Update!! 1.2
This update was delayed quite a bit. I was working on a lighter version of the armor, well a lighter armor intended for this mod at least. However I hit a wall and it has been put on ice for now. I realize I should have gotten around to these fixes earlier, but sometimes you can't control what motivates you :)

This update adds a Resized and refitted Sheriff's Hat it can look a bit too big from certain angles but I prefer this fitting over the vanilla one, where the hat is on top of the head. It has some recoloring as well, but nothing fancy. Also after a lot of trouble I finally managed to get my mask idea into the game. I had to do a tiny bit of model editing with blender to get it to work (the mask was clipping the googles). I think it looks quite good. Other than that I did custom enchant for all the headgear except the combat helmet which I boosted the DR on instead. I am very unsure about the balancing but I tried to keep all the enchants within the theme of the hat (well I tried to come up with themes as I made them :P), and all useful in multiple situations. Again I am not sure I managed this and I am looking forward to some feedback on enchant balancing and ideas.

I also fixed a new texture for the female gloves removing the red thread and replacing it with something more fitting. As well as a try at fixing the reversed cap clipping some may have experienced.

Planned updates:
For now I don't have any major plans for this mod, except for the lighter version in the future once custom models are more easily imported. I would like to do some balancing, and perhaps take some ideas/requests for this mod. That means if you have an idea that you think would fit into the context of this mod, please tell me and I will consider it :)


Updates:
1.2
Added 1 new hat and a googles/mask item, all hats were updated with stats or enchantments. Did some changes to the Reversed Cap trying to fix clipping issues. Fixed the gloves on the female mesh so that they would fit more with the rest of the armor. And fixed the missing gloves on the (Reilly's Rangers).esp.

1.0
Added female mesh, and some hats/helmets as well as placing all the items in a locker in Reilly's Rangers Compound. Redid the structure and use of esps.

0.8
Only had the male mesh and was oddly placed in the world

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So I have had Fallout 3 for almost 2 weeks now. Sadly only 2-3 days have been used actually playing the game. Pretty much from I set out I knew I wanted to do something about "end game" armors precisely as I did in Oblivion. And as I like to plan out my characters beforehand I already knew that the Ranger Battle Armor would be mine as I am personally not very fond of the power armors. So the minute I got my Ranger Battle Armor I couldn't help but start my work. It was not without issues of course as we are still early in the process of getting tools ready and with no CS.

The idea was to make something that felt semi heavy like the combat armors. While drawing inspiration from the leather armor, and trying to steer it a bit away from the "army" feel of it.

I took the textures from the regular combat armor and morphed them with the Rivet City Uniform texture, while keeping the plates from the Rivet City Uniform intact. Then I took the right arm piece from the leather armor and the left bracer from the machinist armor. I retextured both trying to make them match my combat armor texture and then attached them to the mesh.

Contents:

This mod adds a custom armor mesh and some retextured hats/helmets to Fallout 3. There are 2 esps. 1 puts all the items into a locker in Reilly's Rangers Compound. The other just changes the existing Ranger Battle Armor and corresponding helmet to the new custom armor models and textures. It will therefore also make all the other rangers were the new armor as well. I split it up cause personally I like my armor to be unique, while others want the rangers to wear it. I leave it up to you.


Installation and Archive Invalidation:

Make sure to change bInvalidateOlderFiles=0 to bInvalidateOlderFiles=1 in My Documents\My Games\Fallout 3\Fallout.ini

I ran into some problems using archiveinvalidation.txt during testing, and I do not recommend it. It is far more better to use the archiveinvalidationinvalidated.bsa by Quazzy (Now with installer for Fallout 3).

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=944

Go there download and install, and you will be set up for the future as well.You could also choose to let the upperbodymale.dds be and live with the clipping as it's not that bad. If there are other reasons for you wanting to avoid replacing it. Like you have a custom skin installed or such, let me now and I can easily add my alpha channel to that texture, or if you have a program capable of viewing .dds files you could do it yourself.

To install my mod just extract the files to your Fallout 3\data\ folder. In the launcher click data files and check of the esps you want to use. One or the other, or even both if you like.


You can find the armors and the headgear in the in one of the lockers in the hall leading to the store room in Reilly's Rangers Compound. When your mouse comes over it it will read "The Wandering Ranger's Locker"

Credits:
Bethesda
for most of the source material

MadCat221
for helping me through some hurdles and showing me archiveinvalidationinvalidated.bsa and just general support :)

Tazpn
for his work on nifskope and helpful feedback on the niftools.org forums

Timeslip
for his work on FOMM

qzilla
for his work on updating FOMM

Quazzy
for his archiveinvalidationinvalidated.bsa

and anyone that helped contribute to both FOMM and Nifskope these early days of Fallout 3 modding, great work everyone :)