Well, at Robogames this year Last Rites bent 1" thick AR400 which is essentially hardox... so either way if you're wanting to fight spinners you'll take insane damage at some point. I'd certainly go the shock absorption route but I'd probably go for something like a full 5-6mm hardox chassis and then maybe 15-20mm HDPE all over, maybe even more where you can afford the weight. If you're only doing non-spinner live events 4mm hardox should be near enough bulletproof for most things you'll fight, and stick a bit of HDPE on top for fighting the nasty axes like like Thor, Gabriel and Terrorhurtz