Mod Request: PA Exosuit decay and repair

[Rallik]

So one thing has bothered me quite a bit about how Fallout 4 has handled Power Armor. The stuff has been sitting around in a radioactive wasteland, subject to the natural elements, for over 200 years. Why does it even function? Shouldn't it take some pretty serious know-how and effort to get it working again? We just hop right in and it works?

 

My idea for a mod would be to make the initial PA core fused/corroded into the back of the power armor when you first find it. One free joyride per suit that you find. It makes the beginning PA use in Concord more legitimate, since your suit usually gets very torn up. Once your charge is up, you get ejected, and that is it for that exosuit, and it then has to be repaired. You're free to remove the armor pieces, and then the suit itself, though heavy, can be brought back in some way to a PA station for repairs.

 

Those repairs aren't easy. Make the repair of the armor pieces take serious investment in Armorer and Science. Same goes for the Exosuit. It would make finding pieces of armor extremely valuable, if you couldn't fix them until later levels. The suit itself could require Armor/Science, and the repairs could give various levels of exosuit (corroded, rusted, nominal, pristine) that would effect fusion core use, as well as what armor and components can be installed, and how likely he suit is to short out when you are out in the field. A short means you're ejected, potentially in the middle of combat. Damage could also up the ejection chance.

 

The idea here would be to make it so that we place some weight on whether we want to run that initial fusion core down, or get it back to the base. Once it is back in base, that fusion core is a problem unless you have some basic science to remove it so your suit doesn't going walking off during a raider attack, or is used against you. This gives the player an immediate need to think about the fact that he or she just placed the equivalent of an armored tank in the middle of a group of settlers. Scavenged armor should feel precious, and not something easily repairable with initial character skills. Maybe the following:

 

Armorer 1 (Level 1): Raider (character can find T-45, but can't fix it yet) That initial suit can't be fixed, time to level up and/or scrounge for replacement raider armor in Lexington.

Armorer 2 (Level 13): T-45 (about when the character starts to see T-51, but can't fix it)

Armorer 3 (Level 23): T-51 (T-60 is dropping, T-51 repairable)

Armorer 4 (Level 39): T-60 (X-01 is dropping, T-60 becomes repairable)

 

Science 1 (Level 1): Corroded exosuit and basic components, limited fusion core charge, high ejection chance

Science 2 (Level 17): Rusted exosuit and average components, more charge, less risk

Science 3 (Level 28): Nominal exosuit and better components, standard charge, standard risk

Science 4 (Level 41): Pristine exosuit and best components, longer charge, low risk of ejection

 

X-01 can be repaired with both Armorer 4 and Science 4

Edited April 6, 2016 by Rallik

[Jeffman12]

I like this. I'd suggest restricting chance to short being restricted to EMP detonations and FC breaches caused by a shot to the battery(albeit much higher chances in those instances).

[Flyingdebris]

The ejected out of a suit thing could be represented/justified by the suit suffering a cooling system failure and overheating i think. (like a car having its radiator damaged)

 

So, you suffer a failure, the suit counts down into an emergency ejection, boots you out, and then proceeds to vent dangerously overheated vaporized coolant in a radius until it cools.

 

In this way you can still recover a suit you've been kicked out of provided you wait for cooling to occur. (so you don't just leave the PA behind), and you have a visual tell for when you can actually get back in. (seeing the hot gas stop emitting)

 

Once you get back in, you could have the suit operating at reduced power until you get some fresh coolant in there, though until its fixed properly, it might just overheat again.

 

 

However, i don't think the having fusion cores be fused to the frame is the best answer, namely because of the whole npc theft issue, and that being unable to collect fusion cores until you fix every PA you find would be a huge pain.

 

Instead, it might be best to create an extra category when working on a suit in the PA station. A category specifically relating to the exoskeleton frame itself. Maybe the frame itself needs maintenance and tracks damage, and is considerably harder to fix than the armor. You could gate a lot of progression this way. Like the PAs that you find out in the elements or under water, or on that roof, might have their base frame in barely functioning condition, barely giving you strength, are real slow and clumsy, grant more penalties than bonuses, might overheat if looked at funny, and just burn through fusion cores at a high rate. And then given perks and resources invested, you can tune up the PAs into being reliable to use. This might also differentiate a PA frame you find in the hands of raiders or rusting somewhere for 200 years vs something you might get fresh from the brotherhood, in cold storage, or hotrodded up by atom cats.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Flyingdebris

[Rallik]

Flyingdebris,

 

I think you had some really good ideas. Definitely easier to add the quality as a mod category in the PA station that affects core use, stat buff, etc. The other part of this is I think the mod should be backwards compatible. What I mean is, if uninstalled, the suit shouldn't disappear. Most of the mods I've seen get around this, and the cell reset bug, by using the "clean" version of the suit that is sold in stores. Perhaps a wiring harness that has to be crafted and installed/upgraded into the frame. I think there is a backpack mod that adds a new equippable items to frames to increase carry weight. Perhaps something similar can be made for the frame wiring.

 

So... setting up a mod category for quality shouldn't be too bad. You could even level-list it so that suit quality mod (wiring harness) would improve as you discover them. Less of a pain for veterans that find new suits. Strip all the armor and mods, and then scavenge/rebuild. Reapply the armor/mods.

 

What I haven't seen yet is perk requirements for armor repair. I'm pretty sure anyone can do it. If someone knows where to look for configuring perk-based repair, that would certainly help.

[Flyingdebris]

ah. that might a good way to go about it.

 

So maybe you'd apply a bunch of penalties to a basic frame. So a basic frame with nothing on it represents the "rusted to barely working" condition.

 

Then this wiring harness could be like an invisible 7th item on a suit that represents tuning the frame. And could potentially take damage like the rest of the parts, and have its own sub categories to modify like any other part. This item could be randomized and level listed on the frames found in the wild.

 

As for repairs, i think maybe, an option could be, what is the max health percentage you are capable to bring the armor up to when you repair it. The more advanced the suit, the less condition you can repair it up to without the perks, and the more material needed to do it.

 

So lacking any perks, you might have to pay a ton of rare materials to get an x01 part repaired to like 10% condition. If the part is above 10% condition, you cannot repair it. With all the perks, you can normally repair it up to 100% with a normal amount of materials.

 

So, effectively, in the very beginning of the game, you'd likely have to shelve that first rooftop PA because regardless of fusion cores, you can't fix it up past "barely held together" and the wiring harness is in such bad condition that the suit is more liability than bonus.

[Jeffman12]

ah. that might a good way to go about it.

 

So maybe you'd apply a bunch of penalties to a basic frame. So a basic frame with nothing on it represents the "rusted to barely working" condition.

 

Then this wiring harness could be like an invisible 7th item on a suit that represents tuning the frame. And could potentially take damage like the rest of the parts, and have its own sub categories to modify like any other part. This item could be randomized and level listed on the frames found in the wild.

 

As for repairs, i think maybe, an option could be, what is the max health percentage you are capable to bring the armor up to when you repair it. The more advanced the suit, the less condition you can repair it up to without the perks, and the more material needed to do it.

 

So lacking any perks, you might have to pay a ton of rare materials to get an x01 part repaired to like 10% condition. If the part is above 10% condition, you cannot repair it. With all the perks, you can normally repair it up to 100% with a normal amount of materials.

 

So, effectively, in the very beginning of the game, you'd likely have to shelve that first rooftop PA because regardless of fusion cores, you can't fix it up past "barely held together" and the wiring harness is in such bad condition that the suit is more liability than bonus.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

I'm liking this more and more.

 

Dare I add to this request by bringing up different types of frames with different roles?

[Rallik]

Just an update:

I'm pretty sure that perk-based repair is going to require the Creation Kit. I haven't seen anything, out of the 9,000+ mods on Nexus, where anyone has figured it out. Lots of people smarter than I when it comes to mods, and the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

Armorer 1 (Level 1): Raider (character can find T-45, but can't fix it yet) That initial suit can't be fixed, time to level up and/or scrounge for replacement raider armor in Lexington.

Armorer 2 (Level 13): T-45 (about when the character starts to see T-51, but can't fix it)

Armorer 3 (Level 23): T-51 (T-60 is dropping, T-51 repairable)

Armorer 4 (Level 39): T-60 (X-01 is dropping, T-60 becomes repairable)

Leveled list for adding a wiring harness to every power armor frame in the game. This item could have it's Condition damaged, but only after the armor piece for a particular slot has been destroyed. 100% damage ejects the player from the suit. EMP damage would be cool, but I don't think this exists as a thing yet in Fallout 4. Pulse grenades... but I think they just do energy damage. It would make more sense if pulse grenades and nuclear explosions had an EMP effect that bypasses armor and effects circuitry specifically.

PA frames start out with a Corroded Wiring Harness: 25% fusion core time, very low harness Condition (so easier to get ejected)

Science 1 (Level 1): Copper Wiring Harness 50% FC time, low harness Condition

Science 2 (Level 17): Silver Wiring Harness, 75% FC time, normal harness Condition

Science 3 (Level 28): Gold Wiring Harness, 100% FC time, high harness Condition

Science 4 (Level 41): Shielded Wiring Harness, 125% FC time, very high harness condition

So the Wiring Harness would start out with the following mods:

Circuitry: Corroded

I would then be moddable, with Science 1 through 4, with copper, silver, gold, and finally shielded wiring. Better lore-specific names for the base circuitry would probably help. The idea is they use specific, valuable resources that are already in-game.

With this sort of system, if you uninstalled the mod it wouldn't effect the PA suits throughout the game. They'd just go back to the default way they were.

Given some time, I'm sure other mod categories could be added to the harness. A device that shocks the occupant back to life at zero health comes to mind.

There's also a second way to go about this. Require that the player put on a wiring harness to interface with the power armor frame correctly. Basically, set every PA frame in the game to only operate at a very basic level, and for a short time, unless your character is wearing a wiring harness. The harness could have separate mods for FC use, wiring, EMP shielding, etc.

[Rallik]

Actually, yeah the electrical harness as an equippable outfit makes more sense:

 

Power Armor Harness:

 

Circuitry:

Copper - 2x base FC rate (so about 50% of what we currently have)

Silver - 3x base (about 75% of normal)

Gold - 4x base (100%)

Shielded - 5x base (125%)

 

At the same time, PA frames are set so that they provide 25% of the current uptime. That way whenever you get into a PA suit that you find, its up to you and your science skill (and corresponding harness that you've made) to determine how useful PA is to you in the game. No need to modify the PA suit itself, other than severely reducing their early game effectiveness through rapidly going through fusion cores. To me this would be way more realistic when you find that first PA suit in Concord. You could even have Science 1 by then. The numbers would have to be adjusted, but by level 28 (Science 3) you'd be back at normal levels of FC use, which is about the time, if you're really sticking to the main quest, that you're heading for the endgame scenario. This would have course work with the nuclear physicist perk. Depending on how that math is calculated by Bethesda, high intelligence characters could have some pretty long FC use timers.

 

This would also make for a pretty large visual difference between PA users and those that do not. It also opens the door for tie-ins with cybernetics. Maybe a progressive loss of your humanity with increased PA benefits as a result.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Rallik

[minngarm]

I've been writing out a mod that makes special components only for power armor. Which can only be made by breaking down other power armor parts for it. Eventually it'll be possible to create a station to craft the parts separately.

[Flyingdebris]

you could potentially use the BOS uniforms a basis for the wire harness if you want to use the clothing route, as they already sort of look like a base interface layer.

 

I do think it would be worthwhile though to represent other PA subsystems that can potentially fail.

 

So that if you get a location blown through and are taking damage directly to the frame/harness/what have you, getting kicked out is simply one of several things that can happen.

 

Other potential stuff could be stuff like:

Sensor damage- Vats accuracy severely penalized

Actuator failure- cant jump, strength reduced, speed reduced, melee speed reduced

Containment failure- suit slowly floods with radiation

Insulation Failure- Player takes energy damage when using up AP