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Contents hide How power armour works in Fallout 4 Where to find fusion cores in Fallout 4 How power armour mods work in Fallout 4 Model power armour mods in Fallout 4 Material power armour mods in Fallout 4 Miscellaneous mods for power armour in Fallout 4 Perks you need for power armour modification in Fallout 4 Components you need for power armour modifications in Fallout 4Power armour is everywhere in Fallout 4. You’re given a set of it in the first town you come to, and can randomly stumble across suits of it in the wasteland. There are power armour crafting stations in half the settlements around, and sometimes in random sheds in the middle of nowhere. It’s almost as if Bethesda were trying to make using power armour easy… To make it even more user friendly we’ve done this guide, which you are reading, to explain how power armour works and how you can modify it to make it even better.
How power armour works in Fallout 4
Power armour (or power armor, depending on how correct you want to be) is a huge full body suit of metal that basically makes you a little tank for as long as you’re in it. It’s made up of a power armour frame which you then slot bits of the power armour into (the legs, arms, torso, and grandly named helm) but you don’t need to take off your regular armour to use it – you can just step right into your power armour fully clothed. You can also equip power armour on your companions.
Power armour runs on fusion cores that you slot in the back, and gives an incredible amount of protection from all damage types as well as increasing your strength while you’re in it. The disadvantage is that you have to keep replacing the fusion cores, it covers up the face you spent so many hours crafting in character creation, and the HUD is much harder to actually read in power armour. You do breath a bit like Darth Vader when you’re in it though, so that’s something.
Where to find fusion cores in Fallout 4
You can buy fusion cores from vendors (for example, the slightly shady Proctor Teagan on the Prydwen) but that can end up being a bit expensive. A lot of pre-war buildings you can explore will have a generator running on a fusion core, mostly factories, hospitals and the like rather than school buildings, so check ground floors and basements for them (the fusion core is slotted into a bright yellow terminal so it’s hard to miss). If you’re stealthy enough and you’re feeling lucky you can chance stealing the fusion core right out of the back of an enemy’s power armour.
MacCready, the companion, will sometimes give you ammo when you’re travelling with him but it turns out that if you equip him with the power suit that changes to a fusion core every so often. Don’t ask us where he’s keeping them.
How power armour mods work in Fallout 4
Power armour mods are actually pretty simple, and come in three varieties (plus the option of adding a headlamp to your helmet). As with regular armour it depends on the base piece of power armour that you’re using, but you can get a decent set for joining the Brotherhood of Steel, as well as buy more advanced pieces from vendors and finding sets out in the wasteland.
Model power armour mods in Fallout 4
The basic mod to power armour is increasing its model type, which runs from A to F and, unlike at school, in this case A is the worst you can have. Upgrading the model type increases the power armours resistance to ballistic and energy damage by quite a long way, but also makes it even heavier than a big clumping suit of metal already was.
Material power armour mods in Fallout 4
Most of the material mods for power armour aren’t actually changing the material so much as slapping some cool paint on it. When your armour is all painted up in the colours of one group (the Brotherhood of Steel, the Minutemen, Vault-Tec) you can increase your strength or charisma. Because having a matching set of armour just makes you feel all cool, we suppose.
However, the more advanced mods include different plating and coats for your armour to make it more resistant to certain types of damage, or increase the overall health of your power armour in the first place.
Miscellaneous mods for power armour in Fallout 4
The misc mods are different for the different parts of your body. Arms and legs on power armour can be modded to do things like increase unarmed damage, decrease action point usage, and up your carry weight limit even further.
The miscellaneous mods for your torso include a bunch of cool things like medical upgrades to reduce your chance of addiction when using chems, or to automatically use a stimpak when your health is low. As you get to the more advanced mods you can reflect melee damage back at the attacker or build in an entire jetpack. It’s pretty rad.
The helm specific mods are also useful. You can increase your intelligence, increase your VATS hit chance, or mark enemies once you’ve taken sighted aim with them. You can even add a mod that removes radiation from food and drink. They can do some pretty technical stuff with power armour. It’s just a shame you can only use one mod at a time.
Perks you need for power armour modification in Fallout 4
Power armour, as we mentioned, is high-tech stuff, so not only are you going to need to rank up the Armorer perk, you’re going to need to put a lot into Science! as well to build some of the mods. The miscellaneous mods in particular are mostly based on Science! ranks alone.
Components you need for power armour modifications in Fallout 4
You need a lot of aluminium, as well as adhesive. Ceramics and circuitry also come up a lot, and the more high-tech you go with the mods the more components get introduced, including copper. You can find most of these on our guide to junk collection, but keep an eye out for fibre optics, which are in medical equipment like microscopes. The mods in the model slot also require a lot of rubber, which you can get from scrapping tyres or picking up basketballs and kickballs. But seriously, don’t underestimate how much adhesive and aluminium power armour mods use up.
About the Author
Alice Bell
Fallout 4
- Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
- Genre(s): Action, First Person, RPG
- Read Review
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