And you have nothing to contribute, so why did you bother replying ?

Zing! You really got me, now. You got me so I don't know what I'm doin'...

I bothered because you need a dose of big-boy logic. Your idea is superfluous and ill-conceived, yet you insist on nit-picking anyone who doesn't blow smoke up your thread. No one will say "Wow -- what an awesome idea!" to something so useless.

Someone had to tell you. I'm sorry it had to be me. Can we hug it out now?

Taking a different approach to the question, perhaps a contributing factor to the perceived problem you are trying to solve, OP, is that the differences between weapons are too subtle. In most action games, weapon choices (and others) tend to be distinctive and stratified -- that is, the differences between weapons are more pronounced, and their strategic implications are clear as a result. In games with more of a simulation bent -- thing of a racing simulation or a game like armored core -- the details *are* nuanced and important, but those choices are made separate from the main action. Generally, these kinds of genre tropes evolve because they suit clusters of players with similar preferences (as here, between "arcade-style" gameplay and simulation/realism gameplay), and the spaces between these clusters are more sparsely populated with potential players (spaces off the direct line-of-sight, sparser still).

That's not to say that there's not an audience in those other spaces -- finding your player base is a bit like the business of mining in this regard, there are well known 'viens' of players, and new veins yet to be discovered. There's new gold to be found, the trouble is all that blasted, worthless rock that's in the way (and that its really hard to guess at the difference until you start digging).

There are examples of games that have successfully offered nuanced weapon selection in an action-oriented context through. Borderlands, for instance, stratifies their weapons choices along function, and then layers on top of that a color-coded system that indicates rarity/power (and as part of that, certain of the fictional manufacturers have extra expertise in certain weapons categories), and a tertiary system of additional elemental effects. All the details exist under the hood, buried in a menu, but the weapon style, its color, and extra damage types are enough information to make a value judgement even during action. What the Borderlands system amounts to is a primary matrix with 3 distinct axis. For most people, this is a lot easier to think quickly about than distinctions that are more arbitrary.

A final thought on this problem is that its helpful to keep in mind that when you're talking about any kind of player customization (be it weapons, armor, spells, or hats) its more about suiting that player's preferred play style than it is about dictating the terms on which they engage the game. You don't have to pander, of course, but players personify their avatar through their equipment -- your job as a designer is to afford them interesting opportunities and trade-offs through their doing so.

Thinking about it further, given that damage will apparently be visible during combat, I wonder whether it might not be enough to simply let the player learn the properties of each weapon during play (perhaps combined with a brief description in an information screen, should the player call it up). As long as the weapons aren't all dumped on the player at once, I would expect that there would likely be enough space for the player to gain some degree of intuitive understanding of each weapon over time.

I don't want to see an animation play ten different armor tests one by one. Can the visual display be combined into one display?

I agree. Just another bit to load and sit through. Give the player the information they need to play. Build some training or tutorial areas if you want them to see the effects.

You seem to be assuming that these are long animations; I had in mind short clips, seen only once (or at player request), and dismissed as desired. Perhaps they might play in a "view weapon" screen that the player can (optionally) call up in order to examine the action of the various weapons.

In all fairness, I've generally seen this used for comparison of upgrade branches: the player has levelled up, and been presented with two new weapons from which to choose. Each is demonstrated by a short, looping animation that provides a visual impression of

Additionally, this might be better suited to weapons that differ in fairly simple ways: spread-fire or rapid-fire; seeking shot or beam; etc.

In short, I think that I agree with your conclusion, if not your reason.

If 'armor' is just a matter of thickness (i.e. a single value increasing), you could display it like this:

This seems like a decent idea. I could see other information being included as well: rays shooting out around the "bullet" might illustrate spread, a second, angled plate-and-bullet set might depict the angle at which bullets glance away, etc.

being able to gauge the state of an opponent's armour

And you shall. By seeing bullet dents decals, or cracks, or even outright holes.

Ah, fair enough--I interpreted your saying that it wouldn't "be that obvious visually in the actual game" to indicate that it wouldn't be very visible at all.

you could display it like this:

I could. What you've given me, is a very clean and neat idea, and i may well end up using something like this, but firstly, it's probably a little too clean cut, for how do you show that a machinegun with a large bullet spread has to hit one area with 12 bullets to punch through ?

To the first, does the player have to know the exact number of bullets? I would think that players would more likely rely on an idea of how long it might take, and visual feedback on armour-state, than on counting individual hits.

To the second, it's more visual.

However, see my concession above that this idea may well not work for your game.

Obviously after some time in the game, you, the player, will be able to generally predict what a particular weapon would do, but would it remain too much of "style over substance" ? A neat visual idea, but a bad design and interface choice ?

I think you just answered your own question. It may look pretty sweet, but I think the player would just prefer the number. The alternative is no number and allow the player to "test" their weapons in combat by shooting enemies.

Have you considered throwing together a rough prototype in Flash to test it out?