Did you ever notice that nowhere in FO is concussion damage factored in? Ballistic -- punching through resistance -- energy - effectively microwaving something -- and radiation -- which is essentially extremely fast radiation poisoning. An explosion may very well dismember a corpse. But if the target survives at all, he will survive with all extremities intact.

Which is just about as unrealistic as, say, claiming that road leathers will protect you against the bullet that passed clear through your power armor's plating. Or that Heavy Combat armor fits in a frame, despite heavy clipping while getting inside.


There's an element of gameplay segregation going on here. Some of it can be explained, some can't.


My original point was an explanation of why armor doesn't provide additional bonus to armor under PA. Because, realistically speaking, the list of weapons that have enough punch to get through PA but not any additional armor is going to be small, sandwiched between the weapons the Power Armor can successfully defend against, and the weapons that could trash the whole thing.


Essentially, an attack will either be weak enough to be stopped by the armor, or hard enough to blow it to peices. And if an attack can blow it to peices, you're going to be lucky if it lost enough energy to be stopped by any body armor thin enough to fit inside power armor.

Realistically, different weapons have different penetration capabilities. There's a penetration difference between different kinds of ammo. Full Metal Jacketed differs from wadcutters which differ from magnum loads. Given a variety of armor, some will stop a .50 cal from a Barrett rifle cold. (Don't see too many slugs plowing through the armor of a M-1 Abrams, do you? Through a standard Kevlar vest, different story.) PA is probably closer to tank armor than it is to a Kevlar vest. It is distinctly possible that a projectile with just enough oomph to barely poke through a width of PA armor would no longer have enough ergs of energy left to push through a layer of boiled leather, much less a piece of combat armor.

As an example of penetration factors, look at this video (Jump ahead to 1:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61ir_199p04 The bullet easily passes through the first two jugs by the time it exits the third. As the projectile passes through hardened resistance, it loses momentum at a terrific rate. What started as a drilling motion (from the rifling) quickly becomes blunt force trauma as the bullet deforms. The energy force goes from being a tight few square millimeters to an area of resistance that covers several square centimeters. The more area of resistance, the faster the projectiles loses momentum -- and the less depth of penetration.

It is VERY possible that something could penetration PA, but then lack the energy to punch through secondary and tertiary armor layers. But if the PA wearer follows the advice many are suggesting here, that secondary layer will be skin. Which really doesn't matter because apparently the devs decided that for all practical purposes, no matter what the user wears underneath, it will be the same as the same protection that is provided by his birthday suit.

If this logic was true, then gambesons would've never been used back then.

In anti-penetration affairs any additional barrier can count. Because it needs a certain energy to push through which is spent at some point. On the other hand, building power armor so spacy that additional armor of unknown kind could be worn under it would be silly, a waste of material and weight.

In the real world, power armor could not be compared to tank armor, more to a complete and much stronger keramic plate armor. Tank armor has to be really thick and therefore heavy to stop the usual kinetic sabot projectiles of today. Force does not really count against tanks, it's energy. On the other hand, although the role of blunt force trauma is grossly overrated by gameplay experienced guys, a tank round to the head would surely kill a power armor guy even if no penetration would be achieved by just the force applied. So nice that we are in a game.

I like to think the helmet is specialy made to divert bullets away from your brain and spine and to glance off on anything but straight shot which would be hard to do agianst a curved helmet