Power Armour dominating late game

[RoboRevolution]

Further, with celestial devastation on the way, just who is going to be saying, "With the sky about to fall and all the world going to war, what we really, really, really need is mobile man-tanks!"? Especially when it is patently obvious that a multi-million/billion dollar suit of Powered Armor can be destroyed by just ONE blast from a plasma rifle or missile weapon that costs only thousands or tens of thousands of dollars? Not at all cost effective. If your choice was between ONE suit of Powered Armor, or a thousand plasma rifles, which would you take -- when you know that the other team will take what you didn't?

Dude, there are not Plasma Rifles in Wasteland. Even if there were who's to say Power Armor can't stop it? Or that they're so much cheaper than PA? It's all baseless conjecture. I mean sure, a good portion of this thread is, but this so particularly.

[CaptainPatch]

Dude, there are not Plasma Rifles in Wasteland. Even if there were who's to say Power Armor can't stop it? Or that they're so much cheaper than PA? It's all baseless conjecture. I mean sure, a good portion of this thread is, but this so particularly.

Well there is a variety of energy weapons available:
Laser pistol $8000 short range 40 Power pack Energy Weapon 6d6
Ion beamer $17000 medium range 20 Power pack Energy Weapon 14d6
Laser carbine $11500 medium range 30 Power pack Energy Weapon 8d6
Laser rifle $13000 long range 20 Power pack Energy Weapon 12d6
Meson cannon $18000 long range 10 Power pack Energy Weapon 19d6
Not sure how a Meson cannon compares to a plasma rifle, but I should imagine they're in the same league. And if fusion power IS available, plasma weapons become inevitable developments. And most definitely, one plasma rifle would be orders of magnitude cheaper because it has to do only ONE thing well, while a suit of PA involves a myriad of subsystems that must mesh seamlessly in order to enable the suit to perform properly.

[RoboRevolution]

Well that one thing is ionizing gas into plasma hotter than the sun, and firing into a cohesive, weaponized form, which is not something we're in any capacity to do. While Power Armor is really the natural progession of several things we can do: Heads Up displays, powered exo-skeletons, a life-support system, and armor plating.

[CaptainPatch]

Well that one thing is ionizing gas into plasma hotter than the sun, and firing into a cohesive, weaponized form, which is not something we're in any capacity to do. While Power Armor is really the natural progession of several things we can do: Heads Up displays, powered exo-skeletons, a life-support system, and armor plating.

BUT the supposition has been that the PA will be powered by a mini-fusion reactor built into the unit. If the suit has fusion power available to it, then a plasma gun would also have a unit available to it.

In either form, all of that hotter than the sun power is locked into the reactor via a "fusion bottle" that contains the fusion reaction (probably with layers of force field containment). If the "bottle" gets "cracked = failed, then the suit wearer would be Ground Zero for approximately the equivalent of a solar flare ground strike. Not good for the wearer or anyone in the immediate vicinity.

To weaponize that contained plasma vessel, all that would be necessary (gross understatement) would be to create a milli-microsecond aperture that allows a tiny amount of plasma to leak out in that direction. Cobble together some kind of aiming mechanism and voila!, you've got a plasma weapon. And as you say, it's hotter than the sun. If it splashes a PA suit, even if the material is durable enough to NOT get slagged, whoever is inside that suit still gets cooked.

[Drool]

To weaponize that contained plasma vessel, all that would be necessary (gross understatement) would be to create a milli-microsecond aperture that allows a tiny amount of plasma to leak out in that direction.

Provided you wanted the range of your weapon to be about the length of a machete. Plasma dissipates in atmosphere really quickly. Kind of why its only current practical uses are lights and cutting torches.

Not sure how a Meson cannon compares to a plasma rifle, but I should imagine they're in the same league.

Looking at things, it seems that mesons can decay into photons, so the meson cannon is probably just some kind of super-high tech laser weapon using handwavium to generate the mesons in the first place.

Honestly, the ion beamer is probably the closest to a plasma weapon (assuming the name refers to ionized gas). I guess that's fitting as it's a unique item and is described as being "strange looking". Other energy weapons you recognize on sight, but in a world of laser weapons, a plasma weapon would certainly look strange.

[RoboRevolution]

BUT the supposition has been that the PA will be powered by a mini-fusion reactor built into the unit. If the suit has fusion power available to it, then a plasma gun would also have a unit available to it.

Well to be honest, I never supported a fusion powered suit.

[joedpa82]

I love power armor. Please dont mess with it. Just dont use it if u dont like it. I love being a one man army beacuse i love to i kill all of my enemies. Just ensure that the enemies have a moral check once they see a guy in it. U want the game to be challenging? Use no armor and armed with a spear. Me? I just love to steam roll everyone due to the fact that i am a sadist and also due to the fact that i feel that i should be rewarded for all my hard work leveling up. If they create a power armor IRL u would also want 1 and u want it to last forever.

[CaptainPatch]

Provided you wanted the range of your weapon to be about the length of a machete. Plasma dissipates in atmosphere really quickly. Kind of why its only current practical uses are lights and cutting torches.

Sounds like something similar to a flamethrower would be possible. And hand grenades and land mines. Missile warheads.

I love power armor. Please dont mess with it. Just dont use it if u dont like it. I love being a one man army beacuse i love to i kill all of my enemies. Just ensure that the enemies have a moral check once they see a guy in it. U want the game to be challenging? Use no armor and armed with a spear. Me? I just love to steam roll everyone due to the fact that i am a sadist and also due to the fact that i feel that i should be rewarded for all my hard work leveling up. If they create a power armor IRL u would also want 1 and u want it to last forever.

Ants everywhere must have been terrified when they saw you coming anywhere near their ant hills.

[Gurkog]

Provided you wanted the range of your weapon to be about the length of a machete. Plasma dissipates in atmosphere really quickly. Kind of why its only current practical uses are lights and cutting torches.

Sounds like something similar to a flamethrower would be possible. And hand grenades and land mines. Missile warheads.

A plasma lance... kind of an updated version of a thermal lance! Stab people in the eye with technology!

[Son of Max]

It's never explicitly said, and there's precious few clues to guess by.

Base Cochise most likely runs on fission power, or it uses some other power source and just has an enormous radioactive sludge pit in the middle of a factory for no discernible reason.

The Servants of the Mushroom Cloud Temple seems to run by a fission plant. There's a "nuclear reactor" right in the middle.

Max is powered by something call a "fusion cell", but what that is, exactly, isn't stated. It could be a micronized fusion reactor or it could be some kind of catalyst to work with materials stored elsewhere in his body.

Something in Base Cochise is powered by a device that requires a "plasma coupler" to work. It's not critical to base operation, but is required for the self destruct sequence, meaning that it's possible the AI had it removed for just that reason. Fusion power is related to plasma physics, so Cochise might be run by a Fission/Fusion system.

Energy weapons of all types are loaded with "power packs". They are rare and non-reproducible, as evidenced by no stores carrying them, despite carrying all kinds of other things that require some level of manufacturing know-how and facilities (matches, bullets, armor, engines, flamethrowers, explosives, etc). Since different energy weapons get different numbers of shots from a power pack, and the ones with more shots do less damage, power packs are probably some kind of battery or single-charge capacitor.

Sleeper One and the Darwin Facility both have power 70+ years after the apocalypse, which means they probably have some kind of on-site power plant, either some kind of nuclear power or geothermal (although Sleeper One could theoretically be using hydroelectric, but you'd think that'd make it easy to spot). Sleeper One has a large generator on level 3, but of what type is a mystery. It could also just be a substation, as opposed to an actual generator.

Highpool has a powered water pump, presumably diesel. Although who knows where they're getting diesel fuel. Perhaps it was converted to run on vegetable oil or some other biofuel.

Vegas, Quartz, Needles, Darwin Village, the Ranger Center, and (possibly) the Guardian's Citadel all have power from somewhere, but it's never explained. Probably backup/portable generators running on biofuels.

The power plant for Sleeper 1 is a geothermal plant. It says so in the game and I've always remembered it because the first time I crawled Sleeper 1, I did the power plant switch on/switch off maneuver to get to the safe with the plasma coupler and it (the power plant) was referred to as a geothermal reactor, which, being 12 at the time, I'd never heard of, so, (because the internet in 1989 wasn't even a twinkle of what it is today and I didn't have access to it anyway) I asked my dad what that was. He gave me a brief explanation then took me to the library and had me read some stuff about it.

My dad had a tendency to do that when I asked him questions.

Really makes me wish we had the internet back then.

[Drool]

I thought that might have been the case, but couldn't exactly remember. Geothermal certainly makes sense. It would need to be something like that to still be running 70-some years on.

[Zeful]

I don't agree with Power Armor being lightweight, form-fitting, or having infinite power, just that it wouldn't be inhibitive to the users movement.

It's full body, robotically augmented plate armor. Unless it's sleeker than the Iron Man suit from the movies, it has to inhibit the user's movement simply due to the mechanics of the humanoid body shape. Your shoulders and hips should lose several degrees of rotation due to the armor plating and the servos for the joints. You lose mobility from the way you have to sit in the augmented greaves and boots that have to be bigger than your feet, meaning you will be more clumsy in it than you would outside it, unless you're a quadruple amputee and it's run through neurological connections.

Power armor, by design, results in you being far more clumsy in it than out of it. You'd be able to shoot a gun (if it was manufactured so that the trigger guard is large enough for the Armor's fingers to fit in it), and you'd be able to reposition yourself to shoot the gun, but that's about it as it's not some magic button that makes you super human while your in it. You're a humanoid tank with all the weaknesses of a human and you move slow on account of needing to move carefully so you don't trip. Ripping out the servos to make a powered exoskeleton integrated into a bulletproof vest is probably a better investment all told, as the exoskeleton harness doesn't need to get in the way of you moving properly to do it's job like power armor has to.

[Mandemon]

That assumes you make ridiculously big armor. Fallout PA surely was bigger than human, however, it also augmented users strength. It also wasn't that big, when you place human next to it.

PA is not meant (in my opinion) to be sneaky and lightweight armor. It's supposed to be used by soldiers who go in to hot zones that have more lead in the air than oxygen. Most PA are also BNC (Biological, Nuclear, Chemical) proof, thus allowing soldier to operate in hostile environment.

Essentially, PA is supposed to have soldier with all the strengths of the tank, but in compact size. Armor you are thinking is this (which is whole new can of worms, due to technology involved). However, I'd imagine power armor in WL is closer to that of Fallout. It's relatively small, but offers great protection against small arms and some bigger weapons too, as well as providing BNC protection. Soldier wearing it don't usually need to crouch, but they can do it too. Also, when you wear such armor you aren't even trying to be stealthy.

[CaptainPatch]

However, I'd imagine power armor in WL is closer to that of Fallout. It's relatively small, but offers great protection against small arms and some bigger weapons too, as well as providing BNC protection. Soldier wearing it don't usually need to crouch, but they can do it too. Also, when you wear such armor you aren't even trying to be stealthy.

Do you really imagine that a user in such a suit would be able to move around nearly as unfettered as a person NOT wearing such a suit? To a certain extent, it would be like expecting the Catcher at a baseball game to be able to run an obstacle course right alongside the Pitcher, step for step. When you factor in the weight of the armor, then you need to add Strength augmentation. That itself adds even more weight to the suit. The more freedom of movement you integrate, the more servos need to be added just so the wearer can twist this way and bend that. By the time all of that flexibility, strength, and speed get built in, there's a LOT of machinery -- not just power source, but movement and manipulation machinery built into the suit. That adds a LOT of weight, added to the weight of the basic armor itself.

"Not stealthy" is certainly an understatement.

I can readily see armor akin to the Star Wars Storm Trooper armor (ablative, super-strong composites), but once you start slapping on machinery to augment strength and speed and agility, the engineering complications start to multiply at an exponential rate.

[happy04]

"Do you really imagine that a user in such a suit would be able to move around nearly as unfettered as a person NOT wearing such a suit? To a certain extent, it would be like expecting the Catcher at a baseball game to be able to run an obstacle course right alongside the Pitcher, step for step. When you factor in the weight of the armor, then you need to add Strength augmentation. That itself adds even more weight to the suit. The more freedom of movement you integrate, the more servos need to be added just so the wearer can twist this way and bend that. By the time all of that flexibility, strength, and speed get built in, there's a LOT of machinery -- not just power source, but movement and manipulation machinery built into the suit. That adds a LOT of weight, added to the weight of the basic armor itself."

The issue here is how you see limitations of mechanical movement in the wasteland universe. Max was an android, and lived undetected for some time, so it is safe to assume that servos and lightweight materials capable of emulating human motion exist. The weight is not an issue, the power armor would be constructed in such a way that the weight is directed around the body towards the ground, while also supporting the body. It's actually conceivable that power armor could function similar to the trauma harnesses in the Old World Blues DLC for F:NV or prophet's battle suit from crysis. (Trauma harnesses support the corpses of the soldiers if they die while wearing the suit and use their bone structure to support the suit to continue combat and bring the corpse back to base after.) (The crysis suit forms around muscles augmenting their movement rather than being pushed by the muscles after movement.)

It is not shown in wasteland what the inside of a power armor suit looks like, so we don't know exactly how it functions. If we assume it works similar to T51b from fallout 1 and 2, and take information from not only cabbot's character drawing and the brotherhood holotape in fallout 1 as well as some information about knights wearing recon armor under their power armor in fallout 3 its safe to assume that the power armor models are not airtight by themselves. Wearing a rubber suit under the power armor helps increase the radiation resistance. That rubber suit could be fitted to the power armor joints to allow for better limb movement and hip rotation. It could also prevent chafing from the joints. lols.

Think of power armor as a high tech, very responsive and intuitive, full body prosthesis. Given advances in the wasteland universe in AI, cybernetics, robotics, and energy storage, it's very likely that power armor does carry its own weight entirely, as well as most if not all of the burden that the wearer is under.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think power armor should be viable for sneaking or stealth operations, but I don't want it to be a hindrance on the wearer like warhammer 40k power armor. Power armor in my mind should be an almost pure advantage. I understand your concerns about sneaking with power armor on, but other than that you seem to just want to add annoying features to the game. With armor able to be taken on and off instantly all that making it encumber you will do is make you open your inventory an astronomical number of times to take it off and put it back on to avoid the penalties which to me is more immersion breaking than making the penalties in the first place.

[Mandemon]

Wasteland has androids and cyborgs. it also has numerous models of different robots, as well as Scorpitron.

Call me naive, but I think mechanical systems in Wasteland have advanced far enough to allow small and strong enough servo/motor systems to exist that they can be used on in PA.

After all, PA doesn't necessarily mean it's needs to be giant. It can have (relatively) small armor thickness. if I remember correctly, PA in FO has thin armor level, it having 3 layers: Basic Titanium(or something) for small arms, thin diamond dust layer (for energy weapons) and something else too.

Furthermore, some real life designs that could easily have been advanced further. These are "only" exoskeletons, but if designs keep advancing at the same rate in WL and armor material becomes more lightweight...

http://www.upgradeyourbody.com/biotech- ... tails.html

http://www.upgradeyourbody.com/biotech- ... tails.html (up to 200 pounds without impeding the wearer (Strength Augmentation)

http://www.upgradeyourbody.com/biotech- ... tails.html

[CaptainPatch]

Max was an android, and lived undetected for some time, so it is safe to assume that servos and lightweight materials capable of emulating human motion exist. The weight is not an issue, the power armor would be constructed in such a way that the weight is directed around the body towards the ground, while also supporting the body.

Wasteland has androids and cyborgs. it also has numerous models of different robots, as well as Scorpitron.

Is there the remotest possibility that perhaps the devs may have gotten some things wrong in WL? And that because they did, does it mandate that those errors be perpetuated in WL2?

In the assembly of Max, the separate components were immediately recognized as being mechanical parts: an android head, ROM boards, a fusion cell, servomotors, and a power convertor. Yet, by simply clicking these parts together produces an android that is indistinguishable from a living, breathing human being? In literature, this is called deus ex machina: it works simply because the author says it works.

The weight of the armor may not be a burden on the wearer, but it certainly will be a burden on the environment. When all the armor, power systems, weaponry, maneuverability framework, et al, get assembled, how much total weight would there be? 200 pounds? (Gross underestimate.) 300 pounds? 400 pounds? Add in the user's body weight of >200 pounds (more than likely) and the total weight is probably in excess of 500 pounds -- all of it displacing down through a pair of size 13 or so footware soles. Try walking across a sand dune carrying that kind of burden and imagine how well you'd be keeping your footing. Or are you also assuming some built-in anti-grav gear to ease up on the suit's weight displacement?

Honestly, I am of the opinion that during the making of WL and the Fallouts, the deves simply thought, "Let's include Power Armor! That will be neat!" and never gave a moment's thought about any of the practical constraints on such a system. In game mechanics, it's only function is to define the character's Armor Class value for calculating combat results. Functionally within the game environment, it has all of the constraints of T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes.

Hmm. we could skip Power Armor entirely simply by assuming a Personal Force Field belt that resists damage just as well as PA, weighs less than two pounds, and restricts the wearer not at all. And if the devs say, "It works because we say so!", it would be just as valid as PA.

[Zeful]

That assumes you make ridiculously big armor. Fallout PA surely was bigger than human, however, it also augmented users strength. It also wasn't that big, when you place human next to it.

PA is not meant (in my opinion) to be sneaky and lightweight armor. It's supposed to be used by soldiers who go in to hot zones that have more lead in the air than oxygen. Most PA are also BNC (Biological, Nuclear, Chemical) proof, thus allowing soldier to operate in hostile environment.

Essentially, PA is supposed to have soldier with all the strengths of the tank, but in compact size. Armor you are thinking is this (which is whole new can of worms, due to technology involved). However, I'd imagine power armor in WL is closer to that of Fallout. It's relatively small, but offers great protection against small arms and some bigger weapons too, as well as providing BNC protection. Soldier wearing it don't usually need to crouch, but they can do it too. Also, when you wear such armor you aren't even trying to be stealthy.

No. It does not assume you make ridiculously big armor. It assumes that you have an understanding of humanoid biomechanics. And no, I wasn't thinking of the Space Marines when I made my post, I was specifically referring to the Fallout Series of power armor.

Open that image you posted. I see 4 things on that armor that limit the mobility by a significant degree. Starting from the bottom, the feet, the thighs, the abdomen, and the shoulders. The feet cut down it's contact points, centering the force on a small area and making the entire thing unwieldy to walk in on anything other than flat and level concrete platforms, the feet alone make it so you cannot run in that armor. The thighs are too large, and clip into each other, meaning the suit needs to walk bow-legged to walk at all, again, making it impossible to run in that armor. The abdomen completely restricts your ability to turn and bend, you drop your gun, and you cannot pick it back up again, if someone gets behind you, you are done because you cannot adequately turn and face them. The shoulders heavily restrict the range of motion you have with your arms, meaning you cannot climb in the armor because you can't reach upward. Hell, the suit forces the user to carry it's weight as the upper portion isn't connected to the lower portion, meaning most of the weight is on your shoulders. Coupled with the lack of armor on the joints, an unarmored man with a knife has a competitive chance of killing the pilot, who could be wielding anything.

[happy04]

Hmm. we could skip Power Armor entirely simply by assuming a Personal Force Field belt that resists damage just as well as PA, weighs less than two pounds, and restricts the wearer not at all. And if the devs say, "It works because we say so!", it would be just as valid as PA.

I guess what you say is true about oversight, but I'm not certain the oversight lies in the technology's limitations, rather the junk tech that could be salvaged around the wastes wasn't varied enough and didn't describe the potential uses well enough. BTW force fields are for space ships, they would interfere with walking on the ground and interacting with physical objects through the barrier by your previous statements you should be very concerned about those implications.

Instead why not an induced electromagnetic repulsion device that sends out a lightning bolt of charged particles to induce a negative charge on incoming projectiles, then perpendicular electric and magnetic fields would be induced by a series of high density energy coils around the wearers limbs and torso to generate a force to act against the inertia in the projectiles stopping them mid air several feet in front of the wearer. The suit could also be used as a meele attack deterrent sending huge high amp spikes of energy into the aggressor's spine causing convulsions and seizures. A third use could be as a recessatation spl? device eliminating the need for doctor skill. It could also restart generators and convert goods straight to money to eliminate shops.

FYI i'm not into game breaking gear but having annoying drawbacks doesn't make for fun gameplay.

[RoboRevolution]

Fallout is a poor example, it's very clearly a game that values style over practicality. We have Exoskeletons now that do not impede movement, and plenty of examples of unsupported plate-armor where the user retained almost all their mobility. It behooves me that we could not creates a powered armor that did not impede users movement.