...
For blunt defense, there is:
1. A check on the yielding of the weapon vs the attack momentum, to prevent soft meaty fists from punching bronze colossuses etc.
2. A momentum cost to dent the layer volume, using the layer's impact yield.
3. A momentum cost to initiate fracture in the layer volume, using the difference between the layer's impact fracture and impact yield.
4. A momentum cost to complete fracture in the layer volume, which is the same as step 3.
...
Back here, I made this assertion, which turns out to not be true. After looking into MetalRocks' observations, I re-examined the code and my notes.
This appears to be the actual behavior:
I didn't notice it before because it reuses some of the code for blunt momentum costs, except that it conflates momentum and weight.
In this case the weight units are such that a normal steel or iron battle axe weighs 6280. The weight of the portion of an adamantine plate armor layer under a bolt's contact area is 1, whereas the layer weight for steel plate would be 78. Dense or thick armors have a better chance of being able to completely negate a blunt attack using this code, especially if the blunt attack is made with a soft implement.
Warhammers (size 400, recorded as 40 in the code) that have a material IMPACT_YIELD of 2499 or less will not be able to "defeat" even a layer weight of 1, due to rounding, and will always deflect. Likewise for bolts (size 150 => 15) and IMPACT_YIELD of 6666, provided the bolts can't cut the layer.
Given what I discovered about falling damage earlier in this thread, it may be possible to create "soft ground" that deals no falling damage - at least until you are going fast enough to explode!
Thanks, MetalRocks, for your testing!