Shock Absorbers I’m still trying to figure out completely, but testing has them definitely working a bit like a nerf cushion for the tile they’re attached to: 50% impact damage and 1500 durability make them great at… well, absorbing shocks… but not so great for things like the leading edge of your battering ram. Put them on tiles with wheels, for instance, and you trade some squashing power for significantly higher offroad tire life. On the transfer of damage between tiles, tests ongoing but results seem to be “maybe yes?”. At the least, by reducing the damage to the tile they seem to prevent the accumulated small hits that can grind down even Military Composite Armor.
On the spiked plating- that’s basically just an expendability thing: Spiked plating, blob frames, and quarterpanels are cheap but can take a beating.
I use rams on bigger stuff like the Dreadnought, but on something this small, that bumper has to be both my crumple zone and my ram. Having a couple extra layers between me and the stuff I run into has made a big difference from time to time. On a recent run, for instance, a disagreement over right of way with a zombie horde required a minor detour through a clothing store. Had to replace a couple spiked plates and a quartepanel, but better that than my water cannons or storage batteries. Using the damage-nerfing blob frames instead of heavy duty frames in front is also a recent tweak I made- it costs me some pure impact damage, but it also makes it less likely that things I run into at low speed break. (Meaning sometimes I can just nudge cars out of the way with a dented frame instead of shattering them, and I generally don’t plow through a wall unless I intend to)
Never have really messed around with shredders- the cost and fragility always scared me off a little, but I’ve been wanting to experiment with their potential as a way to thin hordes en-mass for a while now. One idea I’ve had is essentially an armored riding lawnmower from hell with a set of ice cream truck chimes. X3