You should find more martial arts books, specific to what melee weapons you have. Once you get power armor and a means to charge it, protection becomes irrelevant.
You want rm13 combat armor for all-around Lightweight general protection, you can find these in banks, mainly.
Train your dodge to 15 (zombie wrestlers can get you this high) and your melee stats to 11, I recommend switching to a different style once you get bored.
Mutate/find rare bionics. Find a mutation tree you like and go for it. My personal favorite is chimera, but it’s high maintenance and high risk high reward.
If you go chimera I recommend finding an expanded digestive system CBM first, if you find both nutrition bionics your extreme metabolism becomes very manageable.
Install all useful bionics, you want a cable charger system and nothing else.
Air filtration, blood filtration, repair nanobots, radiation scrubber, quantum tunneling, synaptic acceleration, all star boosting CBMs and hydraulic muscles are all great things for long term survival.
If you double down with faster learner plus apex predator from chimera tree you can learn combat skills and max them out within a couple of in-game days.
Stats through skills/kills really helps on your enjoyment, at least for me.
Good luck on your journeys, when you get bored, don’t be afraid to explore.
Remember, careful preparation is key, don’t get cocky.