Effective ways for Special Encounter hunting?

My char is crafter, i do everything including SE hunts, not sure what he means by zombie-chars? Botting?

I try to combine it with levelling In desert/fire gecko farming with a high OD character. I do know thay once a character has had one, its chance greatly increases, so don't re-roll once you get one.

My strategy was to get OD 175 (max) but avoid getting the fast-travel perks (Explorer and Pathfinder) because finding SE is a matter of "time on map", not speed on map. Thus i don't mind going slowly - it's less times to click a new direction.

Next thing is Luck. They say it doesn't matter, but 99% of the guys who say that are just assuming it - they don't look at the code. The other guys (including devs) can and do make mistakes, and even lie in order to preserve some mystery. Even if Luck does not matter for finding SE, it might matter for loot generation at the moment you open a locker.

Next thing is party size. It's been said that a larger party has greater chance to find SE. I cannot tell if NPC followers count for this, but it cannot hurt to have some extra guns along when i finally fight the robots. So i took Charisma 2 (only need CH 3 to get 4 human companions max).

Then there's Lockpick, Science and Repair, for when you do find the implant SE (dead guy under tree). All are needed to get to the basement level.

Also, 3 times now Flex has found 2 SE within an hour. So yes, there's something to this thing about finding 2 at a time.

I thought that finding an encounter gave you a higher chance to find another overall? I will definitely give this a try, I got my first SE in about 6 months on my 'Johnny Caps' character (Luck 3, 150 OD + Pathfinder) so if I can get another I'll see if I can get lucky twice.

it's been 3 months since I farm SE whenever I have nothing better to do. I was using 2 characters with 175 OD (3 and 10 luck). I was walking through the wastelands from regions of Klamath to Junktown (route 1) or from Redding to Waterworks.

Usually I walked 4-6 hours per day using only 1 character. In last three months I had following numbers of encounters:

NukaCola: 13
Shelter: 5
Bunker 4
Grave: 7
Warehouse: 0
Clinic: 3
Factory: 3
Howitzer: 5

So, hunting SE is a dull thing to do, unless somone is brave enough to multilog 3-4 characters to do so (which is illegal). Returns of the time invested is nothing:
I had 1 HPA set from Shelter and 4 implants from bunker(Agility, Stenght, Inteligence, Charisma. And some random Brotherhood sets or other T3 armor.

Bunker, by far most wanted SE, is rare like hell (just look at the numbers) and given there are 10 implants total, you have like 5% to get any good implant... but first you need to have that SE! So, if somone is working at office and can just pop-up FOnline and walk with bare character from North to South it's fine, but makeing dedicated runs during timeplay is waste of time.

I found the big implant bunker SE with the robots today! Got a ST implant. But this was different...

When Flex's build was first planned, it was intended for a long-term idea to get 4 companions. It takes too long to level even 1 companion, so most people don't bother. Plus they are rather weak even at level 24, don't use drugs, hard to find with max AG and max EN, and don't fight players. But i figured if i have patience over time to find the right ones, it might be really great for solo'ing this robot SE with the implant. Tonight, i was finally able to test this theory!

Now Flex only has 3 out of 4 companions so far, but i can tell you this was a fun way to do this SE. I gave them each fresh CA/CH and new Pancors with EMP shells. At one point, some robots came out of a door and surprised me, shot me down to -14 hp, and my companions cleaned up just in time to rescue me. Flex would have died at that time if not for the help. One companion died there and she showed up a little while later at the closest tent. No problem.

Next was my mistake - i tried to 1-hex a sentry bot. What was i thinking? I was insta-dead and my companions died afterward doing their job. I went back in without them and made it all the way back to the two important rooms on level 1, went to the nearest tent, found all 3 of them, and brought them back in. I set them up down the hall, and went in. I took hits, but retreated to bring robots in range of companions. With their help, we cleaned up with no problems. Same deal on both rooms. Power Armor! Star Trek Phazer! Strength implant!

It took a lot of time to get Flex's plan implemented this far, but today finally i see the fruit of this plan. And with the 4th companion, even better. Okay, now I'm going back to fight the big boss robot on level 2...