i've been playing for awhile even after i beat it. Just trying to scrape by at this point as most of the resources are being used up. Honestly if you rescue someone and bring them to your group make sure to check their skills, if they have NOTHING special its better to go get them killed than to have them suck up resources.
Make sure to move your base around once you've collect all/most of the resources in an area. Bigger bases aren't always better, and travelling across the map gets old fast and doesn't usually have as much action as running through the streets back to base would, you'll almost never fear death or get that sense of survival either since you can just hop in a car and go at any time
As for the combat, its not so clunky when you get used to it, specially not when you get combat specializations. If you want to have fun with melee i suggest sticking with a reflex fighter over a powerhouse. It will add alot more options to combat and you'll be able to do some really cool things with swords n stuff
