I ideally want to get demolition expert, lock pick and be able to upgrade weapons and armour. Also would like to benefit from settlement.
Maybe I want to much I don't know.
Any help appreciated
I see no reason to use the sniper perk. If you plan on using weapons why not invest in a perk for a specific weapon type, such as gunslinger, commando, heavy gunner, or rifleman. (Personally I like Rifleman)
Any thoughts?
What difficultly are you playing on with this char? Luck determines your crit recarchge? so you'd be right to forget about that. worthwhile to invest in Perception since that is all about weapon accuracy? as well as agility for sneak.. i'd say if you're trying to craft weapons and armor go with weaponsmith first since you'll be weapon dependant?
any other guidance for starting SPECIAL stats based off of the above?
I do like the first rank of the Sniper perk, where it lessens the drift of the gun while using the sights/scope. Does help a lot with quickly re-acquiring targets with the bolt-action sniper rifle.
Don't forget that you can raise SPECIAL stats any time you earn a new Perk point, so it's not absolutely critical to get the stats "right" from the very beginning. You can grow into the character you want to play, and a more widely-capable starting character gives you more options in early game, IMO.
I always start building characters with straight 4's in all abilities and tweak them up or down a point or two - but NO more unless it's in pursuit of a specific role-playing goal such as making a character purposely very stupid.
With that in mind and based on what you've said above, I'd recommend the following:
S: 3
P: 5
E: 4
C: 5
I: 4
A: 4
L: 3
That build gets you Armorer, Rifleman and Lockpick, Toughness (my favorite first Perk for its virtual armor), Lone Wander (if you want it), Gun Nut and Hacker, Gunslinger and Sneak and Sandman, plus Scrounger (for CAPS and ammo) and Bloody Mess.
Spend your SPECIAL book point on Charisma to 6 for Local Leader access, and get the early Perception bobblehead for Explosives access.
If you want to take it a bit farther, you could drop Luck another point and put it into Endurance for the hit points, but realistically you're going to eventually want Bloody Mess as a sniper anyway. So you're going to eventually spend that point. If you're playing at high difficulty or Dead is Dead, the extra early hit points could be valuable, but that's a minor choice.
thanks for the advice
i ended up going with
Strenght 3 for armourer
Perception 4 bobblehead for explosions
Endurance 2
Charisma 5 - special book to 6
Intelligence 6 for science
Agility 7 for Ninja
Luck 1