NCR Ranger Combat Armor

"If I live to earn the Black Armor, I can die a happy woman."

- An NCR Ranger

The NCR Ranger combat armor and the Ranger helmet are a set of armor in Fallout: New Vegas. They are worn by the New California Republic's Veteran Rangers.

Background
NCR Ranger combat armor and helmet is the outfit featured on the main loading screen and box-art. The distinctive black ranger combat armor consists of the Desert Rangers' traditional duster worn with pre-War LAPD riot armor and a set of rodeo jeans, as seen in some other Ranger Outfits. The helmet that accompanies it is black pre-War military issue, complete with a gas mask and built-in low-light optics.

It is often referred to as the Black Armor and is considered to be one of the most valuable and awe-inspiring items in the entire Republic.

The armor will appear in the game only after completing the first end game faction quest for any faction.

Ways to obtain

 * Kill a Ranger silently with a silenced sniper rifle or melee weapon without being seen. This results in zero karma loss and no infamy. Going with this plan it does not have to be a silenced rifle, if you travel to Ranger Station Delta activate a Stealth Boy and walk up behind the bush on the ridge directly behind where you spawn you can take out the Veteran Ranger from there without any of the other rangers becoming hostile, if you are having trouble getting the one hit kill you may have to turn your difficulty down to Very Easy.
 * Reverse pickpocket C-4 onto a Ranger, then find a place to hide and detonate it.
 * Wear Legion armor to force a Ranger to attack you. This method results in no loss of Karma and no infamy.
 * If you become hated by the NCR, Ranger hit squads come after you and one of them may wear the armor.
 * There are many rangers wearing this in sniper posts in Camp Forlorn Hope and in Camp Golf. Each Ranger carries a Sniper Rifle and 150 .308 caliber rounds. Inside the Camp Golf Resort Building, there are at least a dozen NCR Ranger Veterans with Anti-Materiel Rifles and the NCR Ranger Combat Armor.
 * The above is the best place to gain these the armor (and the awesome weapons), when they all to sleep at about 12am - 1am in the bunk room downstairs (the with with loads of bunk beds) you can use the mister sandman perk (make sure you're hidden) or drop some C4 (can also reverse pickpocket some C4), find a spot to hide (again make sure you're well hidden) and BOOM, rinse and repeat and lots of armor and weapons.


 * One other way you can obtain the armor is by finding an empty oil canister or something you can roll around and push it into one of the rangers. This is a sort of glitch and takes longer than other methods because the armor resists most of the damage, but it does work.


 * You can kill other ranger veterans that see you kill another but after about 2 kills they will leave you alone and you wont lose reputation or karma.
 * During the quest, You'll know It When It Happens, it is possible to get the armor without killing a veteran or losing any armor. Search the vertibird and discover the bomb planted there. Report back to Ranger Grant while the speech is happening and he will tell other rangers to get President Kimball back to the vertibird. The sniper will then fire, but miss and kill a NCR Ranger Veteran. While everyone is running away or crouching, you can loot the body and get the armor. If you try to pickpocket the engineer, find the detenador, and show Ranger Grant so he can get Kimball back to the vertibird, the sniper will miss the president and kill a NCR personel who is wearing NCR Patrol Armor. Giving Ranger Grant the bomb is the only way to recieve the armor.

Bugs

 * There is a clipping problem while wearing the armor with most rifles. While the weapon is holstered, it will appear to partially be in the trench coat. Sniper rifles (Except the Anti-Material Rifle), marksman rifles, and assault carbines do not suffer this problem, although holstering while crouched will still cause clipping issues, simply standing up while holstering will fix this.(The clipping issue occurs due to pistol-grip rifles holstering differently to stock-grip rifles, pistol-grips holster to armor while stock-grip ones holster to the player's body, causing the clipping). Same can go for the Ranger helmet; hair will partially be seen in the back depending on the hairstyle and shape of your character's head.


 * The Ranger Helmet sometimes will not be able to be repaired by any of the NPCs on the map and the only way to repair it is by finding another one and repairing it by yourself.

Appearances
The NCR Ranger combat armor appears in Fallout: New Vegas.

Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgSJ7r3iN28&hd=1