It would be best if it could it be included in base game, instead of third patching. Modding is always nice, but a bit tricky to use and unofficial.
saying that gotta love some of the mods, like
Enemy number could scale up to soldiers making battles more complex, I remember before Derleth or Necromicon, it was up to 12, not up to 8 soldiers per bigger missions (special, nests, attacking heavens)
Interesting idea. I’ve been thinking about this though and even if a projectile can’t pierce it still would do damage in a “concussive” way. So in real life if you’re wearing armour that a shotgun blast wouldn’t penetrate, the concussive effect of it can still mash up your internal organs and do damage. Same with buildings/cover. A shotgun blast to a wall may not pierce it, but it will definitely affect the structure.
Sure, but the damage will likely be significantly less than hitting an unprotected target with a shotgun.
It will always only be an approximation to reality, the only question that arises for me is what is better, no damage if a weapon normally would not penetrate the armor or always do some damage, even if it is minimal. And in PP, shotgun damage is far from minor, even against heavy armor and actually you get also 0 damage if it can’t overcome the armor with its damage values.
If we go wild, we can also think about 2 different damage types, vital (high) by penetration and kinetic (low) if not.
Edit:
IMO, in reality the kinetic energy of shotguns should not be that high, I think mostly all other types of firearms should have (much?) more.
Except in some fancy films or games when people flying around when be hit by a shotgun …
modern armors are made to reduce amount of impact force protecting soft internal organs… Usually, they are composed of hard plate and softer padding/kevlar layers underneath. Hard plate absorbs the hit, padding reduces impact force…
Overall, Shotgun is not something you wanna use against armored opponents… at least not shooting buckshot ammo (like Phoenix Point shotguns do)… If you had to, you would use slug ammo, that can deliver all the energy into single point, possibly breaking the ceramic plate (steel composite plates would be relatively immune to it still)
I disagree… If I shoot you in the head with a shotgun, you will die instantly. I can shoot you in the head with a .9mm and there is a probability chance that it will not pierce your skull (hence why police departments opted for the .40 vs .9mm)
Well, we talked about armor and kinetic energy, what you call here is a complete different thing. 
But OK, I’m not here to discuss if this or that is maybe worse or better in reality in any detail.
I only think about some things what we actually have in the game.
Do you like how it is actually is in the game? How armor, weapon damage, piercing, shredding are implemented?
If not, how can it be improved?
I don’t know if you’re basing that on video game logic or trying to stick close to reality, so maybe I’m missing your point completely, but a shotgun has enormously more energy than a handgun, and significantly more than most autoloading rifles. Some magnum cartridges, like .338 Lapua or .50 BMG, significantly exceed shotgun kinetic energies, but most combat rifles have half to two thirds of the kinetic energy of a shotgun, and most handguns have a tenth to a third.
Shotguns are very powerful.
Some sample data points:
12 gauge 3" slug: 3000 ft-lb (~4500 J)
5.56 NATO from 16" barrel: 1300 ft-lb (~1800 J)
7.62 NATO from 16" barrel: 2300 ft-lb (~2900 J)
7.62 Soviet (AK-47 round) 16": 1500 ft-lb (2100 J)
9mm Luger 4" barrel: 300 ft-lb (~400 J)
50 BMG 28" barrel: 13000 ft-lb (~18000 J)
There’s a lot of variation depending on cartridge load, of course.
None of these, I only try to find a way to improve some things in the game, not more, not less.
I’m not experienced in firearms, so thanks for your clarification.
Just my thoughts on this, from physical aspects:
The kinetic energy is calculated from the velocity and the mass of a projectile. Individual shotgun bullets/pallets (Buckshot ammo*) usually do not have a lot of mass and also do not have a disproportionately high velocity. Of course, there are several projectiles with shotguns and thus somewhat a summation of the impact energy of all projectiles. But I don’t think it’s that easy to add them simply up …
*Edit: In the game there is no slug ammo for shotguns. With a single bullet your view should be true, but we have multi bullet/pallet ammo in here.
But maybe I’m completely wrong here, I don’t want to doubt that.
In the end, that’s not really that important. It was just an example to show where such an idea of separating damage and penetration of armor could lead. Maybe it was a bad example, but it’s not really worth arguing about it page by page, is it?
Not at all. I was more just trying to add information since it seems you’re considering the topic. Didn’t mean to come across as argumentative; sorry, if I did.
Fallout: New Vegas used both DR and DT, and it made shotguns very easy to model enjoyably (if not necessarily exactly “realistically”). I wonder if, under the hood, PP can do something similar?
No you didn’t, so no problem
I think, it is going a bit too much into details about shotguns, that’s all.
Sometimes it is a bit problematic for me to express something in English because it is not my native language. So maybe I should apologize if it sounds a little too offensive at times, then I wasn’t really aware of it.
Different ammunition would be nice for sure, but is actually AFAIK not possible, i.e. not implemented.
Sorry MadSkunky…I often delete the middle stuff and get to the end point. Fungi did a great job showing you the science that leads to the end point. And fully agree, it would be awesome to include different ammo in game (hollow points, slugs, ballistic tips, or even wad cutters). I actually reload my own ammunition, so I am very keen to know the numbers behind the grain of bullet and grains of powder to propel the bullet as I want… but yeah, I attempted to not give you the page by page argument.
Well, rereading all this, I think it is mostly my fault. When I started my example with shotguns and in the following discussion, I always forgot to mention the only ammunition that is in the game, and that’s just only buckshot ammunition. So add this to all of my posts and maybe we’ll get a little closer. 
Different ammo types would change many things, of course also with shotguns. Would be very cool to have something like this in the game.