Even in the original games, PA was not a god mode. So long as the enemy has heavy weapons, they'll be able to take down your power armored self quite handily. If they don't, like they're some sort of poorly armed FO3-style raider group for example, then they'll be crushed in much the same way they should be crushed when you show up with a panoply of prewar tech and plasma guns and stuff.

Edit: In the first game, the major threats to power armor were thus: Mutants with energy weapons, deathclaws (who's claws pierced armor and tended to knock you down), and the ocassional guy with a minigun or rocket launcher. With the minigun mainly being a matter of getting enough hits through for the infamous 0 damage instakill.

In the second game, the major threats were, again, guys with energy weapons (esp enclave), guys with gauss weapons (also usually enclave), mutants with energy weapons, and guys with heavy weapons. For much the same reasons. Also deathclaws.

In Tactics, it was pretty much the same, except that by the time you got PA, it was mainly a matter of facing a truckload of killer robots with heavy and/or energy weapons.

I'll take any of these systems over FO3 style "yeah, raiders with BB guns and .32 pistols can kill me in power armor. Oh, and I can kill Enclave shock troops with my trusty police baton. Derp derp."

There's sort of an inherent problem with RPGs. If your enemies all level with you, you never get any sense of progress. I imagine that's why the reworked leveling system of OOO was so popular - leveling up meant you could now stand a chance in certain caves and against higher level foes, and it meant you could utterly dominate some of the enemies that used to be a challenge. It's the same thing with power armor - unless you leave in some foes that are completely ineffectual against it, there just won't be any sense of how powerful the armor is.

Facehugger, I agree with you.
First off: I've played Fallout 1 and 2. I know these things. Thank you though.

Second: By no means do I want it to svck. I agree that low powered weapons shouldn't hurt it. But the way people talk about it, they want it to be amazing and have no drawbacks what so ever. Because it has to be perfect. I dislike that. I just think it needs to balance a bit, to make other options viable. That's all. If you want to be invincible to raiders, there should be a balance that makes the other armors another viable option to certain play styles. See what I mean?

Of course, but the top of the list armor that most people will shoot for is the power armor for the most protection from the widest range of enemies. Thats why I say to balance it out have it where the power armor can be damaged quickly based off the damage the weapon does. For instance power armor will be pentrated by any weapon with 75 damage or higher. So a weapon putting out 75 damage will degrade the condition of the suit slowly. But you move on up to one that does 100 damage your suit degrades quicker, like wise 150 damage weapons would damage the suit even quicker. This way you will be invulnerable for the most part against low level enemies but the higher the damage weapon that the enemy is carrying the more damage it does to you and the quicker the power armor condition drops. This here would be a designed drawback to the power armor besides the negative hit to agility, if you encounter alot of enemies with high powered weapons you will spend alot of money on maintaince to your power armor. It also means there is still a very high chance that you can get killed in power armor by heavy duty weapons as it chews through your power armor reducing the condition to 0. Now I cant remember if DT is based off condition or not but if it is in that situation once your suit is damaged to 0 that means just about anything will penetrate it. But I dont know if DT is based off condition or not if it is it would add yet another drawback if implimented right to power armor because now you have a 50% condition power armor your suit now has a DT of 37.5 or half of 75 which means any weapon doing damage over 37 will injure you and further chew through your suit lowering your DT even more and making you even more vulnerable to lower classed enemies.

That is how I see it could be implimented and make power armor powerful but yet make it where you can still be killed by low class enemies if you dont maintaince your suit or if you were damaged by a enemy with a powerful weapon then encountered lower class enemies which chewed through your damaged suit even more.

It is supposed to be a heavily armored walking robot designed for the front lines in a nuclear ground war ~IE. a walking tank; means the PA'd soldier could take on a small crowd of lightly armed opponents. Should mean that a trio of PA'd soldiers could walk into a building carrying ratshot loaded shotguns and unload willy-nilly on the defenders and not care about hitting their own teammates.

Drawbacks for wearing power armor should be environmental (in an ideal engine) where the girth of the suit makes it difficult to follow light armored opponents through cramped terrain. Maybe risk paralysis from EMP grenades, and make sneaking very, very difficult while wearing.

PA could have maintenance issues from damage and or extended use that affects the stat bonuses... like a lowered agility maximum for example ~requiring a repair; These seem plausible, and IMO are preferable to crippling the armor for synthetic game balance.

[quote name='Rusty_S85' date='24 August 2010 - 10:56 AM' timestamp='1282665394' post='16316267']
Personally I dont see the problem with the power armor being like a walking tank, I mean after all you get the stealth suit in FO3 and you have no reason to have anything else because you can avoid confrontation out in the wasteland from all animals.
[/quote] :thumbsup:

A penalty to sneaking should have been present from the beginning. I mean seriously, power armor is a huge metal suit... it doesn't matter if it's so advanced it can recycle a person's waste; that thing would be clanking all over the place. I also agree that paralysis from EMP weapons would be a very sensible drawback as well. At the very least EMP weapons should temporarily knock a power armor user down for a time.



That would be an interesting feature.

I like what Gizmo and Rusty suggested. Makes sense. You should be slower or less agile, and to add, I think your aim and VATS effectiveness should be affected. That has been argued and disputed by many already, so it's a lost cause.

I guess most of this arguement is. No one wants their PA messed with, and only a few people are okay with it having drawbacks. It just irks me that some people can't be bothered with a tradeoff. It seems it has to be all or nothing. I refuse to use it, as I enjoy surviving by skill. It has a better feel to it. If others want to be an all powerful god of a character, go for it. But I don't care for it.

On that note: Isnt it funny that a major complaint about F3, was being overpowered, but having an unstoppable armor wouldn't be overpowered at all. It's a bit funny, I suppose.

Man I just noticed what an awesome user name you have. Have an owl :spotted owl:
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I don't really care anymore.
I'm so sick of PA since fallout 3 that I probably ain't going to use it anyway.

:lol:
you know that is pretty funny

One thing I was thinking of. In Fallout 2, not sure why, there were T-51b repair manuals, I wonder if this could be reimplimented.

Those were a holdover from Fallout 1, where the T-51b manual was necessary to repair a suit of T-51b armor so you could get it from the Brotherhood. IIRC the only other way to get one was to get Talos to issue one for rescuing his initiate. Or forging a requisition document, I think. It's been awhile since I've played FO1, honestly.

I never knew that, stealing the servo motor wasnt worth the trouble, so I just saved the initiate. Rescuing an initiate for a suit of T-51b? You bet your ass it's worth the trouble.

If that's the fight in the HUB... Its worth the reward ~but barely. That's a tough fight.

With a suit of Brotherhood Combat Armor, and a Combat Shotgun. It definetly tones down the fight xD.

So you go all the way to the Brotherhood, then to the Glow, then back to the Brotherhood, then back to the Hub, then back to the Brotherhood again just to get a suit of PA? Wow.

I would usually find myself playing that fight rather early in the game. That one and the one against Decker.

Though its obviously helpful for my good guy love. I'm to lazy to deal with him most of the time.

It should also dehydrate you much quicker in hardcoe mode.

Why should PA dehydrate you? The armor is supposed to do the work for you, like moving and stuff.

You ever been inside a plastic tent during the summer?
Well, imagine being inside a metal armor in a desert.

Or do PA have cooling systems?

You are still moving around in a desert. Besides, PA makes you a walking tank, not invincible to dehydration.

Actually, it would invariably be designed with a fluid recycling system to minimize loss of water from breathing and perspiration. Therefore, the effect should be quite the opposite.

I would think it does, you don't want your soldiers in some of the most expensive armor in the world to dehydrate themselves trying to use their armor. Even if they didn't have a coolant system in it before the people trying to use it in a desert would want to adapt it to such an environment.

I think alot of you are waaay overestimating the power of the fo nv power armor.

But, 300 years into the future, would the system still be functioning?

After checking up on the wiki, only T-51B Armor and those developed around the same time have such a system, so I guess it would depend on what kind of Power Armor you get your hands on (if both T-45D and T-51B are in the game).