Clothing and Armor have been rebalanced to increase playstyle options and reduce exploits. You are limited to how much you can increase your armor resistance. The changes also increase protection offered to many NPCs.

There are three primary playstyles accounted for:

Standard: Underarmor with separate armor pieces you can mix and match. Example: vault suit with leather armor pieces worn over. This is the most common and most versatile. Lots of craftable linings for each piece. Possibility of obtaining legendary armor pieces make this very powerful. Ballistic weave option has been removed from all items in this category.

Fashionista: Civilian clothing items with ballistic weave lining of increasing quality allows players to dress in style while remaining combat effective. Limited to no benefits such as stat buffs or legendary effects. Ballistic weave is now limited to outfits that default with limited to no protection. Ballistic weave can no longer be added to head items (hats). Many clothing items that were not underarmor got railroad lining option added.

Plug and Play: A selection of pre-armored outfits that already have armor values attributed to them and can not be modified. Least amount of effort but generally lackluster performance. Typical examples are faction uniforms, since this doubles as giving them a layer of protection not offered in vanilla. Brotherhood of Steel uniforms now have the weight and armor rating similar a basic set of combat armor. Some unique quest reward outfits are pre-lined and offer certain benefits. Legendary effects, higher ratio of armor to weight. Some are better than others. Some make excellent companion armors (since you can remove all items from their inventory without also taking all of their armor).


NPC Variety
NPC outfits and leveled lists have been improved to offer more diversity through out the game.
Raiders have a complex leveled system to radically improve the aesthetic variety (since they are the most common opponents in the game).
Settlers, Scavengers, Minutemen all have more variety in what they wear.


Miscellaneous changes
Gas masks offer radiation and gas protection (but debufs perception).
Gas masks can be worn with most head-wear.
HazmatSuitRadResistancePerk now reduces incoming rad damage by 50% instead of 98% (suit stats unchanged).
Vault 88 pipboy gives wearer a 30 point hit point buff (for settlers) and has no weight in your misc inventory.