Power Armor "expansion"

[Lancer2345]

So, I really, really loved the way power armors are implemented in this game. They made it feel so much more mechanical, like you're really piloting a high-tech piece of equipment instead of just wearing full plates,

 

Excepts...New Vegas modding community did that. With Powered Power Armor installed, you can do the same thing for your armors. Sure, the system is better implemented in Fallout 4, with much better UI, but we are comparing official, core content to a mod here. I'm not surprised if that mod influenced the power armor mechanic in this game.

 

So, what I'm saying is, if we managed to push Fallout NV into Fallout 4 level content, why can't we go further? There's much more potential for this system.

 

I've recently played a bunch of mecha game, and that gave me an idea: treat the power armor of this game like they're mechs! Make them standalone combat platforms of destruction, with built-in weapons, A.I, make them even more varied, more addons, more features.

 

First off, the weapons. The bread and butter of power armor, arm-mounted weapons and shoulder mounted weapons, are sadly missing from the game. Fortunately, I believe the solution lies in fallout 3 and fallout NV mods.

 

For arm mounted weapons. A NV mod called playable robot race did exactly that. They added a "pistol" with a model that covered the entire forearm. I work relatively well, but there were problems with some certain animation mods and the holstering, as the weapon would appear on the hip like a pistol.

 

For armor, this is not an issue. I'm thinking a piece of arm mod that add a new model to the arm, making it looks like a weapon. (Maybe try it out first with a minigun, then move onto things like gatling laser, plasma cannon, rocket launcher etc, then crazy things like a minigun that, at a press of a hotkey, launches a rocket, sort of like the grenade launcher rifle mods) . As this is an armor piece, holstering isn't an issuse. The actual weapon itself is invisible and is spawned in the player's inventory the moment they enter their armor. It will be modelled to match the hand armor model, with correct posistion for the projectile's origin, firing sparks and all that.

 

The only problem I can think off with this one is the minigun, which won't spin. Maybe we can code the armor to animate and rev up like a minigun would, Another, rather lazy solution is to model it like the Huo-long Heater, as you can see, the spinny bit is concealed behind a protective tube.

 

Next, shoulder mounted variants, like missle and grenade launchers, are a lot simpler in my opinion. If you think back to the day of fallout 3, there was a mod called Devil's Mansion or something of that line. The point of that mod was that it gave you super powers in the form of refilling comsumables, that, once used, blasted out fireballs and the like toward your crosshair.

 

Now, a simple torso mod that add small missile pods to your shoulders. Same as above, you get a comsumable added to your inventory that, once used, sent out the appropriate projectile. In the Devil's Mansion, the projectile originated from your head/chest. Perhaps we can move that to the shoulders. Further, maybe we can do the same thing as project Nevada and add dedicated hotkey for shoulder weapons, left and right shoulders both.

 

Other variants could be miniguns, plasma, laser, sniper cannon or railguns.

 

Finally for the addon weapon parts, what kind of power armor doesn't come with built in power fist? I think if we can implement hand weapon, power fists are no problem as it is the same idea, just much, much simpler.

 

But wait, there's even more! Why just weapons? That's not enough.

 

We've talked offensive, what about defensive? Why not shields?

 

First idea that come to my head is a defensive "kinetic pulse" that is, yes, a hotkeyed consumable. The concept: an omnidirection pulse of kinetic force to throw off attacker and deflect projectile, use this if you see a missle heading straight for your face. The execution? An explosion that rag doll and push everything around you. For a split second after using this, you are also completely immune to all damage that is not energy weapon, because you don't blow back laser beam.

 

But that's not what we're here for! We want real deflector shields! How do we do that? I have no idea except for a notion? The idea I have now is this: This armor mod actually spawn a companinon once you step into the armor. The "companion" is actually the shield itself and is actually an small, oval shape thing with very high movement speed as is coded to stay on top of you always. The collision mesh is sorta wonky, being empty inside for the player with collision outside. This thing have some resistance and a big pool of HP, but the real cool thing is that as long as this thing live, you have complete 100% damage resistance from all sources except probably fall damage. This is so that splash damage won't magically affect you through your bubbleshield.

 

The problem is that I have no idea how the heck you're suppose to shoot from the inside of this thing. I'm sure there are better way to implement this concept.

 

Alright, so we talked defense, how do we power all of this? PPA introduced the concept of power depleting, but they also offered a rare module that give infinite armor that, when struck hard from behind, go nuclear. I see no reason why we can't do this.

 

But all of this is just for the standard armor, we can do deeper! Why just armor? Why not real mini-mechas? Giant things that is as big as a behemoth, bristling with on board weapons but cannot actually wield anything. Frankly, they don't need to. On the other side of the spectrum, maybe ultra light, stealth armors, inspired by the Coyote Reflex, that has built in stealth, jumppack, jetpacks,dashes, and cloaking field.

 

That's all hardware though, what about firm and software? The obvious solution is to install AI on your armors that will make combat banter, inform you of stealthy enemy, or even man your shoulder mounted weapons. Imagine if you mounted a railgun on your shoulder, normally you would need to aim with your crosshair as normal. right? Now the AI do it for you, so when a ghoul try to give you surprise buttsex from the side, your trusty binary friend has it covered. Next thing is shits like upgrading your driver, get new Window or something. Better driver will give bonuses like better aim, less spread, consume less power and AP, move faster, regen AP faster, or even high-light enemies like that one mod in New Vegas (or this could be a helmet mod).

 

Finally, there's the whole thing with power armors are machines. Which the right know-how and gears, you should be able to hack opponent's power armor. Don't want to deal with that raider and his armor, hack it, then make it do a breakdance and and pull his limbs off their sockets in the process. Even better, you can force him to watch as his armor move on its on and turn on his friends. Force armors to self destruct, cut off air supply, assume direct control and make it jump off a cliff, delete its driver and turn it into a useless hunk of metal and lock the poor chap inside for all eternity or until his raider friend found away to reinstall the OS. (For added bonus, if you do this, add a faint sound file so that if you walk next to the armor, you can her your victim screaming inside. With every four hours that passes, replace it with another one that is fainter and less frantic. After 24 hours, play no sound, cause he probably collasped.)

 

Finally, do you have fourty bazillion power armors in your collection that you will never touch because none of them hold a candle to your X-01? Do you wish there's a use for them? Do you want your own army of killer robots? Why not modify the armor a little bit, get a custom AI install, do some tech voodoo, and voila, your very own army of animated power armors.

 

s#*! that was a lot, what do you guys think?

 

 

 

[CoreyN11388]

That all sounds freaking awesome and I could picture it as you described in my head. However, that would be a nightmare to code and put together I'm guessing. Maybe someone experienced could say different, but I can guarantee if done right, this mod would be one of those go to ones for Fallout!!

[Lancer2345]

Yeah, all the cool things are coding nightmare, but I have faith in our modding community.We've made magic before.

All of my ideas for this actually came from existing mods. Even the giant mech part, there was a mod that let you pilot Liberty Prime around, with all the eye laser and nuclear football.

 

The software update can be implement by using items that you keep inside your inventory. They will detect when you are inside power armor and give the bonus, like how PPA did with its power armor modification system.

 

As for taking control of power armor, I think Devil Masion did mind control, but I maybe wrong. There was a mod called Cyberian Dawn that let you take over robots...

 

As for the power armor robots, I think they should just be NPC with power armors and edited lines, not much complication there.

 

It's such a shame that I don't know anything about modding, or I would have give it a shot myself.

[AreeSoothsayer]

While not what you're looking for, this mod changes up the power armor to more resonable setup. I mean a 10mm handgun shooting you through the armor?

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/7515/?

 

The Power armor takes all damage, except DoTs, until the piece breaks.

[Lancer2345]

Yeah, I saw that, but I felt that it was only a stop gap measure. It's really good, but not the crazyness that I was looking for.

[Orkkec]

"treat the power armor of this game like they're mechs! Make them standalone combat platforms of destruction, with built-in weapons, A.I, make them even more varied, more addons, more features."

 

 

Is exactly what i would ever wish for. When this first came out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdGr8MH4pPU, i was super excited that maybe, there will be a twin-linked minigun, and with how the posture looks, i almost expected Power Armor to work exactly the way you've said... Ho boy, thinking about it just made me sad.

 

Really wish someone made it, or that i even knew how to..