What is the equation for damage in Warframe?

Question

Taking into account a weapon's base damage, and any modifiers from modules to include regular damage, armor-piercing damage, elemental damage, and the mitigation from an enemy's shield and armor, what is the equation for how damage is calculated in Warframe?

Answer 1

If you're here from the future, the damage calculator pointed out by Oblivious Sage is outdated as of Damage 2.0. Warframe's wikia site has an up-to-date, extensive paragraph on damage calculation, along with formulas.

The system is quite complex, but the gist is:

• Enemies (and NPCs, and warframes) are made of "health materials" - ie. different types of health, shields and armor.
• Every "health material" applies different multiplier against different damage types.
• When you attack, the final damage within your attack is calculated separately for each damage type.
  • Health is a plain, old health bar. If it's depleted, the enemy dies.
  • Shields is a separate health bar that serves as a protection for health bar. If it's depleted, the damage goes to health.
  • Armor is not a health bar. It adds its own multipliers on top of health's multiplier (cumulatively) and reduces damage the health takes. However,
    • the more armor the enemy has, the more weight armor's multiplier has over health's multiplier,
    • damage types strong against armor reduce that protection (dealing more damage), while damage types weak against armor increase that protection (dealing less damage) - on top of the damage multiplier.