(Automatic) Combat Rifle is a much better choice for your .45 rounds.

That's actually what I'm going for on my current playthrough, lol.

Yeah same here. Having the game on PC, I used the console to add and remove perks as well as give myself the "ballistic" mod option, but only because I want to finish the game siding with the Brotherhood of Steel. Siding with the Institute  actually lets you net the unique Gatling Laser "Final Judgement" after killing the Elder in combat (this version grants you an extra 25% firing rate and 15% faster reload), which is good because one of the mods for the Gatling Laser reduces its fire rate by 75%. That sucks though, but there is a workaround with this when siding with the Minutemen. On a side not, the Deathclaw Gauntlet is freaken awesome. High damage, medium speed, and with its "third claw" mod you have a chance to disarm your target. The best part? It doesn't require any perks in Blacksmith to do. :D

At any rate, once I finish with the Brotherhood of Steel I'm going to restart the game. Whether I go with the Railroad or the Minutemen I'll have to think about.

Okay so I did some digging and you can, in fact, get the unique "Final Judgement" Gatling Laser weapon during the Railroad quest "Precipice of War." All you have to do is board "The Prydoen" and kill the Elder. You can also do this in the follow-up quest "Rockets' Red Glare." Of course, if you find a Gatling Laser with a special effect that works too. XD

Anyway, this is the perk list I put together for what I want to go with. Note that this was built with playing on Survival difficulty in mind.

http://www.nukahub.com/tools/special?build=7f!2b5545!19413!!9331478232227d9423242!!25!!524

Whacha think? :D

Dude, awesome build!

One question I have: Where would The Technician create a settlement? I was thinking he would settle at The Red Rocket that's right at the beginning of the game, but I wasn't sure. Any suggestions? Thanks!

I settled down at Red Rocket early on (moved all the crafting stations in to the garage) and later on I built my main base at Starlight Drive-in. Boston Airport is also a strong contender but has some serious limitations on what you can build there (no food, shops, recruitment beacons, or guard posts).

This is an excellent build!

Yeah, that sounds good. I'm doing a type of guns-blazing assassin build right now and I'm using the Red Rocket as a hideout, and fortifying it with a watch tower that took me a long time to make. When I finish with my playthrough, I'm definitely going to try out this one. Awesome job!

+1 for the video alone. Never played a Fallout game before and I was dying a lot, but after I watched that and saw what you can do in this game I stopped dying. As far as this build goes, I'm on level 10 and having trouble finding a combat rifle. I'm making due with a hunting rifle for now, but if anyone knows where any guaranteed combat rifles are let me know. If not this is fine, the automatic pipe rifle works most of the time and I just pull out the hunting rifle if I need to make a long range VATS shot. I may not be the right person to judge if a build is good or not just yet, but if anything this build is showing me ways to dig into this game and get more out of it. Thanks

Thanks Chris! Glad it's letting you get more out of the game! I'm not aware of any guaranteed combat rifles but you should be able to find them on Raiders and Gunners in the city center sort of area. Could always check out the weapons shop and general store in Diamond City too.