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« on: August 21, 2020, 06:53:22 pm »
To add to what Mrvex said, you'll also eventually unlock a "heavy" version of those armors. It doesn't have a shield and has slightly less front armor than the vest with shield, but it's got far more armor everywhere else to make up for that and has noticeably better resistance to bullets, cutting damage, and chemical damage (and one of the factions you'll deal fairly soon after the starting cults is very fond of chemical weapons, I might add). However, you might want to stick with the regular vests for melee-oriented soldiers due to its noticeable penalties to melee skill and energy.
The alien alloy variants of both the vest and the heavy suit have more armor, but they also have less inherent resistance to bullet damage (10% less resistance, to be precise). Be aware of that when you're up against enemies with miniguns, sniper rifles, and other weapons that have a good chance of ignoring or reducing your armor.
As a further word of warning, none of them has innate resistance to plasma weapons so you'll want to get your hands on the Personal Armor when the invasion starts. Remember, resistances are at least as important as armor values if not even more so.