Better Dials for Power Armor – Fallout 4

Better Dials for Power Armor – Fallout 4

This mod improves the heads up display dials you see when entering power armor. Power armor dials are now more clear, cleaner, and less distracting. I hand crafted them for improved aesthetics and performance. Install this if the blocky user interface when inside power armor annoys you.

Major Changes

Cleaner lines. The original interface comes with blobs of color splattered here and there–an artifact of the compression process. My new dials are hand-built from scratch, so there are no artifacts.

4 color options. It comes in 4 colors–default amber, pip boy green, Vault-Tech blue, and Institute white.

Better condition meter. The existing power armor condition meter is ugly as sin. It’s all one color, and has a blocky appearance. It doesn’t look anything like a dashboard lamp, which it is supposed to be.

I built a new power armor condition lamp from the ground up. I removed the grayish blocks and added an illuminating interior gradient, so that it looks more like a dashboard lamp. I also added faint horizontal LED lines. This makes it look more like a lamp, and also hides some of the pixels (which are unavoidable since the original had such poor resolution.)
My condition lamp comes in traditional warning colors. Solid green = power armor has good durability. Solid orange = power armor has low durability and is about to break. Red outline = power armor is broken. White outline = power armor slot is not equipped.

How is This Mod Different?

There are a few other power armor interface mods out there. This one is different in the following ways:

1) Many of the other mods use the existing dials as a base, and simply paint new colors on top. This keeps all original artifacts and image glitches. I have crafted all dials from scratch. My dials have much higher visual quality.
2) Some other mods go overboard with glows and shadows, to the point that the numbers become illegible in-game. This is because Fallout 4 adds its own glow and light-pass-through effect to the dials during gameplay. With this mod, I kept the back glow to a minimum, to emphasize clarity. This keeps the dials highly legible.
3) I kept colors to a minimum, modeled after vehicle dials. The base UI color is the soft amber that comes with the game. To break up monotony and add clarity, I used white to denote ticks in multiples of 10 for AP and HP, and 25 for fusion core charge. I then used red only to denote “low” states, when a core is about to expire or your character is about to die.

I then used a simple red, green, amber system for power armor durability meter and rads meter. Anyone who drives should understand this–it’s self-explanatory. This is, in my opinion, an elegant solution to add variance to the UI while also improving clarity.

Installation Instructions

Step 1)

Note: If you already have mods installed for your game, then you have already done this step. Move on to Step 2.

Open your “Fallout4Custom.ini” file located here: \Documents\MyGames\Fallout 4\

Place the following text and save:

The Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) makes this very easy. All you have to do is click the “Download NMM” button at the top of this page. If you have NMM installed, it will launch and commence the download.

If you prefer a different color, click on the FILES tab at the top of this page. Choose your desired color from the MAIN FILES section, and click “DOWNLOAD WITH NMM” to install it.

Once it is downloaded, you need to activate it. My mod will appear grayed out. Select it, and then click the green check-mark button that appears in the top left-hand sidebar of the manager. You will get a pop-up message warning you that by activating my mod, you are about to overwrite a lot of textures that came with the previous mods that I just had you download. Click “Yes to all”.

Boom. You’re done.

Modder’s Resource

I include the photoshop PSD file I used to craft these dials. If you download the file, you can change the colors of any part you want to fit your own taste. I can’t create versions for every taste out there, so please download the file (if you have Photoshop and the Intel DDS plugin) and alter the dials as you see fit.

Future Plans

Here are the things I want to do in the future:

1) Include an option to remove the chassis. This would leave the dials hovering mid-air. I imagine these dials being projected onto the inside of the helmet. I have already tried altering the chassis texture to make it invisible, but this does not work. If anyone has tips on how to remove the chassis altogether, please let me know.

2) Include a non-backlit version. The game passes light through the dials, causing them to slightly glow. This is nice, but I’m interested in an option to disable this function so that dials are solid. This would make the UI work like it does when outside of power armor–simple flat images and text without shadows, glow, and other skeuomorphic things. However, I do not know how to disable this. If anyone knows which variable to alter in the ini file, please let me know.
If you like this mod, please endorse it and upload your own photos.

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