The History of Power Armor | Fallout Lore

Power Armor is combat technology designed to protect soldiers on the battlefield. Wearing power armor gives the soldier a significant increase in strength, allowing them to carry heavy weapons to locations deemed inaccessible to battle tanks and other large vehicles. But they weren’t always used for war, they were also used for crowd control and even to resolve competitive disputes between companies. But who designed power armor, what models are there, and how has the great war effected their development?

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[Synonymous]

Regarding the need for power armor training and refuelling the suit with later games, is to me, a matter of gameplay balance and not lore and as such will not be discussed…ignorance is bliss, come join me!

Correction: The Brotherhood of Steel did not make the chemical treatment for the hardened version of T-51, it was created by a man named Miles at the Boneyard and then by a man named Crockett in San Francisco. Huge thanks to Iron Reed for bringing this to my attention!

[jackalairsoft]

I've never understood how ghouls or other low level enemies could ever hurt you in power armor. Like shouldn't the armor be able to take on an army of ghouls or mole rats without any damage? They should beat their ghouls hands into bloody stumps on your armor...

[JC]

Fallout lore: oh shit, we are running out of oil. Let’s start massive wars for more oil
Also fallout lore: Here are nuclear powered cars

[garnitobandito]

I do believe the "bullet through the visor" story is a reference to fallout 2. In that game, when you aim your shots, you get a VATS style menu with hit percentages. Eyes are one of the options, and it was a great strategy to use the Gauss rifle and aim for the eyes of power armor enemies because it would bypass the armor.


The more you know...✨

[cjtheevilghost]

I love how the X-01 Power Armor headlamp is the eyes.

It looks awesome.

[nottelling]

Jetpacks look pre-war to me, but I think they might have been extremely limited in supply, or had vulnerabilities that stopped their widespread implementation.

[oodfty]

love how she lost her legs while the vault dweller literally steps on landmines, gets directly hit or withstands rocket explosions, and is just perfectly fine

[paulwolfley]

Bullet through the visor is likely a caliber issue, 9mm not going to happen but a 50 cal might do the trick 😉

[elic]

I never knew that the electro-magnetic weapons were mainly intended to eliminate enemies in Power Armour. Guess it would give the laser weapons and gauss-rifle a purpose and would totally make sense, though I never caught on.

Very interesting.

[tinadunaway]

U know I forgot how dark the fallout series really is.

[Lordborgoth]

I'd like to imagine Frank Horgan wears a modified T-65

[averageforzaplayer]

*“Power armor can recycle waste, allowing a person to stay hydrated in the inventory of a water shortage or nuclear war”*

Fallout 76: *Lets pretend that doesn’t happen.*

[BrievaryZowan]

I'd say the reason for changing from the big hump on the X-01 wasn't to improve the protection of the wearer, but more so to improve mobility and line of sight. If you take a look, that big ass hump also wraps around the head slightly. You don't see it in the game, but in reality that would block your line of sight if you look to your right or left.

[barbarosbozkurt]

I guarantee you that someone in the future will drop a fake replica Nuke to celebrate Fallout

[elic]

I'm sure there is some lore that will answer this question, but I've always wondered why the Brotherhood of Steel hardly used the Enclave's more advanced power armor, especially after the events of Fallout 3. To my understanding, they happily took Vertibirds, weapons, and schematics from the Enclave, but hardly bothered to use the advanced power armor that was most definitely plentiful to them after fo3.

[ThtSunbreaker]

Considering bulletproof isn't real, only bullet resistant it's likely that over time the power armour has taken some damage to the visor, and weakened the glass enough that someone could shoot through them

[nakarilexfortaine]

On the jetpack:

I think the plans are pre-war, there's possibly even a handful of pre-war jet packs out there, but I doubt they were common or deployed in any way en masse. More than likely, they were in testing phases as an equipment piece for future deployments of the T60 PA. The Enclave likely had copies of the blueprints with plans to manufacture as needed, with copies of said plans and possibly working units falling into BoS hands after the Enclaves defeat.

While made for the T60, which makes sense given the rapid deployment and expectations of the T60 to be the best-of-the-best, I doubt it would be completely impossible for the BoS to backwards engineer the jetpacks to work with older armor, giving them some more deployment options. Just highly unlikely outside of a test to see if it works, or an absolute desperate move while having to field a mass of units clad in T45 and T51 in an urban environment.

[salamilidontfit]

The person in T-51 on the museum of freedom wall is supposed to be depicting the liberation of anchorage

[elic]

I've always liked the T-65 (if that's what it is) from Fallout 76. The bulky design and pure plates of steel gives it the appearance of a freaking tank.

[justastrider]

I'm guessing an anti-materiel rifle or a high velocity bullet would be able to perice the visor of a suit of power armor. I'm guessing the visor could probably resist smaller rounds but it would damage the glass in such a way that it would effectively blind the person wearing it (I recommend looking up tests against real bulletproof glass)