Armor

In ARK: Survival Evolved you can wear different sets of armor by equipping it in your inventory.

So far, there are 11 tiers of armor in the game. These armor sets can either be crafted, or found in supply drops.

Fuller Setting Overviewing[]

Karmor Type	Unlock Level	Armor rating	Cold protection	Heat protection	Weight	Durability (Ø)	Found in Beacon	Ingredients
Cloth Gear	3	50	40	60	3	25	White Beacon	145 × Fiber, 10 × Hide
Hide Gear	15	100	85	-25	10.5	45	Green Beacon	82 × Hide, 33 × Fiber
Fur Gear	23	200	249	-105	34	125	Deep Sea Loot Crate	320 × Pelt, Hair, or Wool, 53 × Metal Ingot, 40 × Hide, 18 × Fiber
Desert Cloth Gear¹	28	200	31	130	16	45	Green beacon (only on Scorched Earth)	77 × Hide, 33 × Fiber, 48 × Silk, 10 × Crystal, 3 × Silica Pearls
Ghillie Gear	33	160	24	155	1	45	Deep Sea Loot Crate	26 × Organic Polymer, 40 × Hide, 18 × Fiber
Chitin Gear	37	250	43	-35	22	50	Blue Beacon, Deep Sea Loot Crate	82 × Chitin, 40 × Hide, 18 × Fiber
Flak Gear	56	500	60	-25	30	120	Yellow Beacon, Deep Sea Loot Crate	53 × Metal Ingot, 40 × Hide, 18 × Fiber
Hazard Suit ²	68	325	50	300	23	85.5	Unknown Beacon, Deep Sea Loot Crate	155 × Hide, 235 × Fiber, 85 × Blue Gem, 72 × Polymer, 166 × Crystal, 125 × Congealed Gas Ball
SCUBA Gear³	81	5	70 (270)	-15	23	185	Deep Sea Loot Crate	87 × Hide, 23 × Fiber, 12 × Chitin or Keratin, 16 × Metal Ingot, 6 × Cementing Paste, 7 × Silica Pearls, 43 × Polymer, 10 × Crystal
Riot Gear	98	575	60	-16.8	42	120	Deep Sea Loot Crate	245 × Polymer, 138 × Silica Pearls, 40 × Hide, 18 × Fiber, 35 × Crystal
TEK Gear	After beating all bosses	900	255	208	23	120	No	600 × Polymer, 2250 × Metal Ingot, 600 × Crystal, 100 × Element, 275 × Black Pearl

¹The desert cloth armor is part of Scorched Earth.

²The hazard suit is part of the Aberration.

³The SCUBA gear is a unique type of armor as it only consists of 4 parts (no hand-slot item), with each part granting a special ability.

Cloth Gear[]

Provides 10 armor points per piece (50 total).
Drops from level 3 white beam loot crates.
Grants low insulation from heat.
Breaks very easily from strong attacks and offers little damage reduction.
Offers insulation and defense to low-level players.

Hide Gear[]

Provides 20 armor points per piece (100 total).
Drops from level 15 green beam loot crates.
Grants insulation from the cold and passable damage reduction.
It is identical in stats to the Federation Exo Set Armor from Genesis 2. Only difference, the Exo Armor is unbreakable, has abilities like tek armor and is obtained upon spawning/respawning in Genesis 2.

Fur Gear[]

Provides 40 armor points per piece (200 total).
Transporting goods can be difficult when wearing/carrying this armor due to how much it weighs in comparison to other sets.
Provides the highest insulation from the cold, but significantly lowers heat resistance.
Provides no cold insulation while in water, making it useless when diving.

Desert Cloth Gear[]

Provides 40 armor points per piece (200 total).
Offers moderate physical protection, low cold insulation, and excellent heat insulation.

Ghillie Gear[]

Provides 32 armor points per piece (160 total).
Functions as a camouflage suit, as it reduces enemy sight range by 50%.
Provides excellent insulation from heat and moderate insulation from the cold.

Chitin Gear[]

Provides 50 armor points per piece (250 total).
Drops from level 25 blue beam loot crates.
Provides poor insulation from climatic conditions and offers adequate damage reduction.
Reduces heat insulation and provides minimal cold insulation.

Flak Gear[]

Provides 100 armor points per piece (500 total).
Drops from level 45 yellow beam loot crates.
Provides poor insulation from climatic conditions and offers superior damage reduction.
Reduces heat insulation and provides little cold insulation.

Hazard Suit[]

Provides 65 armor per piece (325 total).
Provides immunity to radiation.
Must have all pieces equipped for proper radiation immunity.
Provides the best heat insulation of any armor set, in addition to minimal cold insulation.

SCUBA Gear[]

Provides 0 armor points per piece, except for the SCUBA leggings, which provide 5 armor points (5 total).
Although it provides minimal defense, this armor set is very useful for exploring locations where you can not easily access clean air. It grants the wearer unlimited oxygen, stamina, clear underwater vision, and drastically increased swimming speed.
Usually useless when worn on land due to slowing its wearer and obstructing vision.
This armor set only consists of 4 parts, as there are no SCUBA gloves.
Reduces the amount of damage taken from poisonous air in the Swamp Cave.

Riot Gear[]

Provides 115 armor points per piece (575 total).
Provides poor defense against climatic conditions and a very good defense against players and dinos.
Reduces the amount of torpor taken, which makes it harder to knock the wearer out.

TEK Gear[]

Provides 180 armor points per piece (900 total).
Provides modest insulation from the cold and offers extraordinary damage reduction.
Each part of this armor set grants different special abilities. When the full set is equipped, it provides night vision, a jet pack, a heavy hitting punch, fall damage negation, and a speed boost.
Provides +200 insulation against climatic conditions when charged with element
As the ultimate armor of Ark, a player must obtain all necessary Tekgrams from bosses before being able to wear this armor.

Armor's protection from damage[]

The damage modifier granted by Armor is calculated as follows, which can also be expressed as damage reduction:

  damage modifier = 100 / (100 + Armor Coefficient * Armor)
  damage taken = damage * damage modifier
  damage reduction = (1 - damage modifier) * 100

Alternatively, the effective health points, or EHP, resulting from the armors protection may be calculated as:

$EHP = HP \times(100 + armor \times coefficient)$ In terms of EHP, for a player with 100HP, 100 armor adds an additional 100EHP. 200 armor adds 200EHP, or 2 times as much as 100 armor, and 300 armor adds 3 times as much. Each armor point added therefore provides the same EHP gain.

Armor Coefficient is the unique value that each source of damage has, representing how much each attack affected by armor. There are two different type of Armor Coefficient values in each damage source, the first one is a value against a survivor's armor and the second one is a value against saddles on creatures.

For example, bite attack of the rex has the Armor Coefficient value 4 against a creature's saddle and armor coefficient value 1 against a survivor's armor.

The value of the Armor Coefficient varies based on the source of the damage and are shown in the following sections. In most cases, Armor Coefficient value 4 is applied against saddle and 1 is applied against a survivor's armor.

For example, when attacked by a rex, 70 armor has a damage modifier of 0.588 which equates to 41.2% damage reduction. 95% damage reduction allows you live twice as long as 90% damage reduction. This is because the effective damage at 90% damage reduction is 10%, making the your effective health 1000% of your nominal health (10 times), while the effective damage at 95% damage reduction is only 5%, making your effective health 2000% of you nominal health (20 times).

This graph demonstrates the diminishing returns of damage reduction from armor.

Test Case[]

When a survivor attacked by a grenade, which has the Armor Coefficient value 1 against the survivor's armor, following calculations are applied.

With 0 armor and being hit by a grenade, resulting in 375 damage.^[1]

  damage modifier = 100 / (100 + 0)
  damage modifier = 1
  damage taken = 375 * 1
  damage taken = 375

With 551.5 armor and being hit by a grenade, resulting in 57.6 damage.

  damage modifier = 100 / (100 + 551.5)
  damage modifier = 0.153
  damage taken = 375 * 0.153
  damage taken = 57.6

Cheat sheet

The following table is based on the default/primitive armor value of the game's 11 armor sets.

Armor Type	Pieces in set	Armor rating	Damage Reduced By	EHP %
Cloth Armor	5	50	33.33%	150%
Hide Armor	5	100	50.00%	200%
Fur Armor	5	200	66.67%	300%
Desert Cloth Armor	5	200	66.67%	300%
Ghillie Armor	5	160	61.54%	260%
Chitin Armor	5	250	71.43%	350%
Flak Armor	5	500	83.33%	600%
Hazard Suit	5	325	76.5%	425%
SCUBA Armor	4	5	4.76%	105%
Riot Armor	5	575	85.18%	675%
Tek Armor	5	900	90.00%	1000%

Durability[]

Against most creatures, for every ~16 damage mitigated by armor, each piece of equipped armor loses a point of durability.

Each piece of Tek armor has 300 durability and can mitigate 300 * 16 = 4800 damage before breaking. With a 90% damage reduction, a survivor can take 4800 / 0.9 = ~5333 of unmitigated damage before their Tek Armor breaks.

Tamed Dino Clothing[]

With the exception of the Tek helmet, most of the head pieces can be worn by specific tamed dinos. In this case, head pieces equipped by creatures considered as a saddle, and Armor Coefficient value against creature's saddle applied to them when they are attacked.