If you haven't played Fallout 4 yet and dont want to ruin your fun exploring the Commonwealth, read no further, because this has the potential to do so!

Well... there are specific locations where only a certain type spawns regularly. Me, I'm up to X-01 now (which I don't use) but I'm still finding 45, 51 & 60 along with Raider all the time. I just don't collect it any more.

Well, I have tested it with different spawn locations. If I visit a region with a power armor that I have never visited before, I will spawn higher-tier armor if I'm level 60, than I'd do if I were lower level.

Makes sense. I hadn't really thought about it. I guess I only really notice the respawns at the places I picked up prior.

Example: Out by the scrapyard there's a set of 45 at level 8. Was just back there at level 42 and it had respawned as the same.

Hmm...

All Bethesda games have suffered from this particular situation to some extent. It won't be long after the CK is released that we start seeing "Unleveled Fallout 4" mods of all sorts. I'm sure fixed power armor locations will be one of the first. Or mods that let you "upgrade" the armor pieces to the next level. There will be many methods to choose from, I'm sure.

As it stands, power armor is woefully overpowered by mid-game. Having access to high level power armor from the start would really blow the challenge for players on their first playthrough if they happened to stumble on it at level 1-10. It's the same with Glass, Ebony, and Daedric weapons in the TES series. It also affected the unique and magic weapons you would stumble across. Complete the quest and receive the prize at level 3...you've missed out on one of the best weapons in the game, because the level 35 version is awesome! At least Beth cleaned up that issue with the crafting in Fallout 4, base legendary weapons are the same whenever you find them, use mods to "level them up" as you get stronger.

To be clear, I am not saying that I want to get a X-01 Armor from Preston right at the start. I just don't want to be punished for exploring early, by spawning a lot of T-45 Power Armor, which can't be ubgraded to higher-tier armor.

If some of the spawn locations would just automatically upgrade their armor to the next tier once I unlocked that tier, that would already be enough for me.

I suppose a special trader could fix this. Make the armor pieces too expensive to afford until late game.

If you're on PC you can recycle power armor spawns according to your level match by opening the console, clicking on the suit, and entering 'recycleactor'. Sometimes you'll trigger a suit to spawn at an early level by entering the map cell even though you're not really that close to the suit and don't notice it. You can enter the cell at level 10 and trigger it as T-45, and then not actually find the suit until level 50...at which point it is still T-45 when it should be T-60 or X-01. Note that if you do this the power armor won't visually change until after you enter it, but the components in the menu will change right away.

I found atleast a bandaid fix for this: If you stand in fron ot an armor and type "recycleactor" into the console, the powerarmor will reset and spawn as the generation appropriate to your current level.

Edit: Got ninja'd.

lol...Sorry about that

I'm currently on a second play through and I just avoided the majority of the power armor spawn locations until getting to level 30 or so. I didn't go to the National Guard Training Yard until about level 30. I found a full suit of X-01, and another partial suit of X-01 there. I also found a partial suit of X-01 at the little building by Fort Strong. Most people never find X-01 in these locations because they tend to go there at a lower level.

This spawning behavior also seems to be connected to the difficulty level. That is to say, at level 30 you could spawn T-51 armor on an Easy playthrough, but it would be a high T-60 or X-01 on Survival mode.

Also, some of the armor spawns seem to be capped. That is to say, some of them will never go above T-60 (I believe that the suit in Concord will only spawn as T-45, but I haven't tested that one).

My home base workshop has 20 racks that I'm filling with Power Armor of different paint jobs,

so:

1x Raider

4x T45

4x T51

7x T60

4x X1

It's work in progress...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87106516/paracks.png

As the OP says, I ran a little short of T45 and T51 due to my levelling,

but at least I can always buy (random) parts for those suits from the Atom Cats.

i.e. I know I'll be able to complete those suits in due course.

X1 is the challenge as those parts are rarely stocked by Rowdy,

so I'm holding back from visiting 'known' X1 locations until I'm safely levelled.

What I have noticed about power armor being overpowered, is that it starts out way overpowered and as you gain various perks it becomes less overpowered. In my latest playthrough, I have attained the highest level ever (82) and when I start thinking about using power armor it all boils down to, "Would the jetpack be a benefit for where I am going?"

I think there are a few fixed power armor spawn points. The Museum of Freedom I'm assuming is fixed as T-45. I doubt that you could get X-01 there by putting off Concord until reaching a higher level. I think the one underwater in the lake next to Covenant may be fixed as T-51 because in my current play through I didn't go there until about level 40, and it was still T-51. I tried the aforementioned 'fix' through console commands and it was still T-51.

The spawning system isn't solely level based in either case. There's still an element of randomization to it. Even at high levels you'll still get T-60 instead of X-01 sometimes, and you can even still get T-45 or T-51. I've experimented with that console command a fair amount, and at high levels if you enter that command over and over again, it'll cycle between T-60 and X-01, and even occasionally cycle to T-51 or T-45. Recycling into T-45 or T-51 seems to be increasingly less likely as you increase in level though. I might at some point do some kind of legitimate statistical anolysis of power armor spawn probability (I'm a physicist and love doing these kinds of things), but I haven't yet gotten around to it.

The main thing that does seem to be fixed is whether or not a given location spawns a full suit. Court 35 might not always have X-01 at high levels, but it does seem to always have at the very least a full suit regardless of level. The same goes for the South Boston Military Checkpoint, the suit in the shipping crate behind the National Guard Training Yard, and several others. I'm not sure if partial suit spawn points always have the same specific components, such as always spawning a left arm, right leg, and torso, or a pair of arms and a helmet, etc.

My question now would be, does the armor respawn? As in, you take the Power Armor and a second one spawns after X amount of time?

Did you steal your Raider? Mine was stolen and anything I put in the frame turns red.

No.

I think they spread the Power Armour around so early explorers will have a good chance of coming across a suit.

I have over 30 of them, obtained by various means.

You really only need one suit for yourself and perhaps a frame for your companion.

I tried giving my companions kitted out suits but they trash them in seconds and you are forever repairing them.

As the game progresses they give you a chance of getting the highest level components.

So as i said you can easily obtain 30+ frames from around the map.

Some at known points.

You can buy frames from various vendors and attach looted or purchased parts to those frames.

Re: respawning suits

You can confiscate whole suits from opponents by various in game means, some involving stealth others combat techniques.

Those opponents respawn their suits so you can go back after a few days and confiscate another one if you want.

I liked to mix and match and apply decorative paint jobs to them purely from a collectors perspective.

The utility combat suit had upgraded suspension for increased carry weight. Melee upgrades and a health paint job.

Eventually I parked a suit at each settlement and traversed the map in ordinary non protective clothing.

You can run really fast in plain clothes.

Not as fast as Power Armor with Overdriven Legs.

I have not run across any suits of empty power armor sitting out in the middle of nowhere just springing back into existence, but some of it does respawn, sorta-kinda.

If you go to Dunwich Borers, and clear it, one of the raiders you kill will be wearing a suit of raider power armor (it will be raider I or raider II depending on what level you are when you FIRST go there).

When you loot the raider's corpse, you can loot the power armor pieces, but you cannot loot the frame. Those armor pieces will respawn when the raider that wore them respawns. So basically, you have an unlimited supply of raider power armor pieces at Dunwich Borers, and you can buy the frames from some vendors.

There are some suits that always spawn while being worn, these suits will always respawn. There are some suits that spawn empty but are owned. If you kill the owner before they can get into it, you can get the entire suit and its frame, these will NOT respawn. If you wait for the owner to get into the suit before you kill him or her, you can loot the pieces but not the frame and those suits will always respawn.

What I have never done (and now that I think of it am going to have to try) is loot the pieces off of an empty suit and leave the frame behind instead of just jumping into the suit and running off with it.

You can make an opponent get out of their suit by various means and steal the whole frame and parts.

Also there are a few Gunners that you can catch while they are asleep in their beds, if you go at the right time.

One I caught with her suit in a Power Armour station. I killed her before she got a chance to suit up.

Damaging the Fusion Core enough for it to eject and explode will force them out of the power armor. Even if they are carrying an extra around in their pocket, they will get out of the power armor to put it in. I guess NPC's don't have the leet protagonist power of replacing them without exiting the armor.

Yeah, I know but i didn't say because I thought to do so would be a spoiler.

There were a few full suits I found that changed what they were after entering it( examining it showed what it would turn into) sometimes the pieces showed weren't even there after examining, as in it looks like a full suit but in reality is missing half the parts. Not sure what thats all about like it had a "painted" preset image before interacting with it. These were suits that had to be unlocked from some sort of cage.

There is always a suit of X01 Power Armor at Fort Strong.

I got a partial t-51 my last time at Fort Strong was in the 40's- 50's i believe.