Energy Weapons need a benefit. Or else noone would use them.

You ever try taking out a chopper with an assault rifle in MW2? I did. Didn't end well. I had to go find the RPG or I couldn't kill the chopper.

There's other times, too, but I can't remember them TBH.

I guess Activision never heard of that sort of thing killing many USAF and USMC chopper pilots in Vietnam. A few AK rounds can knock out the engines, hydraulics, or hell even the pilot himself.



My point is that this is Fallout. Freedom of weapon choice is one of the reasons I love this series so much. I should be able to take out a PA soldier with a BB gun if I have enough patience and millions of BBs on hand. It might take three real days to do it, but dammit....



This. I don't care how it's done as long as there's some sort of way a vanilla player can, at level 1, get their mitts on some PA. Maybe sweet talk a BoS guy? Get him REALLLY drunk and steal it when he's face down in the floor? Just happenstance across a guy in PA getting killed by a radscorpion, which he whittled down enough for you to successfully finish off? Or perhaps notice a BoS patrol out of range of that big horner that doesn't know you're there, so you pop it and run like hell and let the BoS guy engage it, hoping they whittle one another down to the point you can finish off the survivor?

Something like that. No way a Lvl 1 player would be able to one-on-one for PA, especially if it's owner is wearing it, but there should still be some sort of manner whereby a level 1 player can acquire a set if they want, one that doesn't involve console codes.


Not that it will bother me if they don't, since I don't use PA anyways. Don't need to. I sneak crit everything. Never knew what hit 'em.



They weren't any better than ballistic weapons in Fallout 3, yet plenty of people used them. Just the fact that they're energy weapons is enough for most players.

What if the armor is built in such a way that absorbs the blow from a super sledge? Given that its designed to make a single soldier a walking tank, I am sure it is effective at withstanding most melee weapons without harm done to the operator. I could be wrong though

And why are alot of you guys saying the PA should be attained from the BoS? Wouldn't you think that the NCR or the Legion figured out how to use it?

I'm fairly certain the joints would have ample protection from a hunting rifle level gun, kevlar is flexible enough to protect those areas. And there are other even more flexible materials could protect spots like the armpits. So I hope there are some weapons that are completely nullified.

In fo3 do2 and fo1 energy weapons cut through armor. They were made to deal with heavy armor its what they are best at.

That doesnt mean they will be the only way but it does mean they likely will be best at it.

For point one I'd imagine just about anything either well aimed or with armor piercing rounds should do something. Plus energy weapons as that's what they were largely designed for.

As for point two it should be tough but not the gift of nigh-invincibility that it was in Fallout 2. I remember that at one point the only thing that could kill me at one point was a close range crit from a mini-gun.

And for three the whole training thing was well enough handled to be considered one of the stupidest parts of Fallout 3. Your character was the ONLY one who needed training. Plenty of other characters who could not have been trained could use it freely. Whether it was a companion like Charon, Jericho, or just a bunch of random raiders who'd overrun an Enclave outpost. It just made your character seem like he had a bizarre mental defect.

My prediction is that Powered Armor will once again NOT be powered armor but simply a silly type of combat armor. That means anything will be able to damage it.

IF it was real Powered Armor only things that could hurt a modern day Tank could hurt it (good luck finding a weak spot on those with a .22 - .44 cal). That means ONLY heavy weapons (bazookas and heavy energy weapons). Only the most powerful creatures should be able to hurt the wearer, like DeathClaws or ARMED super mutants.

I wish the game could be like that but I doubt it will.

Oh no, lord forbid the power armor isnt an overpowered tank that only one weapon/enemy can hit. Damn you obsidian for making things more difficult :rolleyes:

You mean lol-cat difficulty?
Well that's easy, just turn it down to Very Easy and you get your tank.

but... PA IS an overpowered tank. Sure, in gameplay terms that might not work, but according to lore...
For example, in FO3's advertisemant there was an image of 5 or 6 people who'd managed to take down somebody in power armour posing on top of it, as if it was a great achievement. And you're ONE person. I think one could certainly get around making PA overpowered by severely limiting its presence - FO3 just had too many tin cans for it to be anything more than above-average armour. NV looks to feature much fewer PAs, so it can be a lot stronger without killing balance. (Especially because you'll have to keep it repaired - much harder without dozens of other models to take bits from)

It's not about taking down a Power Armored enemy ourselves.
It's about getting to wear it.

Sure enemies with PA would be extremely difficult but once you get their PA everything turns into kindergarden difficulty.
And yeah, in lore it is really really powerful but we have to make sacrifices for gameplay balance.

I understand that, it's just ridiculous people are mad when things are not easy enough, yet complain for realism. Plus, wheres the fun in being level 2 with T-51b power armor and just walking through every battlefield and quest like God?

Who said we'd even be able to get Power Armor at lvl 2 let alone attain it from an enemy in combat? I'm more then sure at lvl 2 your ass is going to get handed to you on a silver platter if you decided to try and take on some BoS for their PA.

Lol, I'm not saying you WILL, what I'm saying here, is that just because it's in lore, don't mean we need to see it become a Chimera tank on foot.

I'm not saying I'd want to be a walking Chimera Tank lol I'd just prefer a some Power Armor that is actually worth a damn towards the end of the game and is actually something meaningful instead of something will-nillingly strewn about FO3, lvl 30 in FO3 I have a crap load of PA from everyone Outcast, Enclave, BoS and end game they are utterly useless now when fighting against basically anything I might as well be wearing Pre-War Business Suits instead of PA. :tops:

So it needs a few downsides. Hard to aquire (It's not cloth, why can't you take it from fallen enemies. Take that away.), difficult to repair, and should have a critical failure chance on every step, which does damage to the armour, but in combat it -should- be the be-all and end-all. Heavy, motorised armour. Consider that -we- can build some pretty darn strong servos, the thing is running off a nuclear pack, and you barely get any stronger, and don't get any faster. That means the vast majority of the vast power output of that nuclear pack is going into simply *moving*. It's heavy, thick metal. However they do it, one man in power armour should be able to turn the tide of a battle just as well as one tank could turn the tide of a battle between soldiers today.

I'm gonna go about this in a different way now.
Why do you want the power armor to be too powerful?

As I've stated before I think something like this is too difficult for players to just
think of a balance

Try to find a pencil or pen somewhere near you
think about where you should place it on your finger to balance it
pick a spot and attempt to balance it
its almost impossible to do without tweaking it while its on your finger
picking and guessing doesn't really work

I think this is the same for PA
here on the forum all we can do is try to think of a way to balance it all out
so that your not a god but it's not just another piece of armor neither
with so little information theres to many things to take into consideration
and you can't focus entirely on realism, it is a game after all.
I'm not sure if any of these can be called good judgements for PA

*opinion*

Because it should be, small rounds don't have enough force to go through a thick, dense sheet of metal. I think some people, calling for only explosives and energy weapons, are going too far, but still.

"Because it should be" ?
Great answer bro..

Yeah screw game balance.
Let's have plasma weapons be one-hit kill weapons unless the enemy has PA. (Why? Because it's freakin' plasma!)
Maybe we should have headshot=instakill as well.

Point is, you want it to be realistic to the lore.
Well, Myron died because he was stabbed.
Stabbed... I got stabbed 50 times during fallout 2 and even more in fallout 3 and I never died.
Why?
Game balance.

We can't have the power armor being what it was supposed to be in lore because of it.
But I say again that I hope they add a realism mode in one of their DLC's and in that one on the other hand I do hope that PA is overpowered like crazy.
But in the core game, no.

No insta-kill headshots but I from what I've seen in the few gameplay videos that are out of Fallout: New Vegas it looks like they've added staggering and things of that nature from shooting enemies which is nice considering that any Raider, Super Mutant, or Ghoul never really reacted whatsoever to my bullets firing directly into their craniums. :tops:

EDIT: I know there was staggering before in FO3 but it looks to be improved is what I'm saying.

I think that just might be when you cripple an enemy's limb
but I could be wrong

Well I was being sarcastic in my post but sarcasm has a way of failing on forums.
Yeah I think I noticed that too, in that gameplay video where the guy shot "Silver Rush Crier".
Looked nice.

Hope there are some more animations for different parts of the body though.

I'm certainly not advocating PA being invulnerable, I'm advocating it not just being "One step up from leather armour". If you want to take that way overboard, that's your choice - but putting words in my mouth is no more an argument than mine.

Didn't mean to put words in your mouth.
Might be that I misunderstood you.
Gonna re-read through your posts again.

And of course it should be powerful, it is after all the best armor.
I'm just saying it shouldn't be too powerful or that enemies at lvl 30 forces us to use PA in order to even survive.