Damage resistance

Damage resistance is a defensive statistic of a character or starship. It is multiplied with the incoming damage of the same type.

Players obtain damage resistance through items, like consoles and body armor, as well as skills, traits, and abilities.

The game internally differentiates between damage resistance magnitude and damage resistance. The former is what is indicated as bonus in the UI (e.g. the item or skill description), the later is the actual percentage by which incoming damage is reduced.

Star Trek Online uses a system of diminishing returns to prevent players from becoming invincible (100% damage resistance); i.e., the higher the damage resistance magnitude, the less additional damage resistance is gained from bonuses. With the exception of resistance boosts, such as (500+ resistances), there is no way to exceed 75% damage resistance.

Formula
To compute damage resistance (dr) from damage resistance magnitude (drm) the game sums up all bonuses and handicaps (from debuffs) to calculate drm and then applies this formula:

This equation yields a curve, that starts out linear (mapping one point damage resistance magnitude to one percent damage resistance) and asymptotically approaching 0.75 (or 75%) damage resistance.



The following table gives you the mapping between the magnitude and the actual damage resistance:

Discussion
Note that diminishing returns are eating away bonuses more dramatically with increasing magnitude; e.g., a magnitude of 90 is reduced by half to 45.7% actual damage resistance. Due to the shape of the curve, there is no actual "sweet spot" to aim for. While it is possible to equip more than one (+32 kinetic damage resistance), it is not recommended:

Three consoles of the same type only give twice the damage resistance that a single console provides.