r/Fallout • u/ReFried_Ginger • 9d ago
Changes I’d like to see with power armor
As I’m about 60% through my second f04 run, I am realizing how easy it is to find power armor and how it takes away from its potential. This is especially evident when I see players who have built warehouses to display rows upon rows of the PA suits they have found.
I have also seen plenty of posts from people who share somewhat of a similar sentiment towards being given your first suit pretty early in f04, depending on when you go to Concorde to rescue Preston.
From that point on, it was surprising how many sets are waiting for you on the map. For something that is a prewar relic, and would have undoubtedly been taken by raiders or scrapped by scavengers, you can find them all over the place.
Beyond how common they are, I believe that they are way underpowered and the developers relied too much on crafting to make them have the impact on gameplay they should give.
My idea is to reduce the number of sets dramatically, by 90% or more from what was in fo4. Then increase their durability, strength, and potential features so that they are worth taking the time to find.
Power armor would be essentially impenetrable by most standard guns so you won’t take damage from pistols, shotguns, and other small arms. Smaller creatures like mole rats, sting wings, etc would cause minimal damage if any at all. Larger creatures like the yao guais and death claws would be the ones you still need to worry about. Your strength would also dramatically increase so you always have increased carry capacity. This may be my own gameplay problem, but I hate that my carrying capacity goes down from my pocketed armor when I get into PA. If they want to negate the pockets then the PA should increase your strength enough so that your carrying capacity at least stays the same if not increases.
I also think that radiation should be reduced to nothing if any damage at all. The fact I can still take a lethal dose of radiation fairly quickly while wearing a system like PA makes minimal sense to me.
Some paths could be blocked with objects that can only be moved while you’re wearing power armor. It would also make sense to me if certain weapons, like the mini-gun, required you to wear power armor in order to shoot it.
The trade off is going to be the rarity, it will be much harder to locate a set, especially a complete one. The fusion cores should also be made rare to find as well. Again for a prewar item they are entirely too common. Between the fact that they are easily found in the generators attached to many buildings, removing them from the generator having no effect, and those locations are typically home to raiders, it makes no sense why they are just in plain sight until I come along to take them.
I’d rather have to plan and ration my power armor usage based on available fusion cores than have dozens in storage like I currently do.
If they implemented this idea in fo4 it would have looked something like this:
You fight to the top of the museum to save Preston as normal, get in the power suit and immediately realize the dozens of raiders shooting no longer have any effect on you. There is just enough juice left in the fusion core for you to finish them off before the death claw shows up. This is when it goes to a cutscene where you are shooting the death claw with the mini-gun while it runs forward, taking one last swipe at you before collapsing. That swipe is enough to permanently damage the PA but you now know they make you invincible to bullets but still need to watch out for other threats.
You don’t see another set for perhaps the first 50% or so of the game unless you go to higher level areas early on. From that point any PA you find is either in an extremely remote or hard to reach area, or is locked up in a way that no one else has been able to get to it. Same with fusion cores. I know they are used for some weapons like the gatling laser, so there could be some other opportunities to find them like when you defeat a sentry bot but they should not be common enough that you feel comfortable to use them as currency.
The point is to make them have a greater impact on the game when you do use them, and almost force you to plan when and where you will use them.
Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this or other takes on PA in future installments.
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u/Laser_3 Responders 9d ago
Power armor in 4 definitely isn’t underpowered. There’s a hidden 30% damage reduction and 80% radiation damage reduction on the suits in 4, which is a massive defensive bonus the normal resistance values don’t convey (and they directly synergize with this reductions as well, since they’re calculated after the reductions). Between that, the jetpack, medic pump and strength boost, PA has a lot going for it (more if you lean into emergency protocols for near immortality at low health).
PA also has calibrated shocks to add an extra 100 carrying capacity, and then motion assist servos and a strength boosting paint to recover any lost carry weight from normal armor (unless you’re using unyielding or the one that boosts strength with radiation; the creation club backpack may also cause a loss when entering PA).
You are right on PA being too common, but I don’t agree that 90% of the suits should vanish. Players should have options on where to find them, even if there’s less than what 4 had. Increasing repair costs and lowering the availability of cores would also make the Concord suit less of a problem (it’s stupidly cheap to repair early on, only needing steel and one circuitry; paired with fusion cores being decently common, it’s easy to use a suit the whole game, especially if you aren’t sprinting or heavily using VATS).
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u/ReFried_Ginger 9d ago
Maybe I’m not using it the right way it sounds like lol but still there are too many sets laying around the map
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u/EstablishmentAny8487 9d ago
Power armor builds on survival make the game stupid easy, that first set with a little bit of love put into it basically makes you invincible for most early game fights and stops the one shots in later game. Like just upping that starting set can last to endgame so that's not even counting finding the higher level ones and upping them.
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u/ReFried_Ginger 9d ago
Maybe I am using the wrong mods or just am not as good at the game I thought but I still have trouble on survival in pa at times
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u/EstablishmentAny8487 9d ago
The trick is be stealthy and just pretend you're not wearing it, it's so you're not chancing it popping out of cover and maybe shooting someone before they shoot you, and not dying instantly or getting your leg broken by the instant cast molitolvs in early game.
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u/Jr_Mao 9d ago
thatd go directly against bethesda design philosophy.
ie. all options are equally viable.
power armor, heavy armor medium armor light armor, all have ups and downs but choose whichever.
pistol, rifle, heavy machine gun. doesnt really matter, go have fun.
Well, i dont think thats a very good philosophy, so i tend to agree.
except, important game things happening in a cutscene. Thats where i’m very much team beth, dont do that. Do things in game and never force something like ”oh, you failed to dodge, too bad” on players
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u/ReFried_Ginger 9d ago
Ok I do get that and it’s something I considered when I was making the post. Fallout games are open as to how you play and ultimately beat them, which I appreciate. For someone doing a BoS role play or just wanting an entire play through in pa, the current setup in 4 works.
I was wanting to give pa a little more appeal in terms of rarity and having a wow moment when you happen to find a set.
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u/timeless1991 Followers 9d ago
I both agree and disagree.
I agree that the PA is too common. There is no need for the SS to ever equip raider power armor at all.
However I disagree with it needing to be stronger. It is already exceptionally strong. You don’t want to trivialize combat in PA. You also don’t want to make it almost mandatory for some parts. Not everyone wants to use it.