Pro tip:
Have some survival and sneak shit, avoid any encounter that is with animals, Dorseys, robots and mutants, they are a waste of time for the most part and you should only go through them if xp farming, also dont waste bullets, just use your vehicle to squash them, only random encounter that is worthy doing are with Scar Collectors, they can drop cybernetic implants when they die, for that 100% critical resistance cybermodule to avoid that 5000 damage crit enemies can do and also, there is a mutant trader random encounter, he spawned on the southwest corner of the map right next a radiation level 3 zone for me, if you find it, buy a jackhammer shotgun, place a +6m mod for range and a wider cone mod then beeline for devastation, turn it into a fire shot gun with the fire conversion mod and be happy killing anything on 1 turn on Supreme Jerk .
Also, there is another random encounter with some trader from the Monster Army, if you have high reputation with the Monster Army, she will give you a unique crossbow as a gift, it is considerated a assault rifle, if you have that no AP attack after reloading an empty weapon perk + guaranteed crit after shooting the same guy two times + high intelligence + some coordenation, you can shoot it potentially 7 times a turn with 3 guaranteed strong critical hits.
What I liked about this is that is seems random, you may find them or not and if you dont have the money or the reputation you lose the opportunity, it makes the begining of the game not so predictable and at same time, as they are random, you cant just make a beeline to a known location for the best guns of the game. I wish there were more interesting random encounters like that, especially later.