"Advanced Power Armour Mk II"

J

John McDonnell

First time out of the vault
So, this stuff appeared in Fallout 2 on the Oil Rig, yes? And I understand some Fallout fans took issue with FO3 Enclave Armour being called "Advanced Power Armour Mk II" because of the FO2 version existing... but I'm not sure that's a valid complaint.

Firstly, as far as I am aware FO2 Mk II was very rare, seen only in limited (or singular) quantities at the end of the game. That suggests it may have been a prototype. The "Raven Rock" Mk II armour is labelled as such because it took the design concepts (namely, the all-ceramic composite materials) of the Oil Rig prototype and expanded it into a working, mass-production model.

Supporting this logic to some degree is the Gannon Family armour - a suit of "Mk I" armour with Tesla Armour elements attached. The fact it's unique suggests it was a prototype, and when Navarro and the Rig was lost, the prototype was lost with it. It wasn't until the Enclave got their Mk II Armour up and running were they able to try again with Tesla Armour, and this time they decided to use the modern suits as a template instead of the increasingly outdated Mk I suits.

Now, for this to hold water there needs to be some evidence for FO2's Mk II armour to be rare enough to count as a prototype... does anyone have that evidence on hand?
 
I think we lack some informations about the Enclave.

- Was the Enclave consisting of a singe division in the Oil-Rig/Navarro or was it already spread all over the USA ?
- Did the Enclave guys in Capital Wasteland old members of Oil/Navarro group, or were there since the bombs fell ?
- If they are more than one group, are they aware of each other ? Do they maintain communication ?
- Beside communication, do they use their vertibirds & other vehicles to move men, gear & other material from one station to another ? (on a weekly basis)
- How many labs do they got over the US ?
- How much their overall forces are crippled ?

Personnally, i'll say yest to many of these questions, but i am not sure there is a clear answer.
Depending of this, you could find some other plot-point consistent or not.
 
First mistake, making the statement "I'm not so sure [what many Fallout fans think] is a valid complaint".
Second mistake, the rest of your argument follows in the footfalls of that first, major mistake.

In all sincerity, there's been over a decade of material that the core fans have gone over hundreds of thousands of times, and many of them are quite smart and capable of rational thought, so simply discounting that without qualification is kinda absurd. One of the problems with the FO3 depiction of APA Mk II was that like everything else from FO3 it was just a bastardization of another, previous Fallout creation, namely the Midwestern PA designs. While I enjoy FOT, I won't deny that it has its fair share of contradictory material, and their depictions of PA was one of them. But FO3 just recycled that and made it into the new APA Mk II. The example of the Gannon Family armor is taking that out of context, because it's not "super rare" because those were prototypes, but rather because THE ENCLAVE WAS DEFEATED AND ALL BUT ERADICATED. FONV portrayed the utter lack of any abundance of APA lying around properly, but FO3 mistakenly portrayed it as so rich in quantities that you could simply make a fetch quest out of bringing a couple suits to an Outcast and not bat an eye at how absurd that sounds. In FO2, despite the fact that EVERY Enclave Patrol encountered was decked out in APA suits, once you ventured onto the Oil Rig, only the top security teams were outfitted in any APA and the vast majority of the military personnel were outfitted in the far, far outdated T-51b. The Oil Rig had the resources to manufacture the APA Mks I and II, but other bunkers, like Raven Rock, did not.

The APA seen in FO3 is not the APA Mk II seen in FO2, mass produced or otherwise. It's just its own new thing given the same name as something else but borrowing from more material from other games. Very standard Bethesda methodology.
 
John McDonnell said:
So, this stuff appeared in Fallout 2 on the Oil Rig, yes? And I understand some Fallout fans took issue with FO3 Enclave Armour being called "Advanced Power Armour Mk II" because of the FO2 version existing... but I'm not sure that's a valid complaint.
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Never heard that the issue is the armor being mentioned in Fo2.

For me personally, the issue always had been the look of that super ugly tin can that came with Fo3. If they had taken the original style and modified it a bit- fine. But they totally re-invented it, and the result looks like shit. It's worse than their new Brotherhood power armor, which also looks like crap due to the gramophone shoulder pads and stuff.
 
Lexx said:
If they had taken the original style and modified it a bit- fine. But they totally re-invented it, and the result looks like shit.
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If by "totally reinvented" you mean "copied the FOT Midwestern design" then yes, yes they totally reinvented it. =)

It's just sad that we can't even fault them on poor creative design, because all we have is to point out that they piled on further uncreative plagiarism on top of more uncreative plagiarism (yes, I'm aware that owning the rights means it's not illegal, but legality doesn't mean it isn't plagiarism).
 
And the Tactics power armor looks shit too. It's like Bethesda had a thing going on for picking the shitty parts out of all Fallout games to merge them in Fo3. Hej, after all, even PoS and PoS2 material was used for inspiration...
 
What from FOBOS was regurgitated into FO3? o.O

But I think you're going too far when you're saying they ONLY took the shittiest things from the other games to include in FO3. After all, the quest for the Water Chip set up the whole damn series, and it was a compelling and thought-provoking series of events. Naturally the whole conflict with the Water Purifier was just "Find a Water Chip" all over again.... just much less interesting and compelling and far, far less thought-provoking.
 
Well, I didn't wrote that they only took the shittiest things, but the amount of shittyness they took is still quite impressive. Though, it's probably just a matter of perspective. After all, Bethesda likes everything that is cool. So if they see a huge shoulder mounted laser cannon, then it's super cool and they need to add it to the game. If they see the cool enclave guys with their thick black badass armors, they need to add them, because they are super cool. If they see zombie ghouls, they need to add them, because at the time zombies were super awesomesauce, and so on, and so on. They simply took everything that might be awesome captain cool, because that's how their games work.
 
FoT PA

Design Team: The old power armor is ok but we need a new design to make it super L33t Shiny Cool Yos. Lets mashup El Diablo, Batman and add in some wicked death metal concert chains. How can that idea possibly fail?
 
Lexx said:
Bethesda likes everything that is cool. So if they see a huge shoulder mounted laser cannon, then it's super cool and they need to add it to the game. If they see the cool enclave guys with their thick black badass armors, they need to add them, because they are super cool. If they see zombie ghouls, they need to add them, because at the time zombies were super awesomesauce, and so on, and so on. They simply took everything that might be awesome captain cool, because that's how their games work.
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This description reminds me of Monkey D. Luffy (the protagonist of One Piece). He's so obsessed with things that are totally impractical or ridiculous or possibly even in terrible taste just because it's "so coooooool~~~~!" He breaks out into tears when he's given a robotic-looking suit of armor, even remarking when told to focus on the task at hand, "The tears- the tears- they won't stop!" He asks a zombified tree to join his crew just because of how unconventional that is, and therefore super cool. He easily gets distracted during serious situations when he sees a cyborg showing off anything cyborg about himself. Ah Luffy, I always get a kick out of you! =D

Mind you, I'm ONLY drawing comparison between Bethesda and Luffy (based on your description) on how obsessed with "cool" they both are. But in terms of being lovable and wonderful (and everything else) that's where the similarities disappear! XD

Anyway, I suppose I did somehow miss that you DIDN'T express that they "only" did something but rather that they "had a thing going on". Two VERY different sentiments. So, my mistake. I'm just always surprised at how they WOULD take ideas, good or bad, and somehow lose whatever good ideas might have been present with they incarnation of those plagiarized ideas. As introduced in FO2, Slavers were a really interesting faction. Dark and obviously largely detested by most, but they had a deeper complexity to them when you could draw such sharp contrasts and yet SUCH close comparisons between other groups like the Citizen of Vault City. Even if first impressions of the Slavers were that they existed solely to be a binary evil element for the sake of being evil, they still weren't nearly that simple. But the Slavers of Paradise Falls in FO3? Just pure evil. They won't even let you walk inside to peruse their "wares" if they haven't heard how evil you are. Really? WHY? Why wouldn't they want to let you in, provided they strip you of any weapons you're holding, so long as you show an interest in their business? Nope, they've got to be a beacon of darkness, that's what Slavers are.
 
DarkCorp said:
FoT PA

Design Team: The old power armor is ok but we need a new design to make it super L33t Shiny Cool Yos. Lets mashup El Diablo, Batman and add in some wicked death metal concert chains. How can that idea possibly fail?
Click to expand...

Isolated from the setting, I don't think the FoT power armor is particularly egregious. It definitely follows the Rule of Cool, but what power armor doesn't? Its only real crime is not fitting in with franchise aesthetics or canon. The developers at MicroForte have actually gone on record as saying that they agree 100%, and the PA design (and lore-breaking in general) are something they really would have liked another pass to have corrected. I'd like to have seen what they would have come up with if the project had been kept on the rails a bit better.

For that matter, the same applies to the entire game, but that's an issue for another thread.
 
Lorebreaking is a given and in Microforte case, they would not have changed the design if they truly meant what they said. Also, coolness only goes so far but it might be in the realm of interpretation.

Its like they went from armor that looked like armor, to trying to look like a real life demon. Imagine if the worlds military-police forces all decided to sport horn like appendages and look grotesque as possible? I dunno if its just me but people would bhe like wtf?

Real life: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+...y-planet%2Fgetting-medieval-457373%2F;402;599

T-51B: https://www.google.com/search?q=fal...2Fpower_armor_evolution_whats_next%2F;600;400

Demon Armor ALA Bethesda/Diablo style: https://www.google.com/search?q=fal...c.php%3Ff%3D7%26t%3D843%26start%3D60;1024;737
 
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Yeah, usually nobody tries to look like the bad guys that much. Impressive look for special forces who need to use psychological warfare to some extend is fine, but looking like demons is surely not.
 
As far as there being people and manufacturing capabilities in Raven Rock and other locals, the answer to that is likely yes. A facility the size of Raven Rock would have needed people to maintain them, these people would have likely lived in the facility and rode out the war there. Prior to 2244, the Enclave would have likely had the ability to communicate with Raven Rock and other military installations the Enclave deemed necessary to their reconstruction plans. How strong they believe in the Enclave's goals will depend, based on the soldiers turning on President Eden on the orders of Colonel Autumn, I'd say they don't have much loyalty to the structure of the US government or its professed ideals and is basically a military organization like the BoS, just with superior capacities.
 
It appears they may have clarified it- the regular advanced power armor from Fo2 is being called X-01 Mark II.

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So maybe it goes like this- Old armor is X-01 Mark II with Tesla armor being Mark III. Fallout 3 has its armor as X-02 Mark I, with the Tesla variatiant as Mark II. Then, Hellfire Armor would either be Mark III of the second series, or X-03
 

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I just wish they would wipe the Fallout 3 abominations and forget about them. But that's too much to ask, isn't it?
 
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They don't look like they're trying too hard to look like the originals, I'll give them that. They're not even trying, I'd say.
 
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