I spoke too soon. You also need to set the Armor Threshold to prevent naked dudes and those wearing fatigues and BDUs from getting the armor buff.

Putting minimum necessary Armor Threshold at 12 allows recon fatigues, track suit, and granit suit to get the buff from your mod, but at 12.5 they're the same as normal. They don't normally stop most 9mm, but will with the buff of 31. People can decide whether they want the default outfits of most of the enemies to be more durable or less with that.

Strangely, the tactical vests show as slightly more armored under ACE Arsenal as the above clothing, but in practice actually has a slightly lower actual armor. Might be as a result of cloths having a slightly different armor calculation than everything else, or perhaps an error with ACE Arsenal bar graphs. But that's junky level 1 armor, so it's debatable whether it should be getting any buff. If you want the above cloths to get the buff, though, you might want to put the Armor Threshold at 10 so that the tactical vests aren't more like fantasy ultra junk of quasi level 1a.

The special purpose suit cannot normally stop 300 Blackout subsonic from the Honey Badger, but at 16 on the Armor Threshold it will with the buff of 31, and at 17 it's back to no buff.

In summary, hierarchy of Armor Threshold settings:

17 NOT to buff special purpose suit

16 or below to buff special purpose suits and above

12.5 NOT to buff recon fatigues, track suit, and granit suit

12 to buff recon fatigues, track suit, and granit suit and above (maybe not bad idea, weigh 2/3 of special purpose suit)

10 to buff tactical vests and above (judgement call)

On a side note, I also found that I have ACE set up currently to let a naked dude get up too easily after being penetrated with 9mm once or twice in the chest, so I need to tweak my personal ACE Medical settings, too, if I want to increase general lethality.

Thanks to Sysroot for the great improvements to his mod.

P.S. Found that 1.02 is necessary to kill with a single pistol round to the chest with not just vital organs selected but 'both' selected in ACE Medical. That will necessitate the use of not only surgical kits but Personal Aid Kits (PAKs) with 'sum of trauma' allowed, as otherwise even accumulated bruising will eventually cause fatality with enough of them.

P.P.S.

The Armor Threshold value is cumulative, so even though you might not want to buff an NIJ level 1 tactical vest, if someone puts it on top of a special purpose suit and you have it set to 17, then the combination will get the same buff as a level III carrier lite. So, people can just adjust it from 10 to 17 based on the combined armor of their adversaries and whether they want them significantly armored, like against all pistol rounds, or not.

I got the buff value wrong when I said 31 using M993 AP 7.62 rounds and level III & IV armor. Once you deviate towards the tail (level II and below or level V and modded maxed out space age stuff), it starts to get weird. Also, ACE seems to have either little ability to model AP vs FMJ correctly past about level II or III, or M993 and the FMJ 308 rounds are flip flopped, because the FMJ actually oddly has better penetration. So I've settled on 36 as a happy medium between 31 and 41 that I found varying sweet spots for the other armor.

@Reticuli Heya! What are your adjustments exactly? You seem to have done a in depth research

18 threshold and 34-36 coefficient on chest, abdomen, and diaphragm is a good sweetspot. Every other body part unchecked. Keeps everything 3A and below from buffing, even twin soft layers, and gives everything above the press vest enhancement so that you have a range of almost full level 3 to very capable level 4 stuff that isn't sci fi level. I was previously using 17 threshold, but CSAT was a pain without NGSW stuff or beyond, IMO. YMMV. If you want near pear adversaries, then 17 might be the easiest way to get it when CSAT have Kevlar fatigues combined with a tactical vest.

Was looking for any tips on how to set it up, since I've noticed that my civvies could eat .45 ACP from CUP revolver like it was barely anything. It took 5 shots to the chest to kill them. Since I found this guide I don't have such problems no more ^^. Thanks a lot !

I started lowering the ACE medical critical threshold from 1.02 to 1.0 to 0.7 and now 0.5. Maybe it's too low now or maybe because I have so many mods I'm running (150ish) that something else was suddenly buffing them, but now I can chew someone up with 9mm or 45 cal with ease if they're only wearing level 1 or less.

Doubled pain unconsciousness chance, reduced fatal injury death chance to 0.75. Used to have that even lower, like 0.5, but I think that made 1 shot head kills too rare. Reduced bleed out rate to 0.4. To compensate, I increased wake up chance from epi, which for a long while I had like at 50 or 66%, but I think I have at 33% now. Causes you to be more dependent on teammates and makes injured adversaries more vulnerable and easier to finish off. Might put that back up a bit. Also heavily tweaked other medical stuff so it's balanced but not too much of a hassle.

I continue to use the 18 and 36 numbers for ACE Armor Adjuster and only with the various torso boxes checked, because this still holds up for various calibers vs body armor levels even after making injury easier in ACE medical. I have a level 3 Opscore helmet I tweaked and the Yamam level 4 helmet from some other mod, but if you don't, you might want the head check box if you want to simulate the latest borderline level 3 helmets. Your call. I still wouldn't do that for face protection, though, because that's notoriously bad in real life. Heck, the poly level 3 helmets in particular are pretty bad.

I've put together an interesting combination of various injury effect and reaction mods, too, and they are doing a good job in concert. Useful indicator of hits, injury, and death... with the final indignity of losing your pants. If that doesn't happen, then I just either do a head shot or walk over the body to make sure they're no longer a threat.

Oh, the ACE medical critical threshold lowering was essential to get one of the injury reaction mods to work how I wanted with leg injuries causing limping and then forcing prone. Forgot about that. I think it was still a bit screwed up and not quite working right, so I put the ACE medical bone breaking back up to default.

Edit:

I tweaked AAA and it's something amazing now. No need to adjust from the new defaults, either. Put your ACE_Medical critical damage thresholds for Player and AI to 0.5, the rest of ACE as you want. I've also got more realistic 45 ACP, a Vector/Vermin with laser that also jams, 300 Blackout 416, 8.6 Blackout Shak-12, 375 SOCOM, and tweaked version of NGSW, among others, I'm working on. Enjoy.

https://github.com/DJ-Reticuli/ACE-Armor-Adjuster

Edit:

See also my profiles and mods list:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K9783cr_sM6uvy9nVnwohlPMkua0zRH5?usp=drive_link

Extra custom mods I've been working on:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xCh-6gBH7Z_yLmYrb0TY6qVFBGvWR5mT?usp=sharing

Edit:

For those that don't want to try my profile, here is link to my copied mod settings:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I2kXs1QPXsXQqoYij873miPMPJ5G8WQ8/view?usp=sharing

ACE_Medical specifically, though changing most of these values are not going to affect AAA, rather what happens after damage exceeds the value of worn armor:

// ACE Medical
force ace_medical_ai_enabledFor = 2;
force ace_medical_AIDamageThreshold = 0.5;
force ace_medical_bleedingCoefficient = 0.4;
force ace_medical_blood_bloodLifetime = 900;
force ace_medical_blood_enabledFor = 0;
force ace_medical_blood_maxBloodObjects = 500;
force ace_medical_deathChance = 0.75;
force ace_medical_enableVehicleCrashes = false;
force ace_medical_fatalDamageSource = 2;
ace_medical_feedback_bloodVolumeEffectType = 2;
ace_medical_feedback_enableHUDIndicators = true;
ace_medical_feedback_painEffectType = 2;
force ace_medical_fractureChance = 0.8;
force ace_medical_fractures = 1;
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_0 = [1,1,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_1 = [1,0.95,0.64,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_2 = [1,0.87,0.46,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_3 = [1,0.8,0.33,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_4 = [1,0.72,0.24,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_5 = [1,0.63,0.15,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_6 = [1,0.54,0.08,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_7 = [1,0.43,0.02,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_8 = [1,0.3,0,1];
ace_medical_gui_bloodLossColor_9 = [1,0,0,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_0 = [1,1,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_1 = [0.75,0.95,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_2 = [0.62,0.86,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_3 = [0.54,0.77,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_4 = [0.48,0.67,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_5 = [0.42,0.57,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_6 = [0.37,0.47,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_7 = [0.31,0.36,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_8 = [0.22,0.23,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_damageColor_9 = [0,0,1,1];
ace_medical_gui_enableActions = 1;
ace_medical_gui_enableMedicalMenu = 1;
ace_medical_gui_enableSelfActions = true;
ace_medical_gui_interactionMenuShowTriage = 1;
force ace_medical_gui_maxDistance = 4;
ace_medical_gui_openAfterTreatment = true;
force ace_medical_gui_showBloodlossEntry = true;
force ace_medical_ivFlowRate = 5;
force ace_medical_limping = 2;
force ace_medical_painCoefficient = 2;
force ace_medical_painUnconsciousChance = 0.2;
force ace_medical_playerDamageThreshold = 0.5;
force ace_medical_spontaneousWakeUpChance = 0.33;
force ace_medical_spontaneousWakeUpEpinephrineBoost = 2;
force ace_medical_statemachine_AIUnconsciousness = true;
force ace_medical_statemachine_cardiacArrestBleedoutEnabled = true;
force ace_medical_statemachine_cardiacArrestTime = 360;
force ace_medical_statemachine_fatalInjuriesAI = 0;
force ace_medical_statemachine_fatalInjuriesPlayer = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_advancedBandages = 2;
force ace_medical_treatment_advancedDiagnose = 2;
force ace_medical_treatment_advancedMedication = true;
force ace_medical_treatment_allowBodyBagUnconscious = false;
force ace_medical_treatment_allowLitterCreation = true;
force ace_medical_treatment_allowSelfIV = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_allowSelfPAK = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_allowSelfStitch = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_allowSharedEquipment = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_clearTrauma = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_consumePAK = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_consumeSurgicalKit = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_convertItems = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_cprSuccessChanceMax = 0.75;
force ace_medical_treatment_cprSuccessChanceMin = 0.5;
force ace_medical_treatment_holsterRequired = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_litterCleanupDelay = 600;
force ace_medical_treatment_locationEpinephrine = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_locationIV = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_locationPAK = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_locationsBoostTraining = true;
force ace_medical_treatment_locationSurgicalKit = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_maxLitterObjects = 50;
force ace_medical_treatment_medicEpinephrine = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_medicIV = 0;
force ace_medical_treatment_medicPAK = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_medicSurgicalKit = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_timeCoefficientPAK = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_treatmentTimeAutoinjector = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_treatmentTimeBodyBag = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_treatmentTimeCPR = 1;
force ace_medical_treatment_treatmentTimeIV = 3;
force ace_medical_treatment_treatmentTimeSplint = 2;
force ace_medical_treatment_treatmentTimeTourniquet = 0.1;
force ace_medical_treatment_woundReopenChance = 0.13;
force ace_medical_treatment_woundStitchTime = 5;

New AAA Instructions:

Note: Vanilla 'caliber' in Arma 3 is a badly-named proxy for barrier & vehicle penetration, while ACE_caliber in ammo configs is the actual bullet caliber. Previously, vanilla caliber has never been used in Arma 3 or in any of its mods for body armor effects.

The latest caliber equation's slider shifts the curve so that below its value you will get slightly less buff of penetration than the prior caliber equation, and over that slider value, you will get more penetration, but increasing the slider also *decreases* penetration. Sounds complicated, but it ends up appropriately reducing the effects of vanilla calibers that are between 1 and the slider value, while still boosting calibers over the slider value, actually even more. A lot of Arma 3 ammo that is not armor piercing has weirdly high vanilla caliber (like 7.62 NATO stock ball with a caliber of 1.6), so this helps. It also allows greater steepness on the top of the curve while not buffing the foot of it as much.

In short, if you want to increase armor's effectiveness against penetrating rounds, increase the caliber slider slightly. If you want to decrease armor's effectiveness against penetrating rounds, decrease the caliber slider slightly.

As always, if you put the two new exponent sliders at their minimums to the left (0, zero), you will bypass the new vanilla 'caliber' penetration math *and* the new exponential buffing completely and revert to the old style of ACE Armor Adjuster.

For my version in order to get rough (but as close as you're going to get) NIJ ratings equivalent to the Arma 3 default body armor's own stated ratings, just use the defaults. That gives you about NIJ full level 3 with a level 3 carrier LITE, stopping 7.62 NATO ball... albeit that 9.3 and 338 will still penetrate level 4 body armor, which is tough to prevent without messing up other stuff.

If you want Arma 3's level 4 vest (normal carrier rig) to be equivalent to NIJ full level 3, then put the armor exponent at 1.85 instead of 2.85 Maybe that would match people's expectations better for what they're used to in Arma 3, while retaining the new penetration math.

If you want Arma 3's level 5 futuristic carrier special to be equivalent to a measly and not very futuristic NIJ full level 3, then put the armor exponent at 1.35 instead of 3.0.

That's leaving Threshold and the Player & AI coefficients where they are, by the way. Threshold is defaulted to 5 because the Skate helmet is an armor value of 6, and this way it gets a tiny buff, but not enough to stop most perpendicular point blank pistol rounds. It's your system, though, so do whatever you want with the sliders. Threshold will grossly affect where AAA starts having an effect and will change the buffing of even helmets and light soft armor.

Besides the gentle alteration of the armor exponent if you really want to move where NIJ level 3 armor is at in the tier of Arma 3 body armor, the Debug checkbox is the thing most worthy of being changed by the user. If you are testing out AAA to see what it does or you are testing your own custom values, Debug is essential to have checked so you can see what it's sending back to ACE_Medical.