Roleplaying is REALLY the huge one for me. Super low item spawns don’t really do it for me, as you add time to gameplay, but not fun time. Usually its tedium.
There’s the overmap rebalancing mod though. Most buildings are bombed and burned out. That, plus enhanced spawn rates still nets overall less stuff, but when you do find a place with stuff, you get a fair amount. As opposed to finding a gunstore with maybe a rifle and a few bullets left, you find four craters that were once a gun store, and then one that’s still in good condition, and well stocked. Fun stuff.
I also try to limit how much deathmobile I let myself get, based on the character. Even if the skills say “You can totally install a turbolaser into this tank”, I have to ask myself, would it even occur to my character to jury-rig a laser cannon atop an ice cream truck. Usually, the answer is no. As time goes on and the vehicle gets straight up busted up, it gets more mad max and ramshackle. But I’ve never had a character even get close to a deathmobile without surviving a year or two. Most complex operation most of them do is replacing trunks with cargo spaces, and aisles with floor trunks. More recent additions include Camera systems to replace wing mirrors. But that’s more QoL than anything else.
Still all comes down to roleplay at the end of the day. Suboptimal gameplay in the pursuit of telling your survivors story, whatever you feel it might be. Otherwise, you end up metagaming, and each character becomes the same through min/max.
Taking a break helps too. Put the game down, come back in a few months and see what new features and mods exist. I’ve done it twice so far, and it feels much better to come back after a while.
