Armor and clothing

Apparel are wearable items in the Fallout Series.

Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics
In Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics, armor helps the player character by increasing their Armor Class, Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance. Different kinds of armor are better against different types of Damage.

Fallout 3 and Fallout Brotherhood of Steel
In Fallout 3 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, there is only Damage Resistance and all kinds of armor are equally resistant to all types of damage, except a few such as the Enclave Hellfire armor which increases fire resistance. Most armor and clothing can affect abilities such as Science and repair, more advanced types of armor, like Power Armor, also increase Strength and other S.P.E.C.I.A.L abilities.

Heavier armor weighs a lot more than normal clothes, so it is important to have plenty of spare room to accommodate its weight. Heavier armor will usually slow one down whereas lighter armor will not affect one's agility. Heavy armor will increase noise volume and decrease chances of successful sneaking.

Fallout 4
In Fallout 4, clothing is generally divided into:
 * Underclothing, capable of being worn under armor pieces.
 * Complete clothing and armor sets that do not allow other armor pieces to be worn. This usually excludes the head, face, and eye slots.
 * Armor pieces for the torso, left and right legs, and left and right arms.
 * Helmets, hats, and other gear that fill the head slot, which may or may not also fill the face and eye slots.
 * Bandanas which fill the face slot.
 * Glasses and goggles that fill the eye slot.
 * A ring slot, only used by one unique item.
 * Lastly, Power Armor which is worn over any outfit or armor combination (in turn nullifying its effects) and consists of a base Power Armor frame and six slots for various Power Armor pieces including torso, head, left and right legs, and left and right arms.
 * Certain exceptions to this general classification exist, such as the greaser jacket and jeans which is a clothing set over which leg armor and only leg armor may also be equipped.

Fallout 76
In Fallout 76 the apparel system allows players to piece together their customized outfits by choosing from a wide variety of clothing and armor items. The system is primarily broken up into Armor and Apparel. There are around a dozen equipment slots in total spread across five layers.

Armor, body suits and Power Armor will be subjected to condition degradation. When the condition of any piece deteriorates to 0, it breaks and will offer no protection. Broken armor and clothing can be repaired using scrap at any armor workbench.

Many of the armor and clothing sets also have minimum level requirements before they can be equipped, including Power Armor parts. Power Armor chassis are not leveled, so removing higher-level parts will allow entry.

Characters can enter Power Armor wearing any combination of clothing, adding a layer of armor. However, wearing Power Armor nullifies all bonuses provided by the lower layers.