An odd thing happened at my Sanctuary settlement. I made a point of bringing ALL my PA sets to Sanctuary where I parked them on one of the house foundations. (Sort of my version of a Terra Cotta army.) I stripped off all of the PA pieces and stored those in the workbench for safe keeping. The frames I left standing out on my "parking lot". But then after awhile, I noticed that the frames started to look different. Upon close examination, I discovered that each frame had acquired some T-45 pieces! Enough to fully flesh out at least 3 full sets of T-45, with quite a few spare parts as well.

Now I've stripped off those pieces and stored them with my growing PA stash. And now to see how long before more new T-45 pieces appear.

Hmm, I have at least a dozen empty frame sitting about sanctuary, have done for quite some time, that has never happened to me, interesting bug I would say.

Never happened to me and I have them all standing on the roof of my warehouse/workshop.

Likewise. I too have a growing collection of frames, and half filled power armors in Sanctuary. I have never had any armor pieces appear on them.

I have a boatload of power armor parts, but frames, I come up short. Where are you folks finding them at? I think I have 7 or so full suits of power armor parked at Sanctuary....... (mostly T-51, as that stuff respawns in several locations.)

Well, all else fails, you can loot and sell other stuff for caps and by a frame from several different merchants.

I can't remember who sells them for sure, but I think the weapons dealers in Diamond City and goodneighbor sell frames.

Just exploring mostly. There are what, maybe 50 PA scattered about the map, plus you can buy frames, and although I haven't tried it yet I think you can steal them too.

Yeah, diamond city has one for about 4,500 bottle caps, or 520 purified water.

I heard rumors that if you pickpocket the fusion core from someone wearing power armor, they step out, and you can steal it....... I have yet to successfully put that to the test, I keep getting caught.

This is true. I got my first three extra sets of power armor that way, by stealing the power core from the Raider in power armor near Corvega.

Think you have to put some points into pickpocket for it to work.
Replace core with grenade for a bonus

I had power armor *sort of* grow like that, the frame looks like it has armor on it, but when you open it, you don't see any armor pieces.

You should wear your chr gear buddy. He sells it at 2400 for me (also with the merchant perks).

Atom Cats Garage: Rowdy

Commonwealth Weaponry(Diamond City)

Goodneighbor: KL-E-0 (assaultron "lady")

Some merchants.

This is true for sure I have stolen around 10 frames this way, another way to have them step out of the armor is to destroy the core on the back. Beware though if they are a low level enemy/knight in the armor the destruction of the core will mostly kill them. Since the core explodes with this method.

I have about 36 frames, all but 9 of them full suits. Some of the suits/mobs in them respawn. You shoot the core out, and most of the time they get out before it explodes, leaving the frame, and damaged pieces. Most of the respawning armor is Raider.

Of five spare frames, ONE never "grows" new armor pieces. I think I found that one with all Raider parts. So that leaves my T-45, T-51, and T-60 frames "growing" T-45 pieces.

There is a distinct possibility that it is the Scrap Scrap mod that triggers the armor respawning. (It also seems to be the reason that parked suits of upgraded PA gets downgraded to T-45A.) [Which is how I discovered the "growing" aspect. To prevent armor downgrades, I stripped all the pieces from all the spare frames and stored them in the work bench. Then a day later -- surprise! -- the empty frames weren't empty anymore.]