Explore, explore, explore.. There's tons of stuff not related to mission/quests/story out there for you to find. Lots and lots of places and enemies to loot. They aren't marked on your compass so you just have to go out there into the wilds. You can explore all of zone 1 without having much worry because it's a low level zone.

In the beginning, even if you want to eventually use automatic weapons, it's better to conserve ammo with single shot weapons. A hard hitting shotgun blast is much better than a low damage bullet spray when it comes to conservation. Wait until you start finding or crafting better damaging weapons to start using automatics.

Ammo is leveled more heavily this time around. You'll find enough plasma ammo to go fully auto eventually, for example.

I'm level 37 and with 3 ranks of scavenger,
I have more .45 .50 .10mm rounds than I would EVER needs to use.

I have enough plasma cartridges to use my semi automatic plasma weapon for dire (but not quite boss level) situations. I also have enough micro cells to go full auto on this sweet improved auto barrel I found for my lazer rifle.

Right now I'm waiting for an auto receiver on my go to VATS enhanced assault rifle, as 5.56 only recently became increasingly common.

I bought a gatling lazer, 3 fusion cores, and still took 700 caps AWAY from a vende, because I sold him 4500 .38 rounds that I never use.

Having ammo trouble? Level up XD!

Agreed can't use my favorite gun at times because of ammo shortages should be a simple fix if they decide to address it.

I'm using everything with a pistol grip and have 1 point in gunslinger and gun nut. The 10 mm does 32 damage and the 38 does 22 damage with "powerful" receivers. Both have 24 round magazines and good sights. I find you need to head shot to end fights quickly, anywhere else takes 10 times as many hits. I generally have about 100 rounds over everything else and 700 rounds of 38. My scavenging is keeping them at those levels. Currently level 10.

Nothing needs to be fixed. Ammo is of varying rarity. For me, everything but plasma cartridges, 2mm rounds, and fusion cores are incredable common (level 37)

All you got to do is level up >_>

Maybe my level could have something to do with it? Im lvl 15 now. Havent run out of ammo yet, but I feel it nearing. Also got A new gun, Assault Rifle. Might not be the best solution, since 5.56 are hard to come by kind of. I'm just gonna keep adding points into Scrounger, Commando, and Gun Nut. Hopefully finding a lot more ammo, using less ammo cuz automatic guns are stronger, and modding weapons to be the best, so also using less ammo, will do the trick.

I'll start using rifles more, just a little tho. And i'll also stop selling all my ammo. Will still sell some.

It's def not a problem with the game, I kind of like the scarcity (to an extent), just was curious how others are doing with ammo.

semi autos & pipe revolvers work best early game also try to use a melee weapon on smaller stuff like dogs & molerats also area effect weapons such as Molotov's save on ammo big time & can be made at a chemistry station i also switch calibers when my current firearm starts running low it does help a bit. you could also try boosting perception that has seemed to help me out a lot bullets hit a lot harder overall & don't miss to often in V.A.T.S

Thats actually something I really should be doing, using melee on dogs and molerats. Would save a lot of ammo. And I def use a lot of molotovs and grenades as well. Life savers sometimes.

I've got 2 ranks of scrounger and fusion cells have been very hard to come bye the first 15 or so levels. Guess i've just gotta keep leveling up and they'll become more common, i vastly prefer using energy weapons.

No ammo troubles here. Ammo is amazingly common. Just gotta have Scrounger for a level or two and sell the ammo you don't need, especially .38. Buy the ammo you do.

Level 20, 30 hours in the game.

Carrying a .308 sniper rifle (sneak headshots ftw), a 10mm pistol (as backup), a combat shotgun with bayonett (indoors and melee creatures like roaches, rats and dogs) and a combat rifle for midrange gunfights.

~200 rounds of .308, ~300 rounds of 10mm, ~150 shells and nearly 1000 rounds of .45

Automatic guns are preaty pointless unless you have a legendary one with additional burn/explosion/bleed damage. That's op against huge hp-/armor-enemies like behemoths and deathclaws and mirelurks.

Edit: playing on very hard

Edit 2: And I NEVER bought one single round...everythings looted by myself

I am lvl 41 and playing on Survival and have no ammo problems. I did run scarce on .308 rounds for one of my best-found rifles, so I downgraded it to use .45 rounds. I lost about 10 damage points, but I have about 1500 rounds of .45 i had accumulated. I also have over 1k rounds of 5.56 rounds that I have my second-best rifle using. My best rifle I have at the moment is a laser rifle that shoots two beams for the price of one round. I use that for quick sniping and bots, ammunition for laser rifles, power cells I think theyre called is quiet scarce to accumulate for me.

Yeah, I'd say auto is the problem. I make all my weapons mods to give high damage and less recoil. That way my ammo lasts longer. I picked up a legendary submachinegun with infinite capacity at one point. I went through about 450 rounds and hardly hit anything, that damn thing was uncontrollable. Now the only auto I use is the pipe weapon: I can handle the recoil on that well enough to stay mostly on target. Plus, .38 ammo is plentiful.

That way, when a deathclaw pops up near me, I take jet and psycho, grab my laser rifle Melter, and I have enough ammo that the deathclaw goes down before I run out.

Well for PC players like me i suggest http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1018/?if you are having ammo troubles. Recipies are nicely balanced for the amount of junk in the game i think.

I have .308 combat rifle with a long barrel that I use to soften them up from a distance, switch to my short barreled combat rifle chambered in .45 for medium and if things get real personal Heavy Combat Shotgun. All semi Auto and dont spray and pray.

Automatic weapons in a game like Fallout are a problem since it's not like a FPS where every mob you kill drops a magazine of ammo and you just run over the body to pick it up. In this series I always gravitate to semi-auto, high damage guns to avoid the ammo issues.

Also if you are on Survival, you do 50% of your damage and mobs do 200%. On a PC it's easy to up your damage to normal via a mod or a console command and that helps a lot. It also make the fight a little more reasonable. Shooting someone's face with a shotgun at 5 meters should kill them. In survival mode you might take half of their HP.

OP, I would pull back from automatic weapons for a while. I personally don't use them unless its a 9-1-1 situation and I only carry one, which stays in the backpack unless really needed. Staying with bolt actions and semi-autos is the ticket for me...and there are two great perks that make that extremely viable.

I'm doing pretty good on ammo. I have 1 point in Scrounger and I use 4 weapons:

Shotgun - up close

Sniper rifle - far away

Bullet-based rifle

Laser Rifle

I avoid automatic weapons like the plague and I have 4/5 Rifleman. I use my standards rifles (the reg and laser) in heavy fire fights, switching off when I get relatively low on ammo - like sub 200. My luck is also at 7.

My suggestions would be to not use automatic guns until you're deep into Commando. The SPECIAL is pretty nice and balanced so your options will vary depending on your build:

High LUC - Get one or two points of Scrounger, but you shouldn't have to big of an issue finding ammo.

High CHA - Get some points into Cap Collector and buy your ammo mostly.

High INT - Try getting Gun Nut and Science! and modding your weapons to do more damage.

High PER/AGI - Put some points into Gunslinger/Rifleman/Commando so you don't have to take as many shots.

High STR/END - Try using melee a bit more so you're not alway expending ammo.

Most of my caps went towards ammo. On normal it isn't a huge deal and now at level 35, I've got 2000 fusion cells and 1000 plasma cartridges. Never ran out of ammo. Then again, I'm use semi-auto pistols, so I have a good damage to shot ratio.

A tip-- grab every gun you can off of bodies, even if you're just going to drop them afterward. They also contain ammo. I noticed it when I was picking up Institute pistols and I gained even more fusion cells.

this is true. the dropped guns are instantly unloaded into your pack when you pick them up. nice

I agree with the other posters here, in previous games I was all automatic guns/energy weapons all the way, but I am finding that is not possible in this game due to scarcity of ammo (at least at early levels, I am level 11) and because I am a crappy shot, and instead I have gravitated towards trying to carry one gun for each of my most common ammo types, and for various types of combat situations. Right now I carry a couple types of modded pistols to improve damage/accuracy for all-purpose fights at medium/close range (.38 and 10mm primarily), a shotgun for close range situations when max damage is required (usually the tougher irradiated creatures), a couple scoped rifles that use different ammo types modded to improve damage and accuracy, and a legendary melee weapon I have earned that gives extra chance of crippling limbs (normally I avoid melee because I am bad at it and usually end up dying, but this particular weapon has come in handy a few times). I started off trying to specialize in pistols only but then ran into too many situations where scoped sniping was the only way I could stay alive.

Oh, and I keep all ammo that I find, you never know when you might need it. Scrounger perk helps too.