Morphic Tide
Well-known member
The original Enclave armor didn't have a model number, just "Advanced Power Armor" and "Advanced Power Armor Mark II". Them being the resumption of development of a platform started pre-war fits in just fine with all the repurposing of FEV and lingering infrastructure the Enclave gets up to. The notion is that the Commonwealth prototypes are analogous to the hardly even mentioned t-51a, while the FO2 suits are later revisions of the same baseline design the way t-51b became "the standard".X-01 power armor is somehow Pre-war despite being Enclave armor, which cannot possibly exist until hundreds of years into the future. So already that is all fucked up, especially because it's very unlikely that T-45d power armor can share parts with Enclave Armor Mk2.
X-02 is even more nonsensical because not only was it inferior to T-51b in FO3, the OG enclave armor never HAD the designation of X-01. So why would they name it's sequel after an obscure quantum soda armor over two hundred years old?
The inferior performance of X-02 is then the result of being supply-crunched into outright "monkey models" alongside the Brotherhood having incrementally improved their suits the entire post-war period. To point at game stats, the visibly worn-out FO3 Tesla armor is still better than the standard-issue version, while over in FO4 T-45d and T-51b are nearly equivalent in protection, and T-51f is comparable to T-60d and X-01 Mark II.
The "scaling" of FO4 armor is that each "model" is roughly two "marks" better, so good condition X-02 would be expected to start at X-01 Mark III, T-60e, or a hypothetical T-51g. Excellent condition and well-modified T-51f doing better than worn-down and "barebones" X-02 is thus justifiable.
The simplest explanation remains "visual retcon", but the defensive inferiority being tied to mechanics in the next tile regarding early instances versus late very slightly implied by t45d vs. t51b in FO2 and 3 is a fairly "clean" compromise.