Power Armor Tiers

[EnderDragonFire]

If you listen to EDE-s logs from LR, you will find that Autumn put all efforts into developing the Hellfire armor, even cancelling the promising eyebot project. It is made from Duraframe, which is what gives it it's uncanny protection. There should be a big difference between compound-steel and Duraframe armors, just look at the difference between EDE and the other Enclave Eyebots. I would argue that Duraframe is as big of an advancement over steel as steel was over iron, or iron over bronze. It is *the* game changer in Fallout armor tech.

[Runnerblank]

[quote=darthbdaman]

My problem with the is that they are later able to build hellfire armor, which is stated to be the best armor ever developed. If they did lose everything with the oil rig, how did they manage to develop hellfire armor if they couldn't even match the mk1 results with the mk 2 armor?

[/quote]

Having the research and being able to put it in to production are two different things.  If you have enough time, you can do it, but you got to work up to it.

The East Coast Enclave would have had some MkII suites left over from the West Coast which they could maintain. Since they were nearly starting from scratch, it would have taken them a while before they could even build new power armor at all. They also wouldn't have been as high tech as the West Coast MkIIs. Likely the production capacity was a fraction of the West Coast's so they wouldn't have been able to produce that many suits per year.

After 37 years they were finally starting to be able to build Power Armor equal to the MkIIs and with the discovery or rediscovery of Duraframe, they could build on the West Coast designs and develop the Hellfire PA. But the added resources needed for the new MkIIs and Hellfire PAs would have meant that their production capacity was even more reduced. So the majority of the PA they had in service would have been their older East Coast PAs (MkIs?).

Fallout 3 stated that the T51b was the equal to the Hellfire except for the Fire Protection. As far as Fallout New Vegas, the West Coast Brotherhood is a shadow of it's former self and the West Coast Enclave is nothing but scattered remnants. So I think the Power Armor lore in Fallout 3 is more germane to TTW and the pristine T51b suits should be at least Tier 4. But your mod so your call.

[Darkersun]

Yes I totally forgot to say: Thanks for doing it :)

I like the values from the first post.

Maybe I will install / make a mod so PA is not loot-able from every corpse, so enclave armor will not be available in big amounts.

[deadboy]

Let me ask a question so I can begin to understand what you're even talking about. What differentiates one tier from another? What do the "Level X" notes indicate?

Is it an actual minimum level required to wear the armor? It seems arbitrary.

[deadboy]

[quote=RoyBatty]

It's also BULKY and could reduce agility on the heavy armor variants, or even reduce lockpicking and hacking skills due to the player having "sausage fingers".

[/quote]

I think this is an interesting concept. You might even have armors with capabilities to increase hacking/lockpicking. Could be justified via connectors from the armor to whatever the fallout terminal I/O port is or built in lock picking gun type thing.

[RoyBatty]

Yeah an armor with "fingersmith" tools which come out of the index finger or something, controlled by the suits systems. Could be interesting.

[Risewild]

That sounds like something the chinese stealth armor would have instead of a PA in my opinion. PA was war equipment, stealth armor was infiltration equipment .

[deadboy]

Probably so. OWB Stealth suit as well.

That said, there are the Onyx and composite stealth suits, both in PPA, that are in theory light/infiltration type suits that might have this sort of tech.  

And if the Vault-Tec armor were to follow my theory of being an overseer protection device then it might also have some method of Terminal/Lock interface designed in as well. Vault dwellers rise up then the overseer will still need to be able to interface with the vault computers after he kits up. Gotta be some way to turn on the gas!

[TsurudaHimeko]

Hope Darth releases mod that makes those challenges ;) STEP member Audley promised me to create 4096sized Scorched Sierra PA so I would like to use his replacer along with those changes

[EnderDragonFire]

I think that you current values are actually pretty good, reading over them again. As long as the remnants armor is at least on par with (and not inferior to) the APA MKI and T-52a, you really don't break lore.