Power Armor Strength Buffs

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

Not sure if anyone’s ever brought this up, but I was thinking the other day that the way power armor gives the player strength buffs doesn’t really make sense. Power armor should have the same effectiveness regardless of the strength of the person wearing it. It would be more logical if power armor raised your Strength to 9 or 10 instead of just adding 3 or 4 points onto your natural strength.

I guess this would make the Strength stat useless once you get power armor, though…

 

[JellyJman]

Not sure if anyone’s ever brought this up, but I was thinking the other day that the way power armor gives the player strength buffs doesn’t really make sense. Power armor should have the same effectiveness regardless of the strength of the person wearing it. It would be more logical if power armor raised your Strength to 9 or 10 instead of just adding 3 or 4 points onto your natural strength.

I guess this would make the Strength stat useless once you get power armor, though…

It would, but tbh strength is kinda of a non factor anyway when you get PA since almost everyone goes 4+ starting strength and by the time you get Hardened PA it’s somewhere between 8-10 and there really not a substantial difference between the three numbers unless you are rocking unarmed/melee. A ranged build doesn’t really benefit that much by having 10 strength compared to 8. Hell even the difference when unarmed/melee is little once you get the power fist and AGI is still more important than anything else. I’m pretty sure most players wouldn’t have 3 strength or less so it’s pretty moot lol

 

[cronicler]

As far as I understand, it depends on the type of exoskeleton; A Cyberdyne HAL style (assist) exoskeletons works directly as a force multiplier based on the capabilities of organic body for the most part with strictly limited/controlled output for safety.
A Load Carrier style exo on the other hand acts more like a forklift that one wears with more power (lifting and weight capabilities) but much more awkward to operate and slower to finesse.

The PAs in FO seem to be a mix of the two approaches with hard engine governors in place in order to stop PA's damaging the squishies inside.

 

[Gizmojunk]

All exoskeletons support their own weight at minimum; the max carry load at most.
In practice manual exo-suits like the loader in Aliens, are puppeted by the pilot; while automated systems quite literally avoid their occupant with internal sensors.

I surmise that exosuits like the Berkeley Bionics Exo-Hiker system are tugged along by the wearer, rather than it avoiding their feet.

Spoiler

*Notice! This thing weighs 31 pounds.
According to Fallout's in-game description of the PA suit, that suit weighs 42 pounds.

It would be possible (but dangerous) to design a suit that pushes or pulls without hindering the wearer's own strength; think of an hydraulic jack attached to a benchpress where the weightlifter can raise the bar at their own speed, and the jack rises underneath them, assisting as needed.

IMO this system would be either very slow, or extremely dangerous, because if it was fast, and the load slipped or was dropped, then the occupant's limbs could be torn or dislocated by the sudden loss of resistance.