Want to get your hands on Fallout 4 power armor? The Brotherhood of Steel is known for a lot of things across the wasteland, but it’s their iconic armor that has most people running in fear. Power armor essentially turns the user into a walking tank, surrounded by walls of steel and equipped with a large weapon, there’s very little you can do to stop them.
Fallout 4 places a big focus on power armor for the first time in the RPG game series, giving you the opportunity to carefully construct and maintain your armor set. You need to get your hands on a fusion core to get the armor up and running, but you can always rely on Fallout 4 console commands to stock up on these rare items instantly. Here’s everything you need to know about Fallout 4 power armor.
Where to get Fallout 4 power armor
Your first experience with power armor arrives shortly after leaving the vault for the first time. Depending on where you end up exploring, chances are you’ll stumble on the Minutemen quest, ‘When Freedom Calls’. When you enter Concord, you should find raiders trying to get inside a museum. Interacting with this battle activates the quest, and it doesn’t take long before you’re speaking with Preston Garvey inside the museum.
Garvey tells you to grab a fusion core and head to the roof to equip the T-45 power armor. From there, use the Vertibird’s minigun to clear out the raiders trying to make their way into the building. There’s also a Deathclaw that you must defeat, but this doesn’t require much effort thanks to the power armor and minigun combination. After you complete the quest, you’re free to keep the power armor.
How to get out of power armor
While it’s tempting to want to use power armor all the time, there aren’t enough power cores in the world to make this feasible. Besides, nobody likes the guy who roams around the towns wearing a giant suit of armor. To get out of power armor, simply press E and an animation will play that shows your character leaving the suit. You need to keep some space between your power armor and a wall, as there must be space to enter and exit the suit.
How to repair Fallout 4 power armor
When you wear power armor, your HUD changes to tell you key information about your fusion cores, the state of your armor durability, the radiation levels, and much more. When a piece of armor has been knocked out, you lose a significant amount of protection, so you should aim to get this repaired as soon as possible.
Head to any settlement you have, they all come equipped with a power armor workstation. In case you’re not sure what to look for, the workstations are bright yellow, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one. Treat your power armor workstation like a car garage — when you’re finished taking care of business in your power armor, exit your armor near the workstation.
Once your armor is in line with the workstation, you should be able to modify your power armor. Press E on the workstation to enter the crafting menu. This brings up a new menu showing off each piece of power armor you have, allowing you to equip new pieces of armor, repair broken parts, and modify your armor.
It’s important to note that you don’t need to wait until a piece of armor runs out of durability before you’re able to repair it. If any of your armor pieces have lost health, press T to repair it. Keep in mind that the cost per repair doesn’t take into consideration any damage done, so repairing armor with 49/50 durability is the same as repairing from 0/50.
Fallout 4 power armor tier list
Not all power armor has the same level of stats, and that’s why it’s critical that you know which armor pieces to look out for when you’re searching the wasteland. While you can mod power armor pieces at workshops to upgrade them, more substantial upgrades come in the form of new power armor sets. Don’t forget, you can mix and match power armor parts if you happen to find different pieces out in the wild.
Here’s a tier list of the power armor sets, from best to worst:
- X-01
- T-60
- T-51
- T-45
X-01
The strongest and most attachment-friendly power armor set in the game, the X-01 is a must-have for anyone looking to rid the wasteland of its most dangerous targets. You won’t be able to acquire X-01 armor pieces until you reach level 28 or higher. The easiest way to acquire a full set of X-01 power armor is to go to the Atom Cats Garage vendor and buy each part separately.
T-60
The T-60 set featured heavily in the Fallout TV series. This power armor set can be yours for free if you join the Brotherhood of Steel faction. Otherwise, you can always head to the Atom Cats Garage to buy it for yourself without having to join the Brotherhood.
T-51
The T-51 set is marginally better than the T-45, but it won’t start appearing as a random drop in the wasteland until you reach level 15.
T-45
As mentioned earlier, you find this power armor set during the Fallout 4 quest, When Freedom Calls.
That’s everything you need to know about Fallout 4 power armor. If you’re returning to the wasteland, or you’re playing the game for the first time, you may want to check out our list of the Fallout 4 best weapons to discover what’s worth using. Unsure how you should create your wasteland survivor? Give our best Fallout 4 builds guide to see how we would spec out each of the main characters in the Fallout TV show.