I'm about 10 hours in, I'm currently trying to travel to vault 15 (just repaired and optimized the power plant in Gecko), but keep getting attacked by packs of 8 or so giant scorpions.

Anyway, I hear there is about 30 hours left in the main quest, but I'm not seeing what is so special. If I haven't enjoyed anything yet then this game probably isn't my thing I'm guessing? One thing that is annoying, but certainly not the entire reason for it being boring is that I've got Vic and Lenny as companions and they're equipped with knives and no armor. I've got a pistol with 24 shots and a spear but that's it.

BUMP

I hear you my friend. Play Fallout: Tactics instead? It strips away the fluff and leaves you with a mission based tactics romp that imho is much more fun to the crpg shenanigans of Fallout 1 + 2.

Compared to F1 it's much more of a struggle to get going in F2, but not to the extent that you'd only have a pistol and spear after 10 hours. I can only imagine how drawn out and awful fights would then become. Ideally fights should start to become quite a bit shorter and more intense after 10 hours.
It's been a long time since I've completed my last playthrough, but if memory serves Flick is one of the first merchants where you can buy some fairly decent gear. Also, if you want to use small arms like pistols, shotguns and assault rifles effectively then you should pump significant amounts of skill points into 'small guns' from early on.

Well Fallout 2 is kinda old school, so unless you're specialized in combat (or Outdoorsman to avoid encounters and still get a bit of XP for it) you're gonna want to run from encounters, and be prepared to re-load if RNG screws you over. The wasteland is a dangerous place, I always saved when travelling anywhere and sometimes I even made stops along the way just to make another save.

Basically I'd said that stuff doesn't really become *that* interesting until Vault City and after. Which sounds to be about the point you are at now. Klamath and the Den are kinda boring little town, as is Modoc (and this one is also totally optional) whereas Vault City and the southern and Western areas generally have more to do and more interesting/complex questlines that also start to intertwine, to some extent at least.

Vault 15 has some pretty sweet gear accessible if I remember correctly, as does the Vault in vault city if you can get access to it. But in terms of sweet loot the game doesn't really do handouts. If you don't have the skills (like speech or barter), or aren't prepared to put the hurt on someone for it, good stuff will be hard to come by in the early parts of the game. Of course, then you suddenly get your first Combat Armor and Combat Shotgun and whoa boy, party is on :)

But yeah, the game isn't for everyone I'm sure, especially so long after it's glory days. Personally, I love it to death but of course I have a fair bit of nostalgia going for it since I played it first around the time it came out. Also, just talking about it has made me install both 1 and 2 with plans to complete them.

It's probably not your thing, yeah.
I'd say the beginning village is boring, the first small town is annoying as you're still mostly going with spears, but you start getting weapons there or soon after.

Also.. how can you be at gecko and not have loads of guns and ammo already.
Vic is a decent shot with a rifle, lenny with.. don't remember, some energy weapon or something?

I start the game the same way every time now because of the shitty beginning to one of the best CRPGs ever made:

I punch all those damn children in the Den until they fear me and stop stealing my shit. Then I murder those two crooked bastards Tubby and Flick and take all their stuff. If you're a small guns guy, that gives you a decent starting point weapons wise, and there are plenty of vendors that cover the loss of Flick and Tubby throughout the game. It makes the beginning a lot more enjoyable now, and I still do it even with my "good" characters.

Frankly though, the most fun is after you finally get the GECK and are free to do what ever you want then as you prepare for the end game. New Reno is my favorite part of the game and it's worth it just to get to that point.

This definitely should not be the case when you're in Gecko/Vault City.

By that time, you should have at the very least hunting rifles, magnum revolvers, (great weapon, you can buy it in Den.) submachine guns and plenty of ammo. As well as metal armour or leather mk2. (You can get some in Modoc.) Your companions should have leather armour at the very least.

Note that you can equip your companions: talk to them, select the "trade" button, give them stuff, press the "tactics" button, and select "equip best weapon/armor." In that window you can also select stuff like when they should run away, how careful they should be when shooting, what drugs to use and when, etc. (Fun detail, though: the options are limited by the character's personality. So Vic will flee a lot faster than Sulik no matter what you select. And some characters just suck with guns and won't be careful when aiming bursts no matter what. Idiots.)

Edit: Oh, and companions are also limited in what weapons they can equip. You can ask them what weapons they can use. But note that this is actually linked to the character model's animation frames. So when Sulik says he can use submachine guns, he means he can use any big single handed gun that *looks* like a submachine gun. Including stuff like 14mm pistols or the .223 pistol. Which are much better choices for him, since the odds of him going trigger-happy and shooting your allies, innocent bystanders, or yourself are much lower. Not to mention the money you'll save on ammo.

Incidentally, if you want a more competent companion instead of/in addition to Vic or Lenny, look around Vault City for an old guy named Cassidy.

If money is the problem you should probably do more side quests (Talk to everybody in the towns. Also note that many/most quests have multiple possible outcomes.) and loot and sell everything. Use NPCs as pack mules.

One easy, if slightly boring, way to catch up equipment-wise is to wander around until you find an encounter in the vein of "group A fighting group B." If you run away quickly at the start of the encounter, most NPCs will kill eachother and leave a bunch of equipment for you to loot. This way you can find high-end combat shotguns and the like. Which, honestly, will break game balance. But eh. Fallout isn't very balanced to begin with.

Of course, the game may still not be your cup of tea. But I do think you're experiencing more frustration than you ought to by now due to being outgunned.

The game is definitely a different monster when it comes to advancing through it. I can tell you it took me a LOOOONG time to figure out a strategy for it. And a lot of that strategy relies on luck.

The beginning can be very annoying because you only have the weak melee weapons, so the trick is not to get surrounded. For radscorpions and the like, hit and move is the best strategy (take a swing, hopefully you hit, and then run away a few steps). This makes the radscorpion use up its attack moves by chasing after you. Yes, the fight can last a long time...a looooong time. I've spent hours clearing out radscorpion caves with this strategy. And don't hesitate to just run away completely if you are outmatched. In this way, caves are much better - hang out at the entrance to the cave and leave if you get overwhelmed/hurt, and heal yourself before going back in.

This is also a game that requires a lot of saving...save often (even in the middle of battle). F2 can give you some bad throws at times - like having your friggin arm get crippled by a rogue hit.

In the beginning, its good to try finding random encounters that can give you free stuff. The necessary encounters can be very rare, but every so often you'll stumble across a caravan being attacked by bandits. Let them fight it out...if the caravan loses (unlikely) then try to finish off the bandits. This can give you guns and ammunition, or at least stuff you can sell to buy guns and ammunition.

The game also has a strange scale to it - you start out meager, and stay meager for so long, but by them time you get to New California, you are overloaded with guns and ammunition, that the merchants never have enough money/items to barter with...

If you hate the slow progression of the game, and the above strategies sound like horror stories, then, yeah, this game isn't for you. I grew up on games like Dragon Warrior, so I'm very used to the boring grind of RPGs :)