Right up front: I realize that power armor in the game already has serious advantages in protection and durability that make it unlikely that you'd want to make it any better in the game.

But, from the standpoint of plausibility ("Realism")... Shouldn't power armor do a lot more for you? The person who trains you how to use power armor tells you "Don't think of it as a suit of armor, think of it as a machine that you wear" or something along those lines. As it is presented in the game it's basically just an power augmented suit that doesn't even support its own weight.

Who else thinks that, plausibly, power armor should:
- not affect your running speed. The suit has powered servos that move it, you yourself are not supplying the motive force of the thing. The suit itself is probably capable of much higher speed than the operator would survive.
- fully support its own weight and then some. As it stands, power armor increases your strength by 1 or 2, which is 20 or 40 massunits. The suits themself weight 40 or 45 massunits.
- dramatically reduce the effects of "gun wobble" and recoil, and likewise make you almost impossible to knock down, because the suit itself would be capable of balancing and resisting these unwanted movements.

Discuss.

I agree.

I'd also add that power armor training should be easy to get, and the power armor itself should be the difficult part. The order they have that in is completely backwards. An intelligent character should be able to learn how through trial and error just using a suit for a few in game days (and repeatedly falling on his ass, unable to do anything but stumble around trying to figure it out), but power armor should be a complete pain to find.

As gamemaster I would give you a permanent INT penalty just for the trial and error part

An opinion?, no, power armor should not be more amazing, it's just another step toward a god character, personally I think it should be nerfed a bit more so that when my character headshots a BoS with standard ammo he goes down for good.

Power armour is more like an armoured forklift you wear, it will be powerful for lifting but in it's nature lack speed. Especially the way it is designed in fallout.



Gun handling would be excellent as it would provide a more stable platform, aim speeds and accuracy would be reduced though.
You could get knocked over easily as it appears to be quite top heavy and the boots (in the case of the Enclave Tesla Armour I am currently using) are quite small and would offer very little in the way of balance if stood fully upright. If stood in a proper combat stance the platform would be solid, if you were caught upright and unawares you would be easily knocked over.

This is just based on my own dealing with working with industrial machinery like hydraulics and Electrical solenoids etc.
If built for speed it would be unable to have heavy armour and if built for armour it would suffer a speed loss but increased lifting capacity.
The heavier version would also suffer from difficulties traversing soft terrain reducing speed even further.

LiquidPinky, Does the fact that these suits are powered by portable nuclear fusion reactors change anything for you, in terms of strength:weight:speed?

I was hoping T-51B Power Armor and Revnant Power Armor would be bigger, Like it seemed in FO1/2

Buuut, Its better than nothing...

T-51B should've gotten an EN boost of 1 aswell.

Considering that the suits don't look particularly high tech I'd agree with Liquidpinky. We're not dealing with Space Marine armor here.

It's irrelevant how advanced the powered armor is; powered armor is powered armor, it enhances your physical capabilities well beyond the norm. I agree with those who think that at the very least it shouldn't slow you down so much.

Revenant Power Armor is "Advanced Power Armor (MK II)" Depending upon which you wear, But APA (A. Power Armor) IS advanced, Has a built in survival mechanism which turns waste into drinkable water, And has a fusion generator (I think, Not entirely sure about that part..), I think I read some of this in FO2.

I agree PA suffer from weight issues.

Really they should at least support themselves BEFORE the strength bonus.

PA makes you godly already, they should just make better light and medium armors so they could do more fun things with PA.

Too bad they replaced the Leather armor from FO3 (The Looks anyway) with what we have now..

I wanted to play a Mad Max playthrough.

Yes it should be.

In Fallout 2 it was more godly, hell advanced power armor gave you 4 extra points of strength! (normal power armor gave 3) and in that game each point of strength added 25 pounds of carry weight.

Plus it had and armor class of 30 (decreases chance to hit), a damage resistance of between 55% and 90% (depending on the type of attack), and a damage threshold of between 15 and 20 (also depending on the type of attack).

It was basically impossible to kill a power armored enemy (or die if you were wearing powered armor) with normal guns.

Nah. We already been through this once. In Fallout 1, the moment you put on your suit of power armor (which admittedly was tough to get), the game was basically over. NOTHING could touch you. There were hardly any drawbacks to wearing Power Armor in FO1 and 2 that I can recall. I'm actually kind of glad that Power Armor got a nerf in FO3 (when you compare how well it protected you then to how well it protected you in FO 1 and 2), and I'm kind of glad how they adjusted Power Armor in New Vegas: It's a very tough suit of metal that makes you laugh in the face of lesser guns, but is a bastard and a half to keep repaired unless you spend a perk for it.

Come to think of it, you could put forth the argument that power armor in New Vegas has regained its former glory to a degree. I remember picking a fight in Gamorrah and the guy shot me point-blank with his .44 magnum for 3 points of damage. This means he could've unloaded his enture gun into my face 6 times for a measly 36 damage. At the same time, Power Armor is balanced by the fact that you still can't charge Deathclaws head-on and people with Anti-Material rifles will punch through and juggle you. Yeah... thinking about it now, I think New Vegas did a damn good job of balancing power armor and still making it feel incredibly powerful. :tops: I like it just the way it is now and hope it stays that way.

IMO PA armor should have PA training, but not need that to wear it. PA should come with reasonable default settings that only those with training can intelligently alter. This would mean that PA should give slightly better bonuses to a trained operator, and that only a trained operator could access its advanced features ~if any (including a targeting computer; alternate vision modes ~or pipboy link).

Optionally: A trained operator should not need to haul the suit on his back when not wearing it (being trained, they know how to set it to auto, and can pull it along behind them ~even pack stuff in/on it).
Any machine like that could stand without falling. Push it from behind and it steps forward to stop its fall. In game... the armor should look and function like a dumb, non-combat NPC that follows you around.

PA should increase strength to a flat minimum (due to it doing the lifting ~a +2 bonus makes no sense as the armor would be just as strong with weak PC as a strong PC); however, PC's that are stronger than the armor should get no bonus at all, and in fact suffer a strength decrease, down to the strength of the armor (Say an 8) ~not only that, but the armor could even have a variable strength maximum for different work environments (something that only a trained operator could change) ~meaning you could find an armor that LIMITS your strength to 6 unless you know how to change it, and/or the password to enter maintenance mode.

PA's should degrade fast (faster without PA training), and only trained personnel can run diagnostics, and do basic maintenance (without which the armors benefits degrade with condition ~accuracy, strength, and protection). Even a modern day color-copier needs tuning after a week of use, imagine robotic power armor.

IMO this is how it should be; the armor was designed to make a man immune to smallarms fire ~a walking tank. There should have been a kind of Buckshot heavy pistol for PA'd infantry that they could shoot with abandon to "clean" off clinging enemies with no chance at harming other PA'd troops (like if ambushed in a dark building). I would say yes to the armor having some drawbacks (like -80 to sneak and lock pick), but they should not have 'nerfed' into a "Power Armor" costume, as opposed to the real thing.

In FO2 Jacob was said to have fought Marcus for several days (HtH?). PA should make you feel near invulnerable (while it works).

Of course it matters how advanced it is. The FO3/FNV vision of power armor doesn't make it look advanced to the point where it would "enhances your physical capabilities well beyond the norm". Just because something is powered doesn't mean it is powered enough to make you move faster or whatnot. It has to pass a certain threshold of efficiency to counter its own mass. These suits are not some high-tech exoskeleton type deals with advanced materials and powerful computers to adjust and aid your movement. Frankly they look like a bunch of normal metal with...servos I guess. Not particularly efficient.

yeah power armor is often labeled as a scrap can... if it runs out of power, the user is stuck indefinitely inside lol.

In FO1 & 2 they were. In the opening, the http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/armor-3.jpg was about 3? to 4' wide at the shoulders.

IMO neither of those things make sense. For the first, the suit is fully powered I don't think it is rigid enough to stand on its own, nor does it have the programming to walk. For the second, I see no reason why it should limit the strength of the user if it doesn't restrict his movement, and it doesn't. Powered armor isn't a forklift, it's more like an extra guy standing right behind you helping you lift and carry stuff. It can use your strength and add its own strength just fine.



Luckily t-51b powered armor has a 100 year battery. :foodndrink:

What exactly do you believe "powered" means (in this context)?

Watch these clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

This would be similar to the NCR suit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdK2y3lphmE

This would be like the t-51b
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UpxsrlLbpU

The armor lifts the load ENTIRELY. It uses the operator's limbs as a controller to guide its actions. It does not supplement the user, it literally avoids them.

Speed, even if the armor powers itself and it's own movements it is still a big hunk of metal pieced together.
Just cause it powers the movements on it's own doesn't mean that it's designed like a skin-tight suit which allows for absolute perfection in agility and movement.
Therefor I think it fits for it to be a tad slower.

Fully support it's own weight, yes.

Speed would be limited due to something call inertia. But I doubt PA operates at speed lower than average......

Not really, the power supply isn't the problem. it is the way the movement servos or hydraulics themselves operate that would create the difficulties.
Also being a 50s slant they would lean more towards hydraulics I think, which would then require a reservoir tank which would fit in with the bulge on the back of the suits adding to their already top heavy build.
Electrical servos, the size that would fit inside as there are none visible externally, would lack the power to move the heavy armour around. You could fit them with gearboxes to be able to shift the weight but that would lose the speed.
Hydraulics give a far higher power to size ration, but are slower in actuation than electrical servos. They are also far lower maintenance which would suit a combat environment more.

It's SOOOOO much easier to make a quadruped robot than a functional biped, especially one with the posture and balance of a human.



Some powered suit do that, but you haven't explained why a human can't add his own strength to the suit. Like I said before, since the motion of the user isn't restricted (or not restricted much) there's no reason why he can't apply his own strength as well as the suit's strength to lifting/hitting/whatever.