In FO3 and NV I was not a big PA user. Well, in FO3 I enjoyed the glitch where if you had a set of identical armor in your bag, IT degraded, not the set you were wearing, however I tried to kill the Mirelurk Queen at level 14 and got hammered. Came back at 20 this time with my PA and a minigun. Bye Bye queen.

There's a reason you get it so early. It's basically a tutorial. With (most likely at that time) so few power cores on you, I doubt you'd make great use of it in the early game.

I like the fact you now have to pick & choose when to use the armor I also like the fact it runs on a resource tho that resource seems to deplete a bit to quickly and I love the fact you can mod it the way you want.

The only thing I dislike about it is the actual armor pieces that you attach to the exoskeleton don't seem to hold up as well as I think they should a single part of my PA has a value of 10 X my entire armor value when not in PA but folds under fire faster than I do wearing my normal un-powered armor I also noticed my carry weight actually goes down LOL when in PA

I don't think it is overpowered. Yes you have high damage resistance, but if you get 3 or 4 Super Mutants walloping on you and you cannot really get out of their line of fire (not to mention that dodging will be more difficult than if you were not wearing it) you are going to take some serious damage to pieces of your suit. It affords a much higher level of survivability in extremely hot engagements, but it also comes with considerable costs. If you do not have extra fusion cores, or the caps to buy them (or haven't got to a town with merchants that sell them) plus enough steel to repair, then you are only going to get one maybe two really intense engagements out of it (_maybe_ three) and it is broken.

I also do not see the problem with having suits laying around, the cinematics we get are showing squads of U.S. infantry with at least one power armor soldier in the team. If there are several divisions that have multiple full battalions of such infantry, that is a LOT of power suits that could have been scattered all of the Commonwealth as the nuclear phase of the Great War unfolded. We are also led to believe that the active combat zone in the conentional part of the war either included part of the Commonwealth, all the Commonwealth, or had in the recent past prior to the nuclear attacks. With these points in mind, one could argue that there should be MORE power armor, combat gear, etc. laying around. But then it has been 200 years and survivors have assuredly been scouring the landscape for stuff to use in their struggle to survive.

I have like 8 suits now. One BOS, one Enclave(?), about 5 I found at roadblocks, and one I grabbed off a raider (which looks madmax cool). And almost 100 cores, they are *everywhere*. Could play the entire game in a suit, but that would kind of ruin it :/

Power armor is WAY TOO OP! I am playing on survival and am already wrecking almost everything not wearing it... If i wear power armor I feel like Hercules fighting small children.

I absolutely love the game but they should make fusion cores much rarer... I have like 70 of them I don't use. They should be very hard to get and saved up for hard encounters.

I found a T-60 version that needs a helmet and a leg and also found a set of T-51 armor close by. Here's the locations if you want them:

I found them somewhat underwhelming. I like to loot everything and it turned out you cant really carry much more with power armor on. These things run on nuclear energy... I should be able to pick up a car and take it home to recycle. These things are so wimpy they might as well be solar powered especially since all the armor works without the core anyway... Also power armor parts only weigh about twice as much as metal armor but have 10x-15x as much protection. A high strength character might as well just wear them instead of metal.

Otherwise they look cool but I never needed it for anything.

I like it better than the PA in Fallout 3 or NV. It makes you feel like a juggernaut and not just someone wearing heavy armour, and the fact you have to climb into the frame before using it.

I can't wait to find all suit models and have them on display at my base.

I love it makes me feel empowered to just destroy anything I see.

I don't use it. I didn't use it in Fallout # or NV either.

The best change to the game mechanics. Can't wait to try out the jetpack

I love it. The look and feel is just perfect. The entry animation is exciting. I normally don't use power armor in F3/NV, as I prefer light armor. I actually use my power armor in F4, but sparingly. I pull it out for the few missions that give advance warning you're going in to some rough stuff. I feel like iron man then! I really love collecting and modifying power armor, paint jobs and all. I've got 13 of them lined up in a big shed I made. I've spent far more time collecting and modifying the armor than actually using it.... so fusion cores are non-issue for me.

You can modify the legs with some speed boost I think. If you're going to abide by a self-imposed 'no fast travel' rule, then I'd recommend modding the game to reduce power armor energy consumption to balance with that self-imposed rule. I saw a mod for it up on the nexus. It's probably just a simple console command anyway (some mods are just console command scripts). Alternatively, self impose a rule where you additem another fusion core every time to you find one.

I never bothered with the PA in other games. It didn't feel... special? Right? Not sure how to put it, but it felt meh to use so I didn't. But now it feels right. You are a walking tank and it shows. I only wish the HUD would change when your helmet was busted or not equipped.

I'd also like to see a set of power armor built for construction site use. I know it wouldn't be lore friendly, But that dirty yellow and black, on heavy blocky design (Like a PA made sweet love to a front end loader) is a mix I very much would like to see.

Never use it.

I've always played Fallout(s) as a sneaky sniper talk-my-way-out-of-trouble type, and PA just doesn't fit with that persona.

I didn't even use it in Concord, just put it on and took it off straight away to trigger the quest stages.

I did try it, but got my ass repeatedly handed to me on a plate by the Deathclaw, so after a few gruesome deaths and quickloads I decided I needed a new strategy.

I stayed on the roof and sniped all the raiders, then patiently chipped away at the Deathclaw until he finally croaked it.

The PA is parked in Sanctuary as a memento, and as an illustration of the folly of mankind.

Hopefully I'll never need it, but it's there if I do...

And I've got my trusty hazmat suit for those nasty gamma rays.

I like the idea of it using up power but I end up selling the power armor cause I find ammunition more useful than a suit I can only use for a short time.

I agree with some of the points made about it needing a bit of tweaking. But overall, I think the consensus that is emerging in this thread is that it is pretty damn cool, it isn't grossly overpowered (powered yes, but as I said it has significant constraints), but could use a bit of 'balancing' on the stats.

I think that the following might be good changes:

1. Increase the steel required to fix it to anywhere from 4 to 10. Right now, even if it is completely 'broken' it takes only 4 steel, and perhaps some other components. Making it more expensive to fix it might be good balance. One point of note here, it seems that, if it is only slightly damaged it costs 4 steel to fix it, if it is totally damaged it seems to only cost 4 steel, plus (in some cases) other components. I think a minimum of 4 steel is fine, but maybe make it cost more to fix it when it is damaged. Increasing the perk requirements might be good too.

2. It would be nice if fusion cores were more scarce and more expensive to purchase (I've bought them for as little as 500 caps) but I don't think this is a change Beth would find it easy to make in a patch. Perhaps multiplying the cost of fusion cores in the game data by 2 or 3 times might be easy to do in a patch. That way, it makes using it more costly and actually 'balances' out the benefits of not using it: if you do not use it, then you can just scrap all the sets you find and sell the fusion cores! Make a lot of caps!

3. I agree it is inconsistent (both with lore and with the logic of it being "nuclear powered") that it expends fusion cores . . . but without this it really would be overpowered. You put it on and it never needs to be fueled up and all you have to do is keep repairing it? That would be OP. Being able to absorb that much damage really must come at some substantial costs else it really would be OP as some have said.

4. Increase the basic load bearing benefit pretty substantially . . . maybe just make it 750 without any mods? At strength 6 my toon can carry nearly 300 so it would seem to make sense that the suit would allow you to carry at least more than twice that much. No?

Those seem like reasonable tweaks to make it a little less powerful and thus reduce the risk that it really is OP. I have to say though, you folks who think it is OP, have you really used it?

I now have about 6 or 7 settlements, and I scrap nearly EVERYTHING. I definitely scrap every single car wreck, collapsed building, tree stump, etc. in my settlements when I first get them. So I've not been the least bit lax about scrapping to get steel. I was holding off on scrapping a bunch of weapons until I got all the Scrapper perks, but recently gave in and scrapped a bunch of weapons with only Scrapper 1. I still have a couple levels to get scrapper 2.

I have used the suit during one maybe two play sessions. I upgraded a T-45 to model B, and I have repaired it a couple times. So I haven't really used it that much. I have also built a LOT of structures for my settlements (probably too many ) and made a lot of weapon mods: I'm a hoarder and a crafter at heart and I'll never pass up "free XP."

With all those factors in mind: I keep running out of steel and am having to do runs to loot raider lairs in order to get hold of enough steel to make beds and stuff like that. In sum, it is possible for steel to be a scarce commodity depending on how you play, so if you are going to use PA all the time, you are probably going to have to keep that factor in mind and that alone makes it "not OP" I contend.

Even for a character that is a sneaky sniper or other form (which mine is) I think it does have it's place. There are problems to be solved where sneaking and sniping, etc., are not useful and where high rad resistance and damage resistance are the best solution. The PA is really useful for those contexts.

I like the fact its limited like that, otherwise you'd have no motivation to do anything without power armour on.

I have about 7 sets at level 29. And Preston found one, got into it and took it with him when I sent him away.

Well, I tried it again (aside from the tutorial bit) to fight some Children Of Atom dudes over at Crater Town and the lighthouse. Worked nicely at the lighthouse to help me wade through a pile of high-hp dudes with Gamma Guns (there was also a BoS vertibird strafing the area, that helped too.)

Not so much at Crater Town, since there was also at least one skull-level Mk8 turret slicing me to shreds. Quite amazing how quickly the power armor died.

(of course, it's was stock, unmodded armor. Mix of the original T-45 and a couple T-60 parts.)

Now that I've found a hazmat suit, I can probably deal with those Gamma guns without needing the PA.

I think they are cool but I never use them. I just don't have as much fun when I am in them. Ive only used them twice each one was for a quest where they give you one right before.

I don't use the word "awesome" much, but yeah... that word.

I like how just walking around exploring an abandoned building makes you feel powerful. I changed the headlight's color to red, so that adds to the atmosphere as well. One other thing that I like (but not really use) is that the flame paint adds +1 to Agility. Because of friggin' course it does. Naturally.

...

I don't use the word "awesome" much, but... yeah, that was a fun shootout.

About enemies visibility, I think there was a long period of time in games that NPCs, monsters and creatures pretty much "glowed", making them too easy to spot. I haven't played against human enemies enough to say how hard is it to spot them in FO4 though.

Each full core consists of 20 minutes of use, and depletes faster when using vats, sprinting, etc. If I'm not mistaken.

I never really used it for most of the game. I'd only really hop into it when I found an area particularly difficult. Basically a "you won't like me when I'm angry."

Now I have 50+ cores. Just from exploration and I wear the armour all the time. Just to get rid of them. I agree with some of the people here. It's repair costs should be increased and some of its spawn areas should be toned down.

I have 7-8 suits. With my main suit being a mixture of X-01 and T-60 pieces.

I've used them twice. Once in Concord, and once in the National Guard Training Center (because otherwise that sentry bot would have killed me -- it did about 4 times). I plan to use it to go south into the radiation area for the main quest because of the radiation and the need to be armored. But besides that it's slow, clumsy, and if it used power like this, the Army would find it pretty hard to supply (especially in CHINA) right? Cool but mostly useless except for isolated circumstances. It's deathclaw and sentry bot insurance though.