So I was watching the combat showcase on Bethesda's official youtube channel, and it showed the player talking to Garvey, and about clearing out Raiders. It then led to the scene of powering up the Power Armor, and a brief flash of a mission update about clearing out the Concord.

During the footage, which seems heavily scripted, it's evident that the Power Armor takes a heavy beating, parts breaking off of it.

I think this is how we acquire it first. We find it and power it up during this story mission of clearing out this army of raiders, and during that battle, and the following battle with a [censored]ing Deathclaw leaves it in the state of repair that we see in the garage scene, and in the demo footage.

Does this explain how and why we know how to operate Power Armor? No, not enough evidence. But I'd put caps on the dime that this is how we get ahold of our ol' ironsides. It's not given to us, we just happen upon it, and utilize it for the situation at hand, and boom...well, she's busted up, but we can fix her.

Edit:

Further considering HOW we get it piloted...I imagine it becomes a side quest within the quest. There's heavy ordinance in that busted up ship there. Oh crap I have no idea how this works. Hunt down a US Army Power Armor Users Manual and a power core or whatever that thing is, boom.

That plus I suspect the torso is of the model with that weird battery drain stat folks spotted freeze framing the PA nodding screen, would make sense to give a early game PA a handicap, to lessen the armour usefulness in early game.

Yup. I also surmise what we get to see is the Power Armor at 100% efficiency in a high hotzone situation (that was a LOT of Raiders and heavy ordinance) before it gets ripped up and we gotta piecemeal her back together.

Howard (male protag) is a combat veteran, he likely knows how to effectively use power armor already.

And that power armor is for that mission only, you wont be keeping it

Maybe, maybe not, we won't know for certain till November. Hence the theory. That Power Armor get's trashed up pretty bad. And a lot of the battle damage harkened to the demo scene in the garage with the battered arms and chasis. You literally see the arm plates and shoulders go flying.

Also good point-- he is a veteran. Hell, he may well have been at Operation: Anchorage.

I have a hard time believing they give you access to a PA and then not let you keep it, whether they will let you keep it in working order is a different matter, but in one form or another Im sure we will keep it.

It's the shape in which we get to keep it tho.

Things busted, needs parts. Cue quest to repair it that sends you all over the place for replacement pieces-- which may very well be what gets the attention of the BOS, in what capacity I cannot say, other than "whoa, that savage knows his stuff", but that's speculation.

We end the threat, get a pat on the back from Garvey, and we both look at the busted tin can.

"So uh...you gonna ke---"

"Yeah I'm keeping it. And no it's not insured."

I figured that the power armor training perk would be innate to the pc since he/she was a vet and i figure the training was pretty common in the prewar military durring war time, but you'd be kept away from power armor until a certain point/quest that gives you the basic set to modify

so you know how to use it from the start but dont have access to a suit until a chosen point... instead of fo3 and nv which you could find many suits everywhere pretty early on and constantly but just couldnt use them at first

so kind of a switchup to the older formula

That doesn't even make any sense that's like saying everyone in the military knows how to drive and fire a tank...

Anyway what I'm more curious is how scripted that event it can i reject the power armor and go all sneaky commando on the raiders.

Like say I stayed away from the main quest long enough that I leveled up my PC to the point he was now a ghost like killer or do I have to participate in the BOOM LOOK AT THE EXPLOSIONS AND GORE SO AWESOME!!!!!!

Power armor training was likely removed from Fallout 4 simply due to how the game handled power armor.

In no previous game was special training needed to use PA, hell, even in Fallout 3 itself there are notes saying using PA is so easy that a child could do it.

Power armor training only existed in Fallout 3 due to the BoS and Enclave being such huge forces, and how you encounter the BoS fairly early on. Without the need for training, one would be able to use some of the best armor in the game almost instantly.

Power armor needing fuel cores and the like has likely replaced the limiting factor that power armor training provided, thus meaning it got removed.

Our character doesn't have or need PA training, becuase it likely doesn't exst anymore, just like it never existed in the older games.

Then I stand corrected I never played FO1 or FO2
(tried it, it's still on my laptop actually,game was too uh annoying couldn't get into the whole turn based style).

I was under the assumption you needed some kind of training to operate it just like a tanker needs to operate a tank.

Previously, yes you did need training which could only be supplied from a member of the Brotherhood of Steel if they so desired.

That seems to not be the case here.

Which is fine by me, really.

I don't exactly have a theory about power armor, but I sort of suspected that you would be assembling your own by finding various components one piece at a time as loot, and then after you finally get a working set you will continue to improve it as you find higher quality components.

With this theory, it basically would explain why you would even have an interest, or the rig to put them in in the first place.

After all, the PC isn't like a Fallout player with an innate desire for Power Armor. This way, it makes sense.

You had it, you got a taste for it, but then it got busted. Now you have a reason to get it working.

This plus, and I have pointed this out before, the only actual power armor gameplay we have seen is the mission in Concord. If you look at the jet pack its attached to the armor we get at Concord, its even the same spot the player jumps off at in the Microsoft demo.....in the same armor just with a jumpjet. So the only power armor we have actually seen in action is just that one set (T-45 or T-60 or...a mix of full T-60 with a T-45 chest).

One thing I'm trying to figure out is how we'll get the frame back to...wherever. Will it be an item? Will we have to transport it via vertibird? Also...I wonder if we'll end up getting our own private vertibird? Because that would be awesome.

Considering it's a video game, I'm fairly sure it'll be handwaved with a passing comment from Garvey after the mission, and boom, there it is.

"Don't worry, Sole Survivor, I'll get my delivery deathclaws to get it to your place."

"Oh, thanks that would be hel-wait. What did you just say?"

I was thinking more like "I know a place we can keep 'er, maybe get her back in working order", considering Garvey is a potential companion.

But what about after the quest? I wonder if it's possible to just...lose power armor.

Probably not.

It'll probably just...stay there, or there's a reclaimation mechanic to get it transported back to the garage rack.

I really hope it's the latter. Maybe I'm just anol, but the power armor randomly appearing in the garage would bug the hell out of me.

I would have to say you are. It's better to view this kinds of things from the understanding that it's a video game.

You weren't supposed to agree with me on that!

I'm sure you will be able to put it into your invisible backpack and carry it back, just like you can the six suits of combat armor and the nineteen assault rifles you have in there already.

Really, though. You don't have to carry the materials you harvest for settlement building so I doubt they made a big ordeal about transporting your powered armor.