Ranger Station Charlie

Ranger station Charlie is a location in Fallout: New Vegas. This Ranger station has been charged with maintaining order on the road to Novac. The communications officer at this outpost is Ranger Stepinac.

Background
The fenced-in property south of Novac was once home to the pre-War Shady Pines Trailer park. Sometime after 2271, the NCR Army established a ranger station at the location. Codenamed Charlie, the outpost is charged with patrolling the roads between Novac and Nipton, as part of its responsibility to keep the local area "civilized." The CO of the ranger station is Ranger Beaumont. Due to a recent mission, the ranger has assigned his communications officer, Comm Officer Stepinac to watch the place for the time being. Right now, things are mostly quiet at Charlie, as the majority of the rangers stationed at the outpost are on patrol.

Thanks to the presence of Ranger station Charlie, Novac is protected from local wild life and Legion raiding parties; however, the feral ghouls from the REPCONN test site have proven quite a threat to the community in recent days, due to the condition of the local law enforcement, ex-Ranger Andy.

Layout
Outside the Ranger station one can see many mobile homes and cars piled up as fortifications, reflecting the site's previous life as a pre-War trailer park. Ammunition, weapons and random items can be found by searching through them.

Inside these improvised fortifications, there are stacked camping trailers that have lots of bedding in them. Occasionally, an NCR Ranger will appear in the farthest trailer from the entrance during the night, and will sit in a chair overlooking the road to the left during the day. He is a named character, but has no dialogue if the player character tries to talk to him. Also, a prospector may be found resting there.

The main building is to the right as one walks through the entrance. If one goes (or returns) to the site at Ranger Andy's request, the station's troops have all been slaughtered. There are two bodies on the floor in the first room, each with an armed frag mine hidden underneath. One of the two audio tapes (tape #2) is straight ahead from the entrance, on top of the three stacked metal boxes. The other tape (tape #1) is under the desk next to the metal boxes. The tape is from the Legion, claiming responsibility for the massacre at Ranger station Charlie, and informing the listener that they took a live NCR ranger with them.

The room on the left (through the door; the room with multiple bunk beds) contains a trap: a tripwire running across the doorway is connected to a rigged shotgun under the bunk beds, which is pointed at two antique fire extinguishers positioned in front of an armed bottlecap mine that will detonate either with proximity or by the explosion from the fire extinguishers being hit by the rigged shotgun blast.

The room also contains various junk and two more dead NCR soldiers. The male corpse will have NCR Ranger patrol armor in poor condition, along with a random weapon, usually a pistol or revolver.

Under the bunk bed to the right upon entering this room (the one with the two cinder blocks under it) is a floor safe (locked, Average) with ammunition, caps, Rad-X and stimpaks. Under the bed in the northeast corner is a locked footlocker, but it is empty.

Inhabitants

 * Comm Officer Stepinac, located inside the Ranger house.

Notable loot

 * Ranger Station Charlie audio logs - Two audio logs, one under the desk right in front of the player character as they enter, and the second on top of the stack of metal boxes, just to the right of that desk. These logs are only present after speaking with Ranger Andy in Novac and agreeing to check on the station.

Related quests

 * Return to Sender
 * Andy and Charlie

Appearances
Ranger station Charlie appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Bugs

 * If the Courier exits the station building and encounter a hostile group of Legionaries spawned outside the compound, going back inside the main building and coming back out may cause them to disappear.
 * Before taking Ranger Andy's request to check on Station Charlie, it may occur that the interior building will have the post-raid status while the exterior is still populated by NCR personnel.