So im currently wearing max strenght combat armor. i have the chest piece, the 2 shoulder pieces, and the two thigh guards. now i keep seeing these loading screen where it looks basically like the combat armor but it ass forearm guards and shin guards ect. how do i get these full sets? also ive had my combat armor since level 20 and im now 36 and im not finding too much out there that is better. where is the next level of armor found?

I looked on the Fallout Wiki and it lists it as Heavy Combat armour. There's Heavy Synth armour on there too but I'm not sure where you can get it. I've just hit level 40 and I've not found any yet.

Yeah basically some of the armour sets has a heavy version with a slightly different look and slightly higher stats then the regular version, including combat armour, I imagen like other things its level tied, as you go up in level these heavy version should pop up as loot, on enemies, etc.

Every armor has a normal -> sturdy -> heavy versions

Sturdy has higher DR then normal, and heavy has higher DR then sturdy, and each version has more complete visuals.

Hmmm, I didn't realise that. I knew of the normal and heavy but didn't realise that the sturdy looked different. I've been keeping only combat armour for settlers of late and have a few pieces of sturdy stored away but am only using normal. Although I mostly use power armour anyway. The sturdy stuff will be better for when the power armour pieces get broken.