So i was thinking of making a power armour/meele build and was wondering how rare fusion cores are. Can you find them easily with scrounger and can i reliably buy them? I would take nuclear physicist by the way.

Well, I've got over 100 at the moment, and thats without any effort to either find them or trade for them. I must admit I don't bother wearing power armour at all (or even any normal armour for that matter), but I think its safe to say that fusion cores are not exactly scarce.

At the start, it seems like they're made from unobtanium. After playing for a while, however, I think you'll find that you have more than you can use. Also, keep an eye on the power meter. Once it gets close to 0, pop that one out and sell it, as you'll still get full value.

As the game progresses i think the game knows when you are running short and spawns them in the loot boxes.

Anyway there are heaps of them around.

If you come across a sentry bot that's two for the taking straight away.

There are like 50 locations with generators you can get them from,

sentry bots drop 2, and can be found in several areas.

Most of the 50 or so power armor sets you can find have full cores already in them

Diamond city has 4-8 you can buy every time it refreshes (~3 days)

Once you get the "big flying machine" on the map the merchant inside sells around 6-8

Kleo sells ~4

Most other weapon merchants have a few, general goods ones sometimes have one,

the buildable weapon shops can have them, level 3 ones tend to have 1

You mean I can start collecting them again after I stupidly sold them all (100+) to vendors?

Thank you! I can finally use my Power Armor again!

I hit the bonanza once at the outside area of Fort Hagen where there are some beds (in a wrecked building with no roof), each bed with a footlocker.

All the footlockers had two each that particular day

Rowdy sells them at the Atomic Cats once you get there. She usually has like 4 to 5 for sale every 48 hours.

Nice pic, loving that G3 and costume.

Anyways to answer OP they aren't as rare as you think, especially if you invest in Intelligence and get the nuclear physicist perk you'll always have more than you'll ever need. I had around 100 on my Power Armor build when I finished the game and before I could even finish using one I'd find four more in an ammo box.

I can confirm, that place spawns then often, even if it's random so with particular bad luck, you can find none. There are number of other containers in game in different locations which have good chance to spawn then. And they usually spawn like 4 of them at once.

plot twist:

i luv how the TIP SCREEN refers to Forgotten tanks spread throughout the world being a GREAT resource for RARE Cores...

--have not found one on any of them yet.

My new PA charcter has 7 already at level 5. It's not rare but cost a lot

I was wondering about this too after seeing the slide. I just figured they were there and I was missing them somehow. Attached to the tanks or something. Guess I'm not the only one who can't find them!

Not sure how far you progressed in the game but

As others have said, at lower levels they can seem rare and costly. But in truth, the game throws them at you faster than you can use them. My inventory of FCs just grows and grows the longer I play.

Yes, they become quite common. With high charisma and rank 2 cap collector perk they are sold for 240 caps each. I am lvl 119 and have 790 of them.

I'm running a character that uses Power Armor all the time, and I deliberately didn't put my Intelligence high enough to get Nuclear Physicist. In addition, I have made it a point to not buy any Cores from vendors. The character is early to mid-20's in level, and is sitting on 16 Cores. And I did Concord first to get my Power Armor, and haven't taken it off since (figuratively speaking, of course). So no, Fusion Cores aren't particularly rare, and you don't need to twist your build out of shape to get Nuclear Physicist to make the build work.

At level 82 I have accumulated a lot of Fusion Cores by not even trying. I have easily over 200 of them because I do not use Power Armor and I have not sold any of them.

I find a lot of them by scrounging around, but I have come across quite a few sentry bots and you can typically grab 2 Fusion Cores from their remains. Not sure if I ever got a Fusion Core from an assaultron though; probably not...

At worse you can simply buy them.

Playing on Survival, Power Armor is absolutely necessary when engaging in any type of combat. Don't worry though, there are plenty of Fusion Cores out there. Still, this is what I do to save Energy: Use the Power Armor to clear a building of any hostiles, ignoring loot along the way. Once you can crouch, move around, and see "Hidden" without any fluctuations in the surrounding brackets, the area is clear, so exit your Power Armor, tune your Radio to Diamond City Radio or Classical Radio (optional step,) and sweep the cleared building for loot.

P.S. By the way, a little trick to make some easy caps: switch out your Power Core when it gets to 1 Energy and sell it to a vendor for full price!

I found when I used PA, I always seemed to have about 25 regardless of my action point use. That was after I accumulated about 50 and then joined the BoS.


I never dipped below that, but I was constantly thinking about my consumption.


EDIT: This was about from lvl 25-33 so I can only comment on that level range. It sounds like they become more frequently found as you level higher.


Worst case scenario is you just buy them at one of the vendors that sell them.

There are more than plenty fusion cores to stay in power armor constantly with regular use ... walking, running, jumping, fighting. Now, if you make constant use of jetpacks and launch cores as grenades frequently and stuff like that, you might run low from time to time.

When you come in to trade, all loaded down and overencumbered, traders don't always have enough caps to balance with all your loot.

Fusion Cores are therefore a bit like currency, like paper money (they are like 400-cap bills).

They are everywhere and build up in your inventory no problem, to the point where I always feel badly plucking them out of working machinery in some godforsaken basemant...

One can easily run fleets of PA and never run low on Cores at all.

No, power armor is definitely not absolutely necessary. I play on survival mode and I am currently level 82. I basically wear a combat helmet and some moderately modded leather armor pieces. Plus I do not use legendary weapons. The game is only somewhat challenging at certain times, but still somewhat easy at other times.

Without the huge defense bonuses from Power Armor, I get killed VERY quickly. But I'm also only level 37 and put all my points in non-combat perks. And the armor I wear is all modified for carry weight. I had a really difficult time with certain Legendary enemies at the beginning of the game on Survival difficulty, but now that I've progressed quite a bit, I agree that combat has gotten way easier for the most part, except for when I occasionally run into Legendary/Boss enemies that are 10+ levels higher than me.

Hmmm... okay.

I think at around your level I had 2 point in Toughness for +30 damage resistance and 2 or 3 points in Commando and Rifleman for +40% or +60% damage. I think I have still have around 8 perk points that I have yet to use.

It also has to do with play style as well I suppose. I use sneak and I also try to use cover as much as possible. I actually do not ever recall using stimpaks prior to level 72. I collected over 2,000 stimpaks, but then which I suppose makes sense if I do not recall using them below level 72.