Fallout 4 Power Armor repair, modding, and location guide

Fallout 4 power armor
(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)

You'll get Fallout 4 Power Armor quite early on but it doesn't provide the massive early advantage you might think as it needs lots of repairs and improvements. As you play Fallout 4 and scavenge the nuclear wastes, you'll no doubt discover Power Armor parts, or even complete sets, lying around in varying states of battle-readiness. Sometimes you’ll need to completely rework the scrap you find, but sometimes you’ll find pristine sets - either way, looking after and upgrading your Power Armor is a nice side project to work on while you get through the main story. Below, we've laid out lots of essential Fallout 4 Power Armor tips, including how to find, repair and modify your essential defensive equipment, as well as a few locations on where to find some armor.

Fallout 4 Power Armor Basics

Fallout 4 power armor in repair rig

(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)

The foundation of the Power Armour suit is a skeletal frame that you can add parts to. To get a complete suit, you'll need to tack on arms, legs, a head, and a torso. You'll also need a Fusion Core to get it moving. If you don't have a core, the suit is basically useless as you're forced to crawl along.

The perks of roaming around in a clunky metal suit are numerous. For a start, you'll take less damage, you won't be injured if you jump or fall from a great height, and the effects of radiation won't be as severe. You'll also be able to carry more items while wearing it.

While all of those bonuses might have you itching to stuff yourself inside of a suit for the entirety of the game, it's worth noting that any action that uses AP points will drain the Fusion Core, and they aren't exactly plentiful. Power Armour is best saved for difficult encounters and quests, and it's advisable to always carry a spare fusion core.

If you leave your suit at a base or out in the wilderness with a fusion core installed, anyone who takes a shine to it 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 in so that your settlers can fend off raiders in style.

You'll receive your first Power Armour 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. You'll get yourself a free set of Power Armour for your trouble.

Fallout 4 Power Armor Repairs 

Once you've got yourself a Power Armour suit, head to a settlement with a Power Armour Station like Sanctuary or the Red Rocket Truck Stop. Whilst wearing the Power Armour, walk yourself into the yellow frame of the station, then press and hold the relevant button to exit.

When you're out, your armour will have automatically reoriented itself to face outwards, ready for tinkering. To interact with the Power Armour station, look at the yellow frame. The options to craft and transfer will now be available to select.

First off, you'll want to repair the components. 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 Armour, 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 Armour mods, you'll need to invest some points into the Blacksmith, Armourer, 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 Armour mods are the same as those you'd require for regular armour 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 Armour, check out the locations of the Hot Rodder magazines to unlock them.

You'll notice that there are a few different types of Power Armour available for you to swan around killing everything in. Here are the five types of Power Armour and how you can get them.

Raider Power Armour

The Raider Power Armour is usually found being worn by Raider minibosses, and is the weakest of the sets. You won't be able to extricate their corpses from the armour 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 Armour at the waypoint simply named Cave in the Glowing Sea in the southwest corner of the map.

T-45 Power Armour

The T-45 Power Armour 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.

T-51 Power Armour

The T-51 Power Armour 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.

T-60 Power Armour

The T-60 Power Armour 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.

X-01 Power Armour

This is the unicorn of all Power Armour - it's the hardest to find and the most powerful of the bunch. If you head to one of the locations for this armour 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 armour 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 armour in the game.

The terminal to open it is expert level, so hack it and bask in the magnificence of your new toy.

Alternatively, you can head east of Diamond City, towards Custom House Tower, until you reach Court 35. Take the lift to the top, and after confronting a hardcore Assaultron and Sentry Robot, you'll find the armour on the roof. Press the red buttons in the rooms the robots came out of to access it.

Iain Wilson
Guides Editor

Iain originally joined Future in 2012 to write guides for CVG, PSM3, and Xbox World, before moving on to join GamesRadar in 2013 as Guides Editor. His words have also appeared in OPM, OXM, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, and SFX. He is better known to many as ‘Mr Trophy’, due to his slightly unhealthy obsession with amassing intangible PlayStation silverware, and he now has over 500 Platinum pots weighing down the shelves of his virtual award cabinet. He does not care for Xbox Achievements.