Power Armor... not so powerful

[oldspice2625]

Among the other ridiculous changes that happened to the Fallout franchise with 4's release, something has REALLY bugged me, that I will address with mods: Power Armor

 

By making the armor so common, and with making enemies like CRACK HEADS be able to wear it without any training, the armor had to be balanced...

 

So from a nigh-mythical legend of such a thing existing... you are introduced to it maybe five minutes into the game.

 

Two slaps from a death claw and your armor's arm is busted... hell, a few shots from a crack head raider's PIPE GUN cobbled together from hardware parts and duct taped together... can break your super advanced tungstun military exo-suit that can leap buildings in a single bound, is almost radiation proof, shrugs off huge falls without a scratch, and won the war for America vs. China (well, won as in our country, even though nuked to high hell, wasn't nearly as bad as what happened to China)

 

I feel like small guns should do NOTHING to the armor. Nothing short of big guns, death claws, super mutants should even worry the person inside the suit. The durability should be superb. I mean, the thing can survive a nuclear blast... how the hell does a RAD ROACH damage the ARMOR?

 

I can get the player character getting damage, since the body is being justled around the armor inside, and that can't feel great.

 

suits like the T45 should degrade at a less rate, but since it's the first and crappiest version that is the most common, it should not make you god... however, the T60 and X01 should be damn near indestructable god mode.

 

If anything, the armor should also make the character's melee attacks stagger foes... I mean, its like wrapping a guy in an M1 Abrams Tank and having that same guy punch you in the face.

 

Like I said, mods have been out for this and I will look into addressing this most terrible aspect of the game. I feel like in a way, if they keep the armor the way it is, and how it degrades so quickly, than the character should be immune to all damage except from big guns like the Fatman or Missile Launcher, until a piece gets blown off. Then the player should take increased levels of damage until the suit is practically useless, since the whole body would not be exposed until that moment.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

Man I'm not sure we're playing the same game? I play on the hardest difficulty and it's a very rare thing for me to see one of my armor pieces go into the red. I do keep my armor repaired whenever I hit a town or settlement, but otherwise the armor is pretty much the most OP thing in the entire came. When I get out of the armor I feel like a crab out of his shell.

 

As for being common...have you played FO3? Maybe you don't get it as soon since you need training to be able to use it (I do agree with you there, it's silly to just climb up on a roof and find some armor and start kicking ass with it), but once the Enclave show up you're surrounded by the best power armor in the game. Once you go off to clear out the water purifier thing, there's so much power armor to loot you won't be able to carry it all. It may be silly for enemies to be wearing it, but aside from the Enclave there were no enemies that had it in previous games so you ran around like a God.

 

I do agree that it would be more realistic if small guns didn't effect it, considering I can jump off the biggest skyscraper in the game and land on my feet without a scratch, it seems contradictory that a .32 caliber bullet from a pipe gun could do any damage at all, but then if they did that the entire leveling system for enemies would have to change once you get the armor, and then you'd suddenly have every raider in the wasteland carrying a minigun or rocket launcher.

 

What they SHOULD have done is make fusion cores far more rare and drain far faster, that way you just can't run around in them indefinitely. Maybe work in a system so that small guns actually don't do any damage to you, but maybe taking all that gunfire added further drain to the fusion core. Make it so that in mid battle you may be forced to exit your armor because you're out of juice and don't have anymore cores.

 

If you really wanna try to make sense of it, at least if you play as the male character, he is after all a retired military veteran. There's at least a chance he has seen or has some experience with power armor. The girl though, she's a law school graduate so that makes no sense at all. At least in previous games everyone started off not knowing how to handle a gun, and you had to level up small guns to be able to handle a .10mm, but she comes out of the vault with no military experience at all blasting away with any gun she can get her hands on.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Evil D

[MioneRCP]

Man I'm not sure we're playing the same game? I play on the hardest difficulty and it's a very rare thing for me to see one of my armor pieces go into the red. I do keep my armor repaired whenever I hit a town or settlement, but otherwise the armor is pretty much the most OP thing in the entire came. When I get out of the armor I feel like a crab out of his shell.

 

As for being common...have you played FO3? Maybe you don't get it as soon since you need training to be able to use it (I do agree with you there, it's silly to just climb up on a roof and find some armor and start kicking ass with it), but once the Enclave show up you're surrounded by the best power armor in the game. Once you go off to clear out the water purifier thing, there's so much power armor to loot you won't be able to carry it all. It may be silly for enemies to be wearing it, but aside from the Enclave there were no enemies that had it in previous games so you ran around like a God.

 

I do agree that it would be more realistic if small guns didn't effect it, considering I can jump off the biggest skyscraper in the game and land on my feet without a scratch, it seems contradictory that a .32 caliber bullet from a pipe gun could do any damage at all, but then if they did that the entire leveling system for enemies would have to change once you get the armor, and then you'd suddenly have every raider in the wasteland carrying a minigun or rocket launcher.

 

What they SHOULD have done is make fusion cores far more rare and drain far faster, that way you just can't run around in them indefinitely. Maybe work in a system so that small guns actually don't do any damage to you, but maybe taking all that gunfire added further drain to the fusion core. Make it so that in mid battle you may be forced to exit your armor because you're out of juice and don't have anymore cores.

 

If you really wanna try to make sense of it, at least if you play as the male character, he is after all a retired military veteran. There's at least a chance he has seen or has some experience with power armor. The girl though, she's a law school graduate so that makes no sense at all. At least in previous games everyone started off not knowing how to handle a gun, and you had to level up small guns to be able to handle a .10mm, but she comes out of the vault with no military experience at all blasting away with any gun she can get her hands on.

 

There are some people looking at ideas for how the woman in the game can handle a gun so well. The best explanation I've heard is she also had some military experiences and used the funds from that to go to law school.

 

Which would make sense and might give an idea how the two met originally, but it might not be enough to say both had power Armour training. I look forward to any mod that will make this more believable.

[Boombro]

 

I look forward to any mod that will make this more believable.

Okay, how about this

:

You don't need training if the power armor was using a core and a frame, but you need it to use the armor itself without the frame like in older titles. The older titles PA is in fact the PA made into a standalone armor since there was no cores, and so you need training since it heavy.

 

 

There are some people looking at ideas for how the woman in the game can handle a gun so well

She has a law degree, doesn't mean she wasn't gangsta.

 

 

. The best explanation I've heard is she also had some military experiences and used the funds from that to go to law school.

Step up your RP game dude.

 

Her husband trained her.

Her father trained her.

Her gangsta homies trained her.

Her mafia boss wanted her to train on that.

Her friends trained her.

She used it before since she was a hitman.

She read from a book.

She was a hunter.

She was/is a true American or any country that doesn't ban guns.

She a natural.

She get training.

She trained herself.

She trained on the roaches and on stuff at the start of the game.

 

Plus, guns are VERY easy to use, way easier than lock picking, hacking, cooking, crafting, building, talking with other people, makeup and many other stuff. You don't need to stretch far for how a human can use a gun. There is hardly the need for that, you need to reason to for them to be able to cook.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Boombro

[jcdenton2012]

My main complaint is how easily damaged it is. Power Armor in this game feels like a thin layer of tin foil wrapped in duct-tape.

[SiNNeR]

if not having to join the Botherhood of Steal to use Power Armour means it has to be a bit weaker, that's a trade off I can live with. besides, the suit you get in Concorde is already damaged before you even get in it so that's probably why you found that one broke so soon

[TheOriginalEvilD]

 

Man I'm not sure we're playing the same game? I play on the hardest difficulty and it's a very rare thing for me to see one of my armor pieces go into the red. I do keep my armor repaired whenever I hit a town or settlement, but otherwise the armor is pretty much the most OP thing in the entire came. When I get out of the armor I feel like a crab out of his shell.

 

As for being common...have you played FO3? Maybe you don't get it as soon since you need training to be able to use it (I do agree with you there, it's silly to just climb up on a roof and find some armor and start kicking ass with it), but once the Enclave show up you're surrounded by the best power armor in the game. Once you go off to clear out the water purifier thing, there's so much power armor to loot you won't be able to carry it all. It may be silly for enemies to be wearing it, but aside from the Enclave there were no enemies that had it in previous games so you ran around like a God.

 

I do agree that it would be more realistic if small guns didn't effect it, considering I can jump off the biggest skyscraper in the game and land on my feet without a scratch, it seems contradictory that a .32 caliber bullet from a pipe gun could do any damage at all, but then if they did that the entire leveling system for enemies would have to change once you get the armor, and then you'd suddenly have every raider in the wasteland carrying a minigun or rocket launcher.

 

What they SHOULD have done is make fusion cores far more rare and drain far faster, that way you just can't run around in them indefinitely. Maybe work in a system so that small guns actually don't do any damage to you, but maybe taking all that gunfire added further drain to the fusion core. Make it so that in mid battle you may be forced to exit your armor because you're out of juice and don't have anymore cores.

 

If you really wanna try to make sense of it, at least if you play as the male character, he is after all a retired military veteran. There's at least a chance he has seen or has some experience with power armor. The girl though, she's a law school graduate so that makes no sense at all. At least in previous games everyone started off not knowing how to handle a gun, and you had to level up small guns to be able to handle a .10mm, but she comes out of the vault with no military experience at all blasting away with any gun she can get her hands on.

 

There are some people looking at ideas for how the woman in the game can handle a gun so well. The best explanation I've heard is she also had some military experiences and used the funds from that to go to law school.

 

Which would make sense and might give an idea how the two met originally, but it might not be enough to say both had power Armour training. I look forward to any mod that will make this more believable.

 

 

Well the easiest and most obvious explanation is she's married to a war veteran. I'm sure he owned at least one gun and I'm sure he taught her how to use it. He saw how ugly the world could be so he would want her to be able to handle herself.

 

But, the power armor part is a loss for explanation, since there's no training the husband could do without an actual set of armor. That is, unless we assume there's some kind of Star Trek holodeck type thing were she could have learned through simulation. That's reaching quite a bit and I think if such a thing existed in this universe we would've heard about it by now.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

My main complaint is how easily damaged it is. Power Armor in this game feels like a thin layer of tin foil wrapped in duct-tape.

 

Man, again I'm not trying to argue with you guys, but something is very different between you and the OP's play style or something. Even with my melee character I never get damaged armor pieces. And again, I repair my armor every chance I get, if I run across a repair thing anywhere out in the wasteland I use it, but still I can't remember the last time I actually had an arm or leg or something go red with damage. I'm sure a lot of it is because I play stealth/sniper, so I just don't take that much damage to begin with, but like I said my melee character is holding her own quite nicely. I'll have to see how it goes up against the higher level stuff, she's only level 12 but so far she's invincible.

[jcdenton2012]

(

 

 

My main complaint is how easily damaged it is. Power Armor in this game feels like a thin layer of tin foil wrapped in duct-tape.

 

Man, again I'm not trying to argue with you guys, but something is very different between you and the OP's play style or something. Even with my melee character I never get damaged armor pieces. And again, I repair my armor every chance I get, if I run across a repair thing anywhere out in the wasteland I use it, but still I can't remember the last time I actually had an arm or leg or something go red with damage. I'm sure a lot of it is because I play stealth/sniper, so I just don't take that much damage to begin with, but like I said my melee character is holding her own quite nicely. I'll have to see how it goes up against the higher level stuff, she's only level 12 but so far she's invincible.

 

(laughs) Perfectly fine, for the most part I'm straight up into the fight with a shotgun. My armor get's seriously damaged all the time. You don't know combat damage until you've gone toe-to-toe with a Legendary Glowing Deathclaw using a combat shotgun and jetpack. I do have better weapons, like an assault plasma rifle for example, but you know... always falling prey to that old adage, 'I might need it later,' so I horde the plasma ammunition.

[TakaraPRG]

(

(laughs) Perfectly fine, for the most part I'm straight up into the fight with a shotgun. My armor get's seriously damaged all the time. You don't know combat damage until you've gone toe-to-toe with a Legendary Glowing Deathclaw using a combat shotgun and jetpack. I do have better weapons, like an assault plasma rifle for example, but you know... always falling prey to that old adage, 'I might need it later,' so I horde the plasma ammunition.

 

Waded into a melee fight with a legendary Glowing Deathclaw....all good. Wandered into raider territory with same suit with out repairs listened to the bullets bouncing off like nothing...slaughtered some ten or so with melee. Wandered back into Glowing sea marched all the way to a quest objective...wandered all the way back out only thing in red was my legs.....damn ankle biting hordes of mole rats.

 

Power armor makes things far to easy. If your playstyle doesn't change in power armor you are using it wrong. It's designed to be a very aggressive force multiplier. I can see if you hide back with it....just soaking up damage and not dealing out the damage they were meant to help with.