Ranger Battle Armor

The 41-90MPW Ranger Battle Armor is worn by Reilly's Rangers. It's one of the best conventional armors in the game.

Location
Can be acquired as a quest reward, by reverse-pickpocketing Rangers at their Compound, or by looting their corpses in the Statesman Hotel.

Characteristics
For players who value Agility over Strength, the Ranger Armor is a better choice than Power Armor, offering almost identical DR (1-6 points lower in most cases, 11 points lower than the unique T-51b Power Armor) without sacrificing Agility and movement speed or increasing the chance you'll be detected while sneaking (as the weight of equipped armor affects stealth).


 * The +5 AP boost, Luck +1, and +10 Small Guns makes this armor particularly useful for lower-level Small Gun characters. It remains useful for anyone up to level 30, thanks to the good DR, modest weight, and ease of repair.


 * However, Tribal Power Armor offers a net increase of 13 Action Points and adds Strength +1 in addition to the same Luck Bonus. This is more useful for melee or Big Guns users who heavily uses V.A.T.S. However, Tribal Power Armor DR is relatively low, and incurs -1 Agility.

Tips
It is possible to reverse pickpocket a member of Reilly's Rangers to get Ranger Battle Armor, but the armor you replace it with must have a higher DR (a fully repaired set of Power Armor works).

-However, pickpocketing their armor off of them using this technique is very difficult. Even with 100 sneak score, a Stealth Boy, and the right conditions, each step (i.e. placing armor on their person, removing their armor from their inventory) may take dozens of attempts. A good technique is to save before and after every successful attempt.

Repairing Ranger Armor

Gustavo and other merchants in Tenpenny Tower sell Combat Armor in poor condition (i.e. cheaply), as does Crow the traveling merchant. Flak 'N Shrapnel's and Seagrave Holmes also sell combat armor.

Evil characters have a couple good ways to get scrap armor for free:


 * Take the Mister Sandman perk and use it on as many Rivet City guards as you like, as the guards respawn infinitely. Not only will this allow you to keep the armor in good condition, but will also net 50 XP per Sandman kill, and other guard loot that can be sold for caps.


 * Or if you are a little bit more of a hardcore serial killer then you can just cut em up with some nasty sneak attacks for 75 experience on VH, after all there are no consequences except bad karma and entire Rivet City will be hostile for about 10-60 seconds.

Good characters can loot lots of scrap armor at Fort Bannister. Including the underground levels, there are at least twenty Talon Company mercs there. The mercs outside respawn every few days. Also, if you have Good Karma, Talon mercs will frequently seek you out in the wastes with a contract to kill you. There are also four Talon Mercs that spawn to the south of Arlington Library, often with a Sentry Bot as well.

Be careful when repairing this armor with other Combat Armors and make sure that you don't do it the other way around IE; repairing the Talon Combat Armor with the Ranger Armor. This will result in the loss of the Ranger Armor.

Trivia

 * The armor (confirmed on both male and female models) has the code 41-90MPW, above a military five-pointed star, possibly suggesting the suit's coloration is largely unchanged from it's national guard or US army origins.


 * The armor has a striking resemblance to the armor worn by the Colonial Marine Troop in the movie "Aliens", down to it being greenish combat armor written on by white letters.

Appearances
appears only in Fallout 3.