Friendly Scavengers
I don´t know if anybody has already said anything like this, and I know it is a long shot.
But wouldn´t it be awesome if you could recruit Friendly Scavengers?? I mean, like 3 at the most; you can get them to your base and lock them with the little base flag for example. And send them to do things for you, like harvest a resource "wood" or make them loot a specific category of items for you, like "medicinal".
Of course this would be broken, so they should have no equipment, and you have to supply them with food and water, as well as weaponry, tools, ammo, etc... And they "use" things faster, like an axe would lose durability three times faster when it is used by them.
You could also make it so that when you send them to do something, based on what gear you have given them it gives you a "success chance". Like I send one to loot, but I have not given him good gear, so he only has a "72%" chance of success.
I think this would be great to make some items valuable again; maybe you have the best armor in the game, so you never pick any, but now it makes sense as you need it for one of your guys, same goes for a GPS or compass, once you have one the only value they have is for them to be disassembled.
I think this would give a lot of items new use and make for a funny way to make your base feel alive, heck you might even build the next safe zone in the whole valley. And Scavengers would become more than a random workbench on the side of the road.
Sorry about my english by the way, not my first language. I have been playing the game for 4 days now, I know it is a one person job and I find it absolutely amazing! Really loving it, just thought maybe it would be a good addition.