Armour

Armour is an expensive, yet durable material. It can reflect small arms, block Buzzsaw projectiles and withstand more stress than Bracing.

## Characteristics

### Pros

High health, structurally strong, reflects bullets and protects from buzzsaws

### Special

Architect : twice as fast to build | Armourdillo : 20% cheaper

## Overview

Armour is a specialized defensive material, bearing the highest HP per strut (alongside the Door) and being capable of reducing or outright nullifying the effects of certain weapons.

Armour is marginally cheaper than the Door and Energy Shield, and it has an average construction time of 8 seconds.

Armour has a quite high health density — compared to Bracing or Background Bracing — making it a prime candidate for defenses where space is limited. Armour is also able to easily block Buzzsaw shots, as well as reduce the penetration of a Firebeam from 3 grid units to 2.

Angled Armour is able to deflect small arms, such as Sniper rounds and Machine Gun/Minigun volleys. It can also deflect AP Sniper/Minigun rounds, albeit requiring a greater angle (~45°).

Armour is also among the heaviest materials to place, along with Doors and Portals, at a mass of 50.

Like all materials, Armour has a limited tolerance for compression and stretching. If compressed/stretched by 10% past its original construction length, it will snap (for example a 3-grid-long strut will be destroyed if compressed more than 2.7 grid length). For this reason Armour can withstand more weight the longer it is.

Armour has a higher resistance to compression, and can thus hold more weight before it breaks.

Also like other materials, Armour will snap off if it rotates more than 30 degrees in its joint (relative to the initial angle it was built at).

   Armour can be connected to terrain with the Foundations texture, making a foundation node. This incurs a flat cost of 50 metal and 400 energy on top of the cost of the strut itself. Foundation nodes cannot be created on terrain without the Foundations texture.

Foundation nodes are highly stable, as they effectively create an anchor point for which the base itself can only rotate off that strut. This means that, in moderation, they work great to stabilize a fort.

Like other materials, Armour built in an arrangement where 3 connected struts form sides of a triangle will enable it to display cladding, obscuring the contents.

## Strategies

Where Armour shines is as a supplement to Bracing in one's defense. It can be added with relative ease, and provides great protection if resources can be spared. It ensures that the player isn't vulnerable to Buzzsaw strikes, and reduces the penetrative abilities of troublesome Firebeams.

If using Armour to block Buzzsaw attacks, it's important to note the interactions regarding material placement versus conversion. Buzzsaws will be blocked by Armour while constructing; however, if a strut of Bracing is converted to Armour and the Buzzsaw hits before the conversion has finished, the strut will still be considered Bracing and the Buzzsaw will slice right through.

An additional, albeit less common use, is to protect from small arms; typically Miniguns. This requires the Armour be slanted, which adds cost, but enables the complete reflection of Minigun bullets without any resulting damage. While more of a reactive response to Miniguns instead of a proactive response, getting angled Armour can allow the player to breathe and decide what to do next. In this situation, a good idea would be to work on a Sniper in order to counter the enemy's opening and deny them progression into heavy-hitters such as Rockets or Warheads, which rely on solid map control.

Armour can also be used to make catastrophic attacks from the Howitzer less lethal, since it takes very little damage from the Howitzer's splash. It can then help alleviate the follow-up attack, since it still retains a vast majority of its HP; Bracing, on the other hand, would be reduced to a fraction of its health.

Armour is great for protecting vulnerable areas of the fort. Unlike Bracing, Armour does not involve having to spam out dense sections of defense, and instead just requires one or two pieces in an area.

Armour can be used to reinforce stressed struts in a base, due to its high stress resistance. It can also be used to support the foundations of the fort, where Mines are not present. While Stability Tech is cheaper and more structurally strong in this regard, Armour can be used as a fill-in where Stability Tech is not an option.