So, yeah. The Enclave didn't actually create vertibirds as a post-war thing, or their mk2 power armor in fact, as both show up as pre-war relics. Have there been many conversations on how to reconcile these issues, rather than seeing them as retcons?

I have a few ways I have sorted them out. For the power armor; it's the frame and power source that the Enclave mostly created. A superior and tougher frame, and a single power source that removes reliance on Energy Cores. As for the armor, they used the same visual design as the X, but used superior materials. That works for me as a simple one. I see the Commonwealth as simply having a wealth of inferior frames and models, and that the energy Core design is an outdated frame that has all but been phased out elsewhere. Maybe retcon that the T-45D in FO3 was also supposed to use them, but it was handled off-screen, because I can't see how to reconcile their use of the more primitive armor in 3 and the power requirements in 4. In short, I simply assume that all the armor we see prior to Fallout 4 (for the most part) are superior models, made in the last years/months of the war, and the inferior (power core requiring) ones have long been taken apart for parts.

The vertibirds are perhaps a little easier. The Enclave Vertibirds? There were too few to rely on in war, impossible to make in any number that make it worthwhile to waste materials and manpower, and tough enough they they are kept closer to home (the Citadel) for defensive purposes. These Vertibirds in Fallout 4 are actually what the West Coast Brotherhood came up with for their war with the NCR, using improvements from the plans taken from Navarro and compromised to be useful to a faction that has less resources; for the body/hull, they used the pre-war versions and designs. I can see the Brotherhood raiding old airbases, taking the old pre-war shells, and refurbishing them. Maybe even using pre-war factories (and materials from the Pitt?) to make new ones in small numbers.

in short; the Enclave armor kept the look of the pre-war cream of the crop armor, but it's still a new creation in all but aesthetics. The vertibirds the Brotherhood rely on are refurbished, albeit upgraded, pre-war models salvaged from airbases. The Enclave ones are too precious to throw away on operations.

It's all basically headcanon, but I hope reasonable. It's not like we were given a great deal to work with.

Has anyone else come up with anything? It's nice to have several explanations beyond 'lol, retcon!".

The power armor is easy enough to explain. The enclave probably didn't make, it was an advanced prototype being worked on, the enclave packed them up with all the blueprints before they went to the oil rig.


The vertibird is the same deal, the enclave packed away a large amount of them with the blueprints to produce after the war. General chase said they were used in anchorage but it's not known if that was a fabrication.

They were likely getting deployed a few months before the Great War.


Also on the power core it could be:


1. Gameplay balancing

2. Power cores last 200 years and it's been 210


And the frames make senses as the power armor has to be held up on something besides a recon suit you would need the frame to keep the weight from crushing you.

Enclave built its own Vertibirds, based on pre-war Vertibirds. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive.

I think the most popular explanation people give is that the batteries in PA are supposed to last for two centuries. Since around this much time had passed, many of th PA now need Fusion Cores.

Granted, it's not like having hem here means that they weren't used in earlier Fallouts. FO4 just shows PA control in detail while earlier games just showed it in action (so the player character collects and uses Fusion Cores without player noticing it, like how they eat and drink without player doing anything).

As far as the X-01 goes, I take it that the Enclave and the Military Remnant based the PAs on the same blueprints (which would explain aesthetics) and the Military Remnant had access to more progressed research while the Enclave had to start from the scratch.

The Enclave's creation of the APA hasn't been retconned at all. One of the slides specifically mention it was created by "Post war remnants of the U.S. Military" which is obviously referring to The Enclave.

Someone mentioned in another thread that in fact the X-01 is random loot in all locations its found aside from the Prydwen, which is the only 'for sure' static location to find a piece of the armor. Which makes sense, given that The BOS defeated The Enclave. Every other location depends on your level IIRC.

The armor probably in lore is just in the hidden base under the shack in the glowing sea. in game for convenience it can spawn in a few places.

Isn't the Enclave usually referred to as the Government Remnant rather than the Military Remnant?

Randomness is not so black&white here. Or more exactly, it isn't random but dynamic: it will always appear in certain locations (most popularly the 35 Court), but only if you are at certain level in order to preserve the game balance.

Both. The EUSA's government is directly descendant from the U.S. Government, and its military is the remnants of the United States armed forces.

APA was likely funded and developed by the Enclave's Department of Defense, which means that remnants of the U.S. military did indeed design it.

The location still is not static. Making it random loot.

The fact is that there is no *sure* location in-game to find X-01/APA armor aside from The Prdywen. Its dependent on your level. So the suggestions that it is now a pre-war armor because you can find it in pre-war locations aren't true.

That's a good point it might just be in game because it's cool.

Yeah, I've never found a piece of X-01 armor in a spot that I could absolutely confirm hasn't been touched since before the war. In fact, I'm not sure there are any spots where we know we're the first ones to visit since the war.

The most significant location for X-01 armor is 35 Court; it's still level-scaled, but that's the only place to get a confirmed set of X-01 Mk. II Power Armor so long as you're past level 28. It's probably only level scaled to keep people from making a beeline to 35 Court and finding some exploit to cheese the security (as of 1.3, that security is nothing if you have even one rank of Robotics Expert). My guess is, the Enclave had outposts or at least scouting parties in several parts of America, and then of course the scattered remnants from Adams Air Force Base had to go somewhere. Every time I find a frame with X-01 pieces on it, I feel like I've found a ghost.

Fusion Cores, I feel like I'm more open to just calling that a retcon added for gameplay reasons. One that I http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/8294/? to reconcile; curiously, I get the strangest feeling that at some point in development they planned on later models not consuming Fusion Cores, or at least consuming them at a slower rate. In the pre-release E3 gameplay footage, when they showed off the Power Armor crafting, the T-45 Torso had a stat that didn't appear on any other torso: "PA Bat Dam Rate". As in, Power Armor Battery Damage Rate. It leaves a little bit to speculate on.

Not static =/= random. It would be random only if the pieces there are taken from a randomized list of items. Which it by all accounts doesn't seem to be.

I'm not debating that it definitely isn't created by the Enclave. But my problem is: there is no strong evidence that it was done by the Enclave either. The Military Remnant can, in Boston's case, mean anything (some even theorize that the Gunners are the Military turned mercs) and there is absolutely no signs (yet alone evidence) of Enclave ever having outposts or a presence in the Commonwealth. However, we do have evidence that the Boston Military survived the war and continued being active.

Or in short, the Military Remnant can refer to either:

1. the Enclave who never seem to have been in the Commonwealth

Vs.

2. the Boston military that definitely survived the great war as hinted on several places

When I compare the two possibilities in the context of Boston, I can hardly see it being the first. I agree that option 1 would make more sense for the PA and make the whole matter simpler, but a FO4 loading screen is more likely to refer to something from FO4 than from the earlier games. It would also be horribly misleading to new players.

Hm, yeah, a lot of this makes sense - except the armor placement having anything to do with the Enclave. I think the idea that they took the schematics and improved on them is more realistic, and that it was a very rare and unrefined model in the last days before the war.

My reasoning? Pipe weapons being everywhere, by corpses who were supposedly using them as the bombs fell, and in containers that haven't been touched since before the bombs fell. It seems to just have been the people put to work setting up the world have been lazy. That, or the people of Boston have far too much interest in building home made firearms.

The game has plenty of screw ups, sadly, that have to be either retcons or thought around. Such as pre-war Jet. Easy enough; Myron found an old recipe, used available methods to recreate it (i.e. fungus fed brahim crap fumes) and took all the credit for inventing it.

If I go to one of those locations early on in the game. I won't find X-01 armor. I'll find something else. Thus, its no different then finding a large gun in a bloatfly corpse or find some other piece of post-war equipment in a pre-war place. If its not a static drop, then it can be safety disregarded as a source of lore.

I don't see it being a reasonable assumption that a separate contingent of the U.S. military developed a separate model of power armor that just so happened to look exactly like the armor developed by The Enclave. The screen specifically mentions it was made post-war, not that it was based on a pre-war design.

Aside from that, I guess I'll just bank on the hope that Bethesda didn't do something as stupid as retconn APA's origins for no real reason and without giving any kind of firm explanation to it.

That one can at least be explained when you consider "Pipe gun" can just be replaced with "Homemade weapon" of which there was probably plenty of during the pre-war years what with the food riots, civil unrest, and veritable martial law in some places.

The fact that all pipe-weapons/homemade guns look alike can just be chalked down to gameplay as well.

as lt andronicus says, the prwyden is the only place you will get X01 PA regardless of your level

every single other place you have all found X01 PA is because you were high enough level to get it. If you start another game and try all those places again at low level you will get different type

court 35 is not the only guaranteed full suit of X01 (at appropriate level) the national guard training yard in the outside by the shipping containers has a full suit (once again level dependant)

also easier to get as nothing tough to fight

a few ghouls and couple of turrets vs assualtron and sentry bot

the pipe weapons dont make alot of sense at times as there is a few places that most definitely have not been entered since the nuclear war yet have soldier skeletons with pipe guns and/or obviously government/vault tec scientists with them too (and in containers)

those sorts of places should have them removed from loot table, 10mm's instead

the enclave is not actually remnants of US government and military, it is the remnants of top ranking government officials and members of various elite military branches aswell as some of the most powerful members of the most powerful private corporations

they would of known of, been in charge of , approved and developed any and all military experiments and materiel such as the vertibird which was in prototype phase before the war the peeps who made up the enclave would not only been aware of it they would of funded/developed/designed/experimented/tested it, they would of also had access to the plans.

being they had their poseidon oil rig set up before the great war its no great stretch that they had all their experimental documentation/plans stored there aswell.

in FO2 you steal vertibird plans for both the shi and the brotherhood and the NCR captured some from navarro so there will be plenty west coast

in FO3 the enclave had tonnes of them at adams airforce base that the brotherhood got their grubby little hands on, it would also make sense that they could of got the plans for them aswell as having access to spare parts and possibly even manufacturing plant from the base too

unfortunately personally i think that the X01 was just chucked in as "something cool" without thought and reason behind it