The Survival overhaul is supposed to add a ton of new mechanics, like hunger, sleep, diseases, disabled fast travel; do you think they'll add some new functions to the existing perks to tie into Survival? Like, if they're disabling fast-travel, the last rank of Strong Back is essentially useless for anyone on Survival (I've already avoided it on a character that I never fast-traveled with in the first place), so I imagine they'd try and change it.

Then there are other perks that have questionable use in the game as it stands, but could totally tie in with new mechanics added in the survival update. Awareness could tell you if an enemy has a disease, or VANS could point you to the nearest bed/save point if you don't have any active quests.

On hunger: You know what would change my play habits more than just a meter tracking my hunger? If they actually limited how much food we could eat at once - in this game and New Vegas, it's pretty simple to get past the heals-over-time mechanic by scarfing down a wide variety of different foods and having them all stack. Then they could have ranks of Lead Belly increase how much we could eat at once - as well as reduce the risk of contracting a disease from food/water, and affect how quickly hunger even sets in. I'm fully expecting there to be a unique and slightly-funny disease you can get exclusively from pre-war food.

(one of the things I'd have liked to have seen from the beginning is Endurance having a small multiplier on how much food heals you, but que sera sera)

You think they'll change any of the perks to tie in with what they add in Survival Mode?

I believe it may make some of the existing perks useful. It may also (I fear) make low END characters almost unplayable.

This is part of the problem I see with the current perk chart. If you want to manage settlements you have to have Local Leader which requires a 6 CHR. If you want to build your own mods you need a 3 in STR and INT, unless you want to mod melee weapons or beam weapons, then it's a 4 STR and 6 INT. Idiot Savant (also popular) requires a 5 LCK. Strongback you mentioned needs a 6 STR. Now add you need Rad Resistance it's a 6 END. I'm just seeing that there just isn't enough points to design any workable character. We may have to just stay in Sanctuary until we get to level 10 and add nothing but SPECIAL points up till then, just so we can start getting the perks needed to survive outside of Sanctuary.

I hadn't heard that the new mode would disable QT, but if it does then yeah, the last rank of Strong Back is kind of useless. They could just add more to the allowed carrying weight, like +75 at rank 3 and +100 at rank 4 (kind of surprised that isn't already there to be honest).

I think Idiot Savant will be a whole lot less popular without save scrumming. However, not having connected settlements is really going to be hard to justify as you'll want various settlements as drop off points for your loot and sleep stations; CHR is a big investment.

I think skipping armorer (STR 3) and gun nut / science (INT 3/6) isn't as bad as most people think though, you can pull mods off armor for free (balance issue?) and if you keep an eye out you'll be able to keep your weapons up to date pretty well without these, not that big a deal IMHO.

It will be interesting to see how Endurance plays out, seems the pendulum will swing from it being a mostly useless (or very small use tree) to being a very strong one (too much so?) .

One major issue I do see as a result of the new weighted ammo (which is on it's own great! but....) is a good size buff to Heavy Weapons. They are already not all the useful right now, and if I have to lug around heavy rockets, nukes what little advantage they had is going straight out the window. The Minigun flat out svcks, never mind trying to lug around thousands of rounds of 5mm.

Vertibirds will become super useful, and the Institute Relay (assuming they don't change the mechanics which they may) will be as well. This kind puts the Minuteman and Railroad a bit behind though. Although Artillery may finally get some more love. But Railroad definitely comes out on the bottom with little to offer (beyond the initial super OP Ballistic Weave, different issue I have overall).

Last character I played I used Idiot Savant for the first time. I wasn't impressed but it did let me run with low INT. I never 'save scum' as that's just cheating (even if it's for myself). I mean if I'm going to do that I'll just mod in a 'I WIN' button and be done with it. Course the biggest problem with low INT is no Local Leader and I did feel the loss of that perk rather quickly.

I also ran that last character with no crafting perks and you're correct keeping weapons upgraded wasn't a problem and it made looting a lot more fun. However, again there are settlement crafted items that require some crafting perks so again, settlements suffered.

Vertibirds would be very useful I imagine ... so I guess we have to keep the BoS happy. Course I did have one Vertibird actually land right beside a Mutant Suicider ... that didn't end well.

You get to use a Vertibird by joining the BoS, not by locking yourself into their route.

After the MQ, both Minutemen and Railroad capture a vertibird so you can still use it.

Institute is the only one that can't, but they have something else to make up for it.

In other words, RR and MM don't really lose anything in this regard, unless you play most of the game as enemy of the BoS.