Ballistics

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

Flight Ballistics
Bullet flight is simulated realistically in Tarkov. Bullets have speed, are affected by gravity, have air friction, 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
Tarkov also simulates damage to the body and to body armor. Damage is dealt to a human body at the point of impact, damaging that limb or body part. Bullets are capable of penetrating walls or even limbs and hitting multiple body parts that way. Bullets can also fragment when penetrating a player's body, dealing 50% bonus damage to that limb, and more if those fragments continue through and hit other body parts. 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 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 a bullet hits an armored body part, it either stops the bullet completely or the bullet penetrates the armor and does damage to the player. If a bullet is stopped by the armor a % of the bullet's damage is dealt to that body part, known as "blunt damage", the % is based on the armor used. The penetration chance is dependent on the armor's level and remaining durability %, and the ammo's penetration value. In most scenarios bullets will either have no chance to penetrate armor or will penetrate it almost every hit. This means choosing the highest penetration ammo is extremely important for dealing with heavily armored players. Whenever armor is hit it loses durability, which lowers it's ability to protect you from bullets, eventually breaking and losing all protective ability. While the angle of impact has no effect on body armor, bullets can ricochet off of helmets depending on the angle and the helmet used.

You can read a more in-depth summary of all armor-related mechanics here

Disclaimer
All the data displayed below is the product of NoFoodAfterMidnight. This page is aimed at spreading the knowledge he uncovered, and making it easy to understand for new players.

How to read



 * Once the armor durability % hits 0, the enemy is not protected anymore. The bullet will hit the player as if they aren't wearing armor.
 * The durability % is calculated in game as (current durability/original maximum durability). A 40/40 6B43 is functionally the same as a 40/80 6B43.
 * As this guide shows, even if the flesh damage of the round is lower when using high penetration rounds, they are often more useful, especially against geared players.
 * You can check the different stats and where to find the displayed ammo here.


 * In Escape from Tarkov, you can stack up two pieces of armor if you're wearing an Armored Chest rig. In which case the bullet tries to penetrate the rig first, then the armor if it penetrates. However the bullet does not lose much of it's penetrating ability going through a chest rig, so chest rigs are a good and more cost effective way to protect yourself against scavs and lightly geared players who use low penetration rounds such as 12x70 Buckshot or 9x18mm Makarov, which doesn't damage your expensive pieces of armor, but aren't good against high penetration ammo.

Penetration Tables
Armor Class II= Armor Class III= Armor Class IV= Armor Class V= Armor Class VI=