It’s kind of a bad idea to do Ned at level 10. I’ve done it, but the lack of backpack upgrades was crippling. 10-20 is a range where you get a lot of storage upgrades. I had no idea it scaled to level when you “opened” it, though.
I just finished running a Hunter through the game twice. First playthrough with only original material, second playthrough I did Zombie Island at level 42, and Knoxx at level 51.
Ned’s Zombie Island seemed a lot harder at 42 than doing it at 10. Actually, the second playthrough in general seemed to be more difficult, I’d never actually done more than a few missions in 2nd playthrough mode before. The skags just outside fyrestone, which weren’t difficult at level 4-5, were downright vicious at level 36. I got knocked down to “crippled” a couple of times by Bad Mutha Skags just walking out of Fyrestone.
Knoxx kind of ruins the rest of the game if you do it before finishing the vault. I hit 51 just as I unlocked the Salt Flats. I started Knoxx at 51 at ended at 59, which means that I’m about 10 levels too high for the Salt Flats, the Crimson Lance stronghold, and the descent to the vault. I could do it, but it’d be trivial.
I’m not really sure what the best approach to the DLC is now. I think you should definitely play through the game at least once without the DLC if you haven’t. But if you have? I don’t know. Ned sometime in your 20’s, maybe, so you’ve got all 4 weapon slots and a reasonable amount of pack space, and Knoxx immediately after finishing the Vault, before starting a 2nd playthrough.
I’ve decided I was valuing some weapons incorrectly. I now think rate of fire on burst weapons is largely irrelevant. It’s more damage per trigger pull, so a 100 point per shot, 10 shot per second scoped assault rifle is comparable to a 300 point per shot, 1 shot per second revolver. Even so, as the game progresses it seems there are only two important kinds of weapons - reasonably accurate, scoped full-auto weapons (machine guns, SMGs, some machine pistols) and sniper rifles.
