Power armors suck for game balance

[Ravager69]

You don't like challenges do you?

It's about style To me, the best Fallout experience is walking around with a Magnum .44, dressed in Leather Jacket\Armor and showing the mo fos who's gangsta. I'm not much into overpowering my character and that's why I need Power Armor late in game, because I ain't a walking nuclear apoclypse all by myself

EDIT: oh, and I know you weren't talking to me, but I think similar to the guy you WERE talking to

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Power Armour is fairly balanced in Fallout, there's no guarantee that the player will visit the Brotherhood (I don't every play through) for a start. Stealth characters won't really want it, melee characters probably won't need it. Diplomatic non combatants might not even be able to get it if they don't have a high enough repair skill and for ranged combat characters it's not invulnerable.

In Fallout 2 and Tactics it only becomes available fairly late in game by which time your opponents have the same or equivalent protection. And when there are plenty of weapons available that can still turn a suit of advanced armour into a leaky sieve.

The only thing that sux about PA is the fact that it is broken: why the hell my char with developed ST10 can't get the +4 bonus that the damned thing provides?

That's not broken IIRC Power Armour uses hydraulics and any hydraulics system will have limits. If the maximum the armour can bench press is a thousand pounds and you can already bench press that amount or greater then you would not get a strength boost. If there's anything broken about SPECIAL and the power armour bonus is why don't all weaker characters get boosted to the same level. If the armour uses electric motors to pump the fluid in the hydraulics then when you have two characters with a strength of three and a strength of six shouldn't both be boosted to ten by the armour?

 

[Violator]

It's about style

Well that's what I'm saying too. The only armors in the game that I use are leather jacket (stripped from Sulik), combat leather jacket (thou my current char had to "cheat" there a bit so I could get it) and Bridgekeepers Robes (if I get them; but fortunately enough in this playthrough my first spec enc was the Bridge of Death ).

As for the weapons, I like to do things up close and personal. I started of with spear, got to the sharpened version and kept it for quite some time - I cleared the freaking Wanamingo Mines with that spear; it was a bit of a pain in the ass with the jinxed and all, but what's more rewarding then impaling the mother alien with a 75 dmg crit to the eyes and instant killin' her after that I'll stick only to power fist -> mega power fist with some added fun from ripper and super sledge here and there. What can I say, I just lLOVE powered close combat

@requiem: I don't get it. Why you wouldn't get additional kinetic power even if you can bench more than the amount that armor provides? Shouldn't that boost just add even more to your strength? I always assumed that no matter how much power you can produce that the effects are cumulative rather than evening each other out :p

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

@requiem: I don't get it. Why you wouldn't get additional kinetic power even if you can bench more than the amount that armor provides? Shouldn't that boost just add even more to your strength? I always assumed that no matter how much power you can produce that the effects are cumulative rather than evening each other out :p

According to the holodisk you can find The back-mounted TX-28 MicroFusion Pack generates 60,000 Watts to power the HiFlo hydraulic systems built into the frame of the suit. So if the hydraulic pumps are powered then kinetic energy wouldn't be a factor. Even if it was any system will have a maxmimum pressure it can achieve and a maximum load it can carry.

A stronger person wouldn't need to exert as much effort (as a weaker person) into making a manually powered exoskeleton move. But there would always be a cut off point where your strength wouldn't get any boost. Think of a car brake pedal, if two people are both strong enough to push the pedal to the floor then they are both going to be exerting the same amount of pressure on the brakes. No matter if they were Pavlova or Pavarotti.

 

[superstartran]

You need Power Armor late game if you are playing normally and are not too experienced with Fallout 2 due to the huge amount of Enclave soldiers you encounter, who are absolutely armed to the teeth as posters stated above.




However, Power Armor is also there because Black Isle recognized that every game needs a WTF OVERPOWERED item, and the Power Armor was that (although it is still within reason).

 

[ShadowFlux]

The term 'balance' is a little odd to use - without a multiplayer side to the game, it needs some degree of qualification - *what* is unbalanced by PA?

Simply put - the SPECIAL system. what point is there to putting more than 5 into Strength when it will be getting +5 by the end of the game anyway? (Or even just +3). Roleplaying reasoning can always be thrown at the issue, but that just doesn't deal with the uneasy feeling you get when investing 8 SPECIAL points in Strength, knowing it's quite unnecessary.

 

[Guest]

...but that just doesn't deal with the uneasy feeling you get when investing 8 SPECIAL points in Strength, knowing it's quite unnecessary.

No, its not unnessecary to give high ST because the ST points added by PA do not affect ST modifiers such as HP's.

 

[Sorrow]

Simply put - the SPECIAL system. what point is there to putting more than 5 into Strength when it will be getting +5 by the end of the game anyway? (Or even just +3). Roleplaying reasoning can always be thrown at the issue, but that just doesn't deal with the uneasy feeling you get when investing 8 SPECIAL points in Strength, knowing it's quite unnecessary.

I never had any problems with the PA giving a strength bonus and I have never considered it when creating characters. After all, my characters usually go the V15 -> Shady Sands -> V15 -> Junktown -> The Hub -> Necropolis -> V13 way. I don't go to the Glow very often. Actually, I rarely survive past Necropolis, so most of my characters don't even see the "end of the game" part.

 

[DarkCorp]

I never had a problem with PA. If anything, it was one of the few things I looked forward to and expected to see in a post apoc world.

I mean every PA movie I saw I said "Damn why don't they just look for lost technology, hell I would". And Fallout allowed me to do that with the Brotherhood.

 

[NyquilAddict]

Um yeah, wearing PA does affect it. It increases your strength so it increases melee damage.

 

[Patton89]

He said it doesnt effect HP.
In any case, i wouldnt call it unbalanced. You dont even necessarily get it during gameplay.
You can still get killed by supermutants quite easily, especially when they get critical hits.