One of the most useful elements of PA in FO3 was that it was powerful enough to carry its own weight around indefinitely. Now that they have switched to using short-lived Fusion Core "batteries", it seems to me that PA has become counterproductive. I mean that it weighs so much that once the battery runs out, the PA alone will pretty much wipe out whatever carrying capacity you have. Or else you are carrying soooooo many FCs that you can't carry anything else without becoming overburdened. It seems the natural strategy, given the scarcity of FCs, is to take off the PA and schlep it around until you know combat is imminent, then jump in and do the combat. But doing that means that between battles, you are guaranteed to be moving at overburdened speed if you want to pick up any amount of loot. (And, frankly, you absolutely WILL be needing to collect practically all the loot you can scavenge.)

Why not apply something like a solar collector coating so that the suit can at least recharge exhausted FCs to some extent during exposure to sunlight? Something to provide the player more user time before the PA becomes more of a burden and less of a combat benefit.

I think they should allow recharging the cores or a way to improve the efficiency of the armor or both. to many cores are wasted when bad guys are killed in power armor.

I've never played any of the Fallouts before this one. But the PA image is an icon of the Fallout series. Seems a shame if they have made it useless.

If by useless you mean nearly required for many builds in Survival mode, yeah

It's a godsend.

Get the rank 9 INT perk to make your cores last a lifetime.

Totally disagree, I have twenty seven cores for my Power Armor and they're easily replaced. The power of Power Armor in FO 4 makes earlier versions from FO 3 & NV look like tin foil cos-play.

Agreeing with your disagreement (I suppose that makes sense in a weird sort of way). Making Power Armor into something more than just fancy-graphics Heavy Armor was a good design choice, I think. I don't use it much at the moment, but having to replace the batteries seems fitting. I'm not sure about the "fusion cores only last 5 minutes" sort of thing unless someone's spending a lot of time sprinting. I think I used 20% or 25% of the first Fusion Core dealing with the stuff in Concord and then hoofing it back to Sanctuary Hills, but that suit's been mostly gathering dust. If I had to complain about Power Armor, it's that the game always wants to shove a 100% core into the armor, so I have to select the core that I want and transfer it into the suit's inventory before entering it.

Having no issues. Finding cores faster than I use them. I opened a cigarette vending machine and found 3 cores, for example. Found 2 in a dumpster. It seems like the chances to find them get higher when you are wearing PA. I've got 36 cores at last count.

I've stopped counting since.

Luck's still at 1.

How many cores a player finds is heavily dependent on the character's Luck value. Given how a character can keep boosting SPECIAL stats, I suppose having high Luck is just a matter of time -- and finding cores is no longer an issue. But if my 4 Luck 13th level character is any kind of benchmark, wherein in I have found _10_ cores to date, keeping the suit powered up will be problematic.

I find it more of a concern about how long one core will last. I did the battle in Concord and then schlepped stuff to Sanctuary. The first core ran out before I even got to the Red Rocket station. That reflects a 30-60 minute lifespan for the FC. What Military would send its soldiers into combat knowing that no more than 60 minutes in, the core WILL need to be replaced? (Noting that since the FC is in the back of the suit, the wearer would either have to crawl out of his suit -- and be totally unarmored in the middle of a firefight -- or else he would have to pray there was a buddy nearby to perform the swap for him. Both approaches are really stooooopid system maintenance approaches in my opinion.) Even in our modern day and age, Main Battle Tanks rely on tank transporters to haul tanks around between operations, to extend the tank's range limitation. However, in FO, it is up to character to haul around his PA everywhere.... and it's obvious that is done best from inside the suit.

I suspect that even at it's most frugal, the Military that created the PA suits would demand that FCs should last a minimum of 24 hours of operation before being exhausted. (One week actually seems more plausible.)

Responses to various concerns you've raised, in no particular order:

1. Fusion Cores are weightless. There is no "overburdened with Fusion Cores" to worry about.

2. The armor pieces may show up in your inventory, but they don't actually weigh anything unless you unequip them. The Power Armor Frame is supporting the weight of the armor pieces at all times, even when out of Fusion Cores.

3. Fusion Cores deplete more quickly when doing things that require AP, so if you're sprinting and using VATS and Power Attacks a lot, you'll slam through them quickly. On the other hand, if you walk everywhere and don't use VATS, you'll get more mileage out of them. Combine this with the Nuclear Physicist perk for long-lasting Fusion Cores. I cleared out Concord and walked back to the Red Rocket and only used up 10 of the 50 charge on the core from the Museum of History. Not something you complained about, but I'm throwing it out there anyway.

4. I've heard that Fusion Cores are rather common mid- to late-game. Not only can you find them, but they can also be bought. Spend the early game building up a supply of cores and a few ranks of the Nuclear Physicist perk, then don your Power Armor and enjoy it.

5. You can't carry around Power Armor at all. Oh, you can carry the armor pieces, but without a Frame, those pieces are dead-weight. And the Frame can't be put in your inventory, so there is no "carry the Power Armor in your inventory, then put it on when you need it", because the core item you need is back at base.

6. I wouldn't be using real life as a basis for your issues with Power Armor. While you do make excellent points, the fact is that this is a game, and certain realistic aspects were passed over for gameplay reasons. Saying that the military would never accept that short of a duration on the energy source for Power Armor may be true, but this isn't real life, and the military isn't evaluating the performance of the Power Armor.

The power armor I equip my companion in gets destroyed after pretty much every fight so there is only the frame left. Don't know if I want to bother equipping them in PA. Should ghouls, dogs and molerats even be able to put a dent in it? I have no problem aquiring cores, I have like 48 of them, and I have two points into the perk that increases their charge, plus I found a repair bobble head that increases the charge another 10%.

I have had zero issues with power cores, even without the perk that increases time, I barely notice i am using them, and if anything, the armor is MORE powerful then it was in previous games.

You're only level 13?

Friendo, you're not supposed to be able to reliably keep your armor active at that level. You either need alot of caps or alot of time to get a decent stockpile of Fusion Cores, and you're not likely to have either of those at level 13.

I think this system is great. Power Armor was in my opinion way too plentiful and easy to use in Fallout 3. Just make your way to the Citadel, get training, kill some Enclave soldier, take his armor and keep it repaired with armor from other soldiers you kill all over the Wasteland with zero negative drawbacks. Like OP said, it even gave the strength boost needed to carry its own weight. Or you could simply get the glitched Winterized T-51B PA from Operation Anchorage which had such massive health it never needed a repair.

To counter all that Bethesda understandably made PA quite underwhelming in FO3. It's strong, but it's not really that much stronger than Combat Armor. In Fallout 4 it's much stronger than anything else you could wear, but there are strings attached like needing Fusion Cores and repairing damaged parts. Great system imo.

I feel same way. I'm scared to use it cause I don't wanna burn thorough cores and have trouble using it when I need it. I wish you could just walk around in it and not expend power. Then when combat happens you go into some combat mode and power drains.

I'd say Fallout 4 makes Power Armor relevant again - after having it be near worthless in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Fusion Cores aren't all that rare, they're just uncommon enough that the idea of taking the Power Armor out for anything but specific missions is generally wasteful...which is fine to me. I took the Armor to clear out a Satellite station and wandered down to a pier to explore. I came home with half a charge on the fusion core left.

You forget an hour playtime is not an hour ingame. There is an ingame clock on your map and I wouldn't be surprised if the core lasts 24 hours according to that.

@OP

Power armour is beast in this game and I only needed to buy cores until level 12ish. Now I often find 6 cores at once (level 18) and basically wear the armour everywhere.

I've got the armor and used it only once. It went dead half way through the fight, and of course so did I. I'm kinda thinging I wish I could leave it parked with the arms outstretched, and that way I could use it for a coatrack. I mean, it'd be nice to get SOME kind of use out of it.

Those cores are as common as ghouls. While i'm not using it myself, seems to me that there'll be no shortage of them when i do.

And besides, only VATS is disabled when out of power and walking speed is very slow, but will still benefit from the protection and can fast travel, so i really don't see any problem with the power or running out of it

Fusion cores are easy to get and 1 core last a very long time. I have about 40 or so cores now. You can also buy them nearly every where.

I have found nearly 100 fusion cores just throughout the game world, they are hardly limited.

i like the design , but u need to be able to take it with u , the whole load another sector + walk to the power armor station + wait until u enter the power armor is tedious , i hope some friendly modder does a mod to take it with u soon , as of right now i am only using it when there is a deathclaw somewhere

I like the new power armour system, it feels like you're wearing some sort of impenetrable steel mech fortress, and as has been previously stated, fusion cores are not hard to come by, particularly if you hang around the Brotherhood. I have 39 in my inventory with the perk that makes them last twice as long, and at the rate I keep finding them, I don't think I'll ever run out. I also use a gatling laser which uses your suit's power as ammunition, so I've never had to buy ammo for it.

the nuclear physics perk helps ALOT it doubles your core output..., but if you dont feel like investing in INT that high later in the game you'll be swimming in caps and its fairly easy/plentiful to acquire. also, in the early stages if you go easy on VATS and running cores will last much longer - I havn't taken my power armor off since level 15 or so - now level 42

It's not useless. I am able to pretty much play the entire time in Power Armour. Now I just need some additional perks to make it even better and better.

I am actually running in full Charisma clothes underneath armor so when I need to get violent I get inside, when I need to talk I simply step out of it.

Charisma 13-15 (depends on what items I wear, my base is 9 CHA) Caps collector and I sell stuff at 80% value and buy at 120% value (that's the best you can get). That + settlements that make a lot of cash for me (so i can buy many fusion cores from NPCs) and Intelligence 9 Perk that makes Fusion Cores last 100% longer is pretty neat. Oh, also +10% Bobblehead.

To give you an idea. I buy fresh Fusion Core from vendor for 240 caps and I sell empty fusion core (0/100) for 160. That's cheap as hell and that's 1:1,5 ratio. So every 1,5 empty Fusion Core gives me 1 full.

ATM I have 30 Fusion Cores and I keep getting them faster than I can spend them with this setup. Going Intelligence/Charisma/Luck route and now want to take Armorer perks to upgrade PA more with Science + Armorer

It also fits my character pretty well. Smart, charismatic leader with luck. Outside of armor stuff tears me apart. I was so happy yday when I took my PA for a ride because I got attacked by Death Claw Alpha and right after that by normal Death Claw while being also shot by bandits. Death Claw Alpha's attack took ~10% of my HP in T-60b power armor so without it it would oneshot me

There actually is something like that but I think it restores APs faster.