Increases the rarity of armors by making them not lootable off of common corpses and less available in merchants.
Armor Rarity Overhaul
Being able to freely loot armors off of bodies often takes away from a meaningful armor progression. It's especially bad in Bethesda games because they just don't care about any resemblance of balance. I remember back in Morrowind, not even 30 minutes into the game, you would be jumped by a Dark Brotherhood assassin. After you deal with him, you get to then loot a full set of the second best light armor off his body. Not to mention, the same assassin would reappear every other time you rest, posing no challenge whatsoever and just throwing his gear at you over and over again, breaking what little economy and armor progression the game had left.
Armor progression is one of those things where "less is more". The amount of gratification is often directly proportional to the scarcity. For example in Fallout 1, there are only two sets of power armor you can get. And when you finally get one, it was very satisfactory, not just because it was absurdly strong, but because you had to earn it. It wasn't handed out easily. It wasn't just lying around that you can freely pick up. You really had to work for it. It was basically an achievement in itself.
Gothic 1/2 was another game that had really interesting armor progression. Throughout the entire game, you can maybe get about 4-5 new armors total. Yet, every single one was memorable and meant something.
And it's not like New Vegas didn't know how to do this, unique armors like Desert Ranger Armor, Stealth Suit, Sierra Armor, etc, come to mind. They were cool. If only the rest of the game was steered more in that direction.
Armor Rarity Overhaul attempts to make the armor progression in New Vegas more meaningful by making armors unlootable on dead bodies as a general rule, save for some exceptions, similar to classic Fallout and the Gothic series. For example, excluding DLC locations, the T51b power armor is now only acquirable by looting Paladin Harden, the Dead Prospector at Deathclaw Promontory, or the BOS Safehouse. So you can't just run off to the REPCONN Headquarters and pick one up (especially if you are using JSawyer that removes Power Armor Training).
Armors on NPC exceptions are always lootable. Armor exceptions are always lootable as well, regardless of what NPC they're on. These are included in the ARO_NPCs and ARO_Armors folders.
The mod also does several other things:
- Power Armors are removed from merchants like Great Khan Armorer and Quartermaster Barton
- Power Armors free loot are removed from Hidden Valley
- Combat Armors free loot are removed from various places
- Riot Gear is no longer sold by Lonesome Road Commissaries
- Gambling in Gomorrah rewards a set of Well-Heeled Gambler suit instead of Reinforced Combat Armor
Should you not like some changes, you may disable them in the INI.
How To Config
Locate the "Armor Rarity Overhaul - ESPless\Config" folder and edit the INI.
Armor exceptions are located in the "Config\ARO_Armors" folder, and NPC exceptions are located in the "Config\ARO_NPCs" folder. To make a new exception, copy an existing exception ini and rename it as the EditorID of the armor or NPC baseform. To disable an exception, either delete the file, or edit its contents and change the 0=1 to 0=0. The latter method you can package with your own mod to overwrite existing exceptions.
Requirements
New Vegas Script Extender (NVSE xNVSE)
Compatibility
Anything. I've included exceptions for TTW so it should work with that too.
Safe to config, install, or uninstall at anytime. The mod will leave no permanent mark on any save. All armors that cannot be looted are merely hidden temporarily.
Instructions
Download and install with Mod Organizer 2.
Armor Rarity Overhaul
Main file
