Subscribe to download
No Cut Efficiency

This is a mod that removes cut efficiency and applies that value towards cut resistance instead.

Let me tell you about Kenshi's cut efficiency. In theory, it's a nifty idea to have a certain percent of resisted cut damage to be converted to blunt damage instead. However, the execution is just ridiculous. You immediately take the blunt damage regardless of all subsequent layers of armor protecting that area. This results in absurd, backwards scenarios where wearing lower quality armor (or even none) can be superior to more layers of armor.

Here is an example:

Pretend you take a 100 cut damage hit to the right leg. You are wearing (all Masterwork) a Dustcoat, Samurai Legplates, and Samurai Boots. The Dustcoat has 60% coverage, meaning a 60% chance of blocking damage. If it does, you block 26 cut damage (44% Cut Resist * 60% Cut Efficiency) and you take an immediate 18 direct blunt damage (44 resisted - 26 blocked = 18 damage from inefficiency) from cut efficiency regardless of any other protection. The remaining 56 goes to the next layer. The Legplates have 100% chance to block 40 damage, take an immediate 5 damage (thanks efficiency), and the remaining 11 go to the next layer. The Boots have 100% efficiency, so you have a 40% chance to block 9 of 11 damage. So in total you take 25 or 34 damage.

Now if you TAKE OFF the Dustcoat (or the 40% chance it MISSES it), if you REMOVE that extra layer of protection, the Legplates receive all 100 damage. You block 73, take an immediate 8 damage (efficiency), and the remaining 19 goes to Boots. 40% chance the Boots will block 15 of 19 damage. In total, you take 12 or 27 damage.

Because of this backwards, awful efficiency system, you reduce more damage by striping off a Masterwork layer of protection than keeping it on. Even worse, wearing a PROTOTYPE Dustcoat reduces more damage than a Masterwork thanks to this system (take less direct damage from cut efficiency, more damage mitigated by Legplates).

This illogical system frustrated me to the point of making this mod. What it does is instead applies the efficiency value towards cut resistance, so a Dustcoat with 44% cut resist, 60% cut efficiency will instead have 26% cut resist (44% * 0.6). Using the previous example as a reference, the Dustcoat still blocks 26 cut damage but now all of the remaining 74 (56+18) goes onto the next layer. No immediate direct damage ignoring all other armor. No dumb "More protection is worse protection" absurd scenarios.

That's it. There are no other special tweaks or adjustments to give a player advantages or disadvantages. Just removing cut efficiency and adjusting cut resistance to account for it.

****


This is a common question that deserves a fully detailed explanation. Various posters over the years have brought different things to light, so I'll try to give the most complete explanation that I can. In short, it's both.

• Layered armor is stronger.
  This is the most obvious difference, and probably the main reason to consider using this mod. By damage not magically ignoring all subsequent layers, anyone wearing more layers will take less damage. This includes you and NPCs. But a caveat:
  
  
• Most enemies don't wear layered armor.
  While the player will almost always use layered armor, many NPCs aren't wearing layered armor. Many of the stronger ones are, like Holy Lord Phoenix or the Five Invincibles, but most are not. Once you have your armors flushed out, this can result in your team being more resiliant against enemies who are not.
  
  
• Early game is harder.
  In the vanilla game, CE is converting a portion of cut damage into blunt. Blunt damage is safe and heals on its own. Cut damage deteriorates, which is fatal. With this mod, the damage you take from cut, like knives or animals, always stays cut, so being KO'd is more deadly. It is easier for you to die-die to cut damage - and same for enemies.
  
  
• Ranged Damage and Harpoon Resistance is not the same as vanilla.
  Unfortunately, ranged damage in this game doesn't work like other damages. Harpoon Resistance (HR) flat out subtracts ranged damage, not reducing it by percent, and then calcs efficiency damage from the subtracted amount. You would always take some amount of ranged damage in vanilla, even against the worst bows and while wearing the best armor (that has CE). Although I can adjust HR to account for this efficiency damage, that only matches vanilla if a ranged attack exceeds the HR. Without CE, any ranged damage below the HR value is subtracted to 0. This is to your advantage, but it's also true that well-armored enemies will also have your ranged damage reduced to 0 against weaker bows.
  
  
• Armor Penetration doesn't affect efficiency damage in vanilla.
  As a result, removing CE means attacks with AP don't exactly match vanilla. In short: this mod will make targets slightly more resistant against +APs and slightly less against -APs compared to vanilla.
  
  
• Harder to hit the damage reduction cap with negative Armor Penetration.
  Armors in Kenshi have a damage reduction cap at 90% Resistance. Weapons with a -AP penalty like the Katana can exploit this to avoid their penalty. For example, [MW] Crab Armour has 90% CR already, so a katana has no penalty against it. By lowering CR to account for no CE, it is harder for -AP weapons to reach and exploit the damage cap, resulting in dealing less damage to high CR armors. Having the penalty matter again can be good or bad depending on your perspective. It certainly makes high-end heavy armor stronger even as a single layer, and both it and the katana's penalty are doing what you would expect.

In true spirit of Efficiency's silliness, because of the two AP points mentioned above, in vanilla a Katana deals more damage to [Masterwork] Samurai Armour than it does to [Specialist] even with a single layer. In example,

-(Vanilla) 100 cut damage (with -30%AP), [SP] Sam Armour's Cut Resistance is increased from 70% to 90% cap (70%*1.3=91%), pass 10 damage to next layer, take 7 damage from efficiency (70%*(1-0.9)=7). Total of 17 damage.

-(Vanilla) [MW] CR is increased 81% to 90% cap, pass 10 damage to next layer, take 8 damage from CE (81%*(1-0.9)=8). Total of 18 damage.

-(Mod) [SP] CR is increased from 63% to 82%, pass 18 damage to next layer. Total of 18 damage.

-(Mod) [MW] CR is increased from 73% to 90% cap, pass 10 damage to next layer. Total of 10 damage.

As you can see, no longer avoiding the AP penalty completely makes [MW] Sam Armour reduce more damage compared to vanilla even with a single layer, but it is better than [SP] Sam Armour, as anyone would expect.


The reason is because I can't. So far as I'm aware, modders have no access to the game's formulas or calculations. This mod is a workaround that still passes the damage to the next layer but without converting it to blunt. It is an imperfect solution, but that's all I can do with the FCS toolset. Only the dev could change the actual calculation to pass the converted blunt on.


This mod does not alter a single non-vanilla armor. However, there are so many NCE mods made for other armor mods I couldn't list them all if I wanted to. If you search, there's a good chance you'll find one for a mod you want. If there isn't one yet, I've made a guide in the pinned discussions that shows you how to make one yourself if you want.


This mod edits "cut def bonus" and "cut into stun" values for every piece of armor with cut efficiency. If you have another mod that edits those values, place the one you prefer below it in your load order. It does not modify any armors outside of the vanilla game.

Enjoy.