what's your favourite and what do you think looks best?

and what are the pro's and con's of each armor set stat-wise?

I'm still wearing my leather armor at level 28, because I always felt like the other ones do look worse, than the leather one

do I miss out on good stats this way?

is a full upgraded leather armor worse than f.e. a full upgraded metal armor?

I have a liking for the combat armour - it goes well with my character's military fatigues. However, I recently switched to a leather chest piece after finding one that gave some nice stat boosts.

My fav looking is heavy combat chest pieces with sturdy arms and legs, and having the shadowed mod so it's all black.

The metal would be by 2nd favorite though. I'm currently stockpiling any armor i find that is sturdy or heavy, so i can build a heavy raider and metal set. Also never really see the synth armors but we are still buddies so maybe that's why.

Leather= great energy dmg protection, mediocre physical dmg protection
Metal= great physical dmg protection, mediocre energy dmg protection
Combat= middle of the road, compared to the above.
Synth= have no field data yet, looks to be kinda weak compare to all above.

Looks wise I like metal, except the right arm, the slab around ya lower arm looks to bulky and ugly

Combat is a close second.

In terms of stats, Synth armor is better Leather armor. Like Leather Armor, it features higher Energy Resist than Ballistic Resist. However, both stats are higher on Synth Armor than on Leather Armor. Raider Armor and Metal Armor follow the same pattern: Metal Armor shares the bias towards Ballistic Resistance that Raider armor has, but it's stats are higher than on Raider Armor. Combat Armor is notable because it's Ballistic and Enegy Resistances are equal. In addition, while Metal and Synth armors have higher Ballistic or Energy Resist respectively, the Combat Armor is only behind by a couple of points per piece, so you lose very little (if anything) by using Combat Armor instead of something appropriate to the weapon type enemies are using. In addition, it's even resistances make it a set-it-and-forget-it armor: you don't have to change it to match what enemies are using, because it works equally well against pretty much anything.

All of this, of course, is exclusively based on stats, and my current character hasn't been keeping any armor (she's using Power Armor), so I can't get the upgraded stats. Everything I've said is based on the base stats given in the official guide. I tried to double-check the information with the stuff in the qasmoke cell, but the "All Armor" container doesn't actually contain all armor, so there were missing pieces. I apologize for that.

Playing in first person so I don't really care what it looks like until I get into a dialogue.

Then I am wearing a polished combat helmet and goggles (+1 PER) that look goofy.

I usually am wearing a mishmash of legendary perked up chameleon and pocketed armor pieces over a BOS jumpsuit.

Depends on if it's the light, medium or heavy variant of the various armors (some people don't even realize they exist, because the armor doesn't really tell you in the name - you have to look at the item stats). I think the leather chest armor looks decent enough, but I think the heaviest version of it looks silly. Same goes for the heaviest combat armor - makes your guy look like he's about 400lbs.

I prefer the synth chest piece, because you can still more or less see your clothes underneath. Beyond that, I've just got a mixture of combat armor and leather. I don't even bother with helmets - been weaing a minutemen hat and a red bandana on my face for about 45 hours now.

Full set of shadowed heavy combat armor gas been my go to since I got it, I'm slowing clearing areas in search of legendary versions. I was wearing armored military fatigues u der it but I like the look of the BOS uniform so rocking that in its place. Also modded the leg pieces for stealth (muffled) and the arms for recoil (stabilized), I'd have to say the armor mods help alot.

had been wearing combat armor, then was wearing outfits, then went back to armor with bw and legendary stuff. I like the look of the leather chest part just happens to be the best bonus one i have. Not into the look of the synth bracelets. 1 raider shoulder is cool 2 is over kill on the grated shielding.

I really like the look of combat armour, except for the helmet.

Why no sturdy and heavy helmets?

Why no full face helmets?

Military fatigues + combat armor + synth field helmet (the closed face one) = awesome. You end up lookin kind of like Crossbones: https://www.google.com/search?q=marvel+crossbones&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#imgrc=i1XtVA4HS14iWM%3A