NPC Allies with Power Armor

[psyxypher]

So, since power armor is completely useless to my character, I was thinking of giving a set to one of my NPC allies and seeing how well that works out for them. Any experience on this anyone has? Is this a good idea? Is it a horrible idea because they don’t have the ability to turn the armor on?

[Vastin]

Don’t knock power armor entirely. Not much else will let you go straight toe-to-toe with a chicken-walker at short range - but no, you don’t run around in the stuff day to day, that’s for sure.

[psyxypher]

Don’t knock power armor entirely.

You misunderstand. My character literally cannot use any of the four Power Armors. He has several mutations that prevent him from doing so. I’m well aware of how awesome to stuff is, though, but I’m hesitant to play Mutagen roulette to get rid of 3 mutations out of the many I have.

[Vastin]

My character literally cannot use any of the four Power Armors. He has several mutations that prevent him from doing so.

Ah, yep. That’s a problem. No idea if NPC’s have the faintest idea how to turn on power armor - my uninformed guess is ‘no chance’.

But entombing them in giant steel coffin to act as an agro magnet while you move around them and pick off the hordes pointlessly trying to claw him to death in there would probably be pretty effective anyway.

[DeWolf]

Depends on mob priorities (would they go after the player over the npc or just whoever is closest) also isn’t there something that allows you to activate items in their inventory?

[Solusphere]

It’s possible to strip all the servos and cooling system out of a suit of basic power armour (AKA dissasembling it), creating Salvaged Power Armour. This has a lot of encumbrance, but less than a standard suit when it’s unpowered (40 versus 50). Seems like a waste of a good suit, but if you don’t have any other way of using it…

[psyxypher]

Doesn’t seem to have the tag for allowing mutants to wear it.

[Solusphere]

Doesn’t seem to have the tag for allowing mutants to wear it.

I know, I meant for the NPCs to wear. Don’t have to worry about them knowing how to turn it on.

[proxiehunter]

Are the parts stripped out useful for making anything else?

[Solusphere]

http://cdda-trunk.chezzo.com/power_armor_basic/disassemble

basic power armor can be disassembled to obtain the following components.
Tools required:

1 tool with metal sawing quality of 1
1 tool with screw driving quality of 1
1 tool with bolt turning quality of 1
pair of bolt cutters OR integrated toolset
Components obtained:
1x salvaged power armor
6x power converter
2x heating element
12x copper wire
6x circuit board
1x transponder circuit

So yes, you can make quite a lot of electronics recipes using those parts.

[Vastin]

Of course, its nothing you can’t get a lot more of just stripping down an Arcade, rather than your power armor.

[DeWolf]

And you cannot put it back together. Unless this one bug comes back where the game would allow you to craft anything you dissassembled, even factory rounds.

[mlangsdorf]

I’ve had an NPC equipped with heavy power armor, though the NPC wouldn’t wear the helmet because it was too encumbering. The NPC was fine: nothing short of a zombie hulk could injure them, so even if the NPC’s attacks were slow and didn’t hit very often, the NPC still survived the zombie hordes.

And eventually the NPC’s skills are high enough that they’re hitting zombies despite the encumbrance, and then it’s all gravy.

[proxiehunter]

Well, yes. But for people like the OP who have mutations that prevent the use of power armor at least they can get something out of it.

[pisskop]

npc in PA is limited by the same issues that npcs are limited to.

bad AoE control, poor survival awareness, and a dependency upon player awareness and input. give it godlike blade skills and a katana. or grenades and pa.

just dont expect ammo conservation