Well- I think this is unavoidable to be splitted by the type of preferred gameplay.
FWE was born as mod for experienced players, but now some of as accepted most what we have in balance, while some of us need more harsher wasteland.
I can only hope in optionality of such things, as even more rarity of ammo, non-removable armors and to be forced to become melee character.
But it will be always place for the new features even in the conservator's hearts

Agreed and Yeah for Optional Mods.


On the is power armor worth it question, well of course just because power armor is so cool and intimidating.

I do figure power armor would be well worth, even if all the more advanced enhancements had to be turned off or were no longer functioning just to be able to carry heavy loads for long periods of time.

I also figure the suit would be programmed to provide various level of enhancement including a Training mode.

Some thing that was a lot slower then normal for a untrained or semi trained user.

Now one good reason I've seen offered to limit power armor is that the suits need to be custom fitted to the operator before you can get full use of them.




One point to consider is the military doesn't put locks on fighter planes or tanks cause they figure having any one being able to get them in to action is better than not having them in action at all because the keys can not be found.

I figure there is no way they are going to have a suit of power armor not be used because no one programmed a way to tune down the hardest to
master enhancements.

Likely to still had the strength enhancements even in semi trained mode - Got to have some one who can hump the big guns and ammo to the front line (or the wounded back).




Now this is how you know you are living in the 21 century!

Powered Exoskeleton are currently in development for just that reason (as well as for rehabilitation).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton.

"Powered exoskeleton
In 2000, DARPA requested design proposals for a powered military exoskeleton. Of the 14 designs submitted, DARPA chose the one submitted by Sarcos. The Sarcos design involves a suit powered by a single engine, including a tank holding 24 hours of fuel, that sits near the wearer's buttocks. The suit gives the wearer increased strength and endurance through servo motors powered by the engine.[1] The finished suit is named the XOS Exoskeleton and weighs 150 pounds (68 kg).[3] Popular Science reported that the XOS gives wearers the ability to lift 200 pounds (91 kg) "repeatedly with minimal strain".[6] DARPA specifications call for the suit to allow lifting of up to 400 pounds (180 kg), but it is not known whether the XOS meets that criterion.[4]

The army will use initial production models of the XOS for logistics and supply tasks such as repetitive lifting of heavy objects. Future models will have various combat customizations for firing heavy weapons or transporting wounded soldiers.[7]"

Well, if you've taken it to bits, why can you put it in your inventory
From my understanding of how powered suits work even today, there's nothing in there that would require training to move. Advanced functionality, most likely, but if movement in it required training, it simply wouldn't be viable!

I mean, moving WELL would take practice, but moving at all shouldn't be too much trouble for somebody who's already managed to kill a PA wearing person.

I'm not sure there's a way to make Power Armor work the way I'd like to see it work. Usable by everyone without training but without real bonuses besides the high DR. It'd be heavy and give you just enough increased load carrying ability to offset its weight, but no other bonuses. Then 2 perks to increase its effectiveness. The first perk would let you get Str and End bonuses from the armor and a Per bonus from the helmet. The second perk would increase the Str and End bonuses a bit, add some points to your melee and explosives skills, increase the load carrying bonus a bit to offset the weight of your average weapon as well as the armor; and boosting the Per bonus a point, adding small guns, big guns, and energy weapons bonuses, and giving you night vision all on the helmet.

The first perk would be the basic Power Armor Training available from the normal storyline from the Brotherhood of Steel (or where ever you get it in your alternate starting or w/e), the 2nd perk would be Advance Power Armor Training available upon level up after you've gotten the 1st perk and probably a level req of 14 or so.

I don't know if FOSE is able to do any of that, but i know it's not possible without FOSE.

If you make Power Armor really hard to obtain and repair, it has to be made worth it. There are stories of the Brotherhood clearing out the entire Pitt because of their power armor--if power armor is going to be something incredibly difficult to obtain and wear, to make up for it you'll have to be nearly invulnerable for it to be worth the trouble. I don't like how easy power armor is to come by right now--but if it's made more scarce, it has to be made a lot more powerful?

Mostly I like harriel001's idea of making it more powerful the more training you have for it, since NPCs can use it willy-nilly whenever they want anyway. I think there are even a few spots where raiders spawn with it.

Well...I'm torn on the issue.

Part of me wants a savage, brutal, unforgiving, cutthroat wasteland. Where when you fine leather armour, you almost scream for joy. But then again, I don't want it taken beyond playability. It'd be pretty stupid to not be able to pull some armours off people, regardless of how badly damaged. You can take almost anything and use it for parts - that should go for armour, too.

Power armour, though, strikes me as something that needs more punch, and be a pain to get ahold of. Since PA is rather advanced, do you think it possible that it has bio-monitors that can check to see whether the soldier that owns it is in it? When the War was rampant with China, I highly doubt that the US would leave no mouse traps for the captured suits.

It needs to not only be rare, but truly live up to the name "walking tank".

Lot's of good suggestions about the proposed optional modules, as well as a good discussion about power armor.

At the moment I've refrained from doing much with power armor other than balancing it a little to be in line with the general armor rebalanced. The reason for this is that there dozens of different power armor overhaul mods, and certainly as many different preferences for how it should function. At the moment, I'm temped to tell people to find and use a power armor overhaul mod they prefer. However, if there is a set of power armor changes that are more elaborate that are desired but doesn't exist yet, I'd be willing to look into working that into a future release (likely as an optional module again).

Raising the condition/health of power armor would create more separation between a good condition an a poor condition set of armor. Even removing the repair parts from the PA repair list would make it actually require suits of power armor to repair another, which could help offset its relative abundance. This is a lot easier than than messing with dead bodies to replace PA with broken suits, etc.... Although I agree it would need to be a little more powerful. An increase in DR and Rad Resist would likely be in order.

Also, has anyone experimented with any of the mods that make more use out of damage types for both weapons and armor (i.e. energy damage + energy resist)? Might be worth considering how that factors in as well.



I don't think it would be terribly complicated to implement something like this. My worry mainly has to do with how many advantages you get from using power armor at the higher ranks. I wouldn't want it to be much stronger with both perk ranks than it is now. So for examples:

No Perk: The armor only account for 50% of it's weight (so it weights basically 50 lbs), you get a -3 to agility, no str bonuses.
Basic Power Armor Training: Armor accounts for its weight, -1 to agility, +1 strength, +1 PER
Adv. Training: Armor accounts for its weight, no agility penalty, +2 strength, +2 PER

I don't think PA should contribute to your END, as that's just adding onto the effectively higher hit points you have from the high DR bonus. The different PA variants (enclave, outcast, etc...) would vary in the DR they provide, rad resist, weight (which affects running speeds), and possibly some bonuses to different combat skill sets.

This whole business would be handled by script effects attached the power armor that provide different bonuses based on which perk level you have. Fairly easy to implement without any needs for FOSE. Other power armor suggestions?

Oh . . . another random idea:

What if power armor could be looted normally, but couldn't initially be worn. I.E., the normal PA variants would get the non-playable flag. This would reflect their damaged condition, and/or the "custom fit" each suit was intended to have. In order to actually wear power armor you'd have to drag the suit back to a workbench and CRAFT the suit into a player wear-able version, reflecting the required custom fitting that would need to be done.

Power armor given to you as a quest reward would remain playable, it would just be the found / looted varieties that get the change. In addition, I could see requiring a few extra components (i.e. a fusion battery, 5 repair parts, conductor, etc.) to be used in conjunction with the armor itself to make it wearable. Lastly, the more advanced PA's (Enclave armor, Tesla Armor) could require a specific (higher) repair skill in order to CRAFT into a wearable version in the first place.

Just a thought =)

Oh! Oh that idea sounds great. Maybe give a bit of a DR increase to make it worth the trouble over combat armor. Maybe make it so Power Armor training doesn't restrict you from wearing it, but restricts you from customizing suits for yourself to wear? I'm not sure what sort of difference that would make, but that could keep Power Armor out of the player's hands for a while longer, even when they have access to a few scavenged suits? It'd make sense, too, I guess, in that even robots are relatively common compared to Power Armor, so it would require some sort of special training to be able to refit it? That way your only sources for power armor before you get the training are Operation Anchorage and the Oasis reward and the one from the Pitt, I think, right? So you can still use hard-earned rewards, you just can't refit any random suit for your own until you get the training. Or somesuch.

If you go that way, are you still going to make it so power armor can only be repaired by other suits of power armor? It might help to keep it a scarce, special item, at least until the Enclave show up. Can T-41s be repaired by Advanced Mark IIs anyway? I think the Hellfire can still only be repaired with other Hellfires. If you can cross-repair with looted Enclave armor it would keep you suited in your power armor at the higher levels, but make scavenging for repair parts from live Enclave patrols more dangerous and more of a risk--especially if power armor is given a boost, and if the Enclave patrols get armor at a good condition, it'd make it a tough fight to get the parts to repair your own stuff from, so it'd maybe solve the problem of them being a source of unlimited power armor for repair?

Also does the Operation Anchorage T-51 still have the million hit points? I'm not using any of the unofficial patches (I've heard they're more trouble than they're worth?) so is it possible to set it so FWE forces it to use the right one too, or would that cause some conflict with an unofficial patch? (Heck I could just console in the right version if I need to.)

that sounds great

CRAFT is the best thing since sliced bread.

Every time I need to come up with something cool I always end up saying, "hey, maybe if you go to the workbench you can . . ."

Gotta be careful not to over do it!

I often miss the light armor and heavy armor skills from Oblivion. Not having armor skills really doesn't make much sense to me at all in Fallout 3. I know they weren't around in the previous Fallout games, but in those games you really wanted the heaviest armor you could find since there wasn't really any benefit to wearing light armor. You could sneak as well in power armor as you could naked, it was all dependent on your sneak skill.

In Fallout 3 there are real benefits to wearing light armor over heavy armor for certain things, but you really can't get away with it once the bullets start flying. You just die too fast in light armor since there's no skill associated with it to make it even slightly more effective. If you're playing with light armor your life depends on your sneak skill and not getting spotted, and being able to run away if you do, there's no chance to really put up a fight if you get cornered. Thus everyone defaults to power armor at some point in the game for the simple fact that it's the only way to survive a fire fight. That always bothers me

I may be wrong, but TUPAM is leader of all PA here, but even this mod have many issues in balance. It is not only almost cheat in wearing armor, but have problems with defense too.

I think:
- PA must give almost absolute protection against all common weaponry- it created to such protection. From all common weaponry only heavy weaponry must have ability to easy penetrate this armor.
-From another side PA need to be more vulnerable against advanced types of weaponry, such as energy, fire, laser and such.
If this two goals will be accomplished, then PA will be what it must be. Wearer of PA will not fear to meet raiders or other enemies with common weaponry, only serious enemies will be worth to be feared. In this case we will have the game as it was from the first fallouts. If you have power armor- you God, until you meet another guy in the power armor

But there is one problem.
Energy weapon use energy resist type and can be resisted by the armor with energy resistance. The same with flamers, which use fire effect and protection. In this case armor's protection effect can be combined from the object effect (environmental resistance against specific attack) and armor resistance- against all weaponry. If this thing will be well balanced, then we will be able to have ABSOLUTE invulnerability (if it is needed) against specific attack, but.... until our armor in the good condition. If our armor will be in bad condition (including from intensive enemies fire in the combat), then we begin to lose our health, because armor resistance dependent from armor condition
But common weaponry don't use any specific resist types, so can be handled only by armor resistance and this broke all picture.
So- why to not create new base effect and to not connect it to all melee and bullet weaponry?


I have one- russian FreeSergey FS_F3 mod, which some time ago was created with XFO in mind.
Until now I think- it is the best from all weapon/armor modifications (in power armor part at least)
Suddenly- it is long time abandoned. If you agreed- I will send it to you


I make my own modification to the TUPAM mod with the same ideas in mind.
Again- I can send it to you.


I like this idea

I think it is wrong idea. From the one moment in the game, when enclaves incoming, Power Armor need to be salvation against them. So- such restriction will be too harsh

But from another side.... well.
No- I like this idea
If only ANY type of PA will be accepted as repair part

I was under the impression when yall gave the idea for PA effectiveness increasing with training, that meant the actual quests that give the perk, not just something you pick from leveling? Cause it sounds like the opposite.



As long as we're throwing craft into the mix, you could make it so that you need to disassemble PA to get PA Repair Parts (the amount of which based on repair), which are the only thing you can use to repair it, on top of having to get the custom fit suit. Maybe require an expensive item from the BOS or Outcasts as well to create the wearable versions, which would require you either be in good standing with the outcasts (turned in enough tech) or progressed enough in the MQ, further limiting how early you can acquire it. Maybe in the form of a quest/dialog tree, get the basic items (fusion batteries etc.) then turn them into someone and then pay to use a machine that calibrates it for you or something. To wear Enclave maybe you wouldn't have to pay anything, but the machine is in Raven Rock or some other Enclave base (are there any? And you can go back into Raven Rock right? It's been a while).

Saluaging PA sounds great, as does the CRAFT idea. I love anything that even mentions CRAFT, y'see.

But restricting the ability to "fit" power armour to the player by forcing them to visit places such as Raven Rock/The Citadel seems like a bad idea to me.


But, I've come up with a new idea, now. That every armour in the game automatically fits the player seems a little off to me. Especially so for me because my character is a few inches shorter than most - using a strength based height mod. So, being unable to wear armour until it's either custom fit or buying custom fit clothing would be kind of neat - you can't use that leather armour until you cut the legs a few inches and then bring in the waist a bit.

Of course, that may not work for mod added clothes - but most of those are one-set-wonders for the player only. Or, they give them to companions. So it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal in the end.


Just a thought, expanding on the CRAFTing of Power Armour.

Power armor should be easy to maintain but a stone [censored] to repair after serious damage.

I'm using TUPAM right now and I have to use Scrap to fix the power armor rather than repair parts. So keeping the power armor in top condition is taking me 4 times the repair parts.

I can see losing agility when not trained in power armor but not strength. I do like the idea that an untrained operator doesn't get the full benefit of the strength enhancement (power armor weighing 50 pounds if untrained and zero if fully trained). I don't know how you would represent it, but using power armor should allow a person to run long distances while carrying a lot of weight. Perhaps allowing someone in power armor to sprint twice as long at a slightly lower speed.

I agree that any power armor should be useable for repairs with any other.

It would be nice if there was a middle ground in Power Armor training. If I run around in a power armor suit for six months I am going to get better and better at using it. I may never be as good as someone who is fully trained (and custom fitted), but I will certainly be better than when I started.

You could even require a companion's power armor suit to be custom fitted too. Make them less swapable between companions.



I do think that Recon Armor also needs some loving. I like what TUPAM does with the recon armor. Nightvision and breathing underwater come to mind.

This is super awesome, however I think the modders should add the ability to recruit faction-based members to be your companions up to a maximum of 5.

This would add alot more fun since you'd be able to raid stuff with your friends because somehow I feel the mod is lacking something else. I don't think Fallout 3 was intended to be yourself all alone all or most of the time, especially with MMM + FOOK2 + FWE the difficulty and challenge is greatly increased. I've playing with these mods along with Weaponmodkits (although I haven't decided which character history will I pick lol) and it's been an awesome experience. The only setback like I noticed yesterday was the army of ghoul I had to face, lucky me I was inserted on the raider-faction and thus had the enormous help from the raiders near the metro area infested with ghouls.

Few scenes comes to my mind like you as an Outcast and your defected buddies raiding a super mutant site; you as a raider attacking and plundering the nearby location with your squad of evil-doers or as a regulator clearing a cave of the baddest-of-the-world raider filled cave.

Shenk said
"Few scenes comes to my mind like you as an Outcast and your defected buddies raiding a super mutant site; you as a raider attacking and plundering the nearby location with your squad of evil-doers or as a regulator clearing a cave of the baddest-of-the-world raider filled cave."

Sounds like you want Phalanx, MMM increased Spawns (the one a level higher than the one included in FWE), and Foes Reworked Next Generation.

From what I hear the three mods really work well for squad scale battles.

Im using Phalanx and Foes Reworked plus MMM and FWE so the MMM increased spawns should work fine.

I'm currently sticking to a single companion plus Dogmeat for now and have to be careful of the fights I get in to.

It is really nice to be able to set up ambushes by ordering the companion to wait here and shoot at any targets or to be able to sneak close alone with an wait here and charge to me if there is trouble order.

Can you send me a copy?

I'd like to try it out.

Thanks!

cndblank at Yahoo dot com

I agree with that. If you have to go toe to toe with the Enclave then you should really NEED to be in power armor or using a stealth suit (or some advance recon armor) by then.



I don't think PA should be totally invulnerable to small arms fire (or at least not to the energy weapons). I imagine that Flamers would be a common weapon used against PA.

You get hit enough times and stuff is going to start to jam and the armor is going to start degrading to where a lucky shot might get through.

Of course if just one round does get through it is going to be messy as it bounces around inside.

I expect a wound from an energy weapon might be more survivable then a bullet wound for that reason even if the latter is a lot less likely to happen.

I do think PA should reduce the damage from explosions, melee, and small arms fire. Is there a way to reduce the critical chance for the NPCs? It is not so much that PA stops the damage totally but that it mostly keeps it from being catastrophic damage unless energy or heavy weapons are used.

One immersion breaker for me is when the designers give opponents a fixed damage bonus that bypasses armor no matter what. It wouldn't be too bad if wearing power armor would halve it or it was only 10 or 15 points of damage. Truthfully I would think any attack is going to do a little damage (even if it was just bruising from getting knocked around). I understand why they did it but shotguns using buckshot are not going to do a lot to a person in PA. Slugs would hurt. Frag grenades should be an annoyance. I can see some swampies trapping someone in PA in quicksand, or dropping a tree on them or lighting them up with moonshine and detergent.

Looking forward to the next FWE release!

The way that the basic damage formulas work for armor is that armor provides a direct "subtraction" from the damage dealt, rather than a multiplier value that reduces all damage proportionally. I can't remeber the value's off hand, but I want to say that in FWE Max DR provides about 34 points of "damage reduction" . . . compared to the vanialla game which only redcued DR by about 17 when maxed.

This system is good in that it does get at threshhold damages. I.E., a 10mm pistol doing 20 damage isn't going to harm you when your DR is above 60 or so. Of course, there are a lot of other factors that influence the "damage dealt" side of things (crit damage, perk bonuses, etc...).

The downside of the system is that weapons that deal a lot more than the damage reduction value (i.e. a sniper rifle which deals 100 base damage) are going to hurt quite a bit still even with maxed DR . . . . but then again I think it probably should =)

Speaking of automatic damage, do enemies still do that silly +35 instant damage in FWE? Is it at least balanced right if they do? I was thinking of modding that out myself, but if FWE does something with it I don't want to touch it.

Wasn't this something adding into point lookout weapons or something? I haven't done anything with this issue if it is still active, although I'd love to eliminate it if it's present.