I’m a veteran with 3600+ hours, and I’ve exclusively played survival since launch - back when it was simply the highest difficulty setting. With the addition of many of the new creations it got even more fun.
Taking inspiration from Fudgemuppet, but changing it to suit my gameplay style more, here is what I call the survival sniper. Unlike them however, as I’m not making a build to put on YouTube and not going past level 50, I don’t aim to make a build that terminates at a certain point. I play to go level 120 or higher.
S1 P9 E1 C2 I4 A7 L4
Strength and endurance 1 on survival? Am I insane? Yes but that’s besides the point. Carry weight can be mitigated by my first action, which is straight out of the vault using the SPECIAL book on charisma and getting Lone Wanderer as my first perk. On top of that, with the change to how the military backpacks creation works, I can just buy one from Trashcan Carla, chuck the extra storage mod on and have 180 carry weight within the first hour of playing. If I want to take it further, pocketed leather armour takes it to around 220-225 or something.
Now as this is a lone wanderer build centred on stealth, the only follower perks I aim for are Cloak and Dagger, and Killshot.
As for general perk choices, I first focus on rifleman, sneak, night person and lock picking - I don’t usually take hacker because it’s usually not necessary as most safes can be lock picked, and quest related terminals normally have passwords that can be found. I do follow the Fudgemuppet Sharpshooter build to a degree, but rather than focusing on explosives I put the perk points into lockpicking and lone wanderer instead.
Gear - early game I like to use the bolt pipe sniper in concord, buying the suppressor from Drumlin diner. Armour, I usually don’t wear any armour but if I come across cunning or sharp legendary light leather armour I’ll use that, modified to be pocketed. The laser musket is very useful while sourcing .308 which is rare in the early game. Oh and clothing - I like the minuteman outfit which can be looted from the corpses near concord. Hat, I aim for a baseball cap, grey knit beanie or military cap, with the militia cap and one of the C2 shirts as charisma gear (combined with the black rim glasses from the molerat cave).
As for mid to late game, finding any instigating legendary rifle that can be scoped is an instant YES, with QuickDraw or VATS Enhanced also being useful. For the VATS style of gameplay, two-shot is completely pointless. Any gear which increases perception and agility or luck is extremely useful too.
Now as for creations that suit the playstyle, I love the Varmint Rifle. It’s lightweight and 5.56 weighs 30% less than .308. However a Varmint with Patience with the .308 armour piercing receiver is absolute God-tier. The AMR is fun, but .50 is heavy and you can only get 2-3 shots in VATS. The Beast Hunter’s gear is fucking amazing, and even though the gyro-jet can be given a rifle butt, it’s not silenced so it’s less useful.
So how do I add extra challenge onto this build besides having no HP and no strength? I limit myself to bolt actions, only changing to something else if I run out of ammo in the early game.