Dig around libraries, mansions, and schools to find an advanced electronics textbook. Those have recipes for EMP grenades and night vision/infrared goggles (nightvision is better in labs), which can, with the light step perk, make you a silent/invisible killing machine.
For face armor, if you get tailoring high up around level 7 and can spare some kevlar plates, you can make a survivor's armor-plated gas mask that covers the mouth and eyes while negating smoke and colds entirely. Good stuff. You can always get tailoring levels from repairing zombie tatters, so patch everything up that you find and you'll get there pretty quick.
Don't have anything more in the school library. I might find one of those textbooks in the lab itself though. Already good for nightvision, as a mutation spree resulted in Full Nightvision. And also webs everywhere, which bugs me. Although it does leave a trail of breadcrumbs for retracing my steps.
As far as Tailoring goes, I already have 4-5 skill with it. Didn't find any cool skill books for it like I did for most of the other skills. I'll have to put my fur storage trenchcoat on and collect the clothes off of all the dead zombies. Hopefully that will let me make a better backpack/storage item.
You can always get tailoring levels from repairing zombie tatters, so patch everything up that you find and you'll get there pretty quick.
Thought they took the nerf-hammer to that shortly after 0.A?
It still works in the version I'm using. Will probably gather up all the clothes from the dead zombies in town and repair them to grind up my tailoring. Should probably cut some of them up for rags too, since I'm running relatively low on them.
In other news: I started another character in the same world. Supposed to be a mobility/archery build. I spawn in a bunker almost overrun by zombies. I barely manage to grab a pipe and a string and run to the wilds. But one zombie is still on my trail. So I beat him to death with my pipe. Guess what he drops? A wrench. Because THIS character, exiled from the city by zombies, almost resourceless, TOTALLY needs a wrench. And gets it on her first kill. Bluh.