Does armor weight matter with custom (orange) gear?

Question

As a quest reward, my Jedi Guardian was offered the choice of two orange robes, one heavy armor, the other medium. They appeared cosmetically identical in the gear preview window. Since the stat values of orange gear is governed by the doodads slotted in them, it made me wonder why the choice of two more or less identical items would be offered.

Is there an armoring scalar or something that goes higher with heavy armor? If not, does that mean my Jedi Sage could eventually get stats identical to custom heavy armor despite being limited to light armor?

Answer 1

Heavy armor has more armor value than Medium or Light armor for a given Armoring mod.

The reason you're getting two options is because the Jedi Sentinel can only use Medium armor — so if the quest only gave Heavy armor, half the jedi wouldn't be able to use the reward.

There has been rumblings down Bioware's pipe that, in the future, all orange armor would auto-adjust to whichever tier is appropriate for your character. Currently there are some Adaptive Armor sets from the Cartel Market, social vendors, and the like that automatically adjust to the heaviest setting your character can use; folks can start tanking in Slave Girl outfits. (Heck, Shadows / Assassins already do!)