I think that this might be an interesting way to customize characters. Perhaps some armors could be broken down at workbenches and then the parts could be used to mod other outfits. I know that Tailormaid and other things KIND OF do this, but it doesn't affect the actual armor you're wearing and has never really felt complete for me. Unfortunately I don't really have the time to create such a mod, so I hope that it will be taken up by others. :unsure2:

Are you talking about purely visual mods? Armor doesn't really have the variety of statistics to change as weapons do. In fact, other than slowing wear, I can't think of anything that wouldn't be exactly the same if you equipped it as a separate item.

For the visual side, you'd have to export the models to a modeling application, cut them up, and reimport them separately. If you find someone who can do that, then you can just make them Tailor Maid pieces. Any incompleteness is entirely a function of the assets in use, not the mod.

It can increase damage threshold, and resistance to crippled limbs. It can reduce penalties caused by the armor. It would make a unique armor. And it would mean no clipping. It would be a big effort, but it certainly isn't impossible.

Right, reducing penalties caused by the armor, I forgot about that one. Everything else you mentioned (DT, Resistance to crippled limbs) would work exactly the same as separate pieces, with the benefit of actually being possible (I'm fairly sure the weapon mod system is harcoded, though I could be wrong). And again: You can make Tailor Maid pieces that fit together perfectly exactly as easily as you can with any other system, it's entirely dependent on the assets to match up. If you're talking about making completely unique, single-mesh assets for every combination of armor mods and armors... good luck with that.

Other possible things it could add

- rad resistance (filters, sealing, etc.)
- slower food/water/sleep loss in hardcoe (water recovery systems, stimulant pumps,etc.)
- fire resistance (asbestos linings, coolant, etc)
- increase speed (better fitting, springy boots)
- increase skills (stabilizing gauntlets, medical gloves, etc.)

There are a lot of things that you could do with this sort of thing.

Modding the armor itself is simply a matter of either adding non-clipping elements (which is fairly easy) or creating replacement copies of the garment where clipping would be visible (replacing boots and things).

Its an interesting idea.

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying there's nothing you can put on armor that is useful, I was merely pointing out that armor itself has very few statistics for mods to modify. Anything that does not change a part of a specific piece of armor will function the same if it's a mod or a separate item, so there's no reason to complicate things.

I like this idea. Especially if it incorporates things found around the wasteland. One thing that comes to mind is the stop sign nightkin have wrapped around their arm. could add some protection from limbdamage perhaps.. maybe slap on some scrap electronics + tesla armor visual effect and melee and unarmed attacks suddenly do slight damage to the attacker.. As Weirwynn says it would be a lot of work to set up meshes for all combinations, but the Wapon Mod Kits mod for fallout 3 did just that..

Also, not all upgrades have to show up as changes in the mesh. Changing the texture of armor could show it has been upgraded to more resistant plating etc. One power armor overhaul i saw added nightvision to some armors. Haven't tested this mod, but to make somethign like that visual, it could be a matter of simply adding a bit of green glow to the visor.

I was thinking the same about WMK.
Oh, and some upgrades might not need texture OR meshes... like under-armor. Some cool things could probably be added, like dye. That wouldn't facilitate changes to the mesh.
Headwear could be tweaked as well, to put goggles on it, or glasses (on top or on the eyes). Then headwear with goggles could be broken down into the headwerar itself AND the goggles. One problem I foresee is how to actually do it... I'm not sure if it's even possible to use the weapon mod system to mod armor, and using the workbench and campfire would mean creating countless combos that would clog up the menu. So that's a problem. :facepalm: