So, in the past I have always avoided the hardcoe option of this game, as it seemed to only make the game more tedious, and not exactly more challenging. However, I thought it would be a nice change of pace and freshen up this game for me. So I decided to play a melee, sneak, explosives character on very hard/hardcoe. Just wondering if anybody had any helpful tips or strategies not only for hardcoe, but also for playing a melee character on a high difficulty. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

One thing I suggest is changing one of your skills to Survival, it truly comes into its own in hardcoe. Sunset Sarsaparillas are so useful with a high Survival. You could try trading it for Explosives so you could make a Melee only character.

You have two options, armor-wise. You can go with light armor to be agile enough to dodge attacks while you close in, or with heavier armor so that you can absorb the damage. I prefer light armor myself but that's a personal preference.

Don't neglect unarmed, since some of the perks that really make melee lethal also require high unarmed skill.

Also you need to decide about whether to go for critical hits or basic damage. I always tend to play melee\ unarmed so I looked at this a lot. From what I read Unarmed is better for criticals while some melee weapons don't critically hit at all. The Heavy Handed trait fits in with melee very well.

Don't go for critical hits, that means 1 luck.

Get survival because in HC with a high enough survival, food is stronger than stimpacks. Sure it weighs more than stims but as a melee character you should have high strenght. Also no ammo to weigh you down in HC. Use chems. Use tons of chems! Nothing worse than getting killed running up to a guy shooting you from afar.