Fallout 4 armor

Overview
In Fallout 4, the wardrobe system allows the Sole Survivor to make up their own outfit from a variety of clothing and armor. The system is divided into nine slots and two layers :
 * Base layer
 * Body (pants, shirts, vault jumpsuits, etc.)
 * Hat (baseball caps, combat armor helmet, fedoras, etc.)
 * Eye (glasses and goggles)
 * Mouth (bandanas)
 * Hand (ring)
 * Modular Military Backpack
 * Armor (worn on top of the base layer)
 * Chest
 * Right arm
 * Left arm
 * Right leg
 * Left leg

Many items in the wardrobe take up several spots, including armor spots, restricting the other pieces with which they can be combined. Each item in each layer can offer bonuses, such as different types of damage resistance. All these items and their unique bonuses will be explained below. In addition, armor mods can be applied to certain items, which can provide additional bonuses.

Characters can enter power armor wearing any combination of clothing, adding an additional layer of armor. Wearing power armor nullifies all bonuses provided by the lower layers.

Each piece of armor falls under one of these classifications: Normal, Legendary or unique. Normal armors have no special bonuses applied to them. Legendary armors come with random bonuses and are mostly dropped by Legendary enemies. Unique armors are pre-named, have a special legendary bonus and are only available through certain merchants and quest rewards.

Raider armor
Raider armor is usually the most common armor type, and can be seen as a tier 1 armor. Providing the least energy and ballistic resistance out of all armor types - in some cases, excluding the DC guard armor type - it's the armor most commonly worn by raiders.

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Leather armor
Leather armor, along with the metal armor below, can be seen as tier 2 armor types, serving as counterparts to each other. Leather provides superior energy resistance but inferior ballistic resistance when compared to metal armor. The standard and sturdy variants of leather armor have inferior ballistic and energy resistances compared to the tier 3 combat armor, but heavy leather, and sturdy legs, have slightly superior energy resistance at the expense of considerably weaker ballistic resistance.

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Metal armor
Metal armor, along with the leather armor above, can be seen as tier 2 armor types, serving as counterparts to each other. Metal provides superior ballistic resistance but inferior energy resistance when compared to leather armor. The standard variant of metal armor has inferior ballistic and energy resistances compared to the tier 3 combat armor, but the sturdy and heavy variants of metal have slightly superior ballistic resistance at the expense of considerably weaker energy resistance.

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Combat armor
Combat armor can be seen as a tier 3 armor type, providing the best of both from the tier 2 armor types leather and metal. The standard variant has superior energy and ballistic resistance to both leather and metal. Although heavy leather armor has superior energy resistance and heavy metal armor has superior ballistic resistance, combat armor has better ballistic resistance than leather and better energy resistance than metal, making it better geared for all-purpose use.

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 * While all other armor has identical stats for the left and right variants of limbs, combat armor has different weights for each.

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Synth armor
Synth armor can be seen as a tier 4 armor type. The standard and sturdy variants have somewhat to slightly weaker ballistic resistances compared to the tier 3 combat armor, but the heavy variant has slightly better ballistic resistance, and all variants have superior energy resistance. The end result is a standard variant that's only slightly weaker than combat armor for all-purpose use, a sturdy variant that's somewhat better for all-purpose use and a heavy variant that's better all around.

Unique armor for this armor type can be obtained from the Institute from the synth requisition officer and through tier 4 settlement armor stands.

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 * Both the synth helmet and the synth field helmet occupy all three head slots.

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DC guard armor
DC guard armor can be seen as a tier 1 to 3 armor type. Unlike other armors, it lacks standard, sturdy and heavy variants. Compared to standard-variant armor, DC guard armor is on par with tier 2 to 3 armors, but compared to sturdy-variant armor, it's only tier 1 to 2, and almost any heavy-variant armor is better. Due to this, its value will be higher at low levels, while being almost useless at high levels.

DC guard armor is used almost exclusively by guards in Diamond City and can only be obtained from their corpse, making the acquisition of this armor a little less practical. Guard armor may rarely be obtained from named Gunner enemies in Tessa's area.

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 * Despite the names, "shoulder" and "forearm" armors take up the entire arm slot.
 * The DC guard helm takes up the eye slot as well as the hat slot.
 * The DC guard heavy helmet takes up all three head slots.

Vault-Tec security armor
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 * Body armors take up all slots (chest, arms, legs).

Robot armor
Robot armor is an armor found exclusively in the Automatron add-on worn by the raider tribe the Rust Devils. It is an advanced equivalent of the metal armor found in the base game, being heavier but having proportionately more resistance to ballistic attacks and a similar weakness to energy based weapons.

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 * Item IDs grant a random variable of standard, sturdy, heavy robot armor.

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Trapper armor
It is an armor set that Trappers commonly use, and can fit over thin clothing. The standard version is slightly more protective than sturdy raider armor. The heavy version looks identical but has stats that are slightly improved from heavy raider armor. There is no sturdy variant.

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Marine armor
Marine armor is an advanced form of combat armor found in the Far Harbor add-on. The three variants (Zealot, Inquisitor, Assault) are not distinct items but are instead the result of modifying the armor at an armor workbench. However, the Zealot and Inquisitor variants look identical. Additionally, the helmet is only available in the Assault variant, and cannot be modified.

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Disciples armor
The Disciples armor is worn by members of the Disciples gang, found in the Nuka-World add-on.

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Operators armor
The Operators armor is worn by members of the Operators gang, found in the Nuka-World add-on.

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Pack armor
The Pack armor is worn by members of the Pack gang, found in the Nuka-World add-on.

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Unique body armor parts
Unique body armor parts are legendary items that come pre-named and are not randomized, but are otherwise no different from regular legendary items. They can be obtained from various merchants, sometimes at set locations (as with the Freefall Legs), and possibly as quest rewards.


 * ¹This nano filament material is different from another nano filament material that the player character can create, possibly a bug. It provides less energy and ballistic resistance than the normal one, showing two versions of the same thing. There is still an option to upgrade to the normal nano filament material.

Clothing
Clothing that can be worn under body armor parts and are potentially the best for defensive purposes. Unless the ballistic weave armor mod has been unlocked, the only clothing pieces that can be upgraded on an armor workbench are the vault jumpsuits.


 * Unique apparel are highlighted with a darker background.
 * Unplayable apparel and cut content are grayed out.

Outfits
Count as both clothing and body armor. Most will take up all armor slots, but some will allow additional armor.
 * Unique apparel are highlighted with a darker background.


 * Unplayable apparel are grayed out.

Full headwear
These items count as hats, eyewear, and masks.
 * Unique apparel are highlighted with a darker background.
 * Pack carnival mask can wear whith Masks.

Hats

 * Unique apparel are highlighted with a darker background.


 * ''The bowler hat and the Triggerman bowler are equippable by Mister Handy or Miss Nanny robots.

Eyewear

 * Welding goggles are equippable on Dogmeat.
 * Robotic bits may not appear in the inventory, nor are equipable with the player.equipitem command.

Masks

 * All bandanas are equippable on both NPCs and dogs as a cosmetic item.

Power armor parts
All pieces of power armor must be attached to a power armor frame.

Wearing power armor nullifies all bonuses and effects provided by any other layer of armor, including Legendary armor effects. In addition, each layer has its own weight, which is not nullified by power armor (excluding power armor plate segments attached directly to a power armor frame).

To exit power armor frames, one must press and hold the same button pressed to enter it ("E" on PC, "X" on PS4, or "A" on Xbox One).

Dog apparel
Dogmeat can equip dog apparel as cosmetic items (these items don't give any bonus to the dog, but the items cost its weight towards the dog max carry capacity). There are four different slots on the dog to equip items, including eyes, neck, headband, and torso.

Any junkyard dogs can also wear dog apparel, but in order to give it to them, the Sole Survivor needs to use reverse pickpocket to place it in their inventory. It will not be immediately equipped but will be worn once one has fast traveled away and back. Dog armor (all variants) enhances Dogmeat’s carrying capacity.

Eyewear
In this slot, the welding goggles can be equipped.

Super mutant apparel

 * Strong can equip super mutant apparel.
 * Unlike humanoid armor parts for which there are legendary and unique armor pieces as well as armor types favoring ballistic, energy, or radiation resistance, for the super mutant armor parts there exists an optimal set of equipment that maximizes both Damage Resistance and Energy Resistance. This set consists of a super mutant bladed helmet, light body armor, chains, heavy gauntlets and leg armor pieces.