in terms of correct fallout lore is the T60 more advanced then T51? i know they go in order by number but with the descriptions of both sets of armor, and how they look with t51 looking more refined and processed and upgraded while t60 looking more to get suits out of the factory with rough edges and less refinement, which one lore wise is more advanced? this is bugging me to no end.....

As far as I know, the t60 was being produced after the battle of Anchorage and was never used in large scale battle, just small peace keeping activities such as crowd control.

But the t60 is the upgrade.

The reason the T60 looks more crude than the T51 is that it's based on the earliest model, the T45, and is visually identical to it.

The way I figure this to myself is that they first developed the T51 to replace the T45, then later came up with some new technology they could apply directly to the T45 and designated that version as the T60. Like, maybe it's externally the same suit made with the same machinery but with better materials and internal systems etc?

Note that this is just me filling the gaps with my own conjecture, nothing official.

if only bethesda could provide an actual explanation

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZqTGGd78GHY/hqdefault.jpg

It is not visually identical though.

But it's obviously based on the design, just bulkier with prettier parts

Edit: Look at the helmet

That's what she said!

T-45 power armor is composed mostly of steel, supported by both existing lore and the components needed to repair and upgrade it. T-60 power armor, by contrast, requires aluminum and ceramics to upgrade, suggesting a composition more similar to that of Enclave power armor.

Head canon for me is that the T-60 was designed as a update package to the T-45 (of which there were probably a large number which were semi obsolete with the arrival of the T-51) but due to the extensive changes it was given a new designation and then entered service to back up the numbers of T-51 being produced probably using existing T-45 production lines since the US was equipping multiple divisions of Power Armor troopers to fight the war in mainland China.

I thought there was a set of terminals that described how the T-60 came to be, somewhere in the brotherhood's questline.

Acording to the fallout wiki t 60 was created shortly after the Anchorage reclamation. And fielded along side t51 units domestically to control the US population as nuclear war got closer, it also states that it is the superior armor over t51 and was supposed to supplant t51 as the pinnacle of power armor before the great war. What I do t get threw all of that is why does it look like a downgrade.....As I said before a less refined product....with less attention to detail. It just seems to be that t51 would still be superior with the fact that it has a more bullet reflective outer shell and less exposed parts, while t60 has exposed coolers a exposed radiation hose and etc....

T-60 is probably more protective because it utilized more cutting edge materials in its construction. As far as I can tell, it was the first mass-produced power armor to use ceramics.

hmmm, the visuals would make sense if there were competing companies for the military power armor contract. as companies tend to follow there own designs while also trying to be both better and cheaper then the other. so if company A designed the T-45 then company B designed the T-51 it would make sense for company A to simply design a better version of the T-45, and the T-60 is born.

the other thing to keep in mind is familiarity of design by troops. (why so many guns look like the M16 but are much newer) If all the combat troops, support personnel, and machinery (repair / refit / maintenance / transport / etc.) are familiar or already in place for the mass produced T-45 it would make sense to make the upgrade as similar is possible to make it both easy on the personnel that have to work with or on the armor but also more cost effective as you don't have to produce completely new machinery for the new armor. (and that cost is HUGE)

given these facts based on actual military history its super easy to see why the T-60 would be the way it is, it would actually make less sense for it to look radically different.

I wonder, were there every domestic or non-combat types of Power Armor developed? Like, nothing made by the military for use in war, but something that follows a similar concept for things like construction or deep-sea exploration.

I don't think anyone in Bethesda went so deep into it, like you all.

They just made more armors for variety I don't think the actual fallout bible (original lore from Fallout 1 and 2) had anything more than Power Armor mkI and mkII. I might be wrong.

Maybe it's a function of US manufacturing being under greater stress as the war and domestic problems got worse. The T-51 might have been produced at a time when its makers had the luxury of creating an attractive design with a good finish whereas by the time the T-60 came out they might have been forced to churn out whatever was functional. A bit like the way Germany's panzers designed before Allied bombing crippled German industry were all neat and impressive-looking, while the Soviet Union's T-34 - despite being a better thank than anything short of a Tiger - rolled out of the 24-hour production line without even having the rough welds ground down because they had to be rushed to the front ASAP.