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Hello Alien RPG fans!

I have a couple of questions regarding weapon ranges and armor saves.

I'll start with weapon ranges, is it right that you lose attack dice if you're firing at a target inside the effective range of the weapon?

Example: the smart gun has a range of Long so if they were to engage a target at a medium distance they would lose an amount of dice for their ranged attack skill check? Or have I got this completely wrong and the weapons are effective up to the maximum range of the weapon?

My second question relates to armor saves. I'll give 2 examples and hopefully somebody can tell me which is correct.

So let's say an Alien rolls 8 attack dice and 3 hit. Would the marine equipped with M3 armour (6 armor value) then roll 6 dice with the hope of getting 3 successes to negate each successful attack?

Or

The Alien rolls 8 attack dice and the attack deals 2 damage for each success, the alien succeeds with 3 hits which is 6 damage dealt against the marine. Does the marine roll his/her 6 armor dice but now each success negates 1 point of damage?

And do successful armor saves negate the armor value by 1 for each success?

Loving the game ladies and gents, just trying to make sure I'm getting things right.

Cheers in advance!

Shevvie.

Range modifiers apply even if the effective range if high than the range you are shooting at, but if the target is with that effective range you also apply the bonus. 
There is a negative modifiers on shooting at engaged range enemies due to the difficulty of bringing your weapon to bare. But if you successfully sneak up to to engaged range, and you opponent is unwitting, that becomes a +3 bonus.

Armour reduces DAMAGE, not successes. But extra successes on an attack normally adds just one point of extra damage. 

Armour doesn’t normally take damage, but will do in some circumstances, against acid attacks for example. 

Range modifiers apply even if the effective range if high than the range you are shooting at, but if the target is with that effective range you also apply the bonus. 
There is a negative modifiers on shooting at engaged range enemies due to the difficulty of bringing your weapon to bare. But if you successfully sneak up to to engaged range, and you opponent is unwitting, that becomes a +3 bonus.

Armour reduces DAMAGE, not successes. But extra successes on an attack normally adds just one point of extra damage. 

Armour doesn’t normally take damage, but will do in some circumstances, against acid attacks for example. 

Thanks Matt/Dave not sure which one you are with this tag.

This cleared it up nicely for me. It does appear as though I've been playing it with some extra brutality against my poor players regarding armor saves but since I've been doing that for the Aliens too it's been somewhat balanced. They really like this game.

I somewhat like the idea of degrading armor though because it would weaken the more it was hit. It makes sense, it might have to be something I put forward to the players and see what they want to do.