Damn, you're heartless.

The perk that increases your non automatic rifles (this counts shotguns as well btw) damage, its probably the only way otherwise I thinkg a fully moded hunting rifle deals around 90 something damage. Also get the Lone Wanderer perk for another 25% damage boost, this perk is the most retardedly OP thing on the game, companions are moroms and never help, scrapping your companion to get 30% damage reduction, 100 lb extra carrying weight and 25% extra damage is like playing the game in God mode.

I don't even care for settlements anymore, once I figured they are babies that depend on me to do and build everything for them, I just left them be on their on - I still mess around Sanctuary somewhat, since that's where I upgrade all my stuff...funny thing is, I have all my turrets mostly around that house with workdesks there, as if I knew...

As for sniper rifles...my first one that packed serious damage was Reba II (with bonus to Mirelurks and bugs), later I found another one that was already .50 upgraded, so I carry both with me. If you haven't been upgrading Gun Nut perk, you should do it, that unlocks new mods, plus that perk for non-automatic rifles. Oh, and put supressor on them as soon as you can, that range penalty is silly and you shouldn't worry about it at all.

I haven't been to Diamond city yet, so far KL-E-O in Goodneighbor seems to have best weapons (lvl 28 at the moment)...though it depends when you get there, I reloaded couple of times after I got that ~180 Gauss rifle (219 after I modded it) to see what happens and her shop had very different guns, nowhere near anything that good.

Fable 1 to be exact, in a sense that it is a third person action RPG where you make moral choices, and to be even more precise I see Witcher 3 as what Fable could have become if they would have gone with a more serious approach.

I hate Fable as a franchise, but I love the first one.

I haven't been to diamond either, haven't found Goodneighbor yet. I've only recently started paying attention to my quest log filling up, just met the Brotherhood of steel last night. I've been spending most of my points on hacking lock picking and settlement building, not so much on maximizing damage. 

It does sound there are too many ways to make this game very easy, lone wanderer bonuses, power suit, hold your breath for perfect aim, sneak bonus damage (why?), double crit damage. On the other hand, my 6 year old loves the game too when I let him play for a bit (under supervision) He struggles on very easy but is pretty decent at building stuff. It's all so over the top cartoon violence I think he'll be fine. Just a minor twitch in his left eye so far /jk. He's more scared of the skeletons in Minecraft...

As for the settlements, a cozy place to hang out, unload your stuff and make mods, 1 is indeed enough.

Oh my, so in 1996 Magic Carpet 2 had castles that were able to defend themselves better...

They'll defend themselves just fine. The problem is the enemy cheats. If you only have a few people trying to fend off a bunch of super mutants and have all automatic defenses (logically) pointed outwards... 

It's fun building, yet managing a settlement sucks. You can't see who is assigned to what. Supply lines don't seem to work plus you can't see who is maintaining the supply line. Turrets can get damages or depleted during an attack, have fun finding the ones that need a simple repair. The settlement stats in the pip boy are usually off with old or completely bogus numbers. Plus the micromanagement would be insane if you would go for rebuilding the commonwealth as Sturges suggests. Suplying each settler one by one with armor, gun, ammo and a job.

It's good for scratching that creative itch and to break up the pace a bit.

I reached Goodneighbour last night and met KL-E-O, currently dressed up as the Silver Shroud. Seems I got myself into another dodgy scheme. My biggest 'moral' dilemma in this game isn't deciding who to side with, who to kill etc, it's that I don't like to beg for more money. The problem is a succesful 'charm' attempt gives extra xp, which I do want.

Oh, quite nice. Maybe it would go better if Bethesda were more into management and RTS games. One quick workaround against cheating enemies, without breaking the immersion and atmosphere with awkward, lager-like turrets pointing inwards, could be a tall central tower, it could protect the settlement inside while still pointing outwards.

Yup, I actually just upgraded to heavy laser turrets on my central command tower. Attacks seem pretty rare though or I keep missing them.
I'm trying to get more people into my settlement. The limit is 10 + your current charisma. I need to find more gear with +cha on it and I stupidly sold the grape mentats that give a temporary +5 cha boost. Looking for whisky and some berry to make it myself. Once the people are in the settlement they'll stay even if your charisma goes down again. I have 25 people in Sanctuary atm. (not counting extras and caravan visitors)
As for making it easier to distinguish who has what role, I've started giving them job specific clothes lol. Doctors in lab coats, shop keepers in fancy clothes etc. It's looking quite like a healthy community already.

I was messing around a bit with laser tripwires and flame thrower traps. Pretty useless as a turret will work 10 times better, yet maybe fun to make an alert system. An announcement system for when traders cross the bridge. Sanctuary is getting quite a lot of traffic already.

Suppy lines work perfectly for me.  What problem are you having?  I've got most of the settlements colonized and linked.  Starlight is my major hub, pack brahmin move in and out constantly.  When I colonize a new settlement, linking it up is one of the first things I do.  

As for defense, if you have a greater defensive ratio than water+food, they'll rarely get attacked, though sometimes they will when you fast-travel in.  Starlight has like 90 def for me and a large group of Supermutants hit it right when I zoned in.  I make sure most of my turrents have a 360 view, if possible, so they can hit outside or inside.  I generally put them up on the flooring with the stilts.

The bug where the settlement numbers go wacky in the pipboy is easy to work around by just walking away from the settlement before you fast travel.  It kept telling me that I didn't have enough beds and my happiness would go down but that rarely happens now.  In Sanctuary, I run to the Vault before teleporting.

My go-to gun is a combat rife with a .308 upgrade.  Does 100+ damage with my rifle perks.  My sniper rifle is a hunting rifle with a .50 upgrade, does way over 100 damage.