UPDATE (1/1/2024): Apologies about my lack of responses this past year. I've been deeply troubled by personal events which have made it very difficult to focus on or even enjoy things; and more relevantly, I haven't touched Fallout 4 in almost a year at this point, but, especially now that I'm effectively unemployed, I've made a resolution to check back in on it in 2024 and update as many of my mods as are relevant and within my ability to address long-standing issues, requests, and personal interests. It'll take me a little bit of time to get reacquainted with the precise details (as well as developments within the broader scene that may warrant some attention in regard to patches and add-ons and such), but fortunately I've been spending a lot of my time working with Skyrim lately, so it's not too much of a jump as far as the tools and general workflow go. This mod is currently my top priority.
THINGS I'M CONSIDERING FOR FUTURE UPDATES
Replace PA used by named Gunners with the armoured version of this exoskeleton There are other, better mods that do more interesting things with the named Gunners and their outfits.
The "TALOS II Exoskeleton Frame" has been renamed to the "TALOS II Exoskeleton".
The "TALOS II Exoskeleton" has been renamed to the "TALOS II Armored Exoskeleton".
The Planetary Excursion Suit now has been granted the unique 98% radiation-blocking effect of the vanilla Hazmat Suit on top of the base 1000 Radiation Resistance.
All of the suits have had their stats modified to display more consistent values between actual gameplay and in-game display, and to bring them more in line with their approximate vanilla counterparts.
The Armored Exoskeleton, Marine Assault Exoskeleton, and Planetary Excursion Suits now all come with object modifications pre-built into them upon construction. They can still be modified as normal.
New stuff:
The Marine Assault Exoskeleton can be crafted from the full Marine Armor set from Far Harbor, an existing TALOS II Exoskeleton, and a bunch of components. It requires Armorer 3 and Science! 2. Its stats have been set to just slightly higher than the full vanilla Marine Armor set.
The Active Skeleton modifier is a Legs modifier that grants a 25% movement speed boost.
Optional Module:
I've introduced an optional module, based on TheCrawlingDark's Exoskeletons Replace Power Armor at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com), that adds the exoskeleton in modified form to the various factions. While that mod aims to completely replace power armour altogether throughout the game, my modification takes a bit of a lighter touch and maintains the existence of the vanilla power armour, while attempting to integrate the skeleton alongside it.
The exoskeleton is distributed amongst higher-level Gunners, Raiders, and more broadly, BoS soldiers.
Lower-ranking BoS soldiers will use the unarmoured exoskeleton, while higher-ranking ones will use the armoured one.
All Legendary Gunners will use the unarmoured exoskeleton.
No bosses or named NPCs have been touched, as I believe other mods specifically targeting faction leaders and named characters have done a better job introducing unique variants of power armour for those bosses. Eventually, I may make custom mesh edits for named characters and bosses, with lootable blueprints allowing players to craft their own versions.
Exoskeletons cannot be looted off of enemy corpses, the same way that power armour frames cannot be looted off of corpses in the vanilla game. This was an intentional design choice to bring the frames in line with their vanilla equivalent, and to prevent the player from amassing too much higher-level gear (or selling them off for caps) too quickly. Eventually, my plan is to introduce salvageable components to the levelled lists of enemies with exoskeleton frames. The idea behind this is to allow the player to be able to still gradually work towards building their own suits, without giving them a full frame outright. I'd like to tie this to the Scrapper perk in order to add some further utility to that.
My modification fixes the bug present in TheCrawlingDark's original version that prevents the suit from appearing on the player. The appearance and performance of the NPC versions (which cannot be used or looted by the player) is entirely separate from the player-built suits.
ESP flagged as ESL. Will not count towards total plugin limit.
UPDATE 1.3
This update adds a number of cosmetic improvements to the exoskeleton frame, and fixes a few audio-related bugs which caused the normal power armour sound profile to play instead of the custom sound profile.
Footstep audio has been lowered about 25 to 50%, and significantly lowered for NPCs.
Spine extension added to base frame (see image below), courtesy of gabgone. NOTE: The spine arm connectors do not connect properly to the arms on the male model. This is a limitation of the mesh itself.
Improved mesh for male model, should solve clipping issues.
Helmet has been fully integrated into the Planetary Excursion Suit, and is no longer available as a separate object.
This update adds a unique footstep profile to the exoskeletons (all three variants), using audio made for STALKER Anomaly ported to Fallout 4 by MrLameGaming. You can find the original mod they made here: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. EXO POWER ARMOR FOOTSTEP REPLACER at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com). Power armour footsteps, either vanilla or modified using mods like Power Armor Movement Sounds, are no longer affected.
MrLameGaming's replacer is no longer necessary, but you should still head over to that page and give it an endorsement because without it I most certainly would not have done that work on my own.
UPDATE 1.1
This update changes the texture on the Planetary Excursion Suit to use the Nuka World space suit's silver-grey material instead of the default hazmat. Nuka World is now required.
Also adds in the TALOS II Exoskeleton Frame. See description for details.
Adding in my support for an exo-frame where you can wear normal armor. I saw you mention four months or so ago it was something you considered. I would do so myself if I knew how. Hopefully your life situation improves enough for this to happen!
Could the mesh be updated to make it stop clipping through the pipboy? I really love this mod but the mesh clipping through the pipboy in both 3rd person and 1st person when using pip-boy MKVI is what bothers me the most abou this mod. Even the default pipboy has the frame clipping through the pipboy in 3rd person.
If the mesh could be modified to have the arm brace be just above the pipboy for the left arm and cut out rest of the frame so it doesn't interfere with the pipboy, that would be awesome.
Looooove this mod, felt exactly like you - Default PA's are to bulky.
However, I have a question - does the Exoskeleton use Fusion Cores? If yes, are the Nuclear Physicist and other related perks to Power Armor still working, or is it pointless to skill those up when I plan on only using the exoskeleton?
Not the author, but the exoskeletons only need a fusion core as a crafting component. The exoskeletons do not consume fusion cores over time like power armor.
for those of you who installed this with the mod that replaces power armor remove that mod because it will cause your exoskeleton mesh to disappear instead use the one in optional files here.
This is an amazing mod. I am curious in your next update you can consider adding in a Children of Atom skin for the marine exoskeleton, for us Rad-loving dumbo's.
There might be a balance issue with the Armored exoskeleton vs the Marine one. The armored exoskeleton with titanium plating has +600 defense while the heavier, significantly-harder-to-make Marine armor only gets up to 580. Combined with its already lower energy defense and significantly lower radiation protection, it feels like a strict downgrade in every stat. The only exception is if you want to use a different coating for some reason.
Also, as an unrelated issue, the planetary excursion suit is calling for an armored TALOS as a component instead of the base frame, even though you lose most of its defense during the conversion.
The Marine one I think is also bugged? For me it shows as 484 DR, but when I equip it, it drops to 162. The armoured one shows as 250, and correctly applies as such. (I have +20 DR from the Toughness perk in the video)
There's definitely a long-standing bug with the toughness rating, apparently the value displayed doesn't match the actual in-game value. I'm not really sure how to address it at the moment, but I will definitely take a look at the balancing soon. I've only recently been able to get back to revisiting modding FO4, so I've been spending some time catching back up on it.
232 comments
THINGS I'M CONSIDERING FOR FUTURE UPDATES
Replace PA used by named Gunners with the armoured version of this exoskeletonThere are other, better mods that do more interesting things with the named Gunners and their outfits.Institute variant for CoursersI recommend using Institute EXO Suit at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com) instead.UPDATE 1.4
This update adds the craftable TALOS II Marine Assault Exoskeleton, the Active Skeleton modifier for the legs, and an optional module adapted from Exoskeletons Replace Power Armor at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com) that brings the exoskeleton to the various inhabitants and factions of the wasteland.
Changes:
New stuff:
Optional Module:
I've introduced an optional module, based on TheCrawlingDark's Exoskeletons Replace Power Armor at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com), that adds the exoskeleton in modified form to the various factions. While that mod aims to completely replace power armour altogether throughout the game, my modification takes a bit of a lighter touch and maintains the existence of the vanilla power armour, while attempting to integrate the skeleton alongside it.
UPDATE 1.3
This update adds a number of cosmetic improvements to the exoskeleton frame, and fixes a few audio-related bugs which caused the normal power armour sound profile to play instead of the custom sound profile.
UPDATE 1.2
This update adds a unique footstep profile to the exoskeletons (all three variants), using audio made for STALKER Anomaly ported to Fallout 4 by MrLameGaming. You can find the original mod they made here: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. EXO POWER ARMOR FOOTSTEP REPLACER at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com). Power armour footsteps, either vanilla or modified using mods like Power Armor Movement Sounds, are no longer affected.
MrLameGaming's replacer is no longer necessary, but you should still head over to that page and give it an endorsement because without it I most certainly would not have done that work on my own.
UPDATE 1.1
This update changes the texture on the Planetary Excursion Suit to use the Nuka World space suit's silver-grey material instead of the default hazmat. Nuka World is now required.
Also adds in the TALOS II Exoskeleton Frame. See description for details.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/videos/4695/
Pretty easy to do, just add the value to something like 54 or 55 which are unassigned
I really love this mod but the mesh clipping through the pipboy in both 3rd person and 1st person when using pip-boy MKVI is what bothers me the most abou this mod. Even the default pipboy has the frame clipping through the pipboy in 3rd person.
If the mesh could be modified to have the arm brace be just above the pipboy for the left arm and cut out rest of the frame so it doesn't interfere with the pipboy, that would be awesome.
However, I have a question - does the Exoskeleton use Fusion Cores? If yes, are the Nuclear Physicist and other related perks to Power Armor still working, or is it pointless to skill those up when I plan on only using the exoskeleton?
Also, as an unrelated issue, the planetary excursion suit is calling for an armored TALOS as a component instead of the base frame, even though you lose most of its defense during the conversion.
Super weird