Yes a slow-moving lifting suit would work, balancing it game-wise is pretty trivial as it would just increase move costs greatly, and do something to keep dodge/blocks from working.
Rip the arms off the power armor eh? yea that sounds feasible, and it’ll force us to fix some of the terrible hacks pa is implemented on right now.
+1 to both of these.
re 'in the future': the design doc makes it clear that you do not have future capabilities at your disposal in general, there are specific high-tech items that you can use and sometimes incorporate into other things, but the default tech level is today.
Exoskeletons of the “lifting” type (not the “protective-bells-and-whistles”) type are already made today. I’ve been reading up on those since I know people who would benefit from the exoskeletons (being wheelchair-bound now) if they were mass-produced and accessible.
There’s a bunch of controversial stuff in the game, a lot conflicting with the design doc, a lot WIP due to missing infrastructure/developer time. I’d not use that as an argument.
On said note, craftable mininukes… that’s just so wrong on so many levels.
By the way, shouldn’t such survivor exoskeleton be craftable by parallel-combining several medical exoskeletons? They should be salvageable from local doctors and hospitals.
Also, such powered exoskeleton can provide hard mounting points and power system for many kinds of wearable electronics: starting with bionically powered and securely metal-encased flashlight, PDA or mp3-player and going all the way to shoulder-mounted laser turrets (probably - only for XL exoskeleton of “Huge” survivors). “Smart clothes”? Pff… Will those hold and protect you in the zombie-apocalypse? No. Craft yourself some powered survivor exoskeleton =)