Anyone else following the adventures of fort ginger?
Spoilers in the videos I guess but idk I've read through this thread.
I am. I watch all Robbaz videos as soon as I can, and I watch his old playlists too. I'll soon run out of stuff to watch.
The obvious tip about mats, is that..never forget to mark the resources you need. You'd be surprised how, when exploring, you bump into good stuff like aluminum, circuitry, copper.
I played half the game not knowing that dinner trays converts to like 3 aluminum or something, and that coffee mugs converts to ceramic (DERP). And I remember there's a factory that probably used to produce trays, because the conveyor belts are full of them.
Later in the game, if you have got the "caps finder" (Luck 1) perks and discount (char 1) perks, buying shipments is usually worth it (even though adhesive is expensive, so if you're not lazy it's better to plant crops).
I was making a lot of money just from "caps finder" perk, so I'd use "surplus" caps on shipments of steel, wood, copper, adhesive, etc. Really worth it if you don't have the patience to stop doing quests and dedicate time to scavanging exclusively. I couldn't find/remember where to buy shipments of aluminum, though, so power armor upgrades would eat through aluminum really quickly.
E: I'm playing very casually on a new character on survival mode. It's really good. But damn it can be stressful when something sponges through all your ammo and you're left thinking if you can survive the next adventure or not.
I'm making melee this time, but I don't plan on playing more than a couple hours per week.