If you ever need caps you just need to make a settlement into a massive water farm.
While this is true, my goal isn't to farm money. My goal is to earn money. Gear and experience do represent your adventures to a certain degree, but even moreso is your pile of caps (or gold) earned from adventuring.
Unfortunately, to do that, I have to farm the vendors.
I don't see the point to caps as I have 20k and dunno what to use them on. I could buy ammo but it almost seems like cheating.
What's the point of anything in the game then? Just finish the main quest and get out.
In an open world game, you have to find something that serves as your anchor. In my case, it's exploring all the locations, plundering them thoroughly, and then selling the spoils. The only real measures of my progress are how many locations there are on the map and how big my stack of caps is.
I find having to scrounge for ammo fun. I need to find if there is gear I can buy though that's better than what I have. ---