This.
And the only reason Lyons BoS accepts you so openyl is that they are largely made up of outsiders.

Its like being a kid and moving to a new town. Yes you live there but you are from somewhere else.

Cause Lyons Bro's have brains, and don't want to fruitlessly die out obviously.....

I might consider New Vegas simply a time constraint they didn't have the time/money to record a second series of greetings and adjust the dialog inside to reflect your no longer an outsider.
Your invited to join Lyon's Pride during Take it Back!, and skip the normal recruitment procedures and time spent as an initiate going directly to Knight. Being a one-man-army doesn't qualify you as an officer fit to command a squad.

have gamers here forgoten that equipment can be repaid? yeah, it would nice if the PA was in like new condition. so... one has to find spare parts for the armor or come up with a few thou of caps. but hey, you don't find PA growing in a catus patch. and you don't have to kill a deathclaw to get it.

That is one way to put it. Lyons sees the writing on the wall, that the Brotherhood can't stay isolationist. When he got far enough from the main brotherhood, he decided to ignore the codex and let new people join. He was not the first to do that. That is why the Lone Wanderer is treated as one of their own. They welcome outsiders and many are outsiders.

The Mojave Chapter still follows the Codex to the letter. "What should we do about this?" "What does the Codex say?" "It doesn't say anything." "Then we do nothing." That is why they don't treat the Courier as one of their own, and they never fully trust him.

You know these suits were supposed to be T45 right?
It's the same problem with the T51 armor 45 helmet.

What?
Its T-51b, you get T-45d when you join. They give you T-45d because they can't afford to give you T-51b (due to six of their soldiers in that armor being missing).

I don't understand why this pisses so many people off.

The armor you find on the dead patrols are supposed to be T45.It's just buggy,the same way you see some members with T51 armor and T45 helmet in patrols and sometimes in the bunker

THIS is the reason why the next Fallout game needs to essentially have a "background" selection, similar to the ones from Dragon Age. You could receive small mini-tutorials for any of the major factions you might want to choose (NCR, Legion, BoS, Enclave, etc.) Then go through a "growing up" process, unlike that super lame, weak-ass one in Fo3. Also, to the guy who said, try playing an Enclave supporter in Fo3, try doing so in NV! But yeah, I have to agree with OP's message here. I never really feel at all like I'm even remotely a member of the BoS, and can't even go around wearing their armor, since they apparently decided to try and declare war on all of the NCR. Who's idiot idea was that anyways? The BoS would never have wanted to openly engage surface dwellers, who don't even have anywhere near what they'd consider advanced weapons. 2nd worst idea, giving you PA that even wearing it will cause you to aggro half the damn game world! As for it being broken, meh. I had collected the other suits already, so once I got the broken armor I paid Raul to fix it to brand new, and voila...a fully functioning suit of PA (almost as good as a Death Star!)

You get several sets, though. Don't forget all the equipment from the Safehouse.
Also, you ARE an outsider, you weren't born in the bunker, you just know them for a couple of days. And they gift you ammo, too.


They BoS are a side-faction, and not protagonists. Get over it.

Backgrounds should be optional at most I feel.

I've always felt that PA is useless compared to Combat Armour Mk 2 in New Vegas.

Just curious, why do you feel that way? Would you not want to ally your character with any sort of group or faction early on? I would have thoroughly enjoyed if this had been a feature of New Vegas! Perhaps have certain rewards should you choose & stick with one certain faction the entire game (become a full on Elder with the BoS, gain a military rank in the NCR, etc.)

I feel that if it is implemented it should be optional because many people, including myself, prefer a character with no backstory so they can be roleplayed fully. Giving backstories, even if there's 50 of them to choose from, severely limits roleplaying.

What?
I doubt the developers would do that, that would make it impossible to get T51b without joining and then killing the Brotherhood of Steel which would be a very poor design choice.

If you do not know the West Coast BoS has a ton of T51b unlike Lyons' BoS which has none, not counting the Lone Wanderer.

Ahhh I see Lobotomite. Interesting answer. I also come up with RPing ideas/backstories for my character, but would myself like the option to if I wanted, ally early off with a single faction or another. I've always wanted to be able to ally with one of the more close minded groups, and steer them through the game towards a more rationale method of thought (BoS, Enclave, Legion, etc.)

I thought it was ok when you joined the BoS. The Knights like you and give you ammo. They're not the most friendly chapter.
They're not as smart as Lyons BoS. They risk dying out to follow the codex.

The armour they give is fine, theres stuff to fix it with and it can be repaired.
The enclave armour is better anyway.

Being a Enclave supporter in FO3 svcks. The plot is stupid. You can't side with them properly. They went so far demonising a awesome but evil faction and forcing you to side with the brotherhood of steel the story does'nt make sense. If you side with Eden and poison the water with F.E.V, he still dies.
It does'nt add up. Otherwise from the stupid plot, the Enclave are strong. You should be able to side with them properly.
It's like they assumed you wanted to be good in a game full of evil options.

The whole game is obbsessed with forcing you to follow a sappy plot that makes the most evil person a soppy daddys girl/boy. You can be the most evil person there, kill people, blow up megaton, enslave people, kill 3Dog, do every evil thing possible. But you still have to go find the stupid James and side with the BoS with no other option for the main plot.

Remember, Bethesda did not add them. That was the work of Obsidian.

And since you were forced to join the BoS in Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas toed the line in the other direction quite well to my thinking.

I actually really liked the growing up part in FO3, I thought it was a pretty cool way to segue into your character.

How else would you have done it?

This was intentional. It was a design choice to show that the Brotherhood doesnt always have the spare parts to go with the proper suits of armor. This is according to JE Sawyers Formspring by the way.

wow I like the sound of that.. they'll have to create some additional content/quests if they have make it possible to be a faction member right from the start as an option or an outsider as always but if they do it.. it could be nice