I personally prefer the Powered Armor, but it does require frequent trips to the recharge station. It has low stat requirements, takes up only the armor slot and no item slots in your inventory, and has no negative points at all! It's like free experience points or stat upgrades with none of the work! You'll find this armor fairly quickly, and you have no reason NOT to equip it. Great at stopping damage from radiation or toxins. It boosts your Radiation/Toxin resistance by 75. Coupled with a couple of points in Endurance, you can effectively block out any damage you'd normally take from Radiation/Toxins while wearing this. The Strongest Armor in the game, it also has the biggest drawback. Powered Armor has a charge that provides the suit with defensive power. This charge can vary from 100-160 depending on your maintenance skill level, if this charge runs out, so too does the defensive power it provides. The charge drops 1 point every 5 seconds so every 10 minutes it's going to need a recharge. This isn't a big problem until you reach the Rickenbacker and recharge stations are harder to come by, but even then there are ways to recharge it, so it is possible to keep your suit powered throughout the entire game. Considering that this armor has the best defensive bonus in the game it's not unreasonable to spend time recharging this when you get the chance. I prefer this over the Heavy Armor because of the lower strength requirement. Powered Armor and Standard Armor show up about the same time in the game.