Proposal: A Balanced Way To Address Power Armor Nuisances

Game Talk The Drawing Board
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While limited storage space and inability to wear clothing while wearing power armor are some of the few things that help to balance its enormous defensive power, the way this has been implemented is kind of problematic. To be clear, I am not suggesting adding the ability to wear clothing or volume storage over your armor. However, the inability to do simple things that are easy in other clothing or armors is not so much game balance as an annoyance.

Major examples:
You can’t sling a rifle over your shoulder or scabbard a sword while picking up something bulky or preparing to throw a grenade. (Its silly having to drop your weapon to throw a grenade or pick something up because the hauling frame is full)
You can’t wear a knife on a belt, or a holster for a sidearm.
You can’t wear a bandolier, chest rig, or grenade pouches for quick access to ammo or explosives.

To address this, I propose to keep the limitation on wearing additional clothing or items, but make the power armor itself a combination of the minor storage wearables. To keep it balanced, Power Armor would have less capacity compared to what you can achieve with the normal wearable versions, and each variety of power armor would have a quantity of storage slots inversely proportional to their comparative armor rating. Light power armor would have 1.5x as many slots for magazines, grenades, etc as Basic Power Armor, while Heavy Power Armor would have half as many.

For example, on Basic Power Armor:

  • Add storage slots for 3 magazines.
  • Add storage slots for 2 hand grenades or other small explosives.
  • Add 1L (4 units) liquid storage to Helmet.
  • Add a waist storage slot for EITHER a knife or sidearm (you may fit one, but not both)
  • Add a back storage slot for a single large weapon.

Alternatively, instead of making power armor have storage, you could create mods for items themselves to allow them to be attached. Some possibilities would be using duct tape or magnetic clamps.

Need quick access to ammo magazines or grenades? Duct tape a few magazines to your chest plate or arms.

You could glue a few strong magnets to an item to make it cling to your armor. This would be suitable for storing magazines, grenades, canteens, knives, small firearms, etc, but not for large or heavy items like rifles or swords.

5 Likes
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Realistically all those oversized mutant anatomy compatible worn on straps, worn over clothing things, might be compatible with PA, or remade to be worn solely on PA.

3 Likes
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Yeah I thought about that, but I suspected Kevin wouldn’t go for it, or that reworking a bunch of items or the power armor mechanics would be too much to bother with.

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My understanding is that power armor is currently a very much WIP feature. As it stands, it’s balance is pretty iffy and what you propose would make it MORE viable when it’s already fairly overpowered, albeit somewhat irritating to use. It’s not a bad idea, but proposing it as a balance change isn’t the way to go about it, and I think power armor is already due for a a redux.

That said, there’s absolutely no reason why you couldn’t duct tape a magnet to your armor to use as a scabbard. If you really want that feature, look up my Armor Up mod and download the PA utilities pack. It adds a scabbard, sheath, holster, etc.

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I wasn’t trying to make it MORE balanced, just less annoying while still being somewhat balanced.

I’ll have to look up your mod I’m sick of not being able to put my gun over my shoulder to carry crap.

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edit: whoops. How about this one?

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Ah, I see what you mean now. Unfortunately I think the whole “can’t sling weapons or wear holsters” is a necessary part of the current PA balance. Even the extreme rarity of the hauling frame is intended, I think.

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Regardless of how much sense it makes from a balance perspective it’s unrealistic that you can’t sling a rope over your shoulder when wearing power armor.

Though my opinion is that if power armor is considered too OP somebody should design some more military installations and make them only spawn in those.
Throw in some Super Soldier Zombies in power armor that are nigh invincible, you’d have to kill them with explosives or drive a tank over them or something.
End-game tier loot you’d have to pry off the cold dead corpse of its previous wearer, the perfect balance IMO.

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In theory. It’s totally possible that the armor moves in various places that would make it tear through a rope slung over it, or that the surface is made of a non-magnetic material so you can’t magnet things onto it. It’s not too huge of a stretch to assume there are operating concerns that prevent you from putting weapons and such on it, especially large ones.

Like I said, power armor is a WIP. There’s a number of different ways it could be balanced, someone just has to go to the effort of implementing it.

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And all of those things are why I was suggesting adding slots to the armor itself. Even if it is designed such that you can’t wear things over it, and the surface is ceramic or something, there is no way any sane military designer would not give a soldier pouches or compartments for quickly accessing ammo and grenades, at a minimum. Forcing a soldier to go rummaging through their damn backpack when they have to reload during combat would be a non-starter. At least a couple attachment points for things would also be necessary, though perhaps those could be on the hauling frame.

Its also a very minor change, I think it could be done in JSON, and would be more adaptable to future balancing of power armor than reworking the system to make a bunch of things useable with it.

I DEFINITELY like the idea of looting suits of Power Armor from the corpse of its previous wearer. I’ve killed about a dozen armored zombies and I was always disappointed I couldn’t get it that way.

1 Like
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I never use lasers or power armor. I oft imagined something similar to Edge of Tomorrow film. Where the primary weapons are attached to each arm. The secondary are attached to 1 on each shoulder that can be used without grabbing them.

Accessory attachments added for storage could either take the slot of a weapon or just have small cargo around waist and along the spine. Perhaps a couple leg attachments too.