You can find Fallout 4 Power Armor early but it doesn't provide the advantage you might think initially, as it needs lots of repairs and improvements. As you scavenge the nuclear wastes, you'll discover Power Armor parts and complete sets in varying states of dissarray. Most of the tie you'll need to work hard to get everything up to scratch although occasionally you’ll find a pristine set.
Either way, getting and upgrading your Power Armor is a bit of a side project to work on as you play through the main story. Below, I've laid out a lot of essential Fallout 4 Power Armor tips, including how to find it, repair and modify it in Fallout 4.
Fallout 4 Power Armor Basics
A Power Armor suit is buit around a skeletal frame you can add parts to. To get a complete suit, you'll need to find all the parts and place arms, legs, a head, a torso on this frame. You'll also need a Fusion Core to get it moving.
The perks of having a working set are plentiful - you'll take less damage, won't be injured if you jump from a height, increase your radiation shielding, and you'll also be able to carry more items. The downside is that everything you do drains the Fusion Core, and they aren't plentiful.
As a result Power Armor is best saved for difficult encounters and quests, and you always want to always carry a spare fusion core so you're not left powerless and immobile. However, if you leave your suit out in the wilderness with a fusion core in, anyone can hop inside and take it for a spin. So either be sure to extract the core when you park it up. Or you can leave it ready to go at a settlement so so that your settlers can fend off attacks.
You'll receive your first Power Armor suit just down the road from Sanctuary, in the town of Concord. Head to the Museum of Freedom and pick up the quest When Freedom Calls and get yourself a free set of Power Armor for your trouble.
How to repair Fallout 4 Power Armor
You'll rarely find perfect Power Armor, and using it will damage it anyway so making repairs is vital. To do that you'll need to find a Power Armor Station, a big yellow frame that lets you park up your suit by walking yourself into the frame of the station, and then pressing and hold the relevant button to exit. You'll find these out in the wild but Sanctuary and Red Rocket station are good starters
First off, you'll want to repair the components so interact with the station and scroll down through the list of parts. The health of each part is displayed in a box to the left. If the part is damaged, the repair option will be highlighted at the bottom of the screen. Various materials will be needed in order to repair your Power Armor, but for the most part you'll just need steel which you can easily obtain by scrapping metal items around your settlements.
Fallout 4 Power Armor Mods
To craft the best Power Armor mods, you'll need to invest some points into the Blacksmith, Armorer, and Science! perks. You can upgrade the base stats of parts by switching between models.
Selecting a material mod will bestow certain attributes - usually when the entire suit is kitted out with the same material mod.
The upgrades for misc mods are generally directly related to the part being upgraded, like increased sprint speed for leg pieces.
The materials you'll need for Power Armor mods are the same as those you'd require for regular armor crafting, so be sure to stock up on junk and stash it in your workshop before you hunker down for some serious crafting.
For more info on how to change the paint job for your Power Armor, check out the locations of the Hot Rodder magazines to unlock them. We've got all the the Fallout 4 Comic Book and Magazine locations covered here to help you there.
Fallout 4 Power armor types
You'll notice that there are a few different types of Power Armor available for you to swan around killing everything in. Here are the five types of Power Armor and how you can get them.
Fallout 4 Raider Power Armor
The Raider Power Armor is usually found worn by Raider minibosses, and is the weakest of the options. You won't be able to extricate their corpses from the armor after a fight, so just take the parts, repair them at a station and pop them onto a suit you already have.
You can find a full set of Raider Power Armor at the waypoint simply named Cave in the Glowing Sea in the southwest corner of the map.
Fallout 4 T-45 Power Armor
The T-45 Power Armor is likely the first set you'll come across when you leave Sanctuary. You'll find it in Concord during the quest When Freedom Calls.
Fallout 4 T-51 Power Armor
The T-51 Power Armor is the next step up from the T-45, and once you hit level 15, you'll find T-51 parts at locations that would have otherwise spawned T-45 parts.
You can find a full set on a barge to the east of the Pickman Gallery.
Fallout 4 T-60 Power Armor
The T-60 Power Armor is next in order of strength, and you can get your hands on it by joining The Brotherhood of Steel. If you don't want to join them, you can buy it at Atom Cats Garage, but it won't be cheap.
Fallout 4 X-01 Power Armor
This is the hardest to find and the most powerful of all Power Armor. If you head to one of the locations for this armor and your level is too low, you'll find the T-60 set instead. Aim for level 30 and above before going in search of this one.
You can buy or steal parts from Rowdy at the Atom Cats Garage. If you'd rather not spend any caps or mess up your karma, the easiest place to get it is at the South Boston military checkpoint.
After taking out a couple of raiders, head around the side of the building and you'll spot the power armor behind a locked door. The set will change depending on your level, so if you're 30 or higher, this is the simplest way to get the best power armor in the game. The terminal to open it is expert level, so hack it and bask in the magnificence of your new toy.
Alternatively, another set can be found east of Diamond City, towards Custom House Tower. Reach Court 35, take the lift to the top, and after confronting a hardcore Assaultron and Sentry Robot, you'll find the armor on the roof. Press the red buttons in the rooms the robots came out of to access it.
