What is power armor anyway?

Yes but you can dump 200 charges at once into an A7 in automatic with a UPS. In fact, the weird thing is that the forcefield CBM draws from plutonium cells as well, but they can be recharged somehow. Ideally I’d like to make plutonium cells get spent and be rechargeable, but that’s not something I really know how to do.

RM13 is useless because it means I have to worry about plutonium cells and powering it, when I can just wear light power armor and a hauling frame for more armor, or a heavy survivor suit for more carrying capacity and freedom from needing to power anything. It seems to be intended for lategame use as general armor, but the plutonium cell consumption makes that difficult.

Also, I had a discussion with Rivet about this once, and if memory serves, RM13 doesn’t actually generate a forcefield, it uses reactive plating that hardens when something gets near it (or something along those lines). That doesn’t account for it’s ability to block radiation though…

Man, you’re using mods. Not everyone does that.

Come on, it’s about taking unnecessary risks. You can get nice armour pretty early in the game, and if you don’t do that and want to kick hulks in melee, while having access to Browning MGs and Power Armour, that’s like… your problem, man… (c) The Big Lebowski.

Yes, and that’s where PA design was born. It is supposed to be not restrictive. And the added weight is countered by servos. Servos, dude. That’s not some steel hull from a scrapyard.

Maybe. But even then, adding a gas filter is not really a problem, since the helmet already lacks holes and has 100% coverage, which means the presence of air intake tubes, which can be modded.

If the ceramics are nonconductive, the shock won’t reach your body, nor will it have the way to travel to the ground (which is the destination). Electricity, man, :smirk: Think about it.

Maybe, maybe. I personally don’t think it’s hard to make the plastic covers, nor do I think the multi-million project is going to yield such a crude product. After all, it is supposed to be mass produced, even if it’s not as top notch as MkII-H/L.
Depends on who you ask, really. Anyway, it’s either a prototype and rare as hell (and it isn’t at the moment), or the first model with some problems and flaws, but not like tin cans tied with duct tape over some exoskeleton with servos.

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Servos are relative. I’m currently using 15$ servos to make an Arduino robot wander around a room. It’s just a motor with fine control systems, not military grade magic. Even if the servos could perfectly counter every bit of weight of the armor, the thickness of the armor would still restrict your movement. The more you armor the joints, the more restrictive the armor is. It’s not the weight of the armor, it’s the fact that your joints get smaller the more armor is around them.

It isn’t sealed, so it doesn’t have air intakes, so it can’t have air filters. It can’t have air filters anymore than a hockey mask can.

Yes, but if the electricity hits a metal joint and the only path it has to the ground is your body, it will go through your body. Think about it.

Regardless of how electricity actually works, it’s handled oddly ingame. This bit is just balance, so don’t worry about it.

ALL power armor ingame seems to be a prototype to some degree. Otherwise it would show up far more often in military installations. Just because the project cost millions doesn’t mean the product itself did, and completely sealing a moving object is far more difficult than you seem to think.

It basically is though, that’s why it’s basic. Some armor plating on an exoskeleton, that’s power armor at its most basic. That’s why it’s basic power armor.

Yeah, that’s true. But that only means that you won’t be able to hug your mother/wife/brother/son/etc after the battle, not that you’re going to walk like a sumo wrestler during the fight. Point is, this is military-grade equipment, designed to be easy to move in. It may restrict some of the precise movements, but not the walking/running itself.

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:
Well, it looks like a scuba helmet with all that windshield and stuff. And it protects against radiation. How can it protect being not sealed?

Your skin does not touch the ground, the exit point for the shock is to be located on your soles. If they are ceramic or rubber, then you’re fine. Mostly.

Well, ANBC suit handles this task pretty well, at the cost of 40 encumbrance. Add magic futuristic military-grade servos and voila! Moreover, you don’t have to seal every hole to get gas protection, only the helmet, if it sits tight over your neck. Considering CDDA does not have gases that damage the skin itself.

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That’s the point. I said 5-10 encumbrance per set. That means light PA would have 5 points, which is less than what you’d get from wearing a shirt and light jacket. High encumbrance will come from covering it in holsters and carrier packs.

The way it looks means nothing. It protects against radiation and gas in vanilla, but I intend to change that.
Even then, radiation isn’t gas. You can have a set of concrete walls that block all radiation, but you could still walk around them.

Maybe they aren’t ceramic or rubber?

An ANBC suit with servos would be light power armor, not basic. Basic is more like an MBR vest with servos. Think the mk1 Iron Man suit.

So what’s the point in this case, even? If it changes nothing?

Then the only thing that’s going to be hampered is your mobility. And, again, i’m convinced that PA should have no problems with that. Not from a simple holster, at least. Poorly made packs dangling on the charachter’s back and hitting him as he walks - yes. Finely made holsters/scabbards/liquid carriers - no. Flasks, btw. An absolutely ‘must have’ thing.

:face_with_raised_eyebrow: It does not. Or does it? I don’t have many mods, but some may have changed the stats, but i’m still not sure that it protects against gas in vanilla. Anyway, my set in my game configuration does not.

Maybe. Maybe not. Even if they were made of steel, they probably wouldn’t be connected with other parts. Most notably - parts of your body, since it would be way too uncomfortable and cold. I know that DoubleTech PAs require skin contact, but it says nothing about contacting skin exactly with metal parts. One way or another, there’s a long distance between soles and knee joints which may lack connecting conductive parts.

Sorry, I’m not into comics.

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It adds up. That’s the point.

Yep, the improvised carrying solution will have a fair bit of encumbrance. The original hauling frame will have very little, but still a bit. Having things hanging off of you is still going to make a difference.

The point is it’s basic, if it’s basic they might not have thought of people getting lightning bolts shot at them in the first place, so there’s a good chance it won’t protect you properly, like all the other armor in the game that should really ground you out or act as a Faraday cage but doesn’t.

Well google it, I’m using it as an example.

Because shooting bolts through the air is unrealistic in the first place. I wonder why they’re even present in the game…

Exactly. You’re arguing realistic physics in a game without realistic physics.

Because the game is a fork of Cataclysm by Whales and has a lot of legacy code lying about. If you think it’s unrealistic open a PR changing or removing it.

I just wanna throw in that various media have about a million different ideas on powered armor. Iron Man, Fallout, Bubblegum Crisis, and The Surge are just four examples of incredibly different styles of power armor.

Which is to say that I think all of the ideas in this thread could be correct but probably not all at once in a single setting. So maybe what we need is a clearer creative vision for how power armor fits into the setting of CDDA so we can establish what can be mainline and what should be a mod.

Good point:
Two variants of course:

  1. Power Armor (note this is more how I want it to work than how it currently works)
    tl;dr think FO4
    Entered like a vehicle, extremely heavy, immobile unless powered (maybe an exception for the lightest variant), uses an exotic power source that can no longer be created, wearer has an extreme degree of protection derived from conventional armor, which acts whether the suit is powered or not, comes in a number of variants, wearer cannot interact normally with most human-sized items (i.e. crafting, driving, clothing), but the suit is designed to allow interaction with weapons (mostly guns), allows use of items specially crafted for PA, like extremely large guns, effectively replaces some player stats (mostly strength, but possibly perception as well).
  2. RM13
    no tl;dr
    Worn as clothing, provides little protection if unpowered, provides very high protection if powered, does not significantly impair ability to interact with human-sized items, does not provide any additional ability to interact with other items, uses an exotic power source that can no longer be created, unique (has no variants).

As pointed out previously, there are many concepts for what power armor does, but for the version in the game it does not “free you from any concerns”, it “makes it possible to use gear heavier than what a human is capable of”.

It’s military-grade yes, but the military isn’t going to care that much about melee, the encumberance it applies shouldn’t affect shooting, because that’s what it’s going to be designed for, but running/walking/melee and many other actions are going to be impaired because they don’t matter for a soldier.

Radiation (fallout aside) moves in straight lines, gasses can move around corners and through gaps. Bulk/weight aside, it’s far easier to shield against radiation than against toxic gasses.

NCR Salvaged Power Armour. Not exactly FO4, but still from the same setting.

If something is unrealistic it is not necessarily unplayable. I’m personally fine with that ingame, but realism in half of the game and fiction in the other half… seems a bit strange.

That’s strange. How are you going to be a soldier without proper walking? It’s not even like a heavy stormtrooper, more like a stationary turret, since every situation requires some degree of mobility. I know it’s a fictional future, but in real life, weapons and military equipment designers know that any armor can be beaten, so mobility and threat avoidance are way more important.

That’s well known, but i’m not talking about direct radiation from larger sources, i’m talking about radioactive dust and gases. Getting irradiated from some source and then walking away is bad enough, but getting some ‘glowing’ dust inside your own lungs… well, that’s going to ruin anyone’s life.

More conext please, just naming an armor doesn’t tell me anything.

It’s not that you can’t walk, it’s that your agility is impaired. Desire for mobility doesn’t stop modern armies from saddling infantry with in excess of 100lbs of gear, see https://mwi.usma.edu/the-overweight-infantryman/
This is the reason for power armor more than anything, the desire for more armor is just one aspect of it. Your assertion that agility is a top priority is simply not supported anywhere in modern military doctorine, which is what the source of power armor in DDA is based on.

You’re conflating tactical mobility (taking cover, obstacle avoidance, access to difficult areas) with agility (manuvering while fighting, close quarters combat, dodging). High encumbrance might hinder the first, but it pretty much entirely cancels out the second, and that’s fine, modern armed forces don’t expect you to try and dodge things because that doesn’t matter on the modern battlefield.

That’s fallout, and dda simply doesn’t handle fallout.

This is moving increasingly further away from my mod plans and towards general discussion.

I’m not unhappy the discussion is happening, I just think this would be a great time for movement to a different thread.

Well, in Fallout: New Vegas the NCR had kicked The Brotherhood of Steel from the Helios One solar power plant and had gathered some power armours as tropheys. Since the NCR had no means of teaching their soldiers the Power Armour Training, they’ve simply stripped off the electric parts from the armour so that it could be worn like a shell. This resulted in the loss of +2 STR bonus from the armour, but the -2 AGL stat present in the original T-45d PA remained, some minor Damage Treshold reduction (22->20 for the bodysuit; 5->4 for the helmet) and minor weight reduction.
So it’s not really immobile unless powered. At least, the Brotherhood armour designs. Gameplaywise, you’re still able to run around like crazy in it. It’s not that realistic, but anyway…


Just couldn’t not post that. Anyway, the link doesn’t work fore me, somehow. And the doctrines… Well, it’s not really about soldiers themselves, since a human’s ability to haul gear is kinda low, but about vehicles and stuff. Point is, the weapons have surpassed reasonable armour long ago, so it’s generally better to avoid being hit with shells/rockets/missiles as a whole, and that requires some mobility/agility and some of the weight freed from removing or not adding armour is used to mount various defensive gear like anti-missile MGs or cannons, infrared floodlights and stuff.

Hm. Yeah, I’ve been talking about tactical mobility. Not about agile movements like doing somersaults or hitting bad guys like a movie ninja.

Anyway, here’s another media piece just for the topic. No propaganda.

Well, dust could also be lying on the ground, and then one day the heavy boots just step on it, and…

A customization system for power armor where you can add different features like enhanced vision/radiation/electrical resistance/filters/etc. would be awesome.

That’s what my Armor Up! was going to look at, a set of wearable PA upgrades for stat boosts, extra protection, even one that shoots fireballs.

If you’re going to ignore everything I say except for irrelevant details there’s no reason to have a discussion.