making a heavy weapons character viable at early levels

[mysteryshadow5]

I know 5 mm minigun ammo is very rare before early to mid 20s. Is there something i'm missing? I know about the garbage gun and I dislike it. should i get the utility feats early and just use anything i find until ammo is plentiful?

[worm_master]

Get Scrounger Perk, u only need 2 luck, to improve it, it's WELL worth ot, then scour all containers an cracks, soon you'll be drowning in ammo..

I use a few types, an sell the rest, amo has no weight, and can be immensly profitable, energy Cells, sell for the most, so if u dont use energy cells, sell em.

N.B .45 seems to the most common ammo i turn up in case's, expect to have los an lots of that..

[Shelt]

I'm doing a heavy build right now on survival and it's been pretty rough in the early going.

My suggestion is:

Get 3 lvls of sneak as soon as possible. This keeps you from triggering floor mines when you're running around with a heavy weapon obstructing your view. It will work even when not sneaking.

Don't focus on heavy weapons early, instead make sure you have enough ranks of melee or unarmed or even pistols because you will run out of heavy ammo and enemies who charge and get close like ghouls are bad targets for big weapons up close.

Consider getting a flamer. It weighs a lot, but the ammo for it does not if you're playing on survival. A flamer solves a lot of problems with small trash enemies like dogs, bugs. Right now I'm carrying a flamer and a rocket launcher and a melee weapon for example. Close, medium and long range weapons.

Scrounger perk suggestion by worm is spot on. Level it up and you'll be swimming in ammo and caps from the extra ammo you sell.

If you're not using power armor, which I highly suggest you do, then look for fortifying gear which gives you extra strength. You can buy a black ops chest piece at bunker hill, one of the best armor pieces in the game.

Right now I have Kate as a companion. She's got the Grognak garb on and a death claw gauntlet and she is very good at keeping the trash away from me while I deal with VIP targets.