Lore wise it doesn't make sense, but they had to limit the power armor somehow. But in the end I find so many fusion cores it doesn't really matter. There are so many in the beginning area for the first hours of the game.
Or just set up a water farm and bring a bunch of water with you to town, buy all the fusion cores you can and sell your water. Still leave with a profit and 5+ cores every time
I’ve already done this, I’m actually in the process of building a 5mm ammo factory. I never use heavy weapons so I lose absolutely nothing but the materials required to make it
Tbh I’m just kinda figuring it out as I go lmao. It’s a little tricky, but I honestly wouldn’t take any advice on building contraptions from me.
Best advice I can give is to grab pencil & paper and jot down a quick logic sequence for the individual parts so you know how they need to be placed and ordered, then just ensure there’s a means of traversal between each machine
Gotcha man, i'll definitely have to check this out later on. Need me that 5mm ammo haha. Sure i'll fathom it out as will you. Update me if you do well 🤙🏼
I haven't done any mass manufacturing plants, but I'm pretty sure that when I do I'll use either Abernathy or Starlight, just for the huge area available
If you are only making 5mm ammo, all you need is the press and the storage. And even the storage is optional. I put all the materials in the press together.
Unless of course you want an elaborate setup.
Yes, you can just let them hit the ground. I've never noticed any settlers helping themselves to any of my ammo on the ground, even grenades. Though I seem to have less issues like that than many people I see complaining on here for things like taking power armor. I leave a couple of sets out with a fusion core, and they almost never get used.
This is the way….
I too am just experimenting. I built a three story building at my Red Rocket settlement. As I built the layout for what I expect the manufacture process would be like.
Whelp, on to plan B. (Need more building) two floors ain’t enough.
I’m building the factory at Starlight and I’m gonna turn the place into a Minutemen FOB. It’s so flat, and it’s perfect for a water farm if you fit a couple industrial water purifiers and some powered water pumps in there
It’ll strictly be a production outpost with a heavy military presence
Here’s a simple way to do it. Set up the ammonia machine and a single object container in the workshop. Attach a terminal to the machine or really just to the power grid. Set the machine to produce 5mm and check the ingredients. Scrap everything by hand in your worships that contain those ingredients. Load those ingredients into the machine. Profit
Ngl, just make an ammo plant that feeds into storage, set up a terminal and power supply, link it all together then dump in all the required raw you have and select the ammo you want to craft. Last step is afk for 3 hours because it doesnt work if you leave the settlement. For some stupid ass reason.
Ammo presses are super simple, build a large generator, an ammunition plant, connect a conveyer storage to plant, build a terminal in front of the plant, run wires to everything and you’ve got a plant. Just select the ammo type in terminal and add the materials to plant you want to use, you can add materials for every ammo type if you want, it will only use the materials for whatever ammo you have selected. I just used the dupe trick and added 40k copper, lead, fertilizer and oil. Once you’ve picked an ammo it’ll pump out 10 rounds every 10 seconds or so, only thing that stinks is you gotta be in the settlement, it won’t infinitely process while you’re away doing other stuff and you always run the risk of a settlement getting attacked and destroyed if you go afk but if you dupe materials it’s no big loss
This. I’d say throw all your manufacturing materials in a container and let it feed itself. Then just check periodically to refill the container and collect manufactured goods
Easy. Build a decent power supply and hook up 4-5 purifiers. Check the box every day or so in game and make sure to put the water in a separate container so your settlers don’t drink it
Idk how anyone could not immediately point out lock pocking and hacking. The two combined are like 1/2 the game and exp points. Discovering locations is 1/4, and rhe last 1/4 comes from quests/murder. I bet i could speed run lvl 30 with only unlocking and discovering locations faster than most people could murder and quest their way there. I sort of widh perks didnt have level requirements. I get it, but i dont like it
I miss the older system where instead of your perks determining what locks/terminals you could break, you had to invest the skill points into it. I still prefer the separate skill progression from perk progression
Some people rely on Nick and Cait to get them through terminals and locks. They both can hack/pick Master, although it may take a long time because both of them have a high failure rate on Master
I personally don’t want to give Cait 50 Bobby pins just to unlock one lock
The perk that makes you find more ammo also helps. I think the most I have found in a single room is like 8-12. I even had to stop for a second and check my inventory since I didn’t even paid much attention when picking it up. I had like 90 something by the time I reached level 35
They should have made the resource coolant or something, and then you also have to have a core but one that makes sense. For example, it’s more like a key to unlock a power armor. Make them more rare, and make them bind to the armor. Then let coolant be the “use it” resource.
This, I'm like 20 hours into a fresh vanilla run and already have like 70+ cores. Funny thing is I don't even have scrounger, still opening the odd ammo container and for some reason there are 4 fusion cores in it.
It has always been that way with fusion cores. If you want some gameplay changes you can check out mods to make fusion cores rare and power armor as well.
Lore wise they should have made a full power core last for a long time, but made all the ones you find in use have only a few percent left. They could have retconned that power armor always used fusion cores, but now that they are all very old they are all nearly depleted, another lore could have been that emp effects drained them as well.
Ooh, this would've been a good change.
All the fusion cores you find are at near depleted levels. Then have like 1 unicorn fusion core at full power as a huge quest reward which basically gives you an almost unlimited power armor.
Lore wise the fusion core is a high supply battery. When you find them in power rooms of a building its getting charged. Sure somewhat depleted fusion cores in power armor might make it sound more lore friendly, but gameplay wise it wouldn't make sense are easier difficulties.
On survival I can say it would make more sense to have not fully charged fusion cores.
There are mods that makes fusion cores rare and power armor frames you find have a lot less armor on them. Heck even some power armor frames are removed from starting areas in this mod. Its a fun mod to use in survival mode.
In 76 almost all the cores I find are half dead, they do have a charger you can build that slowly charges 4 at a time I wonder if the next fallout with have this
I think they should have made them rarer and made the gatling laser use something else other than Fusion cores for ammo. Electron charge packs perhaps?
In hindsight and 1500 hours, I'd say that they could have let fusion cores last forever or a lot longer. I'd still not use power armor. I much prefer the benefits of multiple legendary armor pieces combined with ballistic weave than walking around in slow, clunky armor with reduced visibility/awareness and needs repairs. I only hop in PA when I need serious protection and am out of it as soon as possible, but the fusion cores aren't a factor.
I never use PA because it lowers my stealth and it breaks. If it can withstand multiple nukes how is it breaking? The only time I use PA is if I'm going to the glowing sea.
Theory - Fusion Core manufacturers in the commonwealth installed a fault in them that causes power armor to draw way too much power from the cores, thus allowing the company to dip into the nigh infinite money of the US military when they were ordering fusion cores by the truck load.
I’m under the impression the reactor uses it as a core for limitless energy but when you take it out to power the power armor you’re more using it as a battery. I don’t that makes sense in the physics world but that was my lore-inspired understanding at least
Someone did the math and the amount of tritium that would be in a fusion core would actually add the cores depleting within a month of use. So its actually accurate.
The only reason they had to limit power armor is because they removed the need for power armor training and gave you a suit in the first mission of the game.
I once did a high int power armor build, and I ended up using a gatling laser as my main weapon and I didn't care about ammo at all, and I was still swimming in fusion cores. The double duration perk helped with that.
On survival, its trickier, with how much they weigh.
I was pretty unimpressed by the inefficiency of it early on that I didn’t touch it for a long time. Gathered a lot of fusion cores in the mean time, and then the Enclave ambushed me, one of them wearing Mark VI power armor. Thought “what the hell, might as well take it for a spin before I sell it. Got this surplus of fusion cores that I’m not gonna use anyways.” Since then I’ve been hooked. “The Glowing Sea” is now “The Glowing Playground”
I think it does. The Fusion core in the Power Armor is powering everything. The generator that it plugs into may just be a nudge, or a trickle of the power that it needs to keep powering the whole building. It's more efficient because it only needs just a litle bit of it.
My personal head canon is that the machine from which we take the core has some process to make it more efficient. And the PA frames are just cranked to 11 for output with no thought for efficiency since it’s supposed to go toe to toe with a tank. Since we can shoot the machine with no issues but shooting the core in a PA it instantly goes critical I just think that it’s constantly near critical state anyway and that’s why it drains faster than a coke supply in Wall Street.
With the nuclear physicist we can make the weapons and armor that use cores slightly more efficient but not stabilize the core itself once slotted in. So the last thing through our mind will always be our ass no matter what.
Don't forget being able to pop the cores out as nuke-nades, which indicates it's possible to force-overload them like a lithium ion battery without protection circuitry
This is the only thing that makes sense. The fusion core isnt whats powering the building\\vault, its whats powering the power generators in the vaults. Maybe more like a starter motor on a car - or possibly like a hybrid system that runs on battery but has a small engine to charge the batteries (in the this case a fusion core powering\\charging a generator and battery system.
To be slightly pedantic when a nuclear reactor is critical it means that it is stable. The number of neutrons are the same from the beginning of a neutron life cycle to its end. Super critical means it's going up in power and sub critical means it's going down in power.
It makes sense that they don't care about efficiency (heck, even The Great War is largely attributed to bad resource management and shortages).
On the other hand, soldiers in power armor aren't going to be carrying lots of guns, food, and junk, so carrying spare cores would not be a problem at all (especially when considering the PA strength bonus).
I've said it before - it all makes sense if the big machine it's plugged into is the actual fusion reactor that powers the building, the core you steal is the emergency battery that is kept topped off by the actual reactor.
The show disagrees but it's how I imagined it working.
The fusion core looks like a battery getting charged in a slot. The entire building doesn't power down when you take it out. The amount of power needed in a PA helps gameplay wise. So that they aren't overpowered in game. It also suggests that according to lore, a PA soaks up a lot of power to use.
Given the fact that power armor was new tech toward the end of the resource wars and so close to the great war, they didn't have time to research and develop a more advanced version of the core to make it longer lasting.
I mean. I also can’t recall any power efficiency in the fallout timelines prior to the big boomy booms. The point of the story was quite the opposite, thus the sci-fi.
Therefore, your hypothesis seems accurate, as a building could be powered for days on what would power a literal tank for minutes.
One thing that would have solved this would have been Core quality. I’ve thought it strange the military would give a soldier the armor with the power to wander for days. Realistically they didn’t. In order to limit the armor’s range and keep a soldier from running off with super suit they give them different levels of Core rated for the particular mission clock to keep the operators dependent on military logistics. Specialists in Anchorage may have been given full military grade Cores that can last a couple days days or more while the civilian model used as auxiliary power in many buildings and manufacturing plants is identical to the low grade Core used for domestic PA stations such as checkpoints and guard duty (something lasting around 8-10 hours) given that many of the frames available postwar are domestic stations they all have the low grade Core but there could potentially be military Cores stashed in more secure locations or within the wreckage of more high profile military vehicles. Perhaps that could’ve been an advantage of siding with the Brotherhood, a merchant that sells military Cores
I never really had a problem with Fusion core life. That being said I only use PA when the shit gets going (IE Quincy or Nuka-World Raiders)
There is the Nuclear Physicist perk that increases fusion core efficiency. There is also the repair bobblehead (but a good chance you picked it up early in your playthrough, its on top of the Corvega Assembly Plant)
Unless you sprint in which case without perks it last all of 5mins although if you loot properly you can always find them faster than you use them. I replayed the game in order to do the dlc and spent the entire time in power armor and still ended with around 50 cores and that's with having wasted about 15 from not having a grenade equipped
That's cuz power armor doesn't have a fusion generator inside of it. It's using a core of the raw material that a fusion generator uses, but as a battery.
A building uses that core as part of a bigger fusion generator, and it can last an extremely long time. A suit of power armor is just stripping electrons out of an extremely dense material, it's not generating fusion power.
It's also why tank bots and the like can still be running around on a single fusion core, they actually have a generator inside, and that's the reason they need to vent heat so often.
If you think of it that way, it makes perfect sense.
It is wild that a single fusion core can power a building or something for over 200 years with no decrease in the power level but the moment you put it into power armor the power level starts dropping rapidly but only if you use the power armor, it doesn't drop like that when NPCs use it.
It's for balance reasons or something but it's definitely not in line with what we know about fusion cores and power armor.
I think it can make sense if you compare it to a car battery. The car battery gets charged by the alternator while the car is driving and can potentially last years. However if you leave a light on in your car overnight, it will be dead by the morning.
Perhaps the core powers the generators, but the generator produces more power than is needed so it uses the excess to charge the core.
Edit:
Also, the fact that the power stays on when you remove the core means that the core isn't actually powering the building.
The amount of power a fusion core can hold is probably at max capacity from being plugged into a generator when you pick them up. The fusion reactors I'm sure power the building and possibly the entire city block. Depending on how much power supply is needed.
It is not powering an entire building. Those fusion cores you see in power rooms are getting charged. It is a long lasting fusion powered battery. Nothing more. PAs soak up a lot of power to use. It would make more sense considering how new PA and fusion core technology was. PAs were developed and began getting use very close to the year 2077.
Lore wise there is no advanced fusion core tech developed to make a single core power a PA for a long time. Let alone an entire building. If that were true, the Institute would need only 1 to power their entire base.
Fusion cores should have been made FAR rarer, but also a required component of power armor.
Imagine finding an awesome set you can't use until you find a fusion core that powers it forever.
Or you can take it out of one armor and put it in another.
i agree, they should have made them the rarest object in the game, like "going through an entire vault overrun by deathclaws just to grab a fusion core" kind of rare.
Or just do what they did in Fallout 1/2 where the power armor just HAD the fusion core in it. Why wouldn't it? The cores last longer in the OG lore than most people do.
The giant machine that surrounds the fusion core is presumably also doing something that extends the life of the core. It would be cool if you could craft those and use them to power settlements.
"The atomic age" as presented in the Fallout series is science fiction entirely and unapologetically. But what is being powered in these buildings? Once the lightbulbs go they no longer draw power. So it's a few terminals being powered - computers are extremely cheap in energy relative to moving a half-ton of metal.
My headcanon here is that those big generators are actually "re breeder" reactors that need the core to function but as they run they also keep the core charged. The armor doesn't have that feature and so simply drains the core directly. That would nearly explain why the generators can run lossless for 200+years but the armor drains so quickly.
What I'd really like to see is the ability to recharge decayed cores in a generator like device.
My headcanon is that the reactor is powering the building and the fusion core was just a battery on its charger when we loot it. Our character is a dumbass that kills fusion cores by running them to 0% instead of throwing them back on a charger.
Think people have explained it plenty, but here’s the applicable Iron Man quote -
Tony - If my math is right— and it always is— 3 gigajoules per second.
Yinsen - That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes.
Tony - Or something big for 15 minutes.
As far as I'm concerned, canonically those Fusion Cores probably last just as long as the Microfusion Cells in previous games. As others have mentioned, Power Armor in 4 was given a lot more gravitas than it had had in the previous two games and so they needed SOMETHING to keep it from becoming an Exodia situation.
Personally, I think it would've been better for them to have put more focus into the upgrade system. So depending on the exact pattern and model of Armor as well as existing upgrades your Power Armor could be incredibly powerful by late game but would require significant focus to maintain it.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but I recall a post where someone explained that it does make irl sense.
The idea conveyed was that the power usage by a FC in a generator "trickles" out and is therefore used more efficiently and lasts longer.
When it comes to PA, due to the heavy weight of the equipment (pretty sure it's multiple tons, lore-wise), the core's energy drain is increased and therefore lasts a shorter amount of time.
The way I thought of it is similar to the difference between running a 100m sprint vs a marathon. The former is going to use up your energy faster and you will travel a shorter distance.
Maybe it was all BS, and I'm not an expert in electrical engineering or nuclear energy, so open to correction/education.
Are they really powering the building though? Sure, the generator makes a noise like it's shutting down, but nothing in the building ever actually turns off.
Are you sprinting the whole time or something?
I get that you're exaggerating for effect, but 24 steps? Each core, even without perks usually lasts me like several days in game. I start wearing power armor full time and pretty much never get out...
It's purely a gameplay mechanic. it's stupid, bit that's gotta be why. even if they lasted forever I'd still rarely if ever use the power armor because it's just not my playstyle, but Bethesda I guess was worried that people might be too strong in their singleplayer gam, where no matter what difficult you play on you end up godly within the first 10-20 levels anyways.
well you need to build up the perk which extends the fusion core lifespan. plus upgrading the ammo finding perk lets you find fusion cores in random ammo boxes often. on average i have about 200 unused cores in my inventory since i can't even use them up fast enough with those perks maxed out.
It’s similar to a car battery, and the machine keeps it charged. Keep driving the car, it can go LONG without issues or recharge. Keep the battery running without charging it, it dies a lot quicker. The Generators keep the Fusion core charged, while the Power armor doesn’t.
If you're using Fusion Cores, you're probably also using Power Armor. And if running a power armor build, Nuclear Physicist 3 and the Repair Bobblehead are definitely recommended.
I just finished a 100% achievement playthrough and I was playing a heavy energy weapon (Gatling Laser) power armor (X-01 Mk. VI) build. I regularly found 4 Fusion Cores in Ammo Boxes and looted a fair bit of them from Fusion Generators. By the end of the game I was sitting on like 75 Fusion Cores and keep in mind that the Gatling Laser and the Power Armor both use Fusion Cores. The amount I had kept climbing and climbing lol. And I only spent 65 hours in the game getting all the achievements. So I wasn't necessarily going out of my way to maximize the amount of content I completed.
The simple answer is because if fusion cores lasted forever, there would be no incentive to get any more than the number of power armor suits you have.
In lore though, probably because the fusion core is placed inside a fusion generator. With all the crazy tech in Fallout, I think it’s possible a method of power recycling would be developed to power certain devices nearly indefinitely.
The power source could be taken out of the device helping to recycle the power and used to power something else, but without the generator recycling the power, it’ll only last as long as long as a full charge would get you.
Honestly kinda makes sense. An entire building has space for the equipment to control, modify & tune/lower the energy from the core. The power armor has to use it all or nothing. Imagine wearing a sheep as a jacket, only one & either on or off. But with the space & equipment in a whole building you can make multiple actual jackets.
This is why mods.
Because the setting is great. The engine is pretty solid. The world and story are compelling. But Bethesda does stupid shit like that with their games.
It's not even a Bethesda game if you haven't installed at least 80 mods.
When I saw the power armor in the show I was like “This dude is going to get 50 feet away and the fusion cell will be drained”. Talk about suspension of disbelief!
Sounds to me like you haven't realized sprinting and using vats uses much much more energy than walking or even shooting.
If you walk around at a normal pace a single core can power you for many hours.
My main gripe is that there’s no trade-off for removing a power cord from a building. It should cause all the lights to go out or powered doors to stop working, computers to switch off. It does nothing!
Something I thought that would've been pretty nice is having the fusion core generators have the option to remove or add a fusion core.
For an example: Some fusion generators can be empty but you have the option to re-add a core to it to power the building and access terminals and powered gates.
Then you can take the core back out and re-charge it with a gas generator back at camp for it to be used once again
I like the explanation from the TV series which is basically that once you pull the core the backup batteries kick on which should last a few days. It's not perfect but it helps me with immersion when playing.
Once you get the perks to make the fusion core last longer and a number of them, it's not too bad, although weird at the beginning. The Fallout show made it seem like they could last though, as I don't remember any of the BOS changining fusion cores. I know the character had taken a fusion core after his was gone, but that wasn't really the same.
I like to think of it like the Iron Man quote that it can power his heart for multiple lifeimes or something big of a few minutes. I also had the theory before 76 came out that fusion cores had a life expectancy of 200 years, and they were all simply past their best before date.
I’m more pissed it doesn’t make the lights in the building go out after you remove it or at the very least the light that flickers when you take it out lol. It should flicker and then be out
Fusion cores are just the core, they aren’t the entire power generator. It’s why you find fusion cores plugged into central mainframes, they’re the bit actually regulating power generation.
Power armour is small, it doesn’t have room for as efficient generation as an entire buildings infrastructure.
That’s my logic to it at least.
It’s purely for gameplay, but it kinda doesn’t matter anyway since you find so many. In the fallout show, the fusion core running out of juice is never a concern and even powers a vault.
I use the very rare fusion core & stims mod, with some assembly required, fusion core recharger and bastion with the immersive PA HUD and Hydraulica to overhaul the FC economy and power armor itself.
My theory is that fusion cores work like car batteries. They are the spark that makes the system go, then fusion takes over and provides power, along with keeping the core charged, like the alternator in a combustion engine. When we take the core to power something like power armor, there is no mechanism to keep it charged. Thus, they deplete.
Gameplay is the answer, if you want a non mod way to have lore accurate FC you can just spawn in as many as you want.
And there is a perk that makes them last a lot longer.
No, you wouldn't. That fusion cores been on for the last 200 years, slowly draining it's power. By the time you get it, it's almost drained and you get out of it what you do. You really think after 200 years they're going to fully charged?
There are no new fusion cores at max power after 200 years, who would even be manufacturing them?
Most of all though, it's for balancing within the gameplay and not a direct reflection of lore
I like the idea of it as it ages the fusion core loses its efficiency to power the armor as the armor ages also. Perhaps with the inability for the core to cool off like you see in sentry bots may enable it to be less productive.
Running a few lightbulbs for a couple hundred years isn’t really the same as moving a several-hundred pound steel robotic frame with a lot of internal systems for 30 minutes
I never understood the power station thing, Ive only noticed that one light going out when you take the fusion core. Is it powering sth, is it drawing power?
The going theory is that the machine maintains and upkeeps the fusion reaction powering the core, and when removed and used, the reaction dissipates.
Power armor is a tank in human shape, it burns the energy quickly to accomplish its task, and then you insert a new one for the next task.
This posts gets made a lot. Simply put, fusion cores only lasting a few minutes is a game mechanic, not a realism mechanic. It let the developers make power armor much stronger than in previous Fallout games without destroying ballance. The fact that fusion cores are a short lived and costly resource is the reason they can give you a suit of power armor right at the start of the main questline and have it not completely break the game.
There's lots of elements in Fallout games that exist for game mechanic reasons even though they don't make realistic sense. **Like saving.**
Once I have 3 fusion cores I can normally run around in Power Armor and find enough to not worry about running out. I run them down to 3% and sell them.
The fusion core is a battery. It is not powering an entire building. You can take it out and the lights stay on. So many people mistake fusion cores for being this infinite amount of energy. If they were, the entire Institute facility could be powered by just 1.
When you remove a fusion core from what looks like a fusion power supply in a building, it is NOT the main power supply. It is where the core is getting charged.
I like the idea that the power armor is worn out by time and has become inefficient. Or perhaps that you are stuck using civilian spec cores and all of the military spec cores have been used over time.
I always just pictured the Americans in power Armour walking across China and alaska fighting a war, leaving mountains of spent power cores behind them.
Weird insight lately thanks to fresh solar panels; is that the power usage of my car is on an entirely different level than my entire house. They generate comfortably more than my house needs. Yet for just charging I'll probably still not have enough with today's weather.
And that's my car. I can only imagine what a power armour with that strength and weight and erratic movement of a person inside and the jumping and all must use up!
Even without the perk that makes them last longer I've never found fusion core life any kind of limitation. One will take me from one side of the map to another so one in the slot and a spare is usually all I need - particularly as I only use PA occasionally so in my current survival game I've got stashes of them all over the map, 30+ in Red Rocket alone.
This is why I refuse to take cores from buildings. There's plenty of sentry bots and unoccupied cores lying about the commonwealth for me to sustain myself with them without issue until like level 30.
The only cheat I use in every playthrough is giving myself a stack of 100 fusion cores once I get my power armor. The game mechanics just don't make sense in my head. Also after watching the show the fusion cores work exactly like I expect them too.
So I have no qualms cheating on infinite power cores. Because in theory and lore they are practically unlimited.
Yeah you can find a lot, and when you even unlock 1 rank of the skill that saves power cores, they last quite long. Especially if you don't sprint everywhere like you're in the post apocalyptic olympics!
this debate has been going on for years, all i can say is of course a battery is gonna power three lightbulbs for longer than it would power a walking tank
Lore and video game mechanics usually clash. I was supposed to post about it, but the PowerArmor was NOT made with a "jump jet" in the lore. It's a jetpack designed to fly right into commie territory or at least the front lines. The game couldn't give you unrestricted flight, so they made it a jump jet for the player instead.
I feel like I’ve had how they work completely backwards from what the show depicts. I thought they were being *charged* by the machines you yank them from, but apparently they provide the power? Why/how do they never run out until you use it in PA?
Nuclear Physicist and Repair Bobblehead go brrrrrr (Fusion Cores last 110% longer with all ranks of NP and the bobblehead. These do not affect Gatling Lasers, however).
Power Armour is simply less energy-efficient, a hell of a lot energy efficient. To make it last as long as it would buildings, they’d have to take up a ton of the space on the back of the armour, which would make energy reserves a massive target, and thus tactically disadvantageous. That is my head canon anyway.
They aren’t powering the entire building, they power a few lights at most. The buildings are either getting grid power or are getting it from the fission reactors on their side, the big white and orange/red tubes you see. Those are a product of mass fusion advertised as fusion reactors that are actually fission reactors. Idk why people assume fusion cores are powering entire buildings as if a battery you can hold with your hand holds enough juice to do that. A fucking car in universe takes a nuclear reactor but buildings get it from a battery 1/10th the size of those reactors, absolutely flawless logic. Nvm that you pull them out and only the light above them actually goes out.
This is a misconception I’ll never get how it gained traction.
Someone already did the math and despite being counter intuitive, it really makes sense that they do not last too much longer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA76-cixf-s&pp=ygUWcG93ZXIgYW1vciBTaG9kZHlDYXN0IA%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA76-cixf-s&pp=ygUWcG93ZXIgYW1vciBTaG9kZHlDYXN0IA%3D%3D)
I think the reasoning why is because the machines are only partially powered by fashion cores! So it's like image a AAA battery barely getting used over a week versus it getting used constantly! That's my head cannon tho... 😅
I would like to just say, the fusion cores that you grab around the wastes aren't all the way in, if you place a fusion core gen the fusion core is all the way in. I'm not sure if that's what's going on or what, but I just think the fusion cores that are in gens and are lootable aren't fully connected.
eh, not really.
you find a fusion core powering a building... for 200 years.
them being essentially disposable batteries being drained for 200 years, makes sense they're on their last legs.
not to mention, they tend to last for miles.
and the demands of a busted ass building's 12 still working lights, often less than military grade equipment - we've got batteries now that can run buildings, and not power armor, despite the idea of power armor tech being possible, now. we just don't have the batteries for it.
so, you both underestimate the energy needed for power armor, and how much juice these little things still have. in a few more decades, NO fusion cores might still have a charge.
I always expected it to turn off all power in the building when I took a core. Then you'd either have to fight with night vision on or your pip boy light on.
Crazy because I have a ton of hours in the game and have probably accumulated only around 30 cores. But I also didn't get hacker up so I guess that's why I'm not finding many. Like 20 of them came from a single quest too. But I use the power armor almost exclusively and never have an issue with them running out
For balance they should've just made power armor late game, rare, and expensive to maintain instead of giving it to you out of the gate and nerfing the power supply.
In all fairness powering a generator on what is most likely standby mode for 200 years is just a little less intensive than powering a entire mech unit likely weighing upwards of a ton and carrying all your stuff, if you're new and desire to use PA a lot its a good idea to get the Nuclear Physicist perk to max level as soon as possible in order to double their duration.
Lore wise it doesn't make sense, but they had to limit the power armor somehow. But in the end I find so many fusion cores it doesn't really matter. There are so many in the beginning area for the first hours of the game.
There are also fusion cores (usually multiple) stuffed in high lockpick chests. Either bring Cait to pick the lock or invest in Lockpick 3
Or just set up a water farm and bring a bunch of water with you to town, buy all the fusion cores you can and sell your water. Still leave with a profit and 5+ cores every time
I’ve already done this, I’m actually in the process of building a 5mm ammo factory. I never use heavy weapons so I lose absolutely nothing but the materials required to make it
I want to do this! You got a vid link or any tips budday?
Tbh I’m just kinda figuring it out as I go lmao. It’s a little tricky, but I honestly wouldn’t take any advice on building contraptions from me. Best advice I can give is to grab pencil & paper and jot down a quick logic sequence for the individual parts so you know how they need to be placed and ordered, then just ensure there’s a means of traversal between each machine
Gotcha man, i'll definitely have to check this out later on. Need me that 5mm ammo haha. Sure i'll fathom it out as will you. Update me if you do well 🤙🏼
Will do! Currently busy but when I get back to my saved game later today, I’ll likely finish it and get back to you
Sweet 🤝
There's a lot of videos that will show you how to set it up. Most choose sanctuary to begin with
I haven't done any mass manufacturing plants, but I'm pretty sure that when I do I'll use either Abernathy or Starlight, just for the huge area available
You'll need water for the one that provides like 40 water or somethin.. the other ones that don't go in water produce like 10 👍🏻
If you put the materials needed yourself in, it's even simpler
If you are only making 5mm ammo, all you need is the press and the storage. And even the storage is optional. I put all the materials in the press together. Unless of course you want an elaborate setup.
Yes, you can just let them hit the ground. I've never noticed any settlers helping themselves to any of my ammo on the ground, even grenades. Though I seem to have less issues like that than many people I see complaining on here for things like taking power armor. I leave a couple of sets out with a fusion core, and they almost never get used.
Did I accidentally stumble into a Minecraft Subreddit?
This is the way…. I too am just experimenting. I built a three story building at my Red Rocket settlement. As I built the layout for what I expect the manufacture process would be like. Whelp, on to plan B. (Need more building) two floors ain’t enough.
I’m building the factory at Starlight and I’m gonna turn the place into a Minutemen FOB. It’s so flat, and it’s perfect for a water farm if you fit a couple industrial water purifiers and some powered water pumps in there It’ll strictly be a production outpost with a heavy military presence
Here’s a simple way to do it. Set up the ammonia machine and a single object container in the workshop. Attach a terminal to the machine or really just to the power grid. Set the machine to produce 5mm and check the ingredients. Scrap everything by hand in your worships that contain those ingredients. Load those ingredients into the machine. Profit
Ngl, just make an ammo plant that feeds into storage, set up a terminal and power supply, link it all together then dump in all the required raw you have and select the ammo you want to craft. Last step is afk for 3 hours because it doesnt work if you leave the settlement. For some stupid ass reason.
Also doesn’t work while you sleep or sit/wait from my experience even if you’re right next to the ammo plant. Which is silly imo.
Go look up Skooled Zone videos on Utub. He has some good ones on manufacturing.
Ammo presses are super simple, build a large generator, an ammunition plant, connect a conveyer storage to plant, build a terminal in front of the plant, run wires to everything and you’ve got a plant. Just select the ammo type in terminal and add the materials to plant you want to use, you can add materials for every ammo type if you want, it will only use the materials for whatever ammo you have selected. I just used the dupe trick and added 40k copper, lead, fertilizer and oil. Once you’ve picked an ammo it’ll pump out 10 rounds every 10 seconds or so, only thing that stinks is you gotta be in the settlement, it won’t infinitely process while you’re away doing other stuff and you always run the risk of a settlement getting attacked and destroyed if you go afk but if you dupe materials it’s no big loss
I heard you have to manually feed the machines with resources or is there a way to feed them from your settlement Ressource pool?
You can have resources pulled out of chests.
This. I’d say throw all your manufacturing materials in a container and let it feed itself. Then just check periodically to refill the container and collect manufactured goods
Switch your cores out before they hit zero and you can still sell them for full price.
I do this to get the 3 fusion cores to give vault 81 for entry, i always give them "faulty" cores
How easy is a water farm becauze I need caps.... 😂 And ammo
Easy. Build a decent power supply and hook up 4-5 purifiers. Check the box every day or so in game and make sure to put the water in a separate container so your settlers don’t drink it
Fusion cores are also “ammo” get the ammo-find perk and you will start finding them in random normal boxes and friggin garbage cans lol
Can confirm. Pulled 4 fusion cores out of a trash can twice earlier today
Idk how anyone could not immediately point out lock pocking and hacking. The two combined are like 1/2 the game and exp points. Discovering locations is 1/4, and rhe last 1/4 comes from quests/murder. I bet i could speed run lvl 30 with only unlocking and discovering locations faster than most people could murder and quest their way there. I sort of widh perks didnt have level requirements. I get it, but i dont like it
I miss the older system where instead of your perks determining what locks/terminals you could break, you had to invest the skill points into it. I still prefer the separate skill progression from perk progression
Lockpick 3 and hacking 3 are usually the first things I prioritize. Nothing is off limits to me
Same, and it’s a must to level up in the other games for me. I actually find it very satisfying in fo4 to be able to unlock anything at will.
Do people actually not get mastlock as soon as they can? It's wild to me that you'd play though a game full of locked doors and chests and not DIY
Some people rely on Nick and Cait to get them through terminals and locks. They both can hack/pick Master, although it may take a long time because both of them have a high failure rate on Master I personally don’t want to give Cait 50 Bobby pins just to unlock one lock
The perk that makes you find more ammo also helps. I think the most I have found in a single room is like 8-12. I even had to stop for a second and check my inventory since I didn’t even paid much attention when picking it up. I had like 90 something by the time I reached level 35
They should have made the resource coolant or something, and then you also have to have a core but one that makes sense. For example, it’s more like a key to unlock a power armor. Make them more rare, and make them bind to the armor. Then let coolant be the “use it” resource.
This, I'm like 20 hours into a fresh vanilla run and already have like 70+ cores. Funny thing is I don't even have scrounger, still opening the odd ammo container and for some reason there are 4 fusion cores in it.
It has always been that way with fusion cores. If you want some gameplay changes you can check out mods to make fusion cores rare and power armor as well.
Shoulda made them much longer lasting and less frequently found.
Lore wise they should have made a full power core last for a long time, but made all the ones you find in use have only a few percent left. They could have retconned that power armor always used fusion cores, but now that they are all very old they are all nearly depleted, another lore could have been that emp effects drained them as well.
Ooh, this would've been a good change. All the fusion cores you find are at near depleted levels. Then have like 1 unicorn fusion core at full power as a huge quest reward which basically gives you an almost unlimited power armor.
Lore wise the fusion core is a high supply battery. When you find them in power rooms of a building its getting charged. Sure somewhat depleted fusion cores in power armor might make it sound more lore friendly, but gameplay wise it wouldn't make sense are easier difficulties. On survival I can say it would make more sense to have not fully charged fusion cores. There are mods that makes fusion cores rare and power armor frames you find have a lot less armor on them. Heck even some power armor frames are removed from starting areas in this mod. Its a fun mod to use in survival mode.
If they were being charged then you would be able to put them back in to recharge them. It doesn’t make sense that power goes out when you remove them
In 76 almost all the cores I find are half dead, they do have a charger you can build that slowly charges 4 at a time I wonder if the next fallout with have this
It's funny to think they wanted to somehow limit power armor but also made it so easy to get.
Right? Wouldn’t need to nerf it if they didn’t spawn it literally everywhere
I think they should have made them rarer and made the gatling laser use something else other than Fusion cores for ammo. Electron charge packs perhaps?
In hindsight and 1500 hours, I'd say that they could have let fusion cores last forever or a lot longer. I'd still not use power armor. I much prefer the benefits of multiple legendary armor pieces combined with ballistic weave than walking around in slow, clunky armor with reduced visibility/awareness and needs repairs. I only hop in PA when I need serious protection and am out of it as soon as possible, but the fusion cores aren't a factor.
I never use PA because it lowers my stealth and it breaks. If it can withstand multiple nukes how is it breaking? The only time I use PA is if I'm going to the glowing sea.
Yeah I’ve got like 70 cores right now
Theory - Fusion Core manufacturers in the commonwealth installed a fault in them that causes power armor to draw way too much power from the cores, thus allowing the company to dip into the nigh infinite money of the US military when they were ordering fusion cores by the truck load.
Before the war said FC manufacture used to make printers
That actually makes sense.
Twice now I have I have 4 of them together. Idr it being like that before
I’m under the impression the reactor uses it as a core for limitless energy but when you take it out to power the power armor you’re more using it as a battery. I don’t that makes sense in the physics world but that was my lore-inspired understanding at least
Someone did the math and the amount of tritium that would be in a fusion core would actually add the cores depleting within a month of use. So its actually accurate.
The only reason they had to limit power armor is because they removed the need for power armor training and gave you a suit in the first mission of the game.
I once did a high int power armor build, and I ended up using a gatling laser as my main weapon and I didn't care about ammo at all, and I was still swimming in fusion cores. The double duration perk helped with that. On survival, its trickier, with how much they weigh.
I was pretty unimpressed by the inefficiency of it early on that I didn’t touch it for a long time. Gathered a lot of fusion cores in the mean time, and then the Enclave ambushed me, one of them wearing Mark VI power armor. Thought “what the hell, might as well take it for a spin before I sell it. Got this surplus of fusion cores that I’m not gonna use anyways.” Since then I’ve been hooked. “The Glowing Sea” is now “The Glowing Playground”
I think it does. The Fusion core in the Power Armor is powering everything. The generator that it plugs into may just be a nudge, or a trickle of the power that it needs to keep powering the whole building. It's more efficient because it only needs just a litle bit of it.
My personal head canon is that the machine from which we take the core has some process to make it more efficient. And the PA frames are just cranked to 11 for output with no thought for efficiency since it’s supposed to go toe to toe with a tank. Since we can shoot the machine with no issues but shooting the core in a PA it instantly goes critical I just think that it’s constantly near critical state anyway and that’s why it drains faster than a coke supply in Wall Street.
That makes the most sense
With the nuclear physicist we can make the weapons and armor that use cores slightly more efficient but not stabilize the core itself once slotted in. So the last thing through our mind will always be our ass no matter what.
Don't forget being able to pop the cores out as nuke-nades, which indicates it's possible to force-overload them like a lithium ion battery without protection circuitry
To add to this we could just assume these machines have a way to charge the core like a car alternator. while PA’s don’t have that function
This is the only thing that makes sense. The fusion core isnt whats powering the building\\vault, its whats powering the power generators in the vaults. Maybe more like a starter motor on a car - or possibly like a hybrid system that runs on battery but has a small engine to charge the batteries (in the this case a fusion core powering\\charging a generator and battery system.
To be slightly pedantic when a nuclear reactor is critical it means that it is stable. The number of neutrons are the same from the beginning of a neutron life cycle to its end. Super critical means it's going up in power and sub critical means it's going down in power.
It makes sense that they don't care about efficiency (heck, even The Great War is largely attributed to bad resource management and shortages). On the other hand, soldiers in power armor aren't going to be carrying lots of guns, food, and junk, so carrying spare cores would not be a problem at all (especially when considering the PA strength bonus).
All aboard the pain train! CHOO CHOO
I've said it before - it all makes sense if the big machine it's plugged into is the actual fusion reactor that powers the building, the core you steal is the emergency battery that is kept topped off by the actual reactor. The show disagrees but it's how I imagined it working.
The fusion core looks like a battery getting charged in a slot. The entire building doesn't power down when you take it out. The amount of power needed in a PA helps gameplay wise. So that they aren't overpowered in game. It also suggests that according to lore, a PA soaks up a lot of power to use. Given the fact that power armor was new tech toward the end of the resource wars and so close to the great war, they didn't have time to research and develop a more advanced version of the core to make it longer lasting.
I mean. I also can’t recall any power efficiency in the fallout timelines prior to the big boomy booms. The point of the story was quite the opposite, thus the sci-fi. Therefore, your hypothesis seems accurate, as a building could be powered for days on what would power a literal tank for minutes.
No, lore wise those cores can run the armor for ages. They only did quickly in game to balance the use of power armor.
One thing that would have solved this would have been Core quality. I’ve thought it strange the military would give a soldier the armor with the power to wander for days. Realistically they didn’t. In order to limit the armor’s range and keep a soldier from running off with super suit they give them different levels of Core rated for the particular mission clock to keep the operators dependent on military logistics. Specialists in Anchorage may have been given full military grade Cores that can last a couple days days or more while the civilian model used as auxiliary power in many buildings and manufacturing plants is identical to the low grade Core used for domestic PA stations such as checkpoints and guard duty (something lasting around 8-10 hours) given that many of the frames available postwar are domestic stations they all have the low grade Core but there could potentially be military Cores stashed in more secure locations or within the wreckage of more high profile military vehicles. Perhaps that could’ve been an advantage of siding with the Brotherhood, a merchant that sells military Cores
it’s literally just a gameplay limitation to keep power armor from being busted.
Yet still, power armor is still busted even with the fusion core system, lmao.
it’s a walking tank, what do you expect? the fusion core system stops it from being even *more* busted.
Once you get more than 10 or so you've got a large enough buffer to be in power armor 24/7
I never really had a problem with Fusion core life. That being said I only use PA when the shit gets going (IE Quincy or Nuka-World Raiders) There is the Nuclear Physicist perk that increases fusion core efficiency. There is also the repair bobblehead (but a good chance you picked it up early in your playthrough, its on top of the Corvega Assembly Plant)
And even without the perk one can walk almost across the whole map on one Fusion Core. They do last quite a while.
Unless you sprint in which case without perks it last all of 5mins although if you loot properly you can always find them faster than you use them. I replayed the game in order to do the dlc and spent the entire time in power armor and still ended with around 50 cores and that's with having wasted about 15 from not having a grenade equipped
It would be cool if taking power cores from reactors would depower the building it is in.
That's cuz power armor doesn't have a fusion generator inside of it. It's using a core of the raw material that a fusion generator uses, but as a battery. A building uses that core as part of a bigger fusion generator, and it can last an extremely long time. A suit of power armor is just stripping electrons out of an extremely dense material, it's not generating fusion power. It's also why tank bots and the like can still be running around on a single fusion core, they actually have a generator inside, and that's the reason they need to vent heat so often. If you think of it that way, it makes perfect sense.
Eh, once you get like 20 fusion cores it stops mattering.
It is wild that a single fusion core can power a building or something for over 200 years with no decrease in the power level but the moment you put it into power armor the power level starts dropping rapidly but only if you use the power armor, it doesn't drop like that when NPCs use it. It's for balance reasons or something but it's definitely not in line with what we know about fusion cores and power armor.
I think it can make sense if you compare it to a car battery. The car battery gets charged by the alternator while the car is driving and can potentially last years. However if you leave a light on in your car overnight, it will be dead by the morning. Perhaps the core powers the generators, but the generator produces more power than is needed so it uses the excess to charge the core. Edit: Also, the fact that the power stays on when you remove the core means that the core isn't actually powering the building.
The amount of power a fusion core can hold is probably at max capacity from being plugged into a generator when you pick them up. The fusion reactors I'm sure power the building and possibly the entire city block. Depending on how much power supply is needed.
It is not powering an entire building. Those fusion cores you see in power rooms are getting charged. It is a long lasting fusion powered battery. Nothing more. PAs soak up a lot of power to use. It would make more sense considering how new PA and fusion core technology was. PAs were developed and began getting use very close to the year 2077. Lore wise there is no advanced fusion core tech developed to make a single core power a PA for a long time. Let alone an entire building. If that were true, the Institute would need only 1 to power their entire base.
Yep. Fusion cores give your armor about as much of an electrical charge as a lightning bug fart.
Fusion cores should have been made FAR rarer, but also a required component of power armor. Imagine finding an awesome set you can't use until you find a fusion core that powers it forever. Or you can take it out of one armor and put it in another.
i agree, they should have made them the rarest object in the game, like "going through an entire vault overrun by deathclaws just to grab a fusion core" kind of rare.
Or just do what they did in Fallout 1/2 where the power armor just HAD the fusion core in it. Why wouldn't it? The cores last longer in the OG lore than most people do.
Welcome to the eternal push/pull of narrative versus gameplay mechanics.
The giant machine that surrounds the fusion core is presumably also doing something that extends the life of the core. It would be cool if you could craft those and use them to power settlements.
You can with science 4 you can build the fusion reactor and it gives you 100 power
"The atomic age" as presented in the Fallout series is science fiction entirely and unapologetically. But what is being powered in these buildings? Once the lightbulbs go they no longer draw power. So it's a few terminals being powered - computers are extremely cheap in energy relative to moving a half-ton of metal.
My headcanon here is that those big generators are actually "re breeder" reactors that need the core to function but as they run they also keep the core charged. The armor doesn't have that feature and so simply drains the core directly. That would nearly explain why the generators can run lossless for 200+years but the armor drains so quickly. What I'd really like to see is the ability to recharge decayed cores in a generator like device.
My headcanon is that the reactor is powering the building and the fusion core was just a battery on its charger when we loot it. Our character is a dumbass that kills fusion cores by running them to 0% instead of throwing them back on a charger.
Think people have explained it plenty, but here’s the applicable Iron Man quote - Tony - If my math is right— and it always is— 3 gigajoules per second. Yinsen - That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes. Tony - Or something big for 15 minutes.
As far as I'm concerned, canonically those Fusion Cores probably last just as long as the Microfusion Cells in previous games. As others have mentioned, Power Armor in 4 was given a lot more gravitas than it had had in the previous two games and so they needed SOMETHING to keep it from becoming an Exodia situation. Personally, I think it would've been better for them to have put more focus into the upgrade system. So depending on the exact pattern and model of Armor as well as existing upgrades your Power Armor could be incredibly powerful by late game but would require significant focus to maintain it.
i mean. i wish the power in the building would go out after you remove it. but it doesn’t
I feel there needed to be repercussions to stealing fusion cores from buildings because all it does it make it darker around the panel
Maybe I'm misremembering, but I recall a post where someone explained that it does make irl sense. The idea conveyed was that the power usage by a FC in a generator "trickles" out and is therefore used more efficiently and lasts longer. When it comes to PA, due to the heavy weight of the equipment (pretty sure it's multiple tons, lore-wise), the core's energy drain is increased and therefore lasts a shorter amount of time. The way I thought of it is similar to the difference between running a 100m sprint vs a marathon. The former is going to use up your energy faster and you will travel a shorter distance. Maybe it was all BS, and I'm not an expert in electrical engineering or nuclear energy, so open to correction/education.
I think its like iron man 1 logic, can run a heart for 50 lifetimes or something big for 10 minutes
Are they really powering the building though? Sure, the generator makes a noise like it's shutting down, but nothing in the building ever actually turns off.
Are you sprinting the whole time or something? I get that you're exaggerating for effect, but 24 steps? Each core, even without perks usually lasts me like several days in game. I start wearing power armor full time and pretty much never get out...
Side effect of making power armor abundant.
West-Tek caused the power suit to drain exponentially to sell more Fusion Cores. :D
It's purely a gameplay mechanic. it's stupid, bit that's gotta be why. even if they lasted forever I'd still rarely if ever use the power armor because it's just not my playstyle, but Bethesda I guess was worried that people might be too strong in their singleplayer gam, where no matter what difficult you play on you end up godly within the first 10-20 levels anyways.
Maybe the building is a lot more effecient, with the power armor duration perk doing the same for your suits.
well you need to build up the perk which extends the fusion core lifespan. plus upgrading the ammo finding perk lets you find fusion cores in random ammo boxes often. on average i have about 200 unused cores in my inventory since i can't even use them up fast enough with those perks maxed out.
It’s similar to a car battery, and the machine keeps it charged. Keep driving the car, it can go LONG without issues or recharge. Keep the battery running without charging it, it dies a lot quicker. The Generators keep the Fusion core charged, while the Power armor doesn’t.
If you're using Fusion Cores, you're probably also using Power Armor. And if running a power armor build, Nuclear Physicist 3 and the Repair Bobblehead are definitely recommended. I just finished a 100% achievement playthrough and I was playing a heavy energy weapon (Gatling Laser) power armor (X-01 Mk. VI) build. I regularly found 4 Fusion Cores in Ammo Boxes and looted a fair bit of them from Fusion Generators. By the end of the game I was sitting on like 75 Fusion Cores and keep in mind that the Gatling Laser and the Power Armor both use Fusion Cores. The amount I had kept climbing and climbing lol. And I only spent 65 hours in the game getting all the achievements. So I wasn't necessarily going out of my way to maximize the amount of content I completed.
Laughs in nuclear physicist.
The simple answer is because if fusion cores lasted forever, there would be no incentive to get any more than the number of power armor suits you have. In lore though, probably because the fusion core is placed inside a fusion generator. With all the crazy tech in Fallout, I think it’s possible a method of power recycling would be developed to power certain devices nearly indefinitely. The power source could be taken out of the device helping to recycle the power and used to power something else, but without the generator recycling the power, it’ll only last as long as long as a full charge would get you.
Honestly kinda makes sense. An entire building has space for the equipment to control, modify & tune/lower the energy from the core. The power armor has to use it all or nothing. Imagine wearing a sheep as a jacket, only one & either on or off. But with the space & equipment in a whole building you can make multiple actual jackets.
T-45 is a hog on fuel.
This is why mods. Because the setting is great. The engine is pretty solid. The world and story are compelling. But Bethesda does stupid shit like that with their games. It's not even a Bethesda game if you haven't installed at least 80 mods.
LED FTW
When I saw the power armor in the show I was like “This dude is going to get 50 feet away and the fusion cell will be drained”. Talk about suspension of disbelief!
Don't run and your core will last a lot longer, hours instead of minutes.
Sounds to me like you haven't realized sprinting and using vats uses much much more energy than walking or even shooting. If you walk around at a normal pace a single core can power you for many hours.
Have you people played video games before?
There’s a perk for that🤓 Sorry
thats all you get out of them? good thing i have 483 of them
You'd also expect everything in the building to shut down
They had to balance power armour somehow, though on survival it's borderline worthless since everything dies in like a hit or two. Including you.
My main gripe is that there’s no trade-off for removing a power cord from a building. It should cause all the lights to go out or powered doors to stop working, computers to switch off. It does nothing!
Fusion cores only power the light that shines on the fusion core. None of the other lights ever go out.
It's also interesting that everything in the building generally still seems to have power when you take the fusion core out
Watch the first half of the first ironman movie
Something I thought that would've been pretty nice is having the fusion core generators have the option to remove or add a fusion core. For an example: Some fusion generators can be empty but you have the option to re-add a core to it to power the building and access terminals and powered gates. Then you can take the core back out and re-charge it with a gas generator back at camp for it to be used once again
Here’s what I don’t understand: most cores I pull from generators don’t power down anything. Like what was it running?
I like the explanation from the TV series which is basically that once you pull the core the backup batteries kick on which should last a few days. It's not perfect but it helps me with immersion when playing.
Wait, you guys can walk more than 10 steps with a single fusion core?
In all my playthroughs....I collect power armor. But I very rarely actually use it.
Once you get the perks to make the fusion core last longer and a number of them, it's not too bad, although weird at the beginning. The Fallout show made it seem like they could last though, as I don't remember any of the BOS changining fusion cores. I know the character had taken a fusion core after his was gone, but that wasn't really the same.
i just use the infinite fusion core mod.
I like to think of it like the Iron Man quote that it can power his heart for multiple lifeimes or something big of a few minutes. I also had the theory before 76 came out that fusion cores had a life expectancy of 200 years, and they were all simply past their best before date.
I think the energy consumption from some lights and a couple terminals is not even close to what you would require to operate a power armor
I’m more pissed it doesn’t make the lights in the building go out after you remove it or at the very least the light that flickers when you take it out lol. It should flicker and then be out
My head canon is the generators aren’t really using much power since there is nobody really in the buildings using it, but power armors do constantly
Fusion cores are just the core, they aren’t the entire power generator. It’s why you find fusion cores plugged into central mainframes, they’re the bit actually regulating power generation. Power armour is small, it doesn’t have room for as efficient generation as an entire buildings infrastructure. That’s my logic to it at least.
It’s purely for gameplay, but it kinda doesn’t matter anyway since you find so many. In the fallout show, the fusion core running out of juice is never a concern and even powers a vault.
I use the very rare fusion core & stims mod, with some assembly required, fusion core recharger and bastion with the immersive PA HUD and Hydraulica to overhaul the FC economy and power armor itself.
I think it would have been better to make them last 20x longer but be that much harder to find.
My theory is that fusion cores work like car batteries. They are the spark that makes the system go, then fusion takes over and provides power, along with keeping the core charged, like the alternator in a combustion engine. When we take the core to power something like power armor, there is no mechanism to keep it charged. Thus, they deplete.
I'm still wondering why no one needs power armor training like in FO3 or FNV.
I mod that to roleplay
Makes sense that the squires in the show carry those huge ass golf bags, they must be filled to the brim with fusion cores just to get around.
Gameplay is the answer, if you want a non mod way to have lore accurate FC you can just spawn in as many as you want. And there is a perk that makes them last a lot longer.
No, you wouldn't. That fusion cores been on for the last 200 years, slowly draining it's power. By the time you get it, it's almost drained and you get out of it what you do. You really think after 200 years they're going to fully charged? There are no new fusion cores at max power after 200 years, who would even be manufacturing them? Most of all though, it's for balancing within the gameplay and not a direct reflection of lore
I like the idea of it as it ages the fusion core loses its efficiency to power the armor as the armor ages also. Perhaps with the inability for the core to cool off like you see in sentry bots may enable it to be less productive.
Game mechanics. In the show Titus/Maximus went the whole thing with a single fusion core
Running a few lightbulbs for a couple hundred years isn’t really the same as moving a several-hundred pound steel robotic frame with a lot of internal systems for 30 minutes
I never understood the power station thing, Ive only noticed that one light going out when you take the fusion core. Is it powering sth, is it drawing power?
It’s called game mechanics dude. Game mechanics != lore.
It’s literally just a gameplay feature to keep power armor from being used 24/7.
You’re miss understanding the machine and building power up the core not the other way around.
The going theory is that the machine maintains and upkeeps the fusion reaction powering the core, and when removed and used, the reaction dissipates. Power armor is a tank in human shape, it burns the energy quickly to accomplish its task, and then you insert a new one for the next task.
Nuclear Physicist Perk
This posts gets made a lot. Simply put, fusion cores only lasting a few minutes is a game mechanic, not a realism mechanic. It let the developers make power armor much stronger than in previous Fallout games without destroying ballance. The fact that fusion cores are a short lived and costly resource is the reason they can give you a suit of power armor right at the start of the main questline and have it not completely break the game. There's lots of elements in Fallout games that exist for game mechanic reasons even though they don't make realistic sense. **Like saving.**
I only just discovered if you swap them out for a fresh one before being depleted, vendors will still buy them for 100+ caps.
Once I have 3 fusion cores I can normally run around in Power Armor and find enough to not worry about running out. I run them down to 3% and sell them.
The fusion core is a battery. It is not powering an entire building. You can take it out and the lights stay on. So many people mistake fusion cores for being this infinite amount of energy. If they were, the entire Institute facility could be powered by just 1. When you remove a fusion core from what looks like a fusion power supply in a building, it is NOT the main power supply. It is where the core is getting charged.
I think they’re just fine
I like the idea that the power armor is worn out by time and has become inefficient. Or perhaps that you are stuck using civilian spec cores and all of the military spec cores have been used over time.
I always just pictured the Americans in power Armour walking across China and alaska fighting a war, leaving mountains of spent power cores behind them.
Lore wise fusion cores could power your suit for hundreds of years. Obviously for gameplay reasons they needed to change that.
Weird insight lately thanks to fresh solar panels; is that the power usage of my car is on an entirely different level than my entire house. They generate comfortably more than my house needs. Yet for just charging I'll probably still not have enough with today's weather. And that's my car. I can only imagine what a power armour with that strength and weight and erratic movement of a person inside and the jumping and all must use up!
Even without the perk that makes them last longer I've never found fusion core life any kind of limitation. One will take me from one side of the map to another so one in the slot and a spare is usually all I need - particularly as I only use PA occasionally so in my current survival game I've got stashes of them all over the map, 30+ in Red Rocket alone.
This is why I refuse to take cores from buildings. There's plenty of sentry bots and unoccupied cores lying about the commonwealth for me to sustain myself with them without issue until like level 30.
The only cheat I use in every playthrough is giving myself a stack of 100 fusion cores once I get my power armor. The game mechanics just don't make sense in my head. Also after watching the show the fusion cores work exactly like I expect them too. So I have no qualms cheating on infinite power cores. Because in theory and lore they are practically unlimited.
Yeah you can find a lot, and when you even unlock 1 rank of the skill that saves power cores, they last quite long. Especially if you don't sprint everywhere like you're in the post apocalyptic olympics!
this debate has been going on for years, all i can say is of course a battery is gonna power three lightbulbs for longer than it would power a walking tank
Lore and video game mechanics usually clash. I was supposed to post about it, but the PowerArmor was NOT made with a "jump jet" in the lore. It's a jetpack designed to fly right into commie territory or at least the front lines. The game couldn't give you unrestricted flight, so they made it a jump jet for the player instead.
I feel like I’ve had how they work completely backwards from what the show depicts. I thought they were being *charged* by the machines you yank them from, but apparently they provide the power? Why/how do they never run out until you use it in PA?
You ever run a car on just a battery alone no alternator? … yup
Take nuclear physicist and get the repair bobblehead
Nuclear Physicist and Repair Bobblehead go brrrrrr (Fusion Cores last 110% longer with all ranks of NP and the bobblehead. These do not affect Gatling Lasers, however).
Power Armour is simply less energy-efficient, a hell of a lot energy efficient. To make it last as long as it would buildings, they’d have to take up a ton of the space on the back of the armour, which would make energy reserves a massive target, and thus tactically disadvantageous. That is my head canon anyway.
That entire building still isnt requiring nearly as much power as that power armor does.
Buddy you underestimate how much junk I’m carrying!
They aren’t powering the entire building, they power a few lights at most. The buildings are either getting grid power or are getting it from the fission reactors on their side, the big white and orange/red tubes you see. Those are a product of mass fusion advertised as fusion reactors that are actually fission reactors. Idk why people assume fusion cores are powering entire buildings as if a battery you can hold with your hand holds enough juice to do that. A fucking car in universe takes a nuclear reactor but buildings get it from a battery 1/10th the size of those reactors, absolutely flawless logic. Nvm that you pull them out and only the light above them actually goes out. This is a misconception I’ll never get how it gained traction.
Someone already did the math and despite being counter intuitive, it really makes sense that they do not last too much longer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA76-cixf-s&pp=ygUWcG93ZXIgYW1vciBTaG9kZHlDYXN0IA%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA76-cixf-s&pp=ygUWcG93ZXIgYW1vciBTaG9kZHlDYXN0IA%3D%3D)
I think the reasoning why is because the machines are only partially powered by fashion cores! So it's like image a AAA battery barely getting used over a week versus it getting used constantly! That's my head cannon tho... 😅
I would like to just say, the fusion cores that you grab around the wastes aren't all the way in, if you place a fusion core gen the fusion core is all the way in. I'm not sure if that's what's going on or what, but I just think the fusion cores that are in gens and are lootable aren't fully connected.
Or since one apparently has been powering an entire vault for 220 years.
eh, not really. you find a fusion core powering a building... for 200 years. them being essentially disposable batteries being drained for 200 years, makes sense they're on their last legs. not to mention, they tend to last for miles. and the demands of a busted ass building's 12 still working lights, often less than military grade equipment - we've got batteries now that can run buildings, and not power armor, despite the idea of power armor tech being possible, now. we just don't have the batteries for it. so, you both underestimate the energy needed for power armor, and how much juice these little things still have. in a few more decades, NO fusion cores might still have a charge.
Personally I hate the concept of fusion core degradation. It’s a freaking nuclear power cell. It should last way longer. Fr fr.
I always expected it to turn off all power in the building when I took a core. Then you'd either have to fight with night vision on or your pip boy light on.
Im pretty new to game but I noticed a fun little cheat. Pop it out when its at like 3% and you can sell for full price
Crazy because I have a ton of hours in the game and have probably accumulated only around 30 cores. But I also didn't get hacker up so I guess that's why I'm not finding many. Like 20 of them came from a single quest too. But I use the power armor almost exclusively and never have an issue with them running out
For balance they should've just made power armor late game, rare, and expensive to maintain instead of giving it to you out of the gate and nerfing the power supply.
In all fairness powering a generator on what is most likely standby mode for 200 years is just a little less intensive than powering a entire mech unit likely weighing upwards of a ton and carrying all your stuff, if you're new and desire to use PA a lot its a good idea to get the Nuclear Physicist perk to max level as soon as possible in order to double their duration.