Does “Shock Absorber” do anything special to protect the interior of my vehicle?
Is “Military Composite Armor Plating” always better than “Shock Absorber”?
Shock Absorber has durability 1500, weight 49.7, and damage 100%.
Military Composite Armor Plating has durability 2000, weight 36.4, and damage 100%.
So military composite armor plating seems to be better unless shock absorber does something special to protect the interior of the vehicle.
No. Yes.
At some point I will change that.
Thanks a lot 
Speaking of, at some point last fall I did change it, and now shock absorbers protect the non-frame vehicle parts on the same vehicle square from radiated shock damage from a collision. It’s not a lot of protection - only around 20 points - but it’ll save vulnerable parts from taking damage in low speed collisions.
Thanks by the way. Its been saving cameras and recharging stations since fall last year XD.
Shock Absorbers protect parts from indirect impact damage, whereas the Military Composite Plating protects parts from direct impact damage.
ex:
You hit a large boulder with the right-front-side of your vehicle. The part that hit the boulder is protected by the Mil.Comp.Plating, but if you have no Shock Absorbers, all other parts in the vehicle (yes, even the ones at the very back) have a chance of taking damage.
So it’s a good idea to have some Shock Absorbers on tiles where you have your equipment (Welder, Kitchen Unit) and Solar Panels or Cameras, so the amount of times you have to repair stuff is reduced. (and it does help a lot, cuz at times the game seems to refuse to give you solar vehicles to harvest parts from).
“cameras and recharging stations”, heh. In my experience, turret control units are made of the brittlest of glass despite their recipe, and those are the things that really benefit from absorbers.