X-01 seems like a technology demonstrator. If you look into the development of real equipment and procurement its pretty common for manufacturers to submit platforms with a whole suite of features they anticipate the Military buyers might want but won't all become standard for the production model.

I always had the theory that midwest PA and APAMK2 (Black Devil) were built off of the same half finished prewar blueprints, explaining the similarities.

I think the hellfire armor having fire resistance makes a lot of sense. You’re holding a flamethrower so it makes sense that you’d probably get hot in there. Since you’re gonna be in close quarters with a flamethrower you need to be able to resist fire while spewing it, so you don’t kill yourself as well

3:26 in Fallout 76 during the Steel Dawn add-on you infiltrate the “Enclave research facility”. Inside you can find many scorched including a Scorched Chief wearing a full set of X-01 power armor. So at least 1 suit of X-01 was created by the Appalachian Enclave.

I would consider the Nuka Cola Quantum suit an Enclave suit, many governments use private companies to make military hardware, so having Caleb Bradburton, the ceo of one of the most rich and influential prewar companies work on a secret enclave project makes sense to me

When it comes to the loading screen bits, I always chalked it up to a sort of misunderstanding. When they say the T51 armor was the best in the Pre War days, they're saying that as if they're talking to people from the Pre War. The X01 was experimental, and thus wasn't known to the public, so therefore to pretty much everyone would be unaware of it.

Maybe the X-01 needing more time to be ready could be a bit more literal? The materials it's made of could need time or radiation exposure to harden.

Anyone who tackles PA lore earns a cookie and a massive gold star ⭐ 🍪 Great video Rad! Applause all around

also as an archaeologists watching gamers try to understand lore and division of PA development reminds me so much of trying to understand object typologies in my field.

The hooks on the odd Advance Power armor face plate, actually makes some sense. I wager that by the time this is developed by the Enclave, they've gained some weight. So not unlike the old school 'hard hat' diving helmets, you wouldn't expect a soldier wearing the armor, or their tenders helping them enter it, to actually lift the armor themselves. So instead you use a simple small block and tackle type arrangement to lift the helmet up, or lower it down onto the wearer. There's also an easier way to explain why there are two Mark 2 armors. In the US military, it's not uncommon to see vehicles where you will have multiple variants of the same vehicle, sometimes even advanced variants. So, for example, with the Sherman tank, you get the M4 sherman as the base. Then there's the M4A2 which is a variant of it. Within the A2 type, you have A and B variants. However troops tend to default back to the simplest naming, so you'll see them referenced as M4A2 as opposed to the M4A2-A variant. I think the same is happening with the MK2 power armor. I think it's proper name is something like Advanced Power Armor MK2-B1 or something similar, but the troops wearing it just call it the "MK2" type. In with that, the only way you'd get MK3 is if something drastic was changed in regards to the armor. So the Tesla armor, would be a MK3 variant.

I find the x01 controversy really interesting. When I encountered that in game I didn't really think anything of it; my immediate thought was that the t51 was the pinical of pre war power armor that saw any actual production, use, deployment, or considerable testing as it's hard to indicate something so unique as an individual prototype suit (which by nature of design, would have some form of schematics in existence) as a relevant factor in a broad statement because it's such an outlier. I real world example is the Des Lisle Carbine from WW2; it was a suppressed carbine that was incredible successful and silent (actually quieter than most modern suppressors), also being able to fire hundreds of rounds before needing to replace components vs. the small handful of rounds that could be fired by the equivalently silenced Webley pistol which aside from the above-mentioned shot difference, also had to be used at extremely close ranges; however, only 129 were made and only 1 of the prototype airborne model; as such they're occasionally brought up as the best individual suppressed weapon, but not the pinical by dint of extremely limited use. I think it somewhat unfair to include experimental or individual items in a braud statement of the pinical of an era. New follower, love your content! The fallout lore deep dives I've craved lol, Thanks for what you do! (P.S.: I apologise for any any grammatical, syntax, or spelling errors; severely dyslexic so while I do proof read, it is often extremely difficult for me to catch those errors.)

the black devil armor in 3 is my personal favorite design, I love all of the sets introduced in 3, that game had incredible art direction and modeling

The Enclave Armory in the Whitespring Bunker has AT LEAST 17 full sets of X-01 in the back. Glitching there isn't too difficult, since you can use the openings around he Modus consoles to place your Power armor in the backroom and once you enter the PA, you will be in that area. Furthermore, as others have pointed out the Enclave Chief at the Enclave Research Facility is also wearing X-01 PA, so that's a total of at least 18 full sets of X-01 confirmed in Appalachia by 2103.

My best guess on the horns is that they are meant to make the armor look more intimidating. And I think a dedicated stealth suit of power armor with something like stealth boy tech built into it would be kind of cool.

There was one set of X01 prototype armor active in Appalachia. It is worn by a scorched enclave never within the Enclave Research Base added within the Steel Dawn update. The X01 scorched paint from daily ops is the skin this enclave member has on his PA

I always assumed Hellfire armor have fire-resistance because they are expected to set things on fire and move thru said fire, they are epected to risk themself in their effort to wipe out the enemy, and thus the armor protect them against their own area-of-effect weaponry.

I really enjoy longer videos, is a nice listen while gaming

Is it possible the reason the X-01 was never considered ready because of resource cost and a need for rare materials?

I've always loved the T-60 Armor. It looks bulky enough, powerful, assertive, fierce, well-protected, and post-medieval. I always thought the T-60 Armor really encapsulates the essence of the Brotherhood of Steel.

X-01 is my favorite of all power armors. The aesthetic just calls to me. The rounded off shoulders & bug eyes. The light from the eye sockets. It's a beautiful design.

Fallout 3 Enclave armor looks like it was designed by Batman.

I love how Nuka Cola had a experimental power armor suit for display. it really adds to the lore imo. Expands the absurdity of pre war America

So in NV they have a cut armor called Enclave Shocktrooper armor that looks like the Black devil armor. I think that is the true explanation of the black devil armor in 3. They were storming the Capitol Wasteland and thus needed appropriate armor. I like the idea of them meeting up with another Enclave sector and them sharing tech and that being where they got the Black Devil armor, but with it just being one of their secondary projects of a cheaper, easily renewable armor and not what they came up with instead of the APA.

I've always assumed that the x01 not being ready for use basically just meant it wasn't ready for full production due to cost or some rare material scarcity

The fact that Erickson got smarter over time gave me an idea: what if FEV wipes the subjects’ mind? What if that’s why Erickson was able to get smarter, not because of any enhancements, but because he thought for himself, he taught himself, he learned on his own, and the other super mutants had been taught not to do that

A lot of the sprites in 1 and 2 are the same even for different armor and weapons. Like metal armor and tesla armor or all rifles and pistols having the same model outside the inventory. I'd say the MK2 in fallout 2 and 3 are the same take 3s aperance as the canon one given the 2 version is just a copy of MK1 sprite. As for performance issues the BOS refers to enclave power armor as being far better than their T45 suits repeatedly in conversation despite damage restiance values being the same. I'd take them at their word and attribute the low damage restiance in gameplay as a balance measure to keep the basic enclave canon fodder manageable and to keep the player from getting a top of the line suit to easily.

So the turbines on the black devil armor shoulders are magnetic suspenders. They hold the shoulder pauldrons in place without actually connecting them to the primary armor piece. This helps increase their kinetic absorption ability by giving them a little bit of movement room when being struck. It also adds to ease of change and maintenance; but does require more suit energy consumption overall. 😂👍

i always just assumed the black devil was the Enclave's T-60, you know, a mass produced model based on data from the more advanced suit

I think Black Devil and Tesla Armor are canonicaly more advanced than T-51 B but developers lowered their stats because of game balance. Enclave armour ale really easy to get.

the fire resistance for hellfire power armour makes alot of sense, if you are using a flame based weapon, it makes sense to wear something that resists long term exposure to that heat. both for longevity of the armour and for the wellbeing of the user. it's a militarized firefighter suit!

How i would explain the difference in APA mk2: the only suit we can find in game is on the oil rig. Perhaps it was in prototype stage with the suit we find being the first model when the chosen one made the place go kaboom. With no idea about the original APA MK2, the raven rock enclave designed a new power armour that they named APA MK2.

RadKing : (Uploads) Me : What a lovely little treat 😊

Some insight to the "X-suit is the pinnacle of power armor" debate, when I was in the Marines, we were given the M27 to replace the M4 and M249, being told it was an extremely modern and advanced weapon, while the Coast Guard unit next to us had completely different weapon, the Mk.18, an improved version of the M4, and both of our weapons were very outdated looking compared to what the private security people on base carried, so it's really easy for your "pinnacle" equipment to be outdated by something that another group in the same area had and wasn't standard issue yet

These long break down videos are some of my favorite videos on KZfaq.

Leaving this here to note that they added enclave remnants to fallout 4 as part of the "next gen" update, all enclave personnel in it are equipped with custom painted combat armor, plasma weapons and units clad in X-02 (which has always been a theoretical name for the black devil armor but is now called that in fallout 4) and hellfire power armor (along with incinerators of course), there’s also a side quest that involves finding a suit of X-02 that belonged to a deserter who fled to the commonwealth and apparently started helping local settlements for a while, by the time we find his armor he long dead I think but in his terminal he describes the suit of X-02 that he has as being one of only dozens of prototypes, very interesting

putting the pieces of power armour lore together is like being given a 1000 piece puzzle, but its only bottom left corner pieces, 4 are missing, and somehow about 50 are from a different set altogether. well done, Radical Kingulous. that is your full legal name, right?

I honestly always thought that the hellfire power armors fire resistance was to protect the wearer from splash back from their incendiary weapons and for your theory on the 76 version i thought it could have some use in the possibility of combat in coal fires in the Appalachians

I think it's a matter of lore, software bugs and all are mentioned. An example is when you recieve a set of power armor from the brotherhood in 4, the npc mentions an issue with the actuator in the leg causing random movements. While the x-01 is perfectly useable it could have been a situation where there was some kind of lore issue that was only fixed pretty late, or they simply could not program it into the game.

Finally, a bit of love towards me and the Enclave!

I always just thought the Black Devil armour from 3 was just based off the armour from Tactics

You have some of my favourite fallout videos radking. Really glad that I was able to find your channel, keep up the awesome videos

Ive always seen the power armors being X-01: the proto type APA MK1: The final version of X-01 APA MK2 being more like APA MK1 V.2 X-02: The prototype of actual APA MK2 Enclave fallout 3 armor: APA MK 2 V.1 Tesla armor: APA MK2 V.1.5 Hellfire being a different set

I love all the enclave armors but the black devil mk2s with the comms in the helmets. Always my favorite power armor.

As other people have commented the pre-war suits of X01 are most likely proof of concept items that are exclusive to the areas you find them in especially the quantum armor which is said directly to be a proof of concept item on the strontium coding. a lot of people at theorize that the X01 is the blueprint for the advanced power armor in advanced power armor Mark 2 that we get in the first to fallout games and three so that actually makes sense again X01 as is stated is most likely a proof of concept build and the physical blueprint for the other armors that The enclave creates

Another brilliant video. I think we can all agree that advanced power armor is by far some of the coolest in not just fallout but all of gaming.

Maybe Hellfire has that extra fire resistance because their weapon of choice is the heavy incinerator? I also wish you had mentioned the Hellfire from Creation Club, since you mentined the Black Devil they put there.

In the Enclave radio station in the forest region of Appilatchia had a scorched who was wearing X-01.

This is the perfect content to listen to in my drive to and from work. Another outstanding video radking. 👍

I always had a theory that the X0-1 wasn't ready for mass production because it was too expensive. If the government in fallout is anything like our government irl, price is overall. Even if the tech is crazy good, the cost of every unit will cause the government to buy or make a lesser quality

Actually the Hellfire Armor is mentioned in New Vegas along with it's production by the logs of the creator of ED-E. Because that most likely happened pretty early I think the west coast first produced Hellfire Armor and they might have send them to Appalachia.

I always thought that the X-01 power armor was meant for space/lunar combat, and the little black tube on the face is for a Nutrient paste for feeding in a vacuum where you can't take your helmet off to eat.

So glad I found your channel! Quality work you seem to really care about you content an fans!

Finally we get a video on the Glorious Enclave. Down with the mutant and Bos

I hope you keep covering all the armor lore love these episodes

Maybe the Telsa armor's yellow sheen could be caused by some anodizing of the metal, since metal can be anodized in all different colors, including yellow. Also, 'gunk' on the armor looks like how copper would oxidize. :)

50 minutes explaining the lore of power armor? You're spoiling us sir, amazing work.

Oh thank you for a wonderful birthday gift

My favorite suits of power armor, in FO3 you can easily repair your own armor(if you use enclave) using your fallen enemies armor. In FNV it was almost to expensive to use because of the repair costs

thank you RadKing for a lovely video to come home to after a long day at school!

The not ready for primetime issues were probably related to production rather than performance. Initial prototypes can be handmade, but the final version requires redesigns to be suitable for massproduction.

So here is my head cannon on Enclave PA the X-01 is adopted after prolonged use of T-51 and other pre-war PA then once the Advanced PA is ready the fully switch over to the newer models. When it comes to the Black Devil PA iv always seen that as a necessary downgrade to PA due to the reduced state of the faction. However i see the Equalizer PA as a divergent design that was drawn up during the X-01 development period remaining in the Enclaves files only to be brought into use in a way when Frank Horrigan needed a custom suit with the changes in appearance mostly in the helmet being made then. Personally i see the F76 Black Devil PA skin as a retcon of how it looked in F3 due to how PA exists as of F4. Though speaking of the Black Devil PA the floating pauldrons i see this as clear use of alien tech that must exist in the turbine like items located in the shoulders. This would result in less of an impact to the body of the wearer as any physical or kinetic attack that strikes the pauldrons would in theory be completely unfelt. Love your videos RadKing my Atom bless you in your future endeavors in the spreading of his glory.

If the Inferno armour is designed to resist heat, and they use Heavy Incinerators, then logic would say that the t-51 must have some sort of canonical weakness inherent to it. Either the armour wouldn't disperse heat, thereby cooking the inhabitant (most likely) or that the wiring or power supply would be extra vulnerable to heat (less likely)

I would assume that X-01 not being ready pre war was an issue with mass production, not individual suits.The loading screen tip speaks of "The pinnacle of mechanical production", not the pinnacle of design, it would follow it was still in pre production testing and couldn't be rolled out.

My only complaint is… your videos aren’t long enough I watch you while I play fallout and your easily my favorite fallout content creator

God bless the enclave

Never stop with the content brother 🙌

Just wanna say, love ur vids, found ur content a week ago and I like it alot

Yes thank god another video I normally put on a playlist when I gts

My headcanon is that X-01 and T-60 were competing for the contract as for the next power armor design X-01 being an experimental in house design by the US government using all new parts and technology whereas the T-60 was west-tek repurposing their old T-45 manufacturing plants to bring that old model which has now been relegated to riot control armor up to speed with their newer T-51b model to get them back on the front lines for cheaper The T-60 was finished first Considering it has an actual designation rather than having an X designation which is used in the real world to designate experimental military designs The enclave had these designs and improved upon them creating the Advanced Power Armor from those

Hell yes Radman, FOR THE ENCLAVE!!

The X-01 i always rationalized as having a decent prototype but they likely wanted to run further tests to optimize it, the materials and figure out a way to push it into production. The whole "quantum X-01" could have been a test to see what the result would be and potentially try to work out a deal to actually produce them in mass. They likely also may have had desire to test it more in lab environments before having live field tests.

Hey Radking, great video brother as always

Personally i subscribe to the theory that later enclave armour had to be simplified just so that they could achieve some level of production. As for how the institute got a suit of XO-1 i believe it would be a combination of them contrary to popular belief not being entirely cut off from the world. We see many, many synth scavenging parties and investigations in fo4, and we know they allow high level personnel as far out as the capital wasteland. Its not that hard to assume that somewhere doen the line they came across an enclave base and either aquired the plans or an actual suit. And them being the radiation-phobes that they are would have added to the design to make it more resistant before falling back into "oh just send the synths out, its not worth it"

03:18 > the noteable absence of this overworld, may indicate that the Enclave in Appalachia never actually constructed any suits themselves. Well, there's a lot of X-01 suits fenced off in the Whitesprings bunker, so I don't know about that. There's also the Enclave Scorched Chief wearing a suit of scorched X-01 Power Armor in the Enclave Research Facility Site-J 39:50 The Remnant Power Armor was actually meant to disguise you as a Enclave Remnant, rendering you hated by everyone while worn to balance very high armor rating and effects. This was cut as Joshua Sawyer said it was too annoying for the game.

I was just watching your t51 video yesterday, wondering if you had still planned on making the others, very nice surprise and a killer video!

My take was that the T51-b was the most advanced MASS PRODUCTION model of power armor. Not that there weren't other more advanced models in smaller numbers. The X-01 took the most materials to upgrade in FO4. This implies that it also used more materials in it's construction.

The Great War never ended, so The Enclave trying to launch nukes in 2080 is pretty much still just following orders.

16:40 Aren't these straps justified by the lore? I remember that some supermutants cannot speak without them, but I don’t remember the exact reasons.

Top quality videos, thank you for sharing.

I would like to say that an aspect of hellfire power armor that is heavily overlooked is in fallout: new Vegas. In the dlc lonesome roads during one of the eyebot recordings it mentions they eyebot project being scraped for its resources to be put into the hellfire project. If tell me if I’m wrong but it also says in the dlc the eyebot is from Denver so idk.

You could probably explain both the X-01 armor and the new Fusion core mechanic together. T-51 was originally made with an internal generator that allowed it to operate for years without refueling or recharging, but at some point; the government switched to a quantity over quality approach and adopted the fusion core powered frame to make them cheaper and faster to produce, as well as possibly being easier to use and repair. Some existing T-51 might have had their parts retrofitted to work with the newer system, or they might've just adjusted the designs of ones that were made after the switch. X-01s, then, would've been an attempt to compensate for the reduced quality by making full use of the modularity and less demanding systems to cram in as much extra stuff as possible.

I really love the fallout 3 enclave power armor I just love how sleek and intimidating it looks. I also love the idea that the DC enclave has less resources so their Mass produced armour is weaker than t-51b.

The black devil power armor was actually my favorite when i was a kid, particularly the Tesla variant. Though nowadays i tend to prefer the militaristic aesthetic of the pre-war power armor suits

I personally like the idea that Horrigan’s APA MK. II is a prototype, and that the final version was more mass producible and more easily reparable, as opposed to Horrigan’s prototype made partially from a refitted MK. II suit

Did you mention the suit on the roof of Hub 360 guarded by an assaultron and a sentry bot? It might be leveled but after a certain level it is always a full suit

Enclave is the best

This is like my new favorite all things fallout channel for when I'm at work Love it 🛸🍄🛸

24:00 i love that explination! It doesnt suffer from "star wars syndrome" that tries to fit every little thing into the cannon. The Fallout 2 one is so disapointing. "Sweet! A new kind of power armor!" Looks exactly the same as the mark 1. It makes way more sense for the F2 one to be a variant of the mark 1, like in the newer games we have T-60A through F.

God Bless the Enclave

I like to call the Ultracite armor T-78, as it looks like an upgraded version of the T-51 armor. Kind of like how T-60 is the upgraded version T-45. I call it that because I like to think that the lower end PAs were given an even tens digit, and the higher end was given an odd tens digit.

Love me a good Monday lore dump!

I got the Black Devil Armor in FO4. It's my favorite! Looks sick as heck 😊

This Fo4 "controversy" was a nontroversy. Look, let me drop some real-world deep lore knowledge on you, whenever the U.S. military has companies develop new aircraft to replace existing aircraft, those new experimental aircraft are designated with X- followed by a number, point in case the X-13 "Vertijet". Now, the X-01, it's literally got a military designation for being experimental. We didn't NEED fallout 76 to tell us this, the literal name tells us it's experimental, ergo, no retconning occurred. The T-51 was the best armor in us, the T-60 had only just begun to roll off the production line and thus was unproven in battle and the X-01 never properly left the experimental phase of it's development hinting at the name X-01. X literally meaning experimental. Now, for the love of sanity, can we PLEASE put this bs to rest? I'm sick and tired of hearing about this nontroversy from overly emotional manbabies crying "retcon" where none exists.

Fuckin eh lol the Enclave is my favourite fallout faction there armor looks so cool. I remember when I was like 9 or so i got fallout 3 goty for Christmas but it came with a hardcover book full of concept art for fallout 3 and in one section of the book it had a bunch of cool drawings of Enclave and BoS power armor and also a bunch of concept art for liberty prime

I like their weird octopus beaky faces. At least that's what I always thought they looked like when I was younger.

Fun fact In US military arms procurement and r&d X means experimental And T or M usually means It has or is planned to see actual service

It was 2008 lol have you seen how far graphics are now a days? It was limited. I’m happy in fallout 4 the power armor was retconned. It needed to be a tank. I enjoyed all the fallout games. I watched ox horn for fallout 1,2 and tactics. I just don’t get the community or fan boys much. Bethesda did great with fallout 3 the main consensus and obsidian killed it with NV minuses the glitches on ps3 it was almost unplayable. And I loved 4 it needed more side quests. But the story was good. It’s leading to me is a civil war. West coast NCR vs East coast BOS. Bc the BOS is the main power.

Personally I think the body of black devil would look great with the x01 neck Pauldron and helmet. Also I think X01 looks like feathers with a bird head

In regards to still getting thirsty in power armor in fallout 4 survival mode, it doesn't say how it recycles waste. While the obvious one that everyone thinks of is turning it into drinking water, it could be recycled as reactor coolant or in the ac system to defrost the condensor

Funny, I always thought the X-01 helmet looked more bird themed, like an Eagle