The Power Armor dilemma in New Vegas

A

Alexander Strahan

First time out of the vault
Back in the olden days of FO1 and FO2, you got the power armor way late in the game, when most desert adventuring was done and it was time to kick ass and chew bubble gum.

In FO3, getting piles upon piles of power armor and learning to wear it came relatively early, and the pacing shifted from "lone survivor in the radioactive desert" to "Space Marine in the radioactive desert". Maybe it's my personal problem, but as soon as I put on a PA suit, I lost all interest in the finer points of post-apocalyptic existence, and started to actively look for asses to kick.

How does NV handle the power armor? Does it even exist? (I suspect it does, it wouldn't be FO without it). Does it become usable as easily and quickly as it did in FO3, or are things paced a bit better?
 
Like I wrote in a different thread, power armor in new vegas is very rare and late-game gear. Also it's super expensive to keep it repaired and in working condition over time.
 
What? I can't say it's rare or necessarily late-game. It's the same as Fallout 3: find a dead BoSer, find power armor. It was kind of midgame for me.

BUT: the power armor skill is harder to get, no longer an automatic in the main plot as in Fallout 3. Because the BoS questline bugged out for me I never got it, though I had Boone run around in PA for most of the game, I was stuck in the ridiculous-looking reinforced combat armor.
 
It's not really that simple. I've found only like 4 or 5 dead brotherhood guys and nothing more in the whole game. Of course, I could have more, if I would kill Hidden Valley, but it's nothing I would ever do. Not to forget the remnants armor you get via quest, but it's very late in the game as well and you will not find more of it.

Also I didn't said that it's necessary in late-game, just that it appears in late-game (when you can finally use it).

And reinforced combat armor looks cool + pretty much like the original combat armor, except maybe the little bit big looking shoulder pads. Not really the game's fault, that the original armor looks how it looks. :>
 
In Fallout 3 wearing power armor didn't make me feel very, well, powerful.

For a suit made entirely of thick metal, the defence bonus didn't seem that dramatic. How can a mole rat's teeth or a few shots from a pistol still damage me through all that armor?

I presume it's the same in New Vegas? Or have Obsidian tweaked its stats?
 
NCR Ranger armor > everything else.

I presume it's the same in New Vegas? Or have Obsidian tweaked its stats?
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In this game you have Damage threshold, instead of Damage Resistance. So mole rats wont hurt you at all.

Btw, are there mole rats in New Vegas at all? Never seen one so far. And i did read in a preview that you can have one as a pet with a medicine check.
 
There are a few molerats and yes, power armor actually feels much better than in Fallout 3.
 
Step 1. Find Hidden Valley

Step 2. Help Brotherhood and get perk.

Step 3. Get Jury Rigging as a perk to repair Power Armor with lesser armor.

Step 4. ???

Step 5. Profit!



In all seriousness, I got it really early in the game and did not even intend to. I was roaming around Black Mountain trying to find that NCR Ranger Safe House and ended up finding two dead Paladins, one with the holotape that has the password to the bunker. Did not even realize it was the password until about five min later I stumbled upon the bunkers and just went randomly knocking.

So yeah, it still is really easy to get if you try, bugging out aside the quest are not hard at all. I think my biggest issue with it is, wearing the armor the Brotherhood gives you counts as a "disguise" and the NCR will attack you on sight for having it on. Even after I had organized a truce between the two factions some of the Rangers at the damn would still blast away at me.
 
wearing the armor the Brotherhood gives you counts as a "disguise"
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I find the whole idea of disguise in the game kind of silly. a) it's easy to screw up your game this way, and b) it seems silly that someone would attack a hero of their faction on sight if he decides to wear a different outfit (e.g. "idolized" reputation w/ NCR + Legion outfit).

Get Jury Rigging as a perk to repair Power Armor with lesser armor.
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It requires lvl14 AND Repair 90, so it's hardly that easy. You kind of have to build your character around it to make it possible.
 
I agree that the disguise system isn't 100% good. Especially if you are more than "normal" liked by a faction, they should let you wear whatever other clothes you want to. But then again, running around in Legion clothes in a NCR camp might be a little bit more than just suspicious...
 
Ausdoerrt said:
It requires lvl14 AND Repair 90, so it's hardly that easy. You kind of have to build your character around it to make it possible.
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I guess it just came naturally to me, repair was one of the first skills I leveled to 100.


And yeah, disguises are extremely stupid. Not once in my entire play through did I ever have a legit reason to use them, I am sure the situations are there but I did not need it. Hoping someone comes out with a mod to disable them.
 
Well, I needed disguise a few times. The first and most obvious time was when I have done the quests for the powder gangers in the jail, even though I was vilified with them. Without powder ganger disguise, they would have attacked me on sight.

The second time was later in game, when I was running away from the Legion.

And now I remember a third time, where I've got access to Helios One, after I've disguised myself as NCR soldier.

There are also various other times in the game, where you can fool NPCs with the correct dress.
 
Yes, in Fallout 1 & 2 to get Power Armor you needed to actually work for it and needed to have a good character to get so far in the game to get it. The armor itself actually is good, you take damage from nothing and only thing that could hurt were advanced energy weapons.

In Fallout 3 you could get Power Armor as the first thing out of the vault and the armor isn't really too helpful "protecting" you.

Haven't found PA in NV.
 
I only got power armor very late in the game, around level 24-25. They are much better than F3 pa, also, they last longer at 100% efficiency.

Take the enclave quest to get the pa, it is quicker than the BS quest and also gives you a suit with 28 dt in perfect conditions. You can get this quest when you meet arcade gannon and do some things that he likes.

I only used the enclave pa in the final quest though.
 
Yeah, if you know exactly where to look you can get power armor easily, but that is also pretty much true for the first two games too (rushing to BoS or navarro to get it was only made hard because of the need to reload after impossible random encounters).

Plus IIRC its only BoS armor that just lies around waiting for you, in pretty hostile environments, and wearing it is a good way to get shot by the game's most present faction (that should definitely go away after you establish truce, I agree). The others you have to earn with high level quests (killing the Van Graffs before being at least level 15 must not be feasible).

The only real difficulty is getting the training. I know of only two way; one is an obscure and long quest line that is triggered by doings stuff nobody really seems to know about, the other is relatively easy but can still be missed.

On that subject, I am a bit disappointed in Power Armor's low effectiveness across the board. T51-b is just 5 DT higher than ranger armor/reinforced mark 2, and it slows you down even more.

I just got the Enclave PA, however, and this one gives you a boss 38 DT with a full set. Truly feel like a walking tank now, except against those damn anti-mat rifle Centurions. Its still funny to let Legion recruits scratch your paint with those machetes while you spin your Minigun.
 
Ilosar said:
Yeah, if you know exactly where to look you can get power armor easily, but that is also pretty much true for the first two games too (rushing to BoS or navarro to get it was only made hard because of the need to reload after impossible random encounters).
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I remember that the first time that I beat F2 I used a walkthrough to get the pa right at the beginning. Combat only became challeging in the endgame.

The only real difficulty is getting the training. I know of only two way; one is an obscure and long quest line that is triggered by doings stuff nobody really seems to know about, the other is relatively easy but can still be missed.
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The pa training was invented because since pa in the modern fallouts (3 and NV) degrade quickly, they are abundant, so you need to have something to restrict it's use.
 
I would not say PA in NV is abundant. You can get lots of it if you do a certain quest, but its not like in FO3, where that wandering armor merchant (Crow?) would have some in his inventory after upgrade, where the BOS would give away its t-45 for a few hundred caps if you were nice to papa Lyons, and where every single weaksauce mook of the main enemy faction of the main quest wore some of it. And that particular armor carries the limitation of making you target practice for the faction that is present in most of the game's hubs.

And I certainly prefer it that way. Power armor is supposed to be the pinnacle of Pre-War tech, not some tin can that is just barely better than whatever scraps wastelanders wear. The abundance (and suckiness) of it in FO3 just didn't feel right to me.

If item health is a problem, just jack it up for Power Armor. Hell, its not like this has no basis in lore. FO3 had a "bugged" PA for DLC that had unlimited health, and it definitely felt like the ultimate armor, not because of high DR, but because you didn't need to stop every five minutes to find spare parts. That just kinda defeats the purpose of "badass armor that can survive tank shells and centuries of warfare", IMO.

To me it seems like NV did just that; I wore my T51-b for some time (8 levels, give or take), and I didn't need to repair it once to keep it from falling in DT (the "maintenance" idea is brilliant, BTW, it makes the "item have durability" idea much more interesting now thats its just something you have to take care of, not a constant source of annoyment). Maybe I'm just that good, however

/rantover :) .
 
Ilosar said:
I would not say PA in NV is abundant. You can get lots of it if you do a certain quest, but its not like in FO3, where that wandering armor merchant (Crow?) would have some in his inventory after upgrade, where the BOS would give away its t-45 for a few hundred caps if you were nice to papa Lyons, and where every single weaksauce mook of the main enemy faction of the main quest wore some of it. And that particular armor carries the limitation of making you target practice for the faction that is present in most of the game's hubs.
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It is not abudant like in F3, but it is not as rare as in F1 and F2, where you couldn't get PA from death soldiers on the floor. If you could get PA in F1 and F2 from death soldiers on the floor you could get PA from killing the guards in front of the BOS base.
 
Bal-Sagoth said:
So yeah, it still is really easy to get if you try, bugging out aside the quest are not hard at all. I think my biggest issue with it is, wearing the armor the Brotherhood gives you counts as a "disguise" and the NCR will attack you on sight for having it on. Even after I had organized a truce between the two factions some of the Rangers at the damn would still blast away at me.
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The Brotherhood's store has T-51b PA that isn't "Brotherhood PA" so it doesn't act as a disguise.
 
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