Hopes for Armor Repair and Munitions

For starters, I'd like to ask an open question: Why does nobody ever want to actually repair their armor? Is there a stigma against it or do you just never need it?

If you blind polled players in-client about it I wouldn't be surprised if fewer than half even knew armour could take damage. Armor secretly being totalled without the wearers knowing it probably decided a bunch of conflicts over the years, and even after the new inspection came in so more players could see their Xo3 was actually destroyed, it's been relatively slow to process.

Everything around armor and damage and repair and mitigation is heavily, heavily obfuscated and so whether there are benefits or downsides or trade-offs, so generally getting stuff fixed up is going to often to be the last option after 'do nothing' and 'buy new' because the outcomes are not always very well understood even among IC experts.

The game would benefit from characters who articulate the benefits of repairing armor. And who also demystify the system.

A simple example is whether or not repaired armor is "as good as new". I think the general assumption, or at least my assumption, is that because of the way repaired clothing works, that repaired armor "isn't good". ie, it's the armored equivalent of "tattered". or "repaired"

So some basic, generic data like, "Here you go chummer, it's as good as new." or "Even though it looks patched up, don't worry. It'll still stop a blade."

Also, it might help to make the armor repair gear less expensive and/or more widely available. I seem to remember that the upfront cost was pretty high. Albeit I haven't seen the required gear in literal years at this point.

Also, if this is not already the case, it would be a good thing to make the entry level armor like the leather and Du-Wear stuff repairable by relatively low skilled characters.

There might also be some consideration given to lower tier repair gear. Like, using the entry level gear and low skills a character can repair up to Du-Wear. If they want to go beyond that, they need to invest chyen and UE in high enough amounts that it becomes more than a hobby, side hustle, or something that any character can pick up with some left over chy and UE.

I cannot speak to other game systems and how armor is or is not balanced against those systems.

As far as RL armor goes, the idea of repairing it is pretty silly. At least the modern, composite armors that provide stab, cut and puncture (bullet) resistance. Once a vest has stopped a bullet or a blade, it is taken out of service and recycled. There's some science behind it that I'm not an authority on, and so this is going to sound pretty lame. Essentially the weave or composite structure of the armor undergoes irreversible changes as the result of dissipating the kinetic impact of a projectile or puncturing weapon.

Now sure, we can hand wave that away because we are playing a game here. And maybe that's a good system for the overall game that we are creating. We don't need to be "realistic" when we can use explanations like "Scientific nanogenic armor fixing magix!"

I like the current tooling for armor repair. It make sense. Especially for the higher tier armors where fit and overlap would be considerations for an armorsmith.

As I suggested in my last comment, I think it would be great if there were a lower tier of repair tools. Those tools could be more like the toolbelt type of toolsets.