Hello Wastelanders!

I hope you all are enjoying your adventure in the Commonwealth! I wanted to get the opinion of the community regarding the Fusion Core Mechanic. Is the fueling system really necessary? Would it work if the player obtained the Power Armor near the end of the game? Or had to at least get Power Armor training to at least wear the suit? Let me know in the comments

I love the system. Power armor has always run on fusion cores, they just weren't part of the mechanics until now.

Plus without the fusion core mechanics the player would be far too OP.

i do wish there was some form of charging station you could build at a settle ment that you could assign a settler for just fill the space with empty cores then after about a weeks game time 1 or more will be charged because in all honesty yes they are op in armor but i feel as if they could have had more purpose, since the gatling lazer kinda needs them to fire and im already wearing power armor it really bums me that i'' be using soo many cores in such a little time period.

also the only thing everyone does with cores is leave them close to empty and sell them for full price instead of running them dry and selling them for nothing.....................

Nothing more than an annoyance really. Got over 200 cores could run the next hundred hours without ever buying or finding a core and using PA exclusively. The only usefulness they have aside from being a requirement for PA is the grenade thing which I have heard (not seen myself) is quite handy. Hardly a necessity. Those that want to run PA god all the time will cores be damned.

Power armor needs the fusion core system to balance it. At the moment there are too many power armors located in the game with too many fusion cores too easily to find. For my taste. Other differ for sure. The fusison core mechanic will allow modders to restrict power armor access while making it also possible to have an abundance of it. So it's the base to please everyone.

I think Power Armor (including fusion cores) is one of the things they totally nailed in this release.

I'm just a little confused about how the Fusion Cores are supposed to jive with Fallout 1 lore that T-51 models and later have a power source that's supposed to last for hundreds of years. I guess it doesn't matter, since this is the best implementation of Power Armor yet and they really shouldn't have let the lore hold them back.

One idea I've had, once the modding tools are released, is to add a Torso mod to T-51, T-60, and X-01 armors that sets it so that the installed Fusion Core doesn't deplete. If that mod required 4 Armorer, 4 Science!, do you think it would be balanced? (You would be missing out on all of the other badass Torso mods, too, like Tesla Coils or the Jet Pack)

For me, the mechanic has worked out well. Early in game, they're precious and rare, and so you're prevented from being too overpowered too quickly and too often (scaling power armor models also helps with this). Mid-game now, I'm with the BoS, have T-60d PA and about 30 cores, and all three Science perks extending their life. I am no longer worried about running out out of cores any time soon, which is good because I'm a BoS Knight and do most of my missions in my PA. At the same time, I have few enough that I'm not taking my PA for granted and am not going to go around wearing it unnecessarily. Eventually by the end of the main quest I'm sure cores won't even be an afterthought, but that's okay, too, because at that point I feel I've "earned" being overpowered.

So I'm totally cool with the system.

Edit: The need to repair parts also helps balance things out.

I have 100+ (not sure exactly how many, the HUD counter doesn't go above 99), the duration perk for them maxed out and the +10% magazine. On average I find about 2 or 3 before the current one runs out so PA use is essentially infinite as far as I'm concerned.

I have more fusion cores than I can use, and find them at an acceptable rate.

My biggest limitation with power armor is the degradation and the need to fix it at a power armor station where all the materials are available. I swear the stuff gets torn up too quickly.

What if the player can't get Power Armor until towards the game's climix, and needs Power Armor training to use the suit, would it be OP still?

It really adds depth to the game making you choose ( early on ) when & where to use your power armor is a real nice touch

yeah,i mean Power Armor should feel like it feel on this game. It suppose to replace tanks on the battlefield. Plus getting it on the climix will be bad having 5 different sets to use. The OP factor is base on how powerful the PA more upgrade and with Jetpack.

I really love the new system way better that Fo3 and FoNV.

Thought it would be an issue, now not really. I have 22 fusion cores and with 9 intelligence I have the nuclear physicist perk on the 2nd rank. I could probably run with PA exclusively for the next 100 hours without buying any more, which is good because my character is pretty much completely naked and vulnerable without Power Armor.

I mean yeah, PA should feel awesome. But are fusion cores needed? Would PA training balance the FO4 Power Armor?

they need to make it so that PA automatically uses the lowest charged cell

The Fusion core is a colossal Failure Gameplay and Lore-wise. The Core inside the Power Armor will power the suit for well over 500 years in Lore, so why does it burn through it in an hour? Bad implementation of a half-thought up feature to appease the "Balance" group. My favorite mod currently that I find critical for play are Unlimited Core power for Lore reasons. Why build a custom suit of armor if I can't use it due to some arbitrary feature? That Just doesn't make sense to me.

Those who've seen me cruise the New Vegas mods forums will probably know how I attempted to mod my own Power Armor suits with custom features such as dual Power fists that function when unarmed, as well as adding cosmetic details such as Tesla Coils from Fallout 3's Tesla armor onto the back of T-45's and T-51's. These suits are catering for a specific build however. I have two characters, one stealth who doesn't use Power Armor and prefers long range Sniper Rifles and Silenced weapons. On the other side of that coin, I have a character who runs around in Power Armor and uses Energy weapons. One shouldn't be hindered or limited because of the other. In previous Fallouts, If I didn't want to use Power Armor, I didn't equip it. If I did want it, I got it and used it. The Fallout 3 Glitch? I used it. The Fast Track on New Vegas? Done. Fallout 4 creates an awkward situation where I am restricted from my build due to a poor Feature.

That's a flat out lie. You aren't restricted from [censored]. If you want a dedicated power armor build, you can be permanently using power armor by the time you're around level 8 and onwards to the rest of the game. Once you've put even one rank into the nuclear physicist perk you'll always have more fusion cores than you have time to spend in Power Armor. Power Armor in the older fallouts was just a shiny piece of armor that offered more DR/DT, you never actually noticed the power aspect of it. Power Armor in Fallout 4 feels great, I've been having a blast doing a Tony Stark High Charisma, High Intelligence Energy Weapons and Power Armor build.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't all PA models pre great war? If so, that would mean that all of their power sources have lasted hundreds of years since we are 210 years after the bombs dropped. Also, in developement, a manufacturer can make claims but if they don't have the means of testing, like waiting hundreds of years to see how long a power source lasts, it is just that, claims. The old 'your milage may vary' comes in here. How many cars don't meet manufacturer gas milage in the real world? But either way, we are looking at it being hundreds of years after they were made.

Where are you getting 500 years from?? The longest I've ever seen a supposed PA cell last was 200 years... I mean, I'm all open for discussing it if you can provide any evidence of 500 years. Hell even the Fallout Wiki with citations says 100 years

I honestly almost never even use power armor, so I haven't really had much of a problem with it. I think it's a cool addition though. Having a finite fuel source forces you to plan ahead and actually think about when and where you'll be needing the PA.

No planning necessary, with a proper intelligence build you can be permanently using power armor from very early on. The only time I currently take off my Power Armor is to use the armor and weapon workbenches at my settlement.

I think that right now, too much is dependent on draining fusion cores. In my mind, the reason fusion cores have to be replaced is because the player is overclocking the system without coolant, which makes it strange that you cannot even walk around at a slow pace without draining it.

At first I thought it would be too limiting but once you get those science perks and the bobblehead you start getting 100+ cores lying around and never running out, I think it could of been better, like requiring a power station instead of an item, like making power suits recharge at the red rocket stations and towns instead, and the perks would make it last longer but still require you to rest once in a while instead of having this unlimited supply right in your inventory.

Can wear PA 24/7 with zero science perks, low go avg Intelligence build via alternate 'infinite' power cores path. Just buy them from restocking merchants.

FO4 gives many different paths to play - wear PA or never at all, buy cores or find them yourself. For me on this playthrough not using PA at all. But am a big settlement player and using water farms, can simply use daily water generation to buy out all cores from the restocking merchants.