Hello, my fellow Tarkovites and Redditors.
Today I present you my magnum opus: a statistic that I’ve been collecting for a couple of weeks regarding the potential of helmets to actually save your life.
Interpret it the way you want, but I’ve got a couple of things to say.
Firstly, let’s state the fact that during those 20 days of collecting info, I haven’t been wearing helmets at all. I did it specifically so basically any stray bullet to my head would kill me and I could see if there was a chance of being saved.
Secondly: yes, I know that helmets ricochet. The friend that I constantly play with actually got saved by a helmet a couple of times right in front of me. Literally saw the bullets bounce off of his helmet (6B43 class 3). It even happened when he was getting shot with the very type of ammo that should pen class 3 with a single shot. So yes, the stats can’t be 100% correct, as we can’t account for the RNG-based things like ricochet.
Though, the times when I got killed in the face are a more accurate stat, as in my experience from previous wipes, even though the class 3 face shield has high ricochet chance, it nearly never does, and if a 5.45 BT is destined to hit you, a shot to the eyes is probably deadly.
Now let’s look at the stats. The “CHBS” means “Could Have Been Saved” and is considering a potential LZSh helmet with a multi-hit ballistic face visor, both class 3 armor.
Note: face shots are colored black, other parts of the head are white.
My conclusion: I’m sure that many of those deaths could’ve been prevented if I wore an at least class 3 helmet. Preferably, a class 4 ULACH with ear protection.
Regarding your face, visor looks like an ever more important thing than a helmet itself. I’m not sure how many would’ve ricocheted straight off, but the 4/29 deaths (13.79%) could’ve been obviously prevented by using a face shield.
If you’re up to kill some scavs, use a face shield. That’s a deterrent against some 7mm buckshot to your face. If you’re up against PMCs, use class 4 helmets or even better: a Fast MT with a visor.
Also, a yet important note: all the Head/Ears deaths were actually from the people that shot me while being in front. Believe me, this is not from a sideways bullet, but from the broken hitbox that extends your ears a little to the sides of the face. So yeah, let’s call them face shots even though I didn’t highlight them as such.
But yet again, for your guys’ usefulness, I even shared the caliber and type of ammo that I was killed with, so see for yourself if even higher-class helmets are worth it or not. I did what I wanted.
Please share your opinions and ideas down below.
