I almost exclusively use Combat Armor all the time, and I've also been hoarding it to equip my settlers with it. I think it's the most well balanced and the best looking armor in the game. Settlements like The Castle feel much more like actual military posts when everyone is walking around in matching Military Fatigues and Combat armor. Once you hit level 35 or so, the basic Combat Armor and the Sturdy Combat Armor starts becoming pretty common. I'm at level 51 now, and I've been hoarding them both ever since they started becoming more common. I'm at the point where I have around 40 full sets of Combat Armor and another 20 or so full sets of Sturdy Combat Armor, in addition to another 40 or so random pieces of modded combat armor. However, the Heavy Combat Armor has remained fairly elusive. I've found a few random pieces of it around, mostly on Gunners, but I was still two pieces short of having a full set of Heavy Combat Armor. I had the chest piece, the left arm, and the right leg.

Earlier today I found out that I already had the missing pieces. All of the variants of the Combat Armor share the fact that mods can be switched from one type to another. This is very useful. If you have a modded set of regular Combat Armor and then upgrade to Sturdy Combat Armor, you can just remove the mods from one and attach them to the other. However, when mods are added, the names of the armor components cease to designate whether it's regular, Sturdy, or Heavy.

For example - Suppose you add the polymer and deep pocket mods.

On the regular Combat Armor, the name becomes Deep Pocketed Polymer Combat Armor.

On the Sturdy Combat Armor, the name becomes Deep Pocketed Polymer Combat Armor.

On the Heavy Combat Armor, the name becomes Deep Pocketed Polymer Combat Armor.

Needless to say, this can create a bit of confusion. Although these three different armors all have the same names after being modded, they have significantly different damage resistances and weights and such. But without more closely inspecting them, you can't tell which is which. A lot of the Combat Armor I've picked up off of enemies has been modded already, so the names didn't necessarily reflect what variant it was.

Earlier today I was switching the mods on my Sturdy Combat Armor. I usually use the Deep Pocketed mod for increased carrying capacity, but I wanted to try out the Shadowed mods for increased stealth. Since I had all of these random pieces stored, I decided to just remove the mods from other pieces rather than building new mods. So I pulled out the necessary pieces and went to the armor station. I'm breaking down a Shadowed Reinforced Combat Armor Right Arm...and what do I find after breaking it down? It was a HEAVY Combat Armor Right Arm. This is one of the pieces I was missing. So I did some searching and managed to find the left leg that I needed to complete my set of Heavy Combat Armor. I went through and removed the mods from the rest of my inventory of modded Combat Armor, and I now have three full sets of it, and a fourth set that's just missing a right arm.

So, like I said in the title, if you've stockpiled Combat Armor but you're still looking for that elusive Heavy Combat Armor...you just might already have it.

On a related note, the Combat Armor Helmet seems to be incredibly rare as well. I've been looking for one for the entire time I've been playing the game, which is about 180 hours now. I finally found one earlier today on a raider during the Jack Cabot mission. I was ecstatic. Then after that I figured it was finally time to go check out Covenant (that's an odd place), and I went and looked through the merchandise at the store..and what do I find? Destroyer's Helmet, which is a Legendary version of the Combat Armor Helmet that grants +1 Charisma and +1 Intelligence. It was just after completing the 'Human Error' quest at Covenant that I discovered that I already had the Heavy Combat Armor. It's been a good day in the Fallout Universe for me.

Regarding the Destroyer's Helmet at Covenant -

I edited the last part of my post because I realized there was a bit of a spoiler in it. Sorry about that.

Good tip, I'ma go root through my own combat armor stash.

I'm really put off by the way Combat Armor looks in this game

it looks so bulky to me :/

I can't use anything else, rather then leather in this game, because of how other armors look like

normal combat:

http://abload.de/img/3dryst.png

heavy combat:

http://abload.de/img/3xhsia.png

even the heavy leather looks so much less "in the face" than the combat one ^^

http://abload.de/img/20ba15.png

the normal version of the leather armor is still my favourite... it actually looks like something you might wear, when wandering ^^

http://abload.de/img/11xaey.png

It's obviously a matter of taste, but I find the Combat Armor and its variants to be the best looking armor in the game. I think it depends on what you're wearing underneath it at least in part.

My usual outfit is a modded Vault Suit with Deep Pocketed Polymer Combat Armor over top. Up until today I've been using the Army Helmet, but now that I've found the Combat Armor Helmet and Destroyer's Helmet, I've retired the Army Helmet. I also wear the Patrolmen's Sunglasses to finish the outfit off and give me +1 Perception. I've got a few other Legendary Combat Armor pieces as well that grant various perks like +1 Agility or Endurance.

I'll admit that the Heavy Combat Armor doesn't look quite as good as the other variants just because it's a lot bulkier. I think the Sturdy Combat Armor is the best looking of the three, and it's likely what I'll continue using most of the time. The Heavy Combat Armor offers greater damage resistance and such, but it also weighs significantly more. It's best suited for instances where you know you'll be need that extra damage resistance but don't want to wear Power Armor. I've got a fully modded set of X-01 for those occasions, but I don't like to wear Power Armor most of the time.

I like to use the regular Combat Armor sometimes too if I'm just going on a salvage run through a building that I've already cleared out. The weight difference compared to the Sturdy and Heavy variants is enough to significantly reduce the amount of junk one can carry back.

Heavy combat chest piece with medium legs and arms is my favourite. I have them shadowed with BoS black officer uniform.

And in terms of naming i look at the armour ratings for a good impression.

Finding heavy quality Legendary armours has proven very difficult. I'm L84 and have only just gathered a few. I have 1 heavy combat chest in over 300 legendary armour drops.

sixy

http://i.imgur.com/xAK1CTi.jpg

Very nice! I haven't really tried mixing the types. I might have to try that out to see what looks best. The heavy chest piece will add a lot of damage resistance without adding as much weight as the full suit of Heavy Combat Armor. I really like the BoS mods for them too. I have a full set of Sturdy Combat Armor with the BoS mods that I use when I'm doing the BoS quests.

I have a a few Legendary Combat Armor pieces. I have a chest piece and I think two different left leg pieces. I haven't checked to see whether they're regular, sturdy, or heavy though. I'll do that a little later. I also have Destroyer's Helmet now, which I assume is the best possible Combat Armor Helmet since there aren't regular/sturdy/heavy variants of the CA Helmet in the first place. I'd love to put together a full suit of Combat Armor out of Legendary pieces.

Do you know if this is even possible? Do enough pieces of Legendary CA exist in the game to do this?

looks good

can you actually 'paint' them, by upgrading them?

or is it just the Brotherhood version? looks way better than the usual white ^^

[censored] it. I thought sturdy was a mod name, not a medium armor. I broke down so [censored] many!

you should start to see a lot of sturdy armor when you reach level 30 ^^ and a lot of heavy armor, once you reach 40

The armors have two mod slots. One is material, and that indeed affects to the "paint". I run in shadowed which in most armor types is nice blackish. Had a fiberglass combat armor for a while and it's white

For mix and match, I found my style in leather armor body part and combat armor limbs, except other arm having heavy leather armor hand for that showy shoulder pad. All shadowed.

For knowing which armor weight the modded pieces is, I've found out that apart from armor values, the price is generally good indicator of it being normal, sturdy or heavy, and that's easy to sort with too. Even when modded he different types tend to be on their own price ranges.

Combat Armor + BoS Uniform (Military Fatigues work as well) + Synth Field Helmet = awesome.

Not only does this set up look cool but it offers great protection.

Wouldn't sturdy show better protection than other pieces, even if the name is the same?

The name confusion of modded weapons/armor in the alphabetical inventory lists is something very annoying. Seems like there could have been a better way to handle it. Like listing them always by original/base name first with mod suffix/prefixes on the end, like "Heavy Combat Deep Pocketed Polymer Armor", so at least all the same types would cluster together, modded or not.

I've definitely not realized I had certain items sometimes, after I'd picked up a bunch of stuff that already had mods on it.

The different mods do change the colors a bit. The Shadowed mods make them darker. The Polymer mods are more of a pearly white kind of color. The BoS mods have their own paint scheme that looks really cool.

It does. The damage resistances, weights, and values are all different even though the name is the same. However, the fact that the names are the same makes this easy to miss. There are points in the game where you can pick up huge amounts of Combat Armor in one run. Clearing out the Gunner's Plaza is one example. There are probably a few dozen or so Gunners inside and almost all of them are wearing Combat Armor. That adds up to a whole lot of stuff to sift through. If the names were distinguished from one another by having "Shadowed Polymer Combat Armor" and "Sturdy Shadowed Polymer Combat Armor" there would be no confusion. It took me a while to figure this out, so hopefully some people find it to be useful information.

I couldn't agree more. This seems like a rather glaring oversight on their part. Now that I've realized this is the case, I'll be paying more attention to my inventory. I don't really use any of the raider/leather/metal armor anymore after acquiring my Combat Armor. All of it just gets dumped into the workbench and eventually scrapped. I haven't yet gotten too involved with the Institute in the game, aside from encountering some random Synths in a few places around the map and having a few settlements attacked by Synths. Once I start finding more Synth armor though, I'll definitely be paying attention to what's what.

The Overseer's Right Armguard and Left Armguard from the Vault 81 vendor are both heavy armor and I'm pretty sure the Freefall Legs are heavy as well. I've seen quite a few regular and sturdy legendary chest pieces drop from the legendary enemies but I haven't seen a legendary heavy chest piece yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think those pieces are -Combat- Armor are they? There are sturdy variants of a bunch of the different armor types, but the Combat Armor is a specific type of armor. I haven't looked too closely at those pieces though, so I'll have to take a look at them later.

They are unique combat armor pieces, unique pieces never say what type they are in the name they just have the same defense stats and appearance.

I suppose that's true. I knew that, I guess it had just never occurred to me to look that closely at their physical appearance as opposed to the cost and the stats. It sounds like I'm going to be making a trip to Vault 81 tonight. I haven't been by there in a while anyway. I'll stop in and see how everyone there is doing.

I think a lot of people like to combine combat armor with military or army fatigues. For some reason, combat armor (and leather for that matter) look extremely bulky in these clothes, making your avatar look a bit fat. I disliked combat armor for this reason as well, until I found out that combining combat armor with the BOS uniform or the Vault Suit actually keep your avatar 'small'/'normal sized'. I suppose it has to do with the fact that both these types of clothing are tight-fitting? Anyway, it makes CA look a -whole- lot better.

BOS officer uniform + heavy CA = a clear win to me (as the CA actually looks comfortable an no longer bulky).

I hope this helps

I agree with this. There are some outfits that just make the CA look horrible. The Vault Suit and the BOS Uniform both work very well with it. I tried it with military fatigues and just didn't care for it. It looks somewhat better over the road leathers, but that still doesn't quite look right.

That's what I use too, BOS Officer Uniform with heavy polymer chest and legs and sturdy polymer arms. wish I could have the BOS paint on the polymer modded stats though.

Also in Quincy Ruins, there's a Gunner guy on top of the church who has a full set of heavy CA, or at least most of a set.

I don't know about heavy combat armour...I'm in all ultra-light, with a few pieces of legendary stuff as part of it. I'm working on the theory that 175 AP, quick regeneration, and a minimum of 11 AGL will gun any threat down before it gets a chance to do much damage too me...worked so far, even with a modded up 10mm that's over 700 points of damage in one VATS session, with no criticals used.

I slowly worked my way up to a full set of heavy combat armour (finding a right arm took ages) but they realised I looked like a plastic ninja turtle in the cut scenes which bothered me a bit. I did get a really strong Mass Effect vibe when wearing the heavy combat armour and a BoS uniform and playing in 3rd person which was fun...

Once I learned how to add ballistic weaves to clothes I rolled back on the combat armour. Now wearing bits I could find of the destroyer set (iirc) and level 5 ballistic weave military fatigues...

On the original topic, I agree that it would have made life easier if the Steady and Heavy name parts persisted after adding mods...

I always wear the sturdy combat chest piece(shadowed) and sturdy leather legs and arms.

Fun fact, Light/Sturdy/Heavy armors are all the same base item, and the Sturdy/Heavy versions work in the same way as mods like Polymer or Pocketed - it's only that the Sturdy/Heavy upgrades aren't craftable. edit: that may be the reason why their names get mixed up after modding, and the ground item model is identical.