I just got power armor. I like the nerf that you can’t wear anything with it, but it does beg the question how, in theory, did combat troops use it. I can carry one weapon, and 2 UPSs with it. Eventually, I will get tons of bionics and power through that, but how did the army soldier use power armor, in theory?
Power armor hauling frames?
Scientists discovered that a blob thing can draw energy from other dimensions. If this inter-dimensional energy transmission gets weaponized, the power problem of power armor would be solved. So a portal was opened to the blob’s home universe… to get more blob for experiment…
I never fiddle with power armor anymore, simply because it’s not worth the inventory management hassle of stripping, but 1) there is an item called “power armor hauling frame” that is basically a backpack for power armor, and 2) just fiddling around in the code, I made a power-armor-compatible sheath and a power-armor-compatible holster (in the description, I said they were magnetic and stuck to the outside). Never really used them, just thought it was nifty. Somebody should make those and mainline them.
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the army would deploy them with a support truck just behind the front line, this truck would be a recharging station and would carry a number of spare UPS, charged and recharging, to hot swap into the armor as well as spare ammo for the soldier’s weapon. it would probably be something that would be impossible for a man without the armor’s power assist to use properly, like standing while firing a heavy machine gun. like so http://imgur.com/gallery/3B8guBD with a constant supply of power and ammo there really isn’t much that could stand in the way of a power armored soldier other then another power armored soldier.
but the zombies still happened because it hit everywhere at once and support crews were turned. and this could also be how power armor wearing zombies happened. to put on armor you need o be naked, so a naked soldier is running into the power armor bay to get suited up when his technician attacks him and bites his arm, he’s still a VERY well trained soldier so he beats the zombie tech up easily after the surprise wears off, so he gets in his armor, starts beating the CRAP out zombies, then dies standing from zombie infected wound.
While this is funny, It’s not true. You don’t turn into a Zombie from getting bitten, you turn into one from dying, in which the “blob” takes over the host. It’s theoretically possible that the wound was infected, and he died inside the suit, but that’s unlikely.
Here’s one artist rendition of something similar (they are tied directly TO the truck instead): http://www.mylifeatwar.com/?p=118 Bull armor
Scroll through a few pages for more images of the bulls in actions.
yes. i said the infection kills him not that it turns him into a zombie, a heavily infected wound getting no treatment is deadly.
Sounds cool, I’d like to see those added to the main game. 
What deoxy posted is pretty similar to the concept of PA in dda.
It’s productive to think of PA as a wearable vehicle rather than an article of clothing.
As such it doesn’t make sense to wear additional clothing, instead you would install more armor components.
Ideally, weapons would be installed on the PA instead of the player wielding them as usual.
In order to compensate for these limitations, PA weapons would tend to hit harder and have larger magazines, allowing for extended deployment compared to what is allowed by a single magazine of an infantry weapon.
One way to look at the status quo is that survivors are trying to use infantry weaponry (rifles, shotguns, smgs, assault rifles) with PA, which is naturally suboptimal because PA is intended for use with PA-specific weapons. The upgrade path would be to add those PA-specific weapons, which would make it usable for extended sorties, but it would still be fairly bas for all-day use.
i think one thing PA should do is recoil negation. recoil is the reaction effect of the explosion that propels the bullet pushing back against your arms but PA, when engaged, would lock in place and simply ignore a large amount of recoil. this would mean things that would normally be impossible to use properly because of simply how unwieldy they are to become usable, such as the minigun, it has a “recommended strength 50” (or close to that) for burst firing because of how massive the torque and recoil from it spinning is. PA should be capable of using such a weapon and other HMGs with ease, which currently are only really usable if installed on vehicles. for those extreme examples it wouldn’t be a complete negation, miniguns are still nuts, but it would bring it down from “you must be a god to use this by hand” to “it’s pretty hard to use this by hand” but smaller arms such as handguns, SMGs, regular rifles, and shotguns would have functionally zero recoil in your armored grip.
as for install-able weapons, how about rocket pods? ala:
Probably more like space marine armor than Tau - no jump jets, no rail guns, etc.
I think having some mods for combat armor (hard points to fill) would be sweet. The energy requirements should probably be higher, though, sadly. Extended use without some kind of support mechanism (a vehicle with a serious power supply) should be hard to impossible.
current hack around is using a power armor interface AND the cable charger bionic and attaching a heavy duty cable to the door of your car as you exit it then you are basically vehicle powered. a way to prevent cable charger from draining all the battery and a better way to keep cables attached would let you use something like that portable generator that sometimes spawns in garages and [G]rab it and just lug it behind you while it’s running. like… a setting for “prevent moving too far for cable”. a way to do something similar but having the cable plug into the power armor directly would be good, so you don’t need cable charger AND an interface to be car powered.