When you say you have 19 Str, and 19 End, just curious, what is that coming from?

Yeah I agree it is BS that you are weaker (in some ways) when you get in PA, but I suspect that making all clothing, attribute and perk effects stack with Power Armor is the solution for that in mods?

Hmm. I'll respond point by point:

1. It should still be possible to sneak in PA. It should be hard, if it is something you're good at (Sneak Perk at high ranks), and nearly impossible to do anything but sit still if you don't have any. As it is, my stealth character playthrough could sneak in full X-01 nearly right up to people That shouldn't happen. At the same time, it shouldn't be impossible.

2. If you're going to increase the materials cost, I think it should vary based on model. T-45 should still be fairly cheap. The canon behind it is that it is machined and formed steel welded plate over the PA frame. It makes sense that it only takes steel and some circuitry and wiring to repair most of the time. Raider should be even cheaper. Just lots of junk steel, welding new plates over any holes that form. T-51 should ramp up considerably due to the composite nature of the construction (Plastic and Fiberglass). T-60 should just be more of the same, with higher numbers of material components. X-01 should be a pain. Nuclear Material, Circuitry, Copper, et al for the Torso, with the limbs needing what the vanilla torso required.

I don't see a need to make it particularly more durable. I feel it's in a pretty ok spot with regards to how survivable it is and how much damage it soaks up. Unless you're taking Missile Launcher shots to the chops, you can take a fair beating before getting redlined limbs. I can see it as a fair trade off to the higher maintenance costs, though. Depends on how you, as a mod author, feels about it.

3. There're enough frames in the game already. I modded in the 4K texture pack for the PA frame without thinking, loaded Sanctuary and my game reminded me I have over 20 frames in my garage there by dropping below 30FPS thanks to that mod stacking on my 4K poster mod and my 4K BOS uniform mod and my 4K pip boy mod.... etc. I had to pull it immediately. Yeah. There are more than enough frames in the world, and I don't feel the frames not being lootable is a major problem -- and feel like it's more about limiting the number of those objects in the world.

I don't like making the frame damagable. The armor itself already handles the mechanic for this and when you lose pieces you lose a considerable amount of durability. The frame itself only has 60DR on it, which will get you shredded at higher difficulties.

4. I do think FCs should probably be more expensive. As it I have no trouble buying 5-10 a day in my current playthrough which isn't quite done, and still having more caps at the end of the day than I started with. That's waaaaay more than I need, especially if I'm not using a Gatling Laser (I'm not). I'd increase base cost by 300% (720 cap minimum cost with max discounts). Enough that people could buy 1-2 a day on average and feel safe using their PA combined with world drops. If you increase it by 50x, people would just use their armor in a few missions here and there. Three times cost feels much more reasonable to me. You are boosting maintenance costs at the same time, after all.

5. The boost Heavy Weapons needs over the vanilla game is a slight default damage increase (especially to the Minigun and Flamer). Both chew through ammo too fast for too little return, and the ammo is not common. The 5mm is especially egregious by having Ammo that sells for 2-3 caps per bullet on average (takes huge charisma and discounts to get it to 1 per). That's a separate thing from Power Armor, as it should be perfectly viable to use a Minigun without power armor (look at Glory, after all).

The only thing I feel Power Armor should do for heavy weapons is to drop the speed decrease (beyond having a weapon out) given to you for having a heavy weapon in hand. The power armor shouldn't feel that extra heft.

6. I do not feel that this would accomplish what you're looking for. What it would do is create a character that could stack the effects of up to fifteen different objects on themselves. Depending on what other mods that they have, that could be 15 different legendary objects that we do not know the interactions of. IMO, I think the 'one or the other' approach is a fair one.

If you're looking for overall balance, this would make the game easier overall, not balance or make it more challenging. If you want the mod to provide this possible power level boost, then, by all means, proceed.

Summary -

I could definitely give a mod like that a spin to see if I liked it. I can't appraise that until I actually play it. OTOH, #6 could be a potential deal breaker for me. I don't like items that boost power unreasonably -- e.g.; I like a weapons overhaul mod that makes pipe weapons used against you more dangerous at later levels by making their stronger receivers a touch better, fixes the minigun's damage, and shrinks the benefit of using some Rifleman qualified guns so that others, such as automatics are more appealing.

OTOH, I do not enjoy mods that greatly increase a weapon's damage or an armor's protection without any sort of tradeoff, or rains free gear down on your head.

That's all my opinions, though. There's no right or wrong way to play. That's my way to play.

11 base


fortifying arms and legs, +4 str +4 end

captain hat +2 end

sunlight perk +2 str +2end

grognaks +2 str. 20% melee dmg.


I also run armoured dirty army fatigues with fortified raider chest for the biocom mesh boost. That gives you 19str/20end and tons of armour. or use commando helm for 10% ap reduction and give up the sweet captain's hat.

Solar Powered works in Power Armor. I know. I've used it.

So that helps.

Ultimately it's a tradeoff. Durability vs raw Damage output.

I guarantee you the PA is far tougher. If you take the same Chems you have the same reaction times, though the duration's a little shorter (Chemist still helps with that). The extra HP you're getting is not going to be equal to the 1,925 that top tier X-01 provides, nor the absolutely huge DR.

I do not argue, though, with the fact that Unarmed can far exceed PA's unarmed output if you have something nice like a Power Fist or a Deathclaw gauntlet and max out your strength. Those knuckles just don't have the raw base damage stats to catch up.

Hopefully within a couple months of the GECK getting released I will have a mod up on Nexus that will change this. My inclination is to just make everything that you wear stack, along with all attributes and perks that one should reasonably benefit from even while wearing PA, albeit with all the sundry tradeoffs I listed above. Heck there might already be a mod that does a lot of this that someone made with FO4edit.

I think the way Bethesda did PA in vanilla is fine and it totally makes sense from a maximum market penetration viewpoint. The typical user who just wants to jump on the game and play it for a couple hours (and maybe a grand total over their entire period of use getting to ~50 hours) probably does not want to bother with a lot of constraints and tradeoffs with PA. The vanilla game strikes that balance just fine.

But for the mod-using community, I suspect a rebalance mode that initially just makes changes to a lot of these attribute values and/or makes a few of the functionalities work differently will be sufficiently popular to motivate me to keep adding to it and trying to get the more advanced stuff to work too. Power Armor should be both _INCREDIBLY_ bad ass and _PROHIBITIVELY_ expensive to run and maintain for anyone who is not BoS or a "Super Hero/ Hobo Murderer."

One thing I don't see mentioned often, is that if you finish with the Institute you get a nice X-01 paint job. Unfortunately you don't get it till right at the end of the main story.

I think I'm just gonna have to disagree on this one, and point out that, it is completely incongruous with other existing game elements. Like you, I have noticed that my sneaking seems very effective in PA, even without a stealth boy.

Consider that, bulkier armors in general are purported to reduce sneakiness, and there are various mods for standard layer armor pieces that are meant to buff them and reduce this negative effect on sneaking. Given this, and the fact you can HEAR the damn suit clunking and churning as you walk, it just does not make sense to me at all that there is ANY option to sneak in Power Armor (or to get the stability/accuracy boost from crouching either) short of flicking on a Stealth Boy. The suit is enormous, it must weight 2000 if not 3000 pounds, it makes noise and unless the mechanisms that translate your movements into the movements of the suit are extremely advanced it should largely negate one's agility.

I do hope to make mods that are popular and exemplify good design though, it isn't just "for me." One aspect of good game design when it comes to controversial points or ones where there are differing opinions is to include "options." So as long as I can figure out how to do it (which presumably will just be a matter of time spent trying to figure it out) I am happy to include an "options" pane where players can turn on/off such things

Good to know this is one thing for which an on/off toggle might be appreciated.

Ah good feedback, thanks! Okay, maybe a graduated scale of repair cost with T-45 having the lost multiplier and the X-01 having the highest. For the Durability, it just seemed 'reasonable' to up it at least a bit given I'm talking about rather large increasing in building costs and other constraint. Still My inclination is to start out at about 300% repair costs for the lowest tier T-45 and to go up from there. The goal I'm striving for here is to make Power Armor feel "Special" not just run of the mill.

The goal would be to make "wearing power armor" less of a general "anyone can do this, as long as you find enough fusion cores" option and more something you really have to build a playthrough around, while simultaneously providing enough benefits that it remains a very worthwhile strategy to take. Basically make it less appealing to a player build in general but even more appealing for a specialist build.

It is a good point about the frames being abundant, but really what I was thinking is that: it just doesn't make _sense_ that I can magically make a machine gun or laser turret out of spare parts and junk, but I cannot loot and scrap power armor frames. Eventually I hope to have a mod in which virtually anything you use has "degradation" and requires upkeep (weapons, clothing, armor) so making PA frames degrade too would be part of that. Again, an "options" category with several choices: "Vanilla/ Only Weapons / Only Normal Armor / Weapons & Armor / Weapons, Armor and PA Frames / Everything" seems like a good plan.

However the thing here will be: if Power Armor pieces and frames _are_ scrappable at the bench (which I would intend to make them), then making your PA Frame "not" degradable might lead to excesses of materials . . . Within reason, I'm happy to try to include some simple on/off switches for options, but with the caveat that "the mod overall was not designed to support all settings equally."

As far as "how" you would scrap them (given I'd also like to make all weights and material values more closely in line with reality) . . . I am guessing I will have to incorporate something like a courier system that builds off of one's allied settlements. I don't recall much about that from FONV but something along those lines presumably. So, "looting" a PA Frame would ideally NOT be so simple as: you see the PA Frame item in the dead person's inventory, you click it and you get a weightless items in your inventory equivalent to the "Power Armor Frame shipment" you can buy from vendors. Rather it would be a matter of arranging for a courier or something to be with you and you assign them to tote it to an allied Power Armor bench. Related to this, making any Power Armor Frame that is in range "collapsible into" the work bench might be a nice feature, and then the ability to scrap the frame once it is in there.

Definitely good input. I think it would need testing to decide what was the best number to plug in, but I'd like to error on making it truly "prohibitive" to imagine for anyone except the sole survivor or the BoS, or the occasional raider lord to be able to afford it. 5000% might be too high, but my initial reaction is 300% is too low. The ideal would be to make it _TRULY_ constraining to use the stuff, but also truly _POWERFUL_ a true game changer, albeit at a cost that is also a "game changer" in the opposite direction.

At present, Power Armor is powerful (maybe not as powerful as it should be but definitely powerful), far too versatile, far too cheap and easy to use. My goal would be to make it much MORE powerful (in those dimensions where it really should shine: tanking, environmental protection, and firepower) while also making it much more constraining and costly (NO sneaking else VERY expensive Stealth Boy use; no aimed shooting without a very expensive HIC mod, etc; extremely expensive fusion cores, etc.)

Well, I'm not talking about making it _less_ possible to use heavy weapons without power armor (which arguably _should_ be the case at least for the mini-gun) but rather to make it "more" beneficial to use them while wearing PA than not. Heavy weapons are, well HEAVY! The produce more recoil and in the case of a mini-gun, possibly a lot of angular momentum which the user would experience as twisting or jerking. The game mechanics basing Heavy Weapon use on STR acknowledge this, and my intent is to elaborate on this existing game "design logic" by accentuating the benefits of using heavy weapons while wearing PA.

I look at this way: if you are wearing something, that somehow boosts your STR and END or your INT and CHA or offers you protection, it should very likely continue to do so just as effectively when you get into a car, or mount a motorcyle or otherwise enter any vehicle. If you are going to be shot at, would you rather be naked inside an armored car, or would you rather be fully armored inside an armored car?

Nothing about being inside an armored vehicle (even one that was tailored to fit closely around the human body) should "negate" the beneficial effects of clothing (or performance enhancing drugs, etc.) in real-life and apart from "game balance" it is difficult to discern any legitimate reason for doing so in the Fallout game world.

Perhaps it will make PA totally OP, but my gut instinct is to make it realistic, as realistic as possible, and then tailor the other constraints, costs and tradeoffs as a way to balance, instead of applying a magical NERF to gear worn while inside a suit of Power Armor. With these comments in mind, perhaps it might make more sense why I'd be inclined to make fusion cores extremely expensive and PA maintenance also very expensive?

Point #5 - Just to reclarify what I meant is... I think the weapons themselves need the buff. PA benefits by having the sheer carrying capacity to handle them.

Heavy Weapons also have an additional movement penalty (over the normal) for having the weapon out and ready. That should be removed in PA, absolutely, as the PA doesn't feel the heft like a human would.

Other things you could consider would be adding a new mod to the arms that could reduce recoil. That I feel would be a good PA specific ability, with an ostensible cost of creating and installing the mod into the arm(s). Combined with Steady Aim and Heavy Gunner, the recoil should be near nil, as the suit is essentially locking at the elbows.

The additional benefit of adding a mod is that currently, a ranged oriented character in PA that doesn't care about being good at melee will often not even bother modding the arms as they are so melee oriented. Meanwhile the Torso and Legs can be useful for either type of character.

Point #6 -

Yeah, the affects of clothing and gear not affecting the player while in the PA is a strictly game balance concern. There is no logical reason that they are removed. You can't even say the PA does all the lifting for you (in regards to Strength) as things like Solar Powered, Buffout, and anything else of that nature affects your Strength score while in the PA, but your Strength 19 as our fellow poster pointed out doesn't.

On the topic of heavier weapons and PA...it would be fun to use the flamethrower at some point, if I could get my hands on it. Just go around burning all who stand in your way.

At Sauguss Ironworks, in the hands of Forged, you'll find a bunch and fuel to run it. You just have to kill them.

The flamer's an OK trash cleaner. It'll kill underleveled mooks pretty fast. Against anyone with real HPs and real Energy Resist, it will take forever to burn them down, with the enemy beating on you the whole time.

Essentially, if you're not cleaning ghouls or molerats out, it's not worth the inventory space. It's bad. Really, really bad.

(And in the case of Ghouls -- Charred Ghouls don't even really seem to feel it. They have really high resists and require real stopping power to drop.)

I wish the flamer was not such a POS. I am cool with it being as it is for the vanilla model, but it should have a lot more tiers of mods, and some of them should be truly badass. The flamer is just such an archetypically savage weapon that seems to fit in FO universe.

Even compared to their real life counterparts the range is ridiculously low and the damage is also ridiculously low. That stuff STICKS to you and burns you to a crisp wherever it gets on you. The way it is depicted in game its like a glorified blowtorch.

ADDIT: and BTW, BlitzGirl sorry to fill your thread with OT stuff about modding, but I pounce when I see a conversation with participants who take an interest in a topic Given you are just trying PA for the first time, your perspective on the types of changes I'm projecting might be particularly instructive as you get enough experience using PA in game to reflect on it.

Haha, no worries. Unfortunately, I have the game on a PS4, so no modding for me. And if they do release modding on consoles, I may go for only superficial ones (such as dressing up Danse however I want. That armor gets in the way sometimes).

There used to be the pyro perk which I loved as it made molitovs, flamers and Shishkabobs much more useful.

There's only one true mod for Danse's appearance:

http://images.techtimes.com/data/images/full/177105/this-fallout-4-buzz-lightyear-mod-allows-players-to-take-paladin-danse-to-infinity-and-beyond.png?w=600

I realized that the advice I gave wasn't very good. Oh, it's great for the way I play the game, but not everyone plays the game the way I do. I took another look at things, and my advice is as follows:


With any high rank perk, you need to consider how you play the game, and whether the cost of getting the perk is worth the effects it will have on your game. In the case of Nuclear Physicist, you need to look at the actions that consume AP, and how often you utilize them. If you're regularly sprinting and using VATS, you're going to be putting a huge drain on your Fusion Cores, so it would be a good idea to pick up the perk, preferably as soon as possible. In that case, I would suggest setting your Intelligence to 9 and making it one of the first perks you get.


Now, Pain Train is a different story. In this case, though, it's not a problem with the perk itself, but with it's cost. Setting your Strength to 10 isn't a huge issue; it's only marginally worse than setting Intelligence to 9 for Nuclear Physicist. The problem is that Pain Train requires you to Sprint, which puts more drain on your Fusion Cores. Because of this, you're going to want Nuclear Physicist. The problem is that setting your Strength to 10 AND your Intelligence to 9 leaves you with only 4 points to distribute between 5 attributes. In other words, the opportunity cost to use Pain Train efficiently is too high to build your SPECIAL around it at the start of the game. Yes, you have the option to drop Intelligence to reduce the cost, but with no boost to Core duration, you're going to have to buy Fusion Cores more often in the early game. Because of this, I consider Pain Train a late-game perk; something that you take later on when you've got a lot of Fusion Cores, multiple ranks (if not all ranks) of the Nuclear Physicist perk, and a steady income to buy Fusion Cores with.


Strong Back is similar to Pain Train: higher opportunity cost makes it less of a must-have perk and more something you spec into later. The opportunity cost for Strong Back isn't as high, of course, but 6 Strength and 9 Intelligence still leaves you with only 8 points to distribute. Definitely more workable than Pain Train, but not quite as well-rounded as I'd like, though that's a personal preference issue.


Anyway, that's my input. Hopefully it's less me-centric than before.

I think you're touching on something that's a good idea to think about --

What are the perks that are ok to hold off on till later and which are the ones you need early?

I'd argue that both Nuclear Physicist and Pain Train can wait. So much so you can start with lower SPECIAL stats in this categories and wait to boost them at a later level.

I feel Strong Back is important. It is one of those things that doesn't make a huge difference on any one thing, but adds up immensely over the course of the game, like Scrapper and Local Leader. Getting 25 or 50 more pounds of junk every time you haul your stuff home means you have more and more and more material throughout the game to work with to upgrade your armor, weapons, and build your towns. It's also not hugely expensive at 6 Strength.

My current playthrough I started with the SPECIAL stats of:

Strength: 8 (Strong Back and Steady Aim early - not far from Pain Train - high melee damage)

Perception: 1 (increased to 2 by bobblehead so I could get Rifleman for early levels)

Endurance: 5 (for Chem Resistant and Aqualad)

Charisma: 5 (easily pushed to 6 with SPECIAL Book for Local Leader)

Intelligence: 5 (grabbed bobblehead to push to 6 for SCIENCE!)

Agility: 1 (suffered through having a fairly small AP pool for a while)

Luck: 3 (Bloody Mess to boost damage)

Depending on your build, you can definitely move that around. If you want someone that's more of Rifleman and less of a bruiser (more like an old fashioned tank from MMOs), then invest heavily into Endurance and Perception and leave strength at a mediocre value (enough for Armorer). Being the super hard to kill guy with a Gauss Rifle is certainly viable (and costs fewer perk points).

No, the most ridiculous heavy weapon is maxed Heavy Weapon and Explosives perks, a Fatboy Launcher with the Two Shot Legendary Tag, the M.I.R.V. upgrade and MacReady's Perk.

I'll take V.A.T.S.ing and head-shotting somebody with a shotgun-like nuclear missile with deadly accuracy at long range for 50 caps, please and thank you. With the spread inherent in the M.I.R.V. version of the Fatboy Launcher and the insanity of the damage a single shell does with the Heavy Weapon and Explosives perks, there is nothing, nothing in the game that can withstand that kind of punishment, especially when the shell(s) are almost guaranteed to land on their head and do their ballistic damage first ...