Then, if you connect the reactor to the chestplate with a Repair roll, you can start getting bonuses...
The thing is, as a partial armour, and the reactor would be used to powering a full armour... It would take a high Science roll to notice that the power regulator between the chestplate and the reactor will allow too much power through to the few parts you have. I think this roll should occur when the suit is repaired; it's not fair to have the player go round thinking it's okay when his character knows - or can work out - that it isn't. Of course, once the Science roll goes up, you can target the armour and 're-roll'. Perhaps a random encounter where nothing happens, and you get a message in the message box saying "You hear a bad noise from your suit reactor." Repair, in this case, would reference the Science skill.
If the Science roll succeeds, the player notices the settings for the power regulator, and downs it so that it works. These rolls would have to be re-done as each piece is attached to the armour. A fail here would mean that it is misadjusted, and try again. Critical botch would mean that either the electronics in the suit fry, or the electronics in the reactor fry; supercritical botch means that the reactor fizzles, making it useless until it's repaired by a specialist, or blows up, meaning that either "The wastelands claim your life", or you need to patch up and find a new reactor.
Of course, a canny player might figure out a twist like this themselves, even if their character might not. (As you can tell, metagaming is my forte.) Perhaps if the armour was taken to a Brotherhood outpost, you could get a Scribe to look at it for you...
"Well, now that's an antique. Yes, sirree... I've only seen those in the archives. Let me call up the blueprints and spec, on my monitor over here."
This scribe would check out the armour, and notice the power settings on the reactor would need "twiddling with, if this antique of yours were to work properly."
Any character, at this point, would probably realise this is the man to ask about it.
"Well, I could do it, but you'd only need to come back every time. Hmm... let me take a look at the blueprints again..."
Wait for the old man to find what he's looking for.
"There's a little gadget which is meant to go on the reactor, that this one is missing. You've got a reeeeeal old one there, sir. It's called a Power Regulator. When the suit's completely fine and dandy, all parts attached, the setting it's at now would do you fine."
"But what about if I haven't got all the parts attached?"
"Well now, that's the problem. If a part of the suit gets critically damaged - to the point where it won't work anymore - there'll be a power surplus. This can fry the electronics in each part of the suit, meaning the surplus grows... until eventually, the chest plate goes, and your reactor has a chance of goin' boom."
"Hmm... that's not good."
"Well I imagine someone like you'd probably notice the change in performance, and the nasty noises, that the dang thing's makin'. I imagine most people'd shut the suit down and take it to a repair place."
"Why do these things have such dangerous faults?"
"That's why it's an antique. All the models after this one had built-in power regulators in the reactors, preventing that sort of thing from happening. Once the military worked it out, they designed the power regulator to monitor for states of load and overload, and adjust it accordingly."
Continue.
"Now I can probably dig you up one of these regulators, and install it for you, so that the suit will run okay. Technically, I shouldn't, but this thing's such an antique there's no way people'd use it nowadays. Something like this should really be in a museum..."
At this point the player should get some sneaky way of getting some Brotherhood Mk2 powered armour by swindling the old man into restoring the armour and putting it into the Brotherhood Scribes' Museum of Technology. For a hefty price, the player would then get their replacement, upgraded armour... or at least, the parts they'd brought in. Old parts would plug into the new armour, as the sockets are universal between the refurbished Brotherhood models, new Enclave models, and the old US Military models.
Hey, the ultimate fetch quest for a good armour. People like me should be shot!
Besides, collecting armour pieces could be a darn good way of getting good armour early on. I can see it now, Brotherhood Powered Armour helm, Metal Chest and Arms, Combat legs and feet
and the prerequisite Big Gun.Of course, the only bonus provided should be Air Conditioning from wearing the helm. That'd be darn cool... no pun intended
but armour with air conditioning... the idea rocks!
How often would you have seperate part for an eyepiece anyway?
