Ballistics are an important part of Escape from Tarkov. They play a big role in firefights and often determine the outcomes. Choosing the right weapon, ammo and gear is one of the most important parts in coming out on top of fighting.

Flight ballistics

Bullet flight is simulated realistically in Escape from Tarkov. Bullets have speed, are affected by gravity and air friction and can penetrate or ricochet when hitting objects, and even fragment when doing so. The specific flight characteristics of a bullet is determined by the ammo type, and the chance of a bullet penetrating or ricocheting off of an object is determined by the material of the object and the type of bullet. Bullets also lose both damage and penetration power as they lose speed from air friction over long distances.

Terminal ballistics

Escape from Tarkov simulates damage to the body and body armor. Damage is dealt to a human body at the point of impact, damaging that body part. Bullets are also capable of penetrating walls and body parts, enabling the same round to damage multiple parts. Bullets can also fragment when penetrating a player's body, dealing 50% bonus damage to the affected body part (Note: Due to a bug this currently only works on limbs). The damage dealt by a bullet is based only on the bullet itself, and not by the gun it was fired from. Armor protection is also simulated realistically, stopping bullets entirely instead of providing a damage reduction like in most other games.

Armor and penetration

Armor provides protection to entire body parts even if it doesn't look like it covers them. You can see what parts of the body are protected when you inspect the armor. When your body is hit, if that body part that was hit (or head zone) has body armor or a helmet protecting it, the game checks to see if the bullet penetrates or doesn't.

The penetration chance of a bullet hitting armor is calculated based on the armor's level, the armor's remaining durability %, and the ammo's penetration value. The chance is then rolled to determine whether or not the bullet penetrates.

If the bullet penetrates, it deals between 0% and 40% less damage based on an algorithm that uses the bullet's pen value and the armor's class and durability %. There is a strong correlation between the penetration chance the penetrating round had, and the damage reduction applied to it: The higher the chance the less damage reduction, with high armor classes and high pen values of ammo having lower reductions than others. Most penetrations will be around 20% damage reduction when a bullet starts to penetrate an armor, but things like a PACA vs M995 will result in 0% reduction.

If the bullet does not penetrate, "blunt damage" is applied, which lets through a % of the base damage of the bullet to the body part hit. This % is based on the specific armor's "blunt throughput" stat, the pen value of the ammo, and the armor's class and remaining durability %. Blunt damage is extremely low and not a notable factor in kill speed against anything other than level 2 body armors.

Durability

Durability of armor is important, the lower the current % of durability remaining the less protection the armor offers overall. The durability % is calculated by dividing the current durability of the armor by the original maximum durability of the armor. As an example a 60/60 repaired LBT-6094A Slick Plate Carrier armor is calculated as 60/80, or 75%.

The durability damage taken from bullets is based on the penetration value of the ammo and the armor level of the armor, multiplied by the ammo's armor damage % and the armor material's destructibility %. The minimum durability damage armor can take from a single hit is 1, including from individual buckshot pellets. Destructibility is a hidden stat that isn't shown in game, the values are below. A penetrating round does a little bit less durability damage to armor than a round that does not penetrate. It varies, but is usually around 10-15% less.

If you want to find the effective durability of different armor to compare how durable different armors are, use the following formula: EffectiveDurability = Durability ÷ Destructibility In the above example EffectiveDurability =0.75/0.6=1.25 which means it can still have more than it's maximum durability (100 hitpoints).

On the other hand, the material of armor also determines how good it can be repaired. While ceramic armor like Zhuk-6a and Gzhel-K will be almost broken after 2 repairs, Slick and Killa armor can be repaired many times and still retain good defense.

Hitboxes and armor protection

Hitboxes are always the same, whether you're clad in armor or completely naked, they never change in size or shape. Armor simply provides it's protection to specific hitboxes and head "zones", and when those hitboxes are struck by a bullet the armor protects them. So no matter what armor you're wearing they always provide the same area of protection to whatever body parts they say they protect on their inspection screen. So don't be fooled by what an armor looks like, check the protection zones to see what it actually protects.

Angles and ricochets

The angle of impact has no effect on armor except for helmets, which bullets can ricochet off of. If a bullet strikes a helmet within a certain range of angles, the round has a chance to ricochet determined by how shallow the angle is as well as the ricochet chance of the helmet. The required angles and the ricochet chance is determined by the helmet and is different for each individual helmet. If a ricochet occurs it is the same as the helmet stopping the penetration as far as the penetration calculation is concerned, and blunt damage and durability damage continue as they would normally, however the health and durability damage is significantly lowered to the point that there is almost no blunt damage received and the helmet almost always takes the minimum durability damage, which is 1.

You can read an even more in-depth summary of all armor-related mechanics on NoFoodAfterMidnight's blog here.

Armor penetration table

How to read

Table

*Currently, there is a bug where the projectiles do not fragment below 20 penetration power, regardless of the specified fragmentation chance.

**Assuming all projectiles hit the target on every shot. Because each projectile causes a minimum of 1 durability loss to armor, it becomes effective at breaking down armor and eventually penetrating.

***This has an explosion radius like grenades which does most (all) of the damage

'^T' Denotes Round is a Tracer

'^S' Denotes Round is Subsonic

'^FM' Denotes Round cannot be listed for sale on the flea market