A few things:
1. There are creatures in the waste that are practically immune to energy weapons, and thus are a pain. Once you come across them, use gauss weapons.
2. Never give a companion an automatic weapon. They tend to be stupid and can and will hit you by accident during a burst fire.
3. Companions can use different weapons and armor than they come with. BUT you have to give them to them (hint: the trade screen for people in your party? Unlike merchants, you don't have to give them items to GET items from them.). Humans can wear power armor, if you can find/buy it. When you give them weapons/armor, they don't change to the best stuff automatically. You have to tell them to use their best weapon and best armor. Also, they DO get the strength bonus from wearing power armor, just like you do.
4. The higher your charisma, the more companions you can have (up to 5, I think).
5. The higher your perception, the better you are at shooting or hitting things. If you make a called shot, it require more AP but if you hit, it can blind or cripple them. Knocking them down gives you a bonus to all of your normal and called shots while they're down.
6. If you go do boxing, it's illegal to kick or punch without a boxing glove, but hitting below the belt is fine. Oh, and using a loaded set of boxing gloves for extra damage.
7. You can raise each stat by one point, so don't max anything out to 10 on character creation. Power armor/Advanced Power Armor gives you a +3/4 bonus to strength, respectively, so if you can start off with a STR of 5, get the strength boost, and the armor to boost it to 10. Also, drugs can boost your stats temporarily, but emphasis on TEMPORARILY. Addiction and withdrawal is a bitch.
8. Books can raise some skills up to 90%, like survival, guns, science, and repair
9. Tag speech for sure, to be diplomatic. Doctor can be used for some self-healing or to repair crippled limbs, and you need it at 90% to activate an optional quest. Lockpicking is also worth tagging. I wouldn't tag it, but get science up to around 90% again, as it will also be useful for activating an optional side-quests.
10. Sex. Have it. A lot. Seriously, if you want to be a porn star (no, you don't see anything, the screen fades to black for half a sec) you have to have experience. It's a decent way to make extra cash. Just remember, junkies don't get work. (Seriously, if you're characters high or suffering withdrawal symptoms, they'll fire you).
11. If you boost skills/stats, try talking to some people again. Sometimes new conversation trees will open with people like Myron once you have some science or doctor skills at a high level.
12. It can be a pain, though you can get around it by using drugs to boost your intelligence, but with an EXTREMELY low intelligent character, you get different dialog options, but also lose access to quests. So maybe try that if you play over again.
13. The time limit? There is no time limit. Really, have fun, it literally doesn't matter for game play purposes.
