Heavy headgear affects sneak?

[Atomicus]

So I am almost finishing my bajilion playthrough in this game, this time with a hitman/stealth roleplay. I'm sporting the Mk II stealth suit from Old World Blues, however I came across the Elite Riot Gear helmet that provides +2 Perception bonus, which my character benefits a lot from.

The issue is that the Elite Riot Gear Helmet is categorized as "heavy" apparel. Now my question is, does Heavy, or even medium, headgear affect sneak like body armor does?

[Arasteele]

From my experience it's hard to say, really. I've played max stealthy where it's all light armor, chinese stealth suit and/or the mk II stealth suit, silent running perk, 100 sneak. I've also played it heavy sneak, going for max sneak in everything except not worrying about armor, thus going all-in with the Elite Riot Gear.... and to be honest, unless you're packing a lot of stealth boys it really doesn't seem to make much difference either way. If an enemy is going to detect you, they'll detect you. If your sneak is working, it's working.

I find it more depends on the enemy than what you're wearing. Deathclaws, and anything in the DLCs, pretty much always see you no matter what you've got going for sneaking. But many other main game regular enemies won't spot you unless you do something dumb.

The only thing for me that tends to ever make a noticeable difference, aside from the slight differences between a 20 skill and a 100 skill, is the stealth boy.... and even that is no guarantee of a successful sneak with certain enemies.

Sneaking overall is one of the very few things about this game I wish could be more balanced and responsive.

[Rogue]

The heavier you are the more noise you make. If your intentions are non-combat then the lighter the better. It's unfortunate but sneak has no bearing on muffling the metal against metal of heavy armor.

[talgaby]

It does not matter how headgear is classified, only the armour that uses the Body slot counts with sneaking functions. Every other slot can have a super-duper-mega-heavy classification equipment, you can be still as stealthy as coherent thoughts in Trump's cranium.