Robots, radio, games, lore, stories, community, just press play. Welcome to the Fallout Lorecast. The podcast that explores the boundaries of our knowledge about the world of Fallout. Waste Landers and Vault Dwellers welcome back to the Fallout Lorecast.
I have our patrons with us, it's the end of the month again, it happens every month and it always creeps up and it's a surprise because time doesn't actually make any sense anymore for some reason. Anyway, hey everybody, welcome back. We are discussing Power Armor this week and going to be discussing things from a kind of a different perspective. I've done episodes on Power Armor before, Power Armor comes up pretty regularly on the show, but we wanted to see if we could customize our Power Armor and make some improvements in ways that the developers haven't really thought about yet.
And so the patrons have decided to join me as usual, we've got a fun group here, we've got here, who do we have next? We've got Pumpkin and Nova and Lil Green and Saint-Jub and Germanator welcome back everybody. I'm excited to talk Power Armor because over the years there have been changes in updates to Power Armor. They've expanded the selection of different models and all of that, but I have a feeling you all being Fallout experts, we'll just call it, you're all experts, right?
You might have some suggestions for ways that you would change your own Power Armor in order to maximize its benefits in the Wasteland, and I'm hoping that during this conversation some of these ideas make their way to Bethesda because we know some of the developers listen to the show, maybe you'll come up with some fun ideas that they'll work into Fallout 5 and people will be like, oh, crap, that's a great idea. That seems really cool. And it also makes sense a few hundred years after the bombs drop that you wouldn't just leave the Power Armor pieces just the way they are. If you're somebody in the Wasteland, you come across a pseudo-power armor, you're going to adjust it and change and stuff, right?
So I have a feeling you're going to come up some really fun ideas, but hey, why don't we go ahead and kick this off? Who would like to start us out? I should have set this up before the show started, but Pumpkin's ready to go. Pumpkin has some ideas.
Pumpkin. What do you think? So this is a mix of a cosmetic thing with the thing that already exists. So we see that the Power Armor takes damage, it can get broken, all that.
I would love to see a mechanic so that as it gets more and more damaged, it gets visually damaged. Oh, so you're talking just from like in the game perspective of make it match reality. Like if I take bullets to my chest, then it should have scuff marks and bullet marks on it. And another thing is if you have like a clean set of armor, like it's just a straight like silver metal armor, over time it starts to brown, like it's a rusting.
I would love to see that too. Right. Like in the Witcher 3, is it the Witcher? No, no, it's in Red Dead.
In Red Dead Redemption, over time your beard grows and your hair gets longer. You know what I'm talking about? And you can get bigger too by eating too as well. Right.
So to have role-playing elements like that in a future follow game where like oftentimes I will adjust to the way my character looks over time to make it look like he's more grizzled and aged from being in the Wasteland. But it would be really cool if like that kind of stuff happens physically to you, but then also to your gear over time. And then you can repair it. You can kind of buff it out.
But that seems really cool. And then I didn't have something that I brought up in a past episode and that was having a power armor. If you had pain train, be able to just run through what locked wood indoors. Yeah, I like that idea too.
Or even just like walls, like thin walls in like old structures, you just kind of blow through them. I love this. Yeah. Yeah.
So this was a big thing like 20 years ago when like Half-Life 2 came out and it was like, hey, we've added real physics to the game and woodworks like wood and concrete acts like concrete, glass acts like glass. And yeah, games still have that stuff. But I feel like it hasn't been as much of a focus in the games, but it makes sense in a game like Fallout where you're in a wasteland and you have these old structures around to be able to damage the structures, damage the materials, you know, like if you shoot a ghoul, you blow his arm off. His arm flies off.
Why not pieces of the power armor like chunk off as you take damage and just like fall to the ground? That seems like a really fun, fun idea. I like this one, pumpkin. Any other thoughts on this one before we open it up to everybody?
Nothing. I do like. Yeah. What do you think?
What do you want to add to this? I do like the thought of like the cosmetic changes of like rust or like even like getting any damage to something that you use a lot in combat or even just against the elements or something that is technically hundreds of years old depending on what game you play even. So seeing like that just like getting worse or like or just like manipulating like as you use your armor would be nice. I mean, it'd be nice to see it, but like I'm just, you know, thinking about how we view power armor normally is just the first person view.
I guess it would force a lot of us to be more than the first of you, which is like, you know, you play the game a little bit differently then too. So you know what? Yeah. That worked.
Yeah. But you also tend to have a companion with you and sometimes you let your companion walk around it. That's true. Right.
And so if there's a way to make it so that the companions also like anything they wear as well. Yeah. So it's going to be the companions. It could be the enemies.
You could get a sense of how difficult an enemy and power armor is by how degraded the armor looks whether through time, like rust or through damage, like it's one thing to look at so many power armor and be like, oh, well, they're clearly missing an arm in the leg because you can see like the chassis underneath it because the armor part isn't there. Like you can fall 76, for example, but to be able to, you know, look at them and go, oh, they've got gaping holes. There's, there's part of their mechanism on their chest that's like glitching and sparking because it's broken. Like that would be really freaking cool.
Plus you could, and this is taking this another step further, you could add actual mechanical changes to it. So for example, maybe you break somebody's power armor arm and now they can't use that arm. So they go from being able to hold a weapon that requires two hands to only using one-handed weapons or, or maybe they can't walk as fast because all of a sudden, you know, the, the mechanism that moves the frame and the legs of the suit is no longer compensating. So they got to like drag the suit along with them, right?
And it becomes like a problem. Like it's totally see that. Yeah. No, like definitely just like damage in general, just make it, just power armor more of a decisive tool, I guess.
It's like, do you want to risk getting damage and possibly dying or is added protection worth the risk as well? Yeah. It's more of like, it can hurt you or it can help you. Right.
And the cost of repairing, whether that means you having the skills in the game with the way you build your character to actually repair it and so you can just need the equipment or do you need to take it to the brotherhood and hand it over and then they fix it for you, you know, and you can have even have a whole dynamic there where maybe it's so damaged, it takes them a day or two. So you either have to just wait and let time pass or go do other stuff and come back and grab your armor later. You can have all sorts of elements around this. Now, I had some other ideas about this and I'm not going to bring them up yet because some of you might have had similar ideas, but this is kind of brushing up against some things that were already in my head.
But I like this. Anybody else want to chime in with the whole power armor aesthetic and degrading and all of that? Any other changes? Do you think this would be a good idea?
Would you like this in a game? I'm seeing some nods. Do you ever know about it? What do you think?
No, I definitely love the idea. I've always loved, like, Mech Warrior Games and stuff like armor core where maintenance and kind of like the constant upkeep is a huge part of it. Yeah. I mean, they kind of introduced some of that with Fallout 4 with a customization and they're bringing, you know, still making repair a part of that, but I feel like you could add a whole another layer to it and really make it give, like, just really make that investment in time and improvements and stuff, especially if there's a way to, like, have a higher difficulty threshold.
I think that would just add a whole new dynamic to the game. Yeah. It also allows you to kind of, I don't know, have to be responsible with your stuff. Yes.
That makes sense. You know, and so you might look at, maybe I use my power all the time, but I put it away in certain instances because I don't want it to get damaged or maybe the flip side of most engagements. I don't need the power armor, but there's a deathclaw over there and I need to get through that thing. So I'm going to put it on, deal with the deathclaw, deal with some damage, but now I know that I'm safer and more likely to get through.
It gives you some risk reward options, kind of makes the decision making a little bit more interesting. Well, I think it would be, sorry, I don't want to take up too much time, but I think it would be very interesting because the way I was kind of like the groups, like the ones who have the power armor, like the brotherhood or the aunt wave, they have the resources to maintain that kind of stuff. Whereas you're fledgling communities in the wasteland, they don't, some of them barely have, if they have electricity there, they barely have water or the resources. If they were going to bring something out like that, this is, you know, it's hitting the fan like it's to everything you have at this problem.
So this might be the only time some of them ever actually see that thing working if it works at all. Right. It's like your cherished thing. Sometimes, oh, no, this is the time to pull out, pull out, grind it, grind its power armor.
We're going to need it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally.
I can totally see that. Awesome. All right. Any other thoughts on this one to close it up?
Pumpkin, any other thoughts from you? What do you think? No, I'm just happy that a lot of people were like, yeah, that sounds awesome. It's a great idea.
Yeah. I think I actually have an idea that goes along with this is that you have to do periodic, like what would be, like, so if you're planning to survive, what would be your opinion if you had to do periodic offended maintenance on the power armor to make sure that the electrical or hydraulic or serve was in seize up in mid combat? Yeah, like you got to boil it? You got to clean it out?
Yeah. Yeah. All right. The electrical stuff did not start collision because, you know, you're taking, like, bullets carry a lot of kinetic energy and it's going to be transferred directly into the place.
And that's going to impact on the electrical servos and you're using, like, where essentially, rudimentary electrical components. And so they're going to be quite fragile and are going to be susceptible to jarring and damaging. And so in the middle of a firefight, you know, you take a critical shot somewhere, like a rocket split in where you take a three away to the chest and like that, damage is something and then you're going to start glitching out mid firefight. Yeah.
Yeah. So if there's an iron man style HUD, oh, that's cool already. But like, can you imagine like, you know, you know, like left leg on fire, left leg on fire. Well, maybe, maybe kind of AI model, like a part of AI armor is that installing it.
Yeah. Would you take like Codsworth's AI and put it in your power armor? We have had power armor that can talk to you in the past, three, eight possible, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Like I told possible, but then what if you could customize it? Like what if you could choose which robot or which AI you come across, you know, like, oh, I want curry to run my power armor.
It's just Liberty. Yeah. Liberty Prime running my power armor. You know, it'd be more for mods.
Like, there'd have to be like a little, like, might be able to be a little realism to it, where it'd just be a prototype. So there'd only be one base AI, but then, you know, you can mind anything and if you once, but I think it would be better if it was just one base AI that you get from a Ford or a Richard facility somewhere like New York, like, you know, you got a Montauk, for example, and then you get this. Yeah. That's a really cool.
Yeah. That's a really cool. Yeah. That's a really cool thing.
That's a really cool thing. Yeah. That's a really cool thing. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's a really cool generation.
Yeah. Yeah. That would be really cool. That would be really cool.
And I still love the idea of what if you could take other brains or even just have it imitate something else. Right. Yeah. Use it as like a, you know, like, okay, Codsworth, come over here.
Talk with the power armor for a few minutes. I was going to pretend that it's two points. How are armor Codsworth? Right.
It's going to use your voice or whatever. But like, you could even, for characters that like, have used the technology, like their body dies, but they live on like their consciousness lives on a machine kind of thing. And so like, and we're just talking future, we're just, again, we're just speculating here. And I'm going to follow five.
You've got your companions that you can find in the game and they become part of your group. And let's say, let's say the, the super mutant, like somebody like Strong dies, but in their death rose, you can transfer their intelligence into your power armor. So now they talk to you through your power armor, so you can manage your systems for you. I'm a backseat driver the entire time.
Right. And on top of that, go ahead. Go ahead. The only issue I have with this, you need to be able to turn it off because it'll end up like more thunder where it's constantly yelling at you, you have a hole in your right wing.
Yeah. Right. And it's really, really quick. It would be only a specific power armor that was like a prototype developmental power armor.
Right. So you might have to be whatever you want, but that baseline frame itself has this AI integrate into it. But I trade off for that, though, for being smarter would be the actual thing would be more fragile, so it would require much more maintenance and upkeep and much greater energy draw. So the follow for fusion cores would actually make sense to that point.
Yeah. Yeah. And on top of it, like maybe, maybe exist in a specific section of the component, be on your back or in your helmet or something like that. Yeah.
And if that component takes damage, all of a sudden stops reporting and stops, you know, signaling damage and talking to you. Or, or it's a surf reporting wrong damage or is fragmented. People would get all up in arms about that. It'd be like, what's this?
It's not working yet. It's just my left arm is broken. But it's clearly no broken. It's like, dude, it's my power.
With the AI, the AI was damaged in the power. Yeah. So this bets up right against another idea I had. And that would be in that kind suit.
If you have an AI in the suit, then it could walk around without you in it. So it'd be the Sentinel AI, uh, for what was the creation club? The creation club. Yeah.
So like it could be. So let's say, so let's take this through all the steps. You get the power armor. It has default AI.
You start using it. It's helpful. It's useful. But then you get out of the power armor and you can talk to it like it's strong and it's going to act just like your companion used to act, but it's a suit of power armor.
I think you'd only be able to do that once in the game, though. And because it has to be balanced, you have to balance the game out, obviously. So it has to be only this is only once. I would say it's also a trade off as to if you want to use that power armor yourself or you get to a companion who died right or you can use it as many times as you want.
And every time you meet anybody, you can just add them to your collection of personalities. It's basically going to be a like one of those old binders that you had CDs inside of by just hollow disc with different personalities of people you met and killed and you just now lose their consciousness onto it. Or you can take this another step further and put let's say put strong personality in the power armor, but then give the power armor to McCreedy and so now McCreedy is walking around in power armor with strong personality and they get in arguments with each other. You got down a rabbit hole and you're just making everyone's head hurt at this point.
But that was amazing. People would be like, wait, this is a thing. They actually put this in the game. I just like the thought that Nova was just like you just take you kill it enemy and take their personality.
And my brain just went, Pokemon catch, catch, catch. You got to catch all the enemies. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. And then you can take like, you know, the brain of a death claw and have it manage your power armor for you and it acts like a death claw. Okay. Maybe that's too far.
I probably went too far. A number of steps previous to this, but there you go. That's the power armor ideas. And Nova, these are some fun ideas.
Now, was that your idea or was there something else you wanted to? Yeah. That was going to be my idea was going to be the resource management aspect of it as to what like I really want to see the power armor right now and risk breaking down, you know, like risk T45 having a hydraulically mid mission and have to stop repair it or do I really want the protection or also the prototype AI integrated into the power armor that's going to, you know, be a much rare resource drop at the same time, like enemy up there behind the hill. Yeah.
Yeah. Or it like helps target for vats a little bit better. Or that. Yeah.
Like it improves other systems that kind of coincide with it. Yeah. I could totally see that. I think the maintenance, it would from a, like a meta perspective on the way you would want to design the game for the audience to enjoy it.
I think having a more repair centric needy side and putting that stuff more in survival mode and a little bit of that. Right. A little bit of survival mode already. Right.
I'm not saying you didn't. What I'm saying is like you put that stuff in survival mode, but then maybe there's some of the less, uh, knowing is in the right word, less user manually needed user stuff in the main mode. So that, for example, maybe it does require more powerful fusion course to run. And so that's just a necessity to run that armor as a slightly different requirement for power or, you know, not the sort of thing where you'd constantly have to be replacing it as, you know, faster, which is annoying, but you know, just other requirements or, you know, like, like when the arm breaks and it kind of just stops working, like that kind of stuff.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I imagine the helmet breaks and now you can't look to side to side, you know, like, like you're like turning controls.
That would be really annoying. But, um, yeah, I could see some of that stuff. Well, here, let's, anybody else have any thoughts on this whole like upgrading and adjusting components and stuff like that? Pumpkin?
Did you want to try me? Oh, sorry. I'm moving. I didn't know if that meant you wanted to try me with other stuff there.
All right. No other thoughts on Nova's idea? I mean, I like the idea. There's definitely like a lot that you could do with that.
I don't know what you could do with that, but there's like, no, that there's a lot. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It takes some of that already in implements. So for example, counting your ammo and those kinds of things, but I can imagine an AI machine that does a little bit more than just counts your ammo or maybe you've got your like compass on the screen. But when the AI is engaging in things, it's giving you like potential routes that are more efficient to get from one place to another or maybe the weather's starting to pick up and it warns you ahead of time before you see it visually.
Um, there could be a number of things you could actually, I have really good idea with this. Whenever there is a scientific speech check or engine or like something like this, two spectre like that, the AI has its catalog of knowledge behind you. So in game, it would be like whispering to your ear, but it would like highlight one speech selection for you. That would be like, oh, this is the most realistic one right here because X, Y, and Z, and so it could help you in speech.
But at the same time, they would probably take the board intimidating overall. So right. Yeah. It's own personality and recommendations.
But it can also hack into terminals more easily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's what you think. Um, this is kind of goes on the idea of maintenance, but I think this is something that would apply to armor and like outfits across the board is also changing the way that people kind of like characters and NBC's react to seeing how well you've maintained or even just what you're wearing. Yeah. I know you kind of get a little bit of this in New Vegas with like the fact that outfit really ends at that.
And usually they're just hostile. But if you were to add it like, oh, wow, he's got really well maintained, like outfit armor like that. They may find you show a higher disposition to you, whereas some people really don't like our armor. They don't they see you.
Oh, you must be part of the brother of the young place. They don't like you. I've always just kind of found that fascinating or they may see, they may look down on you saying, oh, your outfit is like barely like your head. It's like big your way.
We're just wearing rags. They have a lower disposition towards you. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, there's already some system like when you walk around naked, like people comment and that kind of thing.
So you can expand that into other, you know, like how well do you take care of yourself? Do you look like a wasteland? Do you look like a raider? Like have you hodged a bunch of pieces together to make sure your power armor still works, but it just looks like this, you know, a resting piece of garbage that you're wearing so people are going to assume you're a raider when in actuality, you just were lost in the wilderness for a few days and really needed to do something or make sure you survive, you know, like that.
I like that. I love in these games when what you do and how you do it and what you wear, your choices affect the way the world interacts with you. I find that to be one of the more engaging things that they can do, you know, to really role play this out. Yeah.
No, I mean, I always think about it. I mean, I know we require a lot of like integration and a lot of like formulas, just even kind of calculate how specific MPC should react to different, you know, different attributes and aspects of your character. But something simply even simple as, oh, you're approaching the raiders, like whether it be the cons or something like that. Oh, you're too clean.
You look like, you know, you like bathe regularly. So you like any argue like we some week, you're soft. We can take advantage of you. You're not one of us clearly.
Yes. And we can just kind of tell that and they can reveal why in their dialogue. Well, you're too clean. Or whatever.
And I think from like a coding perspective, obviously I'm not a developer, I've worked around developers. I'm not a developer myself. I do understand though that there are ways to code these kinds of things through flags or labels, for example. So like once once the power armor hits a certain level of degradation, let's say 50%, it gets the flag of like worn or something.
And so when people see the you come up and something you're wearing shows worn, then they react a certain way. You know, that's a way you can manage that in the code. You would have to then adjust all of those parameters around every single person in the game. And especially the ones with voice lines, you have to record different voice lines for the way they react to that.
So it does multiply pretty quickly once you have multiple flags, but it also makes the game more engaging from like a role place standpoint. Yeah. And again, my young people personally, I mean, there's layers of there's levels of attention to have to pay like obviously like faction leaders or, you know, people who are important to like a quest, a quest storyline, those would be the ones probably would get more attention. You know, actually more dialogue options where you're more generic NPCs.
They may just have dialogue bar saying like, Oh, hey, your outfit looks like garbage. What do you, you know, you look like if you're in a nicer like town or something like that, it might be something as simple as that. Right. Go take a bath.
You know, like either give you give you worse prices on things you're going to buy and sell or I mean, if you, I don't know if you're interested in survival mode, I mean, if they want to go that level, they say, Oh, you look disgusting or you're completely naked, no shirt, no shoes, no service, go put some clothes on. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
All that totally makes sense. I like it. I like it. So now that we're talking with you, did you have something else you wanted to add to our customizing your armor?
Oh, well, that was that was really it was the idea of adding like in a more character reactions, like not just power arm, but you know, out this in general. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I also like that as the games have progressed and we've gotten more models for power armor and 76 has tons of different skins and all of those kinds of things that you could, especially when it's like, okay, this power armor has a brotherhood insignia on it.
People are going to assume things. This power armor looks like it's a bunch of junk piece together. Clearly it's a radar power armor. People are going to see things or, you know, other other, it's very similar, like you said about New Vegas, where if you wear some other factions gear, people will assume you're part of that faction.
And so expanding that into power armor makes a lot of sense. But also I like the idea of like the quality of the armor, like, is it confusing if you have, like, and this may garner different reactions. If you have what was pristine brotherhood armor and it's you've been out in the wilderness for weeks and now it's falling apart, will people still like the combination of, oh, your brotherhood, but wait a minute, usually brotherhood armor looks a lot better condition than that. What's going on?
Like it starts raising questions or very specific kinds of reactions to like, man, how are you part of the brotherhood? You're a mess. You know, like that kind of thing. Mm hmm.
I mean, even if you are like, even if you are like a pal, like at whatever point in the story line, you were able to join the brotherhood. They might just even find it shameful. You take that poor care of your, you know, armor, like you go to meet the elders, like don't come back and don't come back into my office until, I mean, I was in the army. I know what it's like.
Yeah. Someone above you who like wearing it from that looks terrible, you're getting hemmed up for it. Like some, you'll be, they refuse to talk to you. Right.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So like, hey, fix that power and then come back and talk to me.
You know, like you, you know, the order of priorities here. We take care of your first. Go do that. You know, like that kind of thing.
Yeah. Totally. All right. Let's open this up.
What do you guys think about this idea? Anybody have thoughts on this one? I mean, I know some, I know somebody does. You guys always have opinions.
They are at the screen and you look right into my camera until somebody decides that they can, they can speak up. I like the idea of the, of the morty shovel you are, the more you'll fit in with the, like, we cylinders. And so if you're a full, if you're from the vault and you go to like, I don't know, like, rip or not. So you, like, you kind of the full, you're like fresh and clean, you're pristine little jumpsuit and then you go to a, there's some ram hole in the wall, little cemens settlement.
And you're going to stick like a sore cell that people are probably going to look upon you kind of snobbishly like, who does this guy think he is? But then you go out, you find just some like a loin cloth or something like that you come back and say, oh, that's my guy right there. Yeah. You need some help.
All right. I got some help for you. You just roll in the mud for an interview and then you come back and they're like, yeah, one of us. We find these.
Yeah. I mean, you have to, you have to dress to impress. But also it works the other way around where to go to like, 10, 10 towers, just a little more fancy to fit in and then there's going to be, is open more dialogue options. Yeah.
Yeah. I like this. I like, I like this idea. So you can expand it to things like enclave power armor and that being an absolute, you know, thing that people would react to, you know, just like the brotherhood.
But imagine now you're in a part of the world that doesn't see the enclave very often, but knows who they are. Like, do they even let you in the door? That sort of thing. I like this.
I like this. It's kind of like a combination of a few things that all kind of comes together in an interesting way. All right. Any other thoughts on this one?
Do you have any closing thoughts or any other brainstorms? No. I mean, that kind of really, that really just sums it up. Like I said, I just love more, you know, slivers and like more like just RPG kind of formula added into it and just more, just, you know, just have a little, just something like, you know, again, the way I maintain my equipment just have a little bit more impact on the world around me and how I'm reacted to.
I feel like if we do something like that, people will put a lot more thought into whether they're wearing what they're choosing beyond just the baseline stats or just how good they think it looks. Yeah. Yeah. There's another piece of this would be, let's say you compile a set of power armor that has two or three different distinct parts of our armor combined and the way people would respond to that.
Like you got a brotherhood chest, but you got an enclave helmet and you got this like junk arm over here and you're like, people might be confused by that or maybe the people from the Wasteland or the Raiders would be like, ah, yeah, one of us, because that's just what we do. We piece it all together and we go with what we got. You just hodgepods it all together. Okay.
Yeah. You must be, you know, just in backyard, you know, you know, well, they're gonna put stuff together. It's part of the brotherhood and you're like, okay, I'm going to go visit that settlement over there. I'm going to swap out this arm with this other piece and this leg with this other piece.
And now they think I'm one of them because my armor doesn't all per scene, but I don't have to mess up my good armor. I just, you know, store the parts that I don't in the moment. So you can just kind of make those kinds of changes as well. Yeah.
There's a lot of dynamic options for the way you could set that up. Cool. All right. Well, we haven't heard from Germanator or Lil Green yet.
What either of you like to go? Germanator is ready. How's it going? Germanator?
Ah, not too shabby. Not too shabby. So mine's sort of a twist or extension on Jib's idea, because I've been seeing all these armored vehicles and all the dead cars and stuff around the waistline. And I'm thinking, what's stopping someone from cutting one of those apart and just using the insanely thick armor on them for body armor?
Like imagine a tank's front door plate for your chest plate. It's not like the power armor won't be able to handle it. And if you want to go down the radar route, pull an engine block out of somewhere 220 pounds to the four power armor. It's nothing.
That's true. Engine block off your chest. Yeah. Yeah.
But pieces together. Also, if you're pulling parts off of vehicles, you could make some really cool designs that look sleek and stylish, like fancy old cars, like fenders. Exactly. Yeah.
So you could use both. You could get like the hardened, reinforced parts of the vehicle and to graph those on places, especially like your chest armor, where you want more actual solid mass to keep bullets from penetrating. But then you could also, you know, put some like foils and like, like, like shaped designs around the shoulders or the back and, you know, just, yeah. Or massive tail fins.
Yeah. That Chrysler have a jet engine poking out the back, rather than your power, then your fusion core. Right. Right.
There are some like shiny chrome pieces that are kind of sculpted around the edges of things that, you know, kind of show. Yeah. Yeah. I like this.
It kind of reminds me of the Adam Catler. Yeah. Yeah. It is kind of Adam Catler.
You can add, of course, like the flame art and those kinds of things too. Like the 50s vehicle art, that kind of thing. Yeah. I like this.
You know, you got a hand. Oh, this is great. This is great. Especially because it fits the retro aesthetic of Fallout, the idea that like some power armor might be designed in a way that is reminiscent of like 1950s vehicles because it actually uses those components.
You know, I mean, just like, I can imagine just being a Chrysler or Chrysler specific piece of power that they were used for promotion, just like what Vin was doing. Yeah. You find this at the one of their corporate headquarters in New York, or whatever it is. Right.
And Coca-Cola. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're doing it as well.
And so it's a form of a function, but it's still a functional piece. Right. It has less, you know, less efficient, less useful than other pieces of art, but you want to go around in the wasteland style, then here is your chair, red cherry bomb. Yeah.
And it makes sense also from the standpoint of like raiders who have found power armor pieces. They don't know how to build an actual legitimate suit of power armor. They're just taking pieces and tacking it on for extra protection around a chassis, right? So to do that in a stylish sort of way, totally makes sense.
I like this. I like this idea. I also like the idea of the tank components, like the thickness of that front steel. And in heck, even the shape of it design, I mean, it is armor armor is meant to deflect things away from the body.
So using different aspects of that armor and the angles that you could cut the steel and place it on your body or deflect things away from your center of mass makes a lot of sense. One should have like a giant wedge sticking out from your chest. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, heck you could. If you wanted to, or if you're like running into people with your power armor, put things that protrude out from the front of your body that would wound the things you'd run into. Totally do that. Yeah.
What do you think? Actually, it's kind of something similar to what you would just said as far as doing that. Like if you're going into like, if you're sprinting at something and you just want to stick basically what is a battery rammer, what's a Mars piece of metal on you, I was also thinking maybe, maybe you put it like lower in the sculpture, maybe sometimes if your repair skills too low, something that might be an option is literally just take just the option to just have a piece of metal that's on that can only be used as a melee weapon. So basically, yeah, that's pretty much it.
If you don't have the skill to actually repair, you know, the actual individual joints and servos or whatever that goes into power armor. So you could still use it, but I don't know, maybe that melee weapon has a higher damage or something like that. But it's a cost versus benefit thing. Like if you're using the power armor, if you're using this one at this point, you're only going to be able to use that, you know, very primitive melee weapon.
Yeah. That makes sense too. Ways to use things creatively, what you were just, I know this isn't what you said, but it had spawned this idea in my head of the power armor itself is made out of these shapes and things that are meant to puncture and damage things by running into them. But then what if, what if you had a character, and this, I'll go through the steps, we have a super mutant behemoth who then picks up the power armor and uses that as their weapon and is hitting things with power armor, like a club, but the story is that the super mutant behemoth's brain is of course a super mutant brain and like parts of its old personality are coming through.
And it originally was like a little kid who has now mutated into this giant monster. And so the power armor is like its little doll that keeps with it and when it gets angry it hits things with its doll. That's pretty good. Oh man.
Plus, if it's made out of like tank parts and it's hundreds of pounds of just stuff, it's gonna mess things up when you hit stuff with it. And it may not be usable as power armor, but it's still gonna be a big hunk of metal that's gonna mess stuff up. I want to talk about how one of the first things Germanator said was pull an engine, like if you're going the radar out and pull like an engine block and just hanging it on the front. And my brain was like, is that just like a gold chain for the Raiders?
Yeah. Yeah. You could. Okay.
And take one bolt to explode though. So you're just gonna be a minion at that point because most of the engines are nuclear engines and the cars are notoriously unstable in the game. That's great. So you're just going to go like, you're gonna be right jankins into a room and you're gonna blow the entire building up.
Yes. Instead of a mutant suicide, you can become a power armor suicidal. Yeah. And if the power armor can work on its own because it has AI in it, then you can just send it into blow up.
Look at this. Let me see this idea. There's gonna be a faction of raiders that have found this massive stockpile of power armor. And instead of using it like normal people would, they just put mini nukes or like engine blocks around their guys next or carry engine block in and it's like, oh, you're gonna shoot me?
No, you can't shoot me. But you can't. Yeah. Yeah.
That's gonna be terrible. I like it. Terrible enemy zone. This is good.
All right. This has gotten all sorts of different places. Any other thoughts on what we've described so far? All right.
Cool. Germany. Fun ideas. Thank you for sharing.
All right. Lil green. Lil green. You're last on our list.
What do you think? Alrighty. So my idea, you kind of touched on it a little bit at the end of that last bit. Mine is active defense.
Yes. Or even just like when you get swarmed. So it's just like the one thing that just comes to mind just having like the power armor is just all metal. If there has to be a way to insulate it from like the user, but like when you're getting attacked, shock the people that are attacking you.
So like that should be, you know, like one thing that you could do or like have something like on you so that like if you're grabbed, it just like shoots off like a rocket, a grenade explodes, just something to like get people or a monster off of you. So like that's an idea that I had. Oh, what's up? The electrifying bit is already in game.
Oh. Is that a perk? Yeah. No.
It's less. That's the one. Yeah. Nevermind.
Alright. I don't use power armor a lot. Okay. So I'm using excavate armor and I'm like a level 162 and 76.
Well, both parts of power does increase your energy weapon skill, but also use it for this exact same thing though. We're just adding different. Yeah, essentially. That is like one of the ideas I had like you like put in active defenses so that if you're being swarmed or if you're grabbed by a giant monster like a behemoth or even a deathclaw for that matter, like there's it gives you a chance to like push off and like you like continue to fight instead of you just getting your ass, but I hate it to you.
Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean fallout is sci-fi. Yes.
Let's be honest. Followed is so sci-fi and a lot of sci-fi things have shields that mitigate like laser damage and that sort of thing. And I know that there are materials that you can equip that reduce energy weapon damage, but can you imagine a kind of like a visual electric shield, like a whoa, like it goes around the suit and protects it in that sort of way? I think that's kind of similar way you're saying.
Do you have some thoughts? Yeah. It doesn't even any kind of like something like that doesn't have to be overly, you know, high attack or particularly, I don't know, demonstrative, it can be something as simple as just having like constant like razor wire, like someone just taking something like that and layering it over the arm. I mean, and the effect they get is if someone's doing melee damage, they might start getting a bleeding damage effect on them because as long as you guys have ever touched like razor wire and they're like, yeah, it cuts you up pretty easily.
I can imagine if, you know, I'm super muted and trying to pick that up. Yeah. He's going to hurt from it. Yeah.
Or a dog comes and bites you and gets that in his mouth. And so no, it runs away whimpering because it's like, okay, I'm not going to bite that anymore. Yeah. I mean, it might even be a way to scare away enemies.
Like they might just disengage completely. And then they get stuck on the razor wire and peel their bodies off and half of their body falls off because it gets destroyed. Oh, that can you imagine a situation where like they all heap on you and then you go, and you bust out and they all just kind of because of all the razor wire. Those are the sound effects that you would definitely use for that as well.
Germanator is raising his hand. What do you think? Um, is something like that technically exists within Fallout four, the first guy you fight when you go into New Cook world? Oh, yeah.
In the bumper cars. Yeah. Yeah. He's a very zappy boy.
Right. Right. He is a zappy boy. Um, yeah.
So like taking something like that and incorporating it into your own, your own suit or just being able to customize it. Plus you could customize it in, in other ways. Like you could make it, you could combo it. You could have like razor wire that is electric.
And then you could also have, um, if you've got like an AI thing going on, you could have like active tank kind of armor where if it detects say like a rocket heading towards you, a piece of the armor breaks off, like explodes off, like shrapnel. So you're a explosive reactor armor or how that trips to some? Yeah. Or whatever, like any, any, whatever version of that you want to do, but it's the same, right?
Like you put, it ejects something that then intercepts the explosive before it gets to you. Well, there's two different ways. It's active and reactive. So it's actually like a true system where it actually choose a projectile to intercepts whatever it is that's going to be hitting it in a rocket.
A ERA close wrap armor would be when it impacts, when the impact is used as a layer of explosive sandwich, which you still place pretty much that like slow and outwards and that explosion internally counteracts the explosion externally. Yeah. So the other one, the other one would be cool. I like that.
When she, you guys are laughing about something. What are you laughing about? If you, if you profit messaged me, um, can I have your power armor in the loop? They won't be able to grab you.
That is also an option. I mean, you cover power armor in oil. Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. You just come with a slippery boy. Yeah. Or, or what if you, what if you covered it in like, I mean, you can cover it in all sorts of disgusting things and then nobody wants to come near you.
Absolutely. Oh, man. All right. Everybody's just rolling around now.
I need, I need to say message back just sounds sounds. Sounds. All right. I think we've lost pumpkin in germinator.
You guys are disgusting. All right. Cool. Cool.
Um, low green, low green. Let's continue on your thing. Make sure you're unmuted when you respond. Cool.
Cool. All right. So any other thoughts on this one around this idea of like adding extra stuff on to defend yourself? I mean, we pretty much covered it all.
Like, like everything from just like, active, all armor, reactive armor, like just like having like a test of coils on you, uh, to like shock enemies, razor wires, just like a simple thing. It can even be like a tear system. So like, and, or like certain armors can only have like certain defenses built into it. So like, no, it's, it's just something that kind of, you know, I feel like rounds out everything we've been talking about too, because I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great.
I think we covered all the stuff that had kind of occurred to me and you guys have added other stuff in that, um, that I didn't expect. Um, I have to wonder if there are other ways that you could utilize, uh, things inside the power armor that could then like, for example, when you heal yourself and you're in power or just injects you, you don't have to inject yourself, right? Cause you're covered in power armor, but are there other things the power armor can do to accommodate the occupant in order to make you even more powerful, you know, like one of them is that you don't have fall damage, right? You just surf on the ground, but.
I mean, motor, waste, recycle. Thank you. I'm actually drink. Yeah, there you go.
One thing that kind of comes to mind is instead of maybe more an armor thing, you stripped down the exoskeleton so far that it's just like, Oh, you want to run faster? Just take the legs and throw them on. So now you could sprint faster for longer or like you do something for like the torso so that you could carry heavier weapons. Yeah.
So, okay. So you could have like the different types of power armor have different, not just different amounts of armor protection, but some of them, some of the leg variations move faster than others. Yeah. Maybe, maybe if you go just like a melee build, some of them swing harder and they add bonuses to your melee attacks, like, yeah, you could, you could totally do that with different elements and kind of.
And that actually makes sense in lore because between the T 45 and T 51, there was a lot of components that were changed. I think the T 45 had hydraulics, well, the T 51 upgraded servos and then we just made a much smoother operation system overall so that it makes sense in lore. Yeah. Yeah.
I agree. That would be cool. That's cool idea too. Looking.
Well, good one. These are all fun, fun discussions. Thank you everybody. I knew I could count on you to come up with some cool ideas and you absolutely nailed it.
We're at the end of the show and I know that there's now fishing in 76. I have, I've been working, I'll put this out there, I've been working on a bunch of stuff with the network. I'm updating the website with some really cool stuff, but I've been very busy and I just haven't had the chance to play 76 yet. I need to make a priority to do it, but I haven't been fishing.
What are your thoughts? Real quick, just two minutes. What are your thoughts on fishing? Anybody try fishing yet?
Do you like fishing in 76? I'm punking over stuff. Yeah, go ahead. I'm loving fishing.
I love fishing in video games that should not have fishing in it. So like I'm all for this, but I cannot stand keep, I cannot stand the fact that I keep catching brook silver sides. It is constant. Is that like just an easy catch fish like it is the most common fish in fall at 70 seconds.
I haven't even tried it. So I don't even know which fish are easier. We even want to fish your options. I absolutely, absolutely.
I need to update my knowledge on this because who knows? Maybe I'll do a whole episode of fishing, but we'll see, we'll see. So you just keep on catching the crappy ones. Is there a way to fix that?
So there are challenges that get you better reels, like better reels, but I would recommend doing like the, a lot of the fishing stuff because the lore is, it's dark. Yes. Oh, no, that is absolutely something I've noticed people posting about is the cool. The interloper connected lore stuff going on, which I am up to speed on.
I'm going to have to play through it myself and see what my thoughts are on it. Absolutely. Lil Green did you or Jeb, I say here on me, did you want to add anything to the fishing conversation? No, I mean, I haven't played it in 76 yet, but I mean, I've always been a big fan of stuff like that in games when like just adding like fun, like slice of life elements to it, whether it be fishing or, you know, like the, you know, just the pure like hunting just for the game aspect of it or even something where it's like gardening simulator.
So no, I'm all about, I've all that kind of stuff since I think like, I think one of the games back in the 90s is the first time I probably spent so much more time. I think you're probably spent hours just doing the fishing mini game. So I'm all for it. Yeah.
Does it mean it is, it's an officially an MMO? Cause this is one of those jokes. Like all MMOs have fishing. So every success fishing out must be an MMO.
I guess it is. It finally made it. Finally made it. Lil Green did you want to add anything else in there?
I know you went pumpkin. Yeah. No. I am enjoying the fishing myself.
Like the different types of fish, like, and like all the different challenges you get to like for like a just do like me that go along with the fishing. The lore is great. And it's also forcing you to probably go to parts than that that that you've never been to or like just revisiting. So that it's just it's just adding something else to the game and making you, I guess, think about like, like, cause like there's like certain environmental things that you need to do to like trigger certain fish to like spawn and then like it's just it's just something else.