The under armor of Fallout 4 tends to give little defensive bonus, so we created a guide to show gamers how to unlock Ballistic Weave, the most powerful armor crafting perk in the game.

Bethesda Game Studios has created a record-smashing hit with Fallout 4, and due to the staggering scope of the game itself, players are still discovering new things as each day passes. For those who have actually left Vault 111, the commonwealth wasteland is full of viscous enemies that will attack the player on sight, which is why most players opt to upgrade their clothing sooner rather than later.

Fallout 4 is chock full of different under armor choices, but most of them come with low defense statistics that make them a purely cosmetic items, rather than things that are actually useful in the commonwealth. Thankfully, there's a unique crafting ability that can boost the stats for most of the under armor items, and we're here to show you how to get it.

Firstly, players should master the Armorer perk, which has 4 different levels to obtain. The highest tier requires that the player be level 39 with a strength of 3, so it won't be realistically obtainable until players have sunk many hours into Fallout 4. That said, ballistic weave has several levels of crafting, and players can use the initial levels of it without being a master Armorer, although the truly powerful ballistic weave modifications do require that players reach the highest perk level.

The next step is to gain access to the Railroad HQ, which can be done by following the main storyline quest, or alternatively by the quest Follow The Freedom Trail. This involves tracing the iconic Freedom Trail that starts in the Boston Commons, a red brick path which leads people to actual historic Boston buildings. Whilst plenty of the trail is now covered in rubble along the sidewalks, its relatively easy to follow and should take gamers to the Old North Church, where they must solve a Freedom Trail-related puzzle to access the hidden Railroad HQ.

Unfortunately, this means that any gamers who have already sided with one of the other main factions in the game, and cleared out the Railroad, won't be able to gain access to the quest chain which will enable gamers to use ballistic weave. As long as players haven't yet found the Railroad HQ, however, they should be in good shape to start doing Railroad quests.

Once gamers are in the Railroad's good books, they must start doing quests for P.A.M., the robotic calculator that the freedom fighters use to predict enemy movements. After completing several of her quests, a character named Tinker Tom will mention something about a ballistic weave. This will add the ability to craft ballistic weave bonuses into regular under armor clothes, like the following:

  • Dirty Army Fatigues
  • Military Fatigues
  • Tattered Rags
  • Green Shirt
  • Combat Boots
  • Baseball Uniform
  • Green Rag Head

More confirmations for clothes are pouring in, and it looks like most kinds of general under armor and normal headwear can be used for crafting with ballistic weave. Considering that most of them had no real impact on defensive boosts, it's one of the most useful crafting bonuses in the game, and finally explains what Ballistic Fibres are used for.

Using the top tier of ballistic weave, gamers can expect improvements of over 150% to their armor's original defense stats. With more than double the under armor protection, players will be able to take significantly more damage when out exploring the commonwealth, whether they're out to find alien weaponry or celebrate the holidays in Diamond City.

What do you think about ballistic weave, Ranters? Is it worth going through several Railroad quests to obtain?