and frankly even on armorless opponents how it basically relies on constantly hitting shots in order to not have him just run away and likely grab 4 random shirts to make a dressing and be fine. Another way to do this is well again changing armor to a more “”“realistic”"" and fun variant of level based protection while also giving ammo that you could use against lesser armored players to increase your base flesh damage at the cost obviously of not being able or struggling to penetrate higher level armors.