Tesla Armor (Fallout 3)

The Tesla Power Armor, often called simply Tesla Armor by Enclave Troops, is a type of Power Armor. Unlike the pre-War Tesla Metal Armor, constructed from plans left by Nikola Tesla, it is a variant of the Advanced Power Armor Mk II jury-rigged with a Tesla device that disperses a large percentage of directed energy attacks. Additionally, the armor makes operation of energy weapons easier, boosting the Energy Weapons skill of the operator. Enclave soldiers using this armor tend to use rarer, more powerful energy weapons; such as the Laser Pistol, and Plasma Rifles. Although this is powerful armor and a great addition to your wardrobe, the only place to get it (and spare suits for repairs) is by fighting Enclave soldiers. Their armor is usually acquired in rather poor condition. Despite this drawback, the armor is still one of the best you can find by the end of the game, bested only by the T-51b and the Enclave Hellfire Armor.

Tesla Armor can be given to Protector Casdin at Fort Independence for 5.56mm rounds, Frag Grenades, RadAway, or Stimpaks.

Tesla Armor can only be repaired with other Tesla Armors, or by a NPC repairer.

Locations

 * Three Enclave soldiers equipped with Tesla Armor (and Plasma Rifles) will appear in the parking lot south of Alexandria Arms after completing "The Waters of Life". The first time they appear, they will be transported to the location by a Vertibird, but they will simply respawn in place after the initial encounter.


 * Three Enclave soldiers, one with Tesla Power Armor, can be found at an outpost on the other half of the broken overpass behind Arefu. There is a possibility that the Enclave soldier wearing the Tesla Armor is friendly.


 * Near the Museum of History (Underworld), in The Mall, there will be a group of Talon Company Mercs trying to invade The Capitol Building which is owned by Super Mutants. Near the building, on the top of the stairs, there are two Enclave soldiers and an officer to the left, one of whom possesses Tesla Armor.


 * A set can be found on the body of an Enclave soldier in the Deathclaw Sanctuary


 * During the quest "Take it Back!", some Tesla Armor can be found on the corpses of dead Enclave soldiers


 * You may also find Tesla armor on fleeing Enclave Soldiers running away from Raven Rock after you destroy it, come back in a few days and there will still be people there.


 * During the quest "The Waters of Life", in the second section of the Taft Tunnel, there are a pair of Enclave soldiers with Tesla Armor on a balcony, just after you are stopped to deal with Garza. If you have the Bloody Mess perk, you may be able to loot the armor from a body part that falls from the balcony after killing them with a headshot. If body parts fail to fall from the balcony, you might be able to use a Frag Grenade to blast some parts down. You can also pick up a barrel and jump onto the lamp, then across some girders and onto the balcony. Using this method you can get 4 sets of Tesla Armor, 3 Laser Rifles and a Plasma Rifle.


 * If you drop by Rockbreaker's Last Gas on your way to Vault 87 there will be 2-3 Enclave Soldiers with Plasma Rifles, one of which is equipped with Tesla armor, and an officer.

Appearances


While the Enclave's Tesla Armor appears only in Fallout 3, an unrelated powered version of the Tesla Armor appears in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, found in a Shop-Tec weapon vending machine in the Secret Vault Warehouse Basement.

Bugs

 * (Confirmed, PS3 | Doesn't work on 360) If you have on your person a fully repaired (100%) piece of Tesla Armor, and it is equipped, it will not depreciate no matter how many times you are hit. You must have another (not necessarily 100%) piece of Tesla Armor in your inventory for this to work. The unequipped piece of armor will take the damage instead.
 * When you have the Gauss rifle equipped the Tesla pack disappears.

Tesla Power Pack
Some users have found a third item called "Tesla Armor", which has been dubbed by some the "Tesla Power Pack". Differing theories have argued that this item is glitched, or was a test item cut from the final version of the game.

While players encountering the item in the game is a glitch, which will be explained shortly, it is not a test item, and actually functions the way it's supposed to in most cases.

All power armors (and some other armor) have a "Biped Model List" which adds on extra parts to the default model. These items generally include gloves, backpacks, and shoulder decals. In the case of Tesla Armor, it has an item labeled by the GECK "ArmorTeslaPowerFX". This is the infamous power pack, and its purpose is to provide the lightning arc effect that is seen when the Tesla Armor is equipped.

The reason for the unusual behavior exhibited by this item is human error. Most items found on a biped model list are categorized as "Armor Add-On", which get applied by armor, but cannot be obtained by the player. On the other hand, "ArmorTeslaPowerFX" was created as an actual piece of armor, based on the default Enclave Armor. It doesn't have a world model, which is why it disappears when dropped. The reason that the aforementioned item appears as a backpack when equipped is that it uses the Enclave Armor's biped mode list, which equips the Enclave Armor backpack and gloves.

The glitch is most likely caused by the mis-categorization. Since the items added by Add-on lists aren't supposed to be normal armor, the code that implements them may occasionally mix things up and add the third piece as an actual item. What prompts this is currently unknown. However, changing the model of the item, or removing it from the Tesla Armor's list would cause the armor to stop producing the lightning effect. (there is also a backpack armor glitch for the outcast power armor)