Power Armor Explained

[Idrownedmyfish]

Here’s my idea for the confusing mess that is Fallout 4’s power armor. In fallout 1, only the T51 existed. It was the only power armor in the game and that was that. The Advanced Power Armor Mk I and II were added in fallout 2 as the enclave power armor. It was a post war armor that was technologically superior to the T51.
Here’s where it starts to get complicated.
At some point, the Brotherhood of Steel expands. In New Vegas, we find them in the Hidden Valley bunkers, still primarily clad in T51, but with the odd T45 suit thrown in here and there, with several now in the NCR’s possession, which were captured after the battle for Helios One. They likely found these suits in hidden valley.
In Fallout Tactics, we’re introduced to the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, and a new set of power armor along with it, this set featuring horns. I believe this might have been a prewar rival to the T51, created by an Illinois based company with the intention of submitting it to the military as an alternative suit, much like the Hayabusa armor in the Halo 3 lore. When the brotherhood airship crashes at the beginning of Tactics, much of the brotherhood’s T-series power armor was damaged beyond repair. They find a small cache of this alternate power armor and begin using it instead.
Then comes Fallout 3. Set in DC, the older T45 armor is now the most plentiful power armor in the game, with two (count em, two) sets of T51, locked up in prewar military installations. I believe this is where most of hidden valley’s power armor ended up, in the hands of Owyn Lyons’ brotherhood faction, which was sent to make contact with the lost Midwestern BoS and to secure prewar technology that is undoubtedly buried under the former US government.
However, it’s at this time we meet the East Cost Enclave, this time sporting horned power armor, significantly different from the APA they used on the west coast. I believe, during their exodus from the west, the remaining sets of Enclave armor was damaged or fell into a state of disrepair, and the enclave at the time had no facilities to produce more suits. So, when the Enclave reached Chicago, they found a group of “savages” that had an abundance of pristine power armor. They killed off the majority of the Midwest BoS and used their armor to repair and upgrade their advanced power armor, producing more suits like it to maintain uniformity once they established a permanent base of operations at Raven Rock. However, some of the APA was still in relatively good shape as the Enclave started to scout through Boston, and this is the source of the X-01 we see in FO4.
It’s worth noting that we know the Enclave power armor in FO3 is stated by both Maxson and Protector Casdin that the enclave power armor in that game IS IN FACT the Advanced Power Armor Mk. II. However they probably wouldn’t be a very reliable source on it, as the only time APA Mk. II was seen before these events was in FO2, where it more resembled the Mk I from FO2 and FNV. BUT WHAT IF Protector Casdin wasn’t with Lyon’s group when they left Lost Hills? What if he was one of the few survivors of the Midwestern BoS, picked up as part of Lyons’ secondary objective of making contact with the Midwest chapter? This means he saw the Alt. Power Armor that the Enclave got their design from. He probably wore it before himself. And this would also explain why he and his Outcasts didn’t stay with Lyons’ chapter out of pure loyalty, because Lyons was just a perfect stranger that happened to wear the same banner he did.
Moving on to Fallout 4, the T60 power armor becomes quite problematic, as the DC brotherhood had wide access to it, despite the fact that it didn’t seem to exist in the capital wasteland, and the last time we saw these jerks they had the old T45. Not to mention the fact that now power armor works more like a vehicle than a suit of armor, and requires fusion cores. I believe that before the Great War, there existed the T45 power armor, which was big and bulky and relied on fusion cores. In a moment of scientific genius, the prewar military scientists created the T51, which was the pinnacle of modern power armor science in that it had an integrated, self sustaining micro fusion reactor (I believe something like this was stated to be true of the T51 in a previous game, though I can’t say exactly where). The T51 was deployed to fight the Chinese and anchorage. However, due to the Sino-American war being fought over the worlds dwindling natural resources, the T51 was too advanced of technology to produce in numbers to rival the simpler T45. So, now began a project to bring the T45 up to T51 standards, and still use the easier to produce and probably even rechargeable fusion cores. The project was a success, and the T60 was born. This explains why the T60 looks like a bulkier T45. Because it is.
Then the bombs dropped. Only a handful of T60 suits were developed, and they were really only deployed to keep the peace in Boston, where the upgrade was developed. This is supported by the fact that a US soldier’s log can be found near the vertibird that crashed on top of the Museum of Freedom where you meet the minutemen and acquire your first set of power armor, which was a T45, indicating that the military still hadn’t widely adopted the T60.
Two hundred years later, a handful of BoS patrols were sent into the commonwealth, finding rusted out suits of T60 power armor. We know following the Battles of Raven Rock and Adams AFB, the brotherhood took over the Enclave’s factories for producing power armor and vertibirds. It’s likely that the patrols in Boston sent back schematics or pieces of T60 armor and the East Coast chapter began using it instead, which explains why it is so common during the events of Fallout 4.
Being that the only power armor in the original fallout was the T51 and that the idea of T45 seemingly came with Fallout 3, Bethesda must have only recently come up with the idea that T45 couldn’t possibly have that same, top of the line power source that the later T51 had, and inserted fusion cores for all armor for the sake of continuity and gameplay. If the T45 and T60 required these things and the T51 didn’t, then picking what power armor you’d wear would be a no brainer. This extends to those X-01 equipped enclave patrols I mentioned earlier. They were probably killed, and their armor is probably actually laying down still on their corpses by the time the sole survivor finds them, but because of how power armor works in fallout 4, the suits had to remain standing up in game in order to be accessible. Basically, the FO4 version of T45 and T60 as being big and bulky and requiring fusion cores is canon, and every other game showing the T51 and X-01 as being sleek and not needing fusion cores is canon.
The only thing I can’t figure out is how there’s a set of post war armor in a prewar amusement park. Bethesda just f***ed up there.
I’ll be the first to admit there’s probably holes in my theory, and that most of my facts might not be straight, but I’ve been working on this for a few weeks now. I’m sorry for such a long read, but I’ll appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

[Seb081]

♥♥♥♥

[Yhwach]

Holy mother of aidos that is a lot of text
tl;dr The Commonwealth was a military state which is why there's an abudance of power armor, there is no holes there.
The T60 armor being held back in the states and not receiving military use due to how expensive it was to produce makes sense, as the T45 was cheaper and more suiting for anchorage and the war.
And I guess the rest is just midpar explanations, I'm not reading all that..

What platform do you own the game on?

[Idrownedmyfish]

İlk olarak 𝕾𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖗𝖔𝖜 tarafından gönderildi:

Holy mother of aidos that is a lot of text
tl;dr The Commonwealth was a military state which is why there's an abudance of power armor, there is no holes there.
The T60 armor being held back in the states and not receiving military use due to how expensive it was to produce makes sense, as the T45 was cheaper and more suiting for anchorage and the war.
And I guess the rest is just midpar explanations, I'm not reading all that..

What platform do you own the game on?

I have all of them but FO4 on my PC. I used to have 4 on my Xbox One but I sold it and the system when my wife and I moved out to the country. Updating every five minutes just don’t work out here lol. I also have FNV and FO3 on my Xbox 360

[ⒸⒶⓁⒸⒾⓊⓂ]

consider a tl;dr version? i'm interested on reading this but lazy at the same time. it's 1am here already.

[Nite69]

game doesn't even need it, I used fully upgraded Tier 4 (or 5 I think) of standard armor around 90% of the game and only a few areas for a short time I had to use the hazmat suit

[Idrownedmyfish]

İlk olarak Sᴛᴇɪɴᴇʀ tarafından gönderildi:

consider a tl;dr version? i'm interested on reading this but lazy at the same time. it's 1am here already.

The gist is that T60 is upgraded T45 that is easier to mass produce than t51, because T45/T60 use an older system of fusion cores while T51 has a mini nuclear reactor built in. The brotherhood uses T60 now because they can build it themselves now. At the same time, the enclave power armor in fallout 3 is a fusion of the advanced power armor/X-01 in FO2, NV, and 4, with the power armor from Tactics that was recovered after the enclave destroyed the Midwest BOS.

[Yhwach]

İlk olarak Idrownedmyfish tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Sᴛᴇɪɴᴇʀ tarafından gönderildi:

consider a tl;dr version? i'm interested on reading this but lazy at the same time. it's 1am here already.

The gist is that T60 is upgraded T45 that is easier to mass produce than t51, because T45/T60 use an older system of fusion cores while T51 has a mini nuclear reactor built in. The brotherhood uses T60 now because they can build it themselves now. At the same time, the enclave power armor in fallout 3 is a fusion of the advanced power armor/X-01 in FO2, NV, and 4, with the power armor from Tactics that was recovered after the enclave destroyed the Midwest BOS.

Easier to but they hadn't gone around to doing so yet, T45 saw extensive use on the battlefield and they already had plenty of suits lying around and used them more than the t60 variant.

[Orge Lambart]

I think you're giving too much thought to the lore of a game which has proven time and again to not really care about sticking to a lore that makes sense..

[WildCat]

Hey, that's surely a good research, except X-01 isn't really an Enclave Power Armor.

Beth guys didn't really give a single **** about lore when they put X-01 in the game, according to loading screen X-01 is a post-war armor, apparently a research completed in some underground lab. Which lab, no one cared either, and thanks to leveled lists you can find a X-01 suit standing pretty much anywhere being totally out of place. Then they make Nuka World with ultimate "badass" PA as a reward for completing the storyline. As you can expect the most badass appeared to be X-01 with unique paintjob. Thus completion of X-01 project was moved to the [re-war times.

Possible explanation for similarity of Enclave PA and X-01 would be existence of pre-war or early post-war blueprints that were sent to the Enclave Oil Rig so they could begin the production of suits there. However, it's only my speculation and nothing else.

Don't remember which one, but either FO1 or FO2 have info on power armor development where it is stated that early models were running on small energy cells and couldn't operate for long periods of time then the compact fusion reactor was developed to work as a source of energy for PA. Later this fact was retconned and since FO3 it is stated that T-45 models had this problem instead of T-51 models. In Van Buren tech demo there is a US soldier that wears T-51b powered by small energy cells but obviously this is not a canon source.

Interesting fact that before FO4 all models had different frames and different reactor models, none of them had fusion cores, even introduced by Beth T-45d model in FO3 has no slot for it.
As pointed out in FO2 and FONV Enclave PA has upgraded servos compared to T-51b. In FO2 Enclave continued using T-51b models for carrying heavy cargo while combat units used exclusively Enclave PA, if those frames were compatible it'd be more efficient to fit old T-51b suits with new armor plates.

Side Note: anyone saying that fusion cores are there for balance forget that power armor plates are still destructible and after heavy fight you still gonna end up in damaged suit and will have to go back to base for repairs. Why two balancing features at once?

More facts about frames. Sure it looks cool when that frame opens up and your character just walks into it and then it closes. In Fallout 1 it is mentioned that PA suits were airtight! Can you imagine an airtight suit with so many holes in the frame and seams from moving (opening) parts? No way it would work! The most likely way to make an airtight suit would be to make it similar to an actual spacesuit where a backpack only would open allowing a person to crawl inside.

About T-60 PA. Again, it looks like a lame attempt just to squeeze in a new PA design without much thought, there was no time between Anchorage and The Great War to add those. It would look much better if they'd leave pre-war soldiers in T-51b suit and leave T-60 exclusively to Eastern BoS. While Raven Rock most likely has been destroyed and mobile base crawler was destroyed for sure it still would make sense if BoS would finally find some production capabilities suitable at very least upgrading T-45d armor suits and hopefully start making the new ones. If Commonwealth was the only major source of T-60 suits then how the f*** BoS would arrive wearing those already?

Side Note: also in the pre-war part of FO4 you see a freaking vertibird when in FO2 it was stated it's a post-war Enclave vehicle and BoS asks you to steal the plans for it for they can start making them too.

So yeah, Beth didn't care about what was already established in lore, they were just adding "cool stuff".

[jonnan.west]

Simpler in universe explanation? Profit Margins.

The initial rollout of power armor done under contract demanded an 'on demand power supply, and the contractors in fact developed an effectively eternal power supply for the armor. But it wasn't cheap; I mean the whole resource war background was because of energy scarcity; they weren't set to just tech their way out of it. But it did work, and initial power armor was based on it.

But that was the initial run the government was willing to pay top dollar for. Now they wanted this on a budget, and the contractors did the math and went 'Uh Uh'. So they 'Upgraded' the powersystem to use replaceable power packs. They were already in mass use for high end power needs, power back ups, and high end energy weapons, so they already had economy of scale, and they did a redesign/upgrade system to simply repairs and upgrades at the same time - give away the razor, sell the blade(s).

All the 'current' designs up to now have been based on the old power supply because it *was* over-engineered, but it was only common on the West Coast/Alaska due to threat of invasion getting that first series out there, and no one actually knows how to *make* that core from

As time has gone on, those power systems have been dying off due to combat and entropy, but the redesign with power frames, extensible armor systems, and replaceable high capacity batteries was always more common on the east coast, and because they were cheaper there's a lot more of them. The layout and control mechanisms were kept consistent for training purposes, but the internals of this T-45 armor are about as much like the West Coast T-45 armor As as F4-Terminator 2020 built in 2016 is to an F4-G deployed to Desert storm.

[one site.]

Hello there I'm a machine an new one .and i have something to add..

The T-45 power armor was located under the Pentagon where Lyons and his Brotherhood Detachment set up shop so thats where they found the Power armor it wasn't from hidden valley...

great writeup I liked it although I didn't read all of it ..

Just a note and for the record i have been follwing Fallout Lore since i got an origanal disc of fallout 2 when it was new in the shop..

and Fallout tactics was at first not accepted as cannon material/lore in the whole Fallout Lore picture..


..good job mate .. see ya in the forums

A good site about fallout is No mutants allowed. lots of material and mods for Fallout games the first three and as i remember right they also got a demo of the original Fallout 3 the Isometric viewed game its fun to play even wehn you get your hands on the flamethrower from the communist scum in that demo...

Edit:
may I ad that you space up your first post for easier reading.